PHOTO/DIANE NILAN
MAINE —“Open for Business,” reads Governor LePage’s welcome sign as drivers enter Maine. It could read “Open for Rampant Family Homelessness.” This would be bad for business, but true.
I recently received an email from “Mindy,” a Maine mother of two boys. Mindy said, “We have been homeless for over two weeks. And before that we were living in a house with no running water, sewer or electricity for over four months. The house I rented was condemned and we had no place to go.”
Maine slashed human assistance funding. Current help is woefully underfunded and scarce, especially in rural areas or small towns. She (I’ve changed identifying details for privacy) shared …
“We are currently staying at a cheap hotel I paid one week for, and my week is up today. I am trying to pawn some things to be able to stay a few more days. But with no transportation, it’s hard. My middle son is diabetic and my youngest son has the flu so I don’t like to leave them for too long.”
Motels used to be for vacationers and business travelers. Roadside inns, extended stay hotels, campgrounds and rustic cabins dotting highways have become de facto homeless shelters for those with a couple hundred bucks a week. How do they get the money?
“I was able to pawn our TV and my youngest allowed me to pawn his iPad. (He is the most loving, sweet, helpful child I know.) We got $200 and gave her [the motel manager] that for the room. We only owe $30 more for this week.”
Family support would keep this family from homelessness. Maine’s homeless student count soared by 58% according to latest counts. Families don’t get help when facing homelessness. Instead, they slink out of view, fearful of being split up because of their plight, caused for Mindy by domestic violence.
“After losing their father, I don’t want to split us up. But I have thought of surrendering the family dog to the shelter, and calling in DHHS (Dept. of Health and Human Services) to help find a place for my boys. I worried they will come take them away anyways, as they have not been in school this year.”
She added, “My last landlord left us without sewer or running water for four months. He even called code enforcement on himself! When code enforcement came, they told me that landlords ‘use them to do their dirty work for them.’” They also use them for fast eviction through being condemned.”
This family, homeless because of eviction from an uninhabitable house, the only affordable place they could find after fleeing domestic violence, now faces a Maine winter in a tent or other deplorable place because no safety net exists. The current family shelter “system” and supports are beyond beleaguered.
Guv LePage should rethink his welcome sign to read: “Families, don’t come to Maine unless you are wealthy enough to make sure disaster doesn’t befall you.”
That won’t fit. Try: “Homeless families, go away!”
Diane Nilan is President of HEAR US Inc.,an organization that gives voice to families and youth experiencing homelessness. Nilan has devoted her life to advocating for and presenting the real face of homelessness in America, focussing on families and children. She has more than three decades of experience running shelters; advocating for improved state and federal policies; filming/producing award-winning documentaries. Her latest work is the book, Dismazed and Driven: My Look at Family Homelessness in America and The Three Melissas.
During the Great Depression my grandmother, the poorest of the poorest of poor, still feed the homeless from her back door. We only had a Great Recession, I’m afraid to say that I am ashamed of US.
I am also homless,a mother of 11 year old girl and 23 tear old son, my son was in a car accident when he was 9, suffered severe head trauma, that today prevents him from working, and been turned down for disability. He says mom I wish I could work so I could help you and my sister.we are living in a tent in the country. I don’t drive which makes everthing difficult getting to a grocery store,taking showers,seeking help, I’m currently on disability, I crushed both my feet a few years ago, and naw their taking my check away because they feel I can work..and I prob my could fund a sit down job,But not with out transportation. I’ve been in 2 shelters that did nothing for me, not even point me in the rite direction, and just threw my daughter out back on the streets. And that’s another story I promise my self I’m going to addres to hopefully help other singal mothers that discarded like trash at these places for stupid reasons. For whom ever reads this if theirs something I can do to help my self pls let me no. God Bless.