PLYMOUTH-Every night in the United States, 15 million children go to bed hungry. Another 40 million people are “food insecure.” They do not know where their next meal is coming from. Many people see hunger and homelessness as a problem of the inner city, but it occurs everywhere, including Plymouth.
The Pemi Bridge House opened in 1989 as part of Tri-County CAP, a group of sixty-five different public service programs, including Head Start. On July 1, 2004, the Bridge House was able to go on its own. The directors, Kim Walters and Dan Mitchell, have been working hard to improve the services offered there. A few years ago they changed their focus and began concentrating on a smaller number of people for longer periods of time. Typically, a person spends a few weeks in a shelter. The average stay at the Pemi Bridge House is six months. The workers and volunteers help residents get jobs, secure housing, and take care of other essential needs so that they may become self-sufficient.
Currently plans are in motion to move the shelter to a bigger facility of Highland Street near Whole Village, a collaboration of seventeen health and social service agencies. They received a $700,000 Community Development Block Grant for this and have raised an additional $250,000 in donations. The new facility will have twenty beds (the current one has fifteen: twelve for women and three for men) and is scheduled to open next summer.
Nationally, 40 percent of homeless people are children. At the Pemi Bridge house, 70percent of the residents are children. Recently I spoke with three clients of the PBH: Alex, Luella, and a 40-year-old mother. All of them have lived in the shelter with their children.
Alexander John Sousa, age 37, moved into the Pemi Bridge House with his 10-year-old son on October 29. He got divorced in July after his wife left him for another man and three months later was evicted from his apartment.
Clock: What was your perception of homeless people before you came here?
Alex: People like me, I’d seen homeless people before and I thought I’d never be like that.
Clock: How do you think other people perceive the homeless?
Alex: People think of a homeless shelter and they think the people there don’t want to work. We try to keep it clean. Chores are done by 8:00. We have to be in by 10:00 and lights out at 11:00. We just don’t get up one morning and decide to be homeless. I had to leave all my stuff in the apartment because I didn’t have the money to take it. All I brought was a suitcase of my son’s clothes and mine.
Clock: How is your son dealing with living here?
Alex: We don’t really talk about being here. He’s been doing good in school. He gets up every morning at 6:00 for school. He does his chores.
Clock: How are you dealing with living here?
Alex: I’m still coping. I haven’t gotten over my divorce. You try to laugh at your problems. I’ve done a lot of crying over the past few months.
Clock: What do you want to let people know about living here?
Alex: Not all homeless people are bad people. There are a lot of people who are homeless. Come down to the shelter and talk to the people. They are not all bad. A lot of people who have lived here have come a long way. The shelter helps us budget our money. There’s no tolerance for drinking or drugs. They only let people in here that aren’t going to be a threat to other people. They screen everybody.
Clock: Where do you want to go from here?
Alex: I want to get a full-time job and pay my bills. I just applied for an apartment. Six months from now I’m hoping to have my own place.
Clock: What else can be done?
Alex: I think the college landlords should donate some places. It’s hard to find an apartment in Plymouth. Regular people need to live in Plymouth too. College landlords don’t have to pay property tax. That’s what I’ve heard. We need more apartments for ordinary people.
A 40-year-old woman moved into the Pemi Bridge House on August 29 with two children. She came up here after leaving a shelter in Concord.
Clock: How did you end up in a shelter?
Woman: I ended up in a relationship that turned out to be not very productive in terms of gaining. I was not able to save money because I was constantly asked for $10 here and $5 there. He became disabled and couldn’t work. We ended up at his mom’s house for two years, which was hell. Then, he just stopped coming home. He’d go out to do some errand and not come home until one or two. I couldn’t continue staying there and I couldn’t work if he didn’t watch the kids. We ended up in a shelter in Concord.
Clock: How was that shelter compared the Pemi Bridge House?
