NH- No room at the inn

12-24-2008 New Hampshire:

Tobey shelter serves first family as Christmas approaches

The first family, a woman and her two sons, arrived Monday night, with soggy shoes and nowhere else to go. They slept on cots in a tiny room off an echoey corridor at the old Tobey School, an unused state building that opened as the city's third emergency homeless shelter this week.

As of 7 last night, the family had yet to return, but volunteers were ready if they did. Donations of diapers, soup, fruit snacks, warm clothes and stuffed animals were piled into the corners of a storage room. The heat was on, and cots were waiting.

Shelter manager Mike Riley wants the Tobey School to do more than serve a temporary need. He hopes families will use their time at the shelter to connect with organizations that can help them stabilize their lives. In addition to cots, bathrooms and the occasional snack, the shelter's staff is equipped to dole out advice.

"You can't get into the details when you're dealing with a family on the phone," he said. "You don't know the story. . . . This puts you eyeball to eyeball. It's a better chance to get the details, develop trust."

Riley has spent nearly two decades as a homeless-outreach worker and will run the Tobey shelter for up to 100 nights this winter. He will conduct short interviews with new guests, enforce the house rules and make sure everyone is treated with respect.

Social service providers and a corps of volunteers operate emergency shelters at the First and South churches each winter. The shelters were originally designed to provide chronically homeless adults, including many with untreated mental illnesses and addictions, a warm place to sleep on the coldest nights.

Demand for shelter beds has increased over the past several years, and a growing number of families, many with small children, were using the shelter on a regular basis. A year of foreclosures, rising rents and layoffs had social service providers worried that they wouldn't be able to handle demand. They also wanted to find a more suitable setting for young children.

Originally, the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness had hoped to use the vacant Dewey School, but the plan unraveled in

part because of concerns among neighbors. Mayor Jim Bouley then appealed to the state for help, and the Department of Health and Human Services offered the Tobey building.

Perched on a little hill overlooking South Fruit Street, the building had housed a residential school for children with educational disabilities. The students moved to a new facility last month, and the Tobey building was going to be heated but unused until it is renovated into offices sometime in the next few years.

Final state approval and an insurance certificate came through last week, and volunteers from McKenna House, a long-term shelter nearby, spent Saturday cleaning and distributing cots among the rooms.

"I wish we didn't need a homeless shelter for families with children, but I am relieved that it's open," said the Rev. Jean O'Bresky, an associate pastor at First Church and co-chairwoman of the coalition. "I'm not surprised that families have availed themselves of the shelter so quickly."

Only families with children may stay at the school. Guests cannot be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or on the state's sex offender registry. These policies are stricter than those at the downtown shelters, which accept anyone as long they act with respect while at a shelter.

The family that arrived Monday came from the shelter at First Church, but Riley expected most referrals to come from the New Hampshire Homeless Hotline. The school can hold up to eight families or 30 people in a wing once used for math classes and middle school recreation.

Families will stay in rooms off a wide corridor with pockmarked walls and worn tile floors. The setting is sparse, to say the least, but there are some homey touches. Curtains hang from some of the windows, and a few couches were left behind. There's a kitchenette behind the old nurses station, and Riley hopes to fill it with a microwave, a mini-fridge and snacks.

And in the corner of the common room, donated by Target and decorated with ribbons and globes of gold glass, is a Christmas tree.

Anyone who would like to donate to the shelter or serve as a volunteer should e-mail TEFshelter@gmail.com. Anyone in need of the shelter's services should call the New Hampshire Homeless Hotline at 800-852-3388. ..News Source.. by MEG HECKMAN, Monitor staff