The invisible ones and a Night in the Park

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in…”

For many people in Franklin County, probably more than you than think, poet Robert Frost’s poignant definition of “home” stands empty of meaning.

They are the homeless, those who have no place where someone has “to take you in.”

On Saturday June 19, the “Night In the Park” will offer an opportunity to help the Homeless Coalition of Franklin County as it continues its work advocating for those who often have to spend the night in a tent.

In our county, the homeless are mostly invisible. We don’t see people sleeping on street corners or under bridges. There are no circles of transients huddled around a burning barrel, no lost souls wandering downtown streets picking through trash cans.

There just isn’t much visible evidence of their presence.

But Ernie Gurney, for one, “sees” some of them every day in his work with New Beginnings, a program for homeless youth from 16 to 20 years old.

“It’s our rural way of doing things, always trying to help,” says Ernie. “So homelessness for young people usually means ‘sofa-surfing’ with friends or even strangers.”

With a caseload of 14 to 20 individuals at any one time and with 45 new cases annually (without doing ‘outreach’ he tells us), Ernie works diligently to keep his kids connected to school, working on job skills, frequenting the Career Center and otherwise staying focused on having a life.

But it’s hard with no homeless shelter in the entire county and, of course, it is not just young people who are between a friend’s sofa tonight and a tent, or something worse, tomorrow night.

There are probably 150-200 homeless people in the county with no single agency dedicated to their needs. But, of course, there are many agencies and individuals, some of whom have been homeless themselves, who have these folks in their field of vision and in their thoughts.

It must be in their rural nature.

The Homeless Coalition was formed and is into its fifth year of tracking, documenting, referring, advocating for and, in many cases, connecting the homeless with shelter.

The Coalition has, in fact, done more than make us “see” homeless people. After matching a $5,000 Venture Grant from the United Way of the Tri-Valley, it has money for emergency needs and to help the homeless “transition” for at least three nights at the Farmington Motel while more permanent housing is sought. The “Night in the Park” pledges will help to sustain these funds.

A referral network has been created and is being refined so that agencies are talking with each other and with area landlords and motels while exploring all housing options.

In addition to Ernie Gurney, Lisa Laflin of United Way, Tania Gage of Western Maine Community Action, Julia Terry of SAVES, along with representatives from Abused Women’s Advocacy Project, Franklin Area Ecumenical Ministry, DHHS, Community Concepts, 82 High Street and many others, have brought hope to the search for a home.

So, getting back to the “Night In The Park” on June 19.

It’s a fundraiser for the Coalition where pledges are taken for each hour spent in the park, a setting deliberately chosen to simulate the life than many homeless people live.

Unless you’re a veteran camper, it’s uncomfortable, open to the elements and, even though others are there, it’s a reminder of the darkness and the unknown that homelessness represents.

And remember, it’s pretty likely that at daybreak, you have a home where “they have to take you in.” That’s not so for many people who are in tents, on a friend’s sofa, or living in a car.

When they want to go home, there is nowhere to go.