Woman: There are shelters and there are shelters. To call this place a shelter is a disservice. It is more like a home. The people who are running it here actually care. The place I was in, in Concord, the staff members seemed to look down on you because you are in this situation. They could be in the same boat just as easily. Many are not financially prepared. There are many poor people living paycheck-to-paycheck. Others higher up are just as bad. They make more money but they have a mortgage, two car payments, and other trappings of society. The shelter in Concord said, get a job or get out. My 5-year-old called it “the mean place.” We were asked to leave because theoretically my kids were too loud, even though it was a family shelter.
Clock: How have you been helped here?
Woman: Here, I got my 2-year-old services. I got help finding her a doctor. I am not from this area so I had no clue where anything was. I get transportation. In Concord, the Department of Health and Human Services is about the same distance away from the shelter as this shelter is away from Wal-Mart. They had no transportation. They told me to go there even if I had to walk.
Clock: How long do you plan on living here?
Woman: I hope to be out by the spring. Here I am rebuilding my life yet again. I was scared to come here because everything I know is over an hour away. But it’s a fresh start.
Clock: What else would you like people to know?
Woman: Some people that are in the [shelter] business, they shouldn’t be. Dan and Kim [directors of the Pemi Bridge House] have been very good. My ex had isolated me from any human contact besides my kids and people at work. Being able to sit and relax and have a conversation with another human being was very relaxing. Here, they don’t think of residents as liabilities. I’ve been in two shelters, one very, very good and one very, very bad. I think most are somewhere in the middle.
Luella Holmes is a former resident of the Pemi Bridge House. She lives in her own home now with her two children and has three jobs, including working part-time for the Wentworth Police Department.
Clock: How did the Pemi Bridge House help you?
Luella: One of my favorite memories is from Christmas. We had the best Christmas ever. It was for our kids. You know you can’t afford it. He got everything he wanted. I remember people coming in and dropping off boxes of stuff.
Clock: How did you become homeless?
Luella: My son, he was two. We were homeless by circumstance. I broke up with my boyfriend and moved down to Massachusetts with my grandparents. You need so much to get an apartment. It’s unbelievable the stress thinking you’ll never get an apartment. When I got back together with my boyfriend (he’s my husband now) we lived in a cottage. The rent was $225 a week and my husband was making $325 a week. We couldn’t afford childcare. So I called here and finally got in.
Clock: What did you think when you got here?
Luella: My first impression is not the same one I have now. I was never homeless before. It’s a bad feeling knowing you have no place to go. You have to share your space, bureaus and beds. It drives you to get out. I’m not saying the place is bad. It shouldn’t be comfortable. They have resources here. It’s different for me to call the state and get the runaround than for someone who works here to call.
Clock: A lot of people have the impression that people who go on state assistance are lazy and expect handouts. Do you agree with this?
Luella: I’ve always had jobs and I’ve always had childcare. We went through a rough time. Some people get comfortable with other people’s help. This place is a goldmine for people who want to get out of this kind of life. I got assistance from the state and got subsidized housing. This place changed my life. I had low self-esteem. My mother passed away and Kim helped me when I was pregnant. She had experience and had helped other mothers. Now we’re moving out of subsidized housing into our own home. I was a police officer before I was homeless. It can happen to anybody. I’m still down. I’m still climbing out. Three months after we moved into housing my husband got called to Iraq. I didn’t give up. Because I didn’t turn my back and give up, they [Kim and Dan] met me halfway. I’m thankful for my blessings.
Dan Mitchell, one of the directors, says that Plymouth State University and members of the Plymouth community have been very supportive of the shelter, and he encourages anyone who wants to volunteer to contact him. There are several volunteer opportunities, including providing transportation, helping with fundraising, wrapping gifts during the holidays, providing childcare, and helping to fill out forms for state aid. One thing that Dan stresses is consistency. If someone can volunteer for a few hours a week at the same time every week it helps the residents get used to the schedule.
The directors and the residents also welcome visitors who come down to learn about the Pemi Bridge House and to talk to the people who live there. Anyone interested in volunteering or getting additional information can call 536-7631, or visit the website:www.pemibridgehouse.org.