Pubdate: Tue, 18 Oct 2005
Source: News Journal (DE)
Copyright: 2005 The News Journal
Contact: http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/opinion/index.html
Website: http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/822
Author: Victor Greto

DIVERSE WOES LEAD TO HOMELESSNESS

Poverty, Substance Abuse To Blame In Cecil, Study Finds

ELKTON, Md. -- She calls homelessness her "familiar pain."

If it's easy to read that pain in the lines of 43-year-old Dru 
Bleecher's face, it is as effortless to read joy in her eyes when she 
talks with friends at the Wayfarer House near downtown.

"Don't call us homeless," Bleecher said, chain-smoking cigarettes in 
a small shed behind the women's shelter. "It's like we're some kind 
of species. We're people. You tend to forget that."

If the nearly 100,000 residents who live in Cecil County, Md., had 
forgotten, some were reminded last week when Salisbury University's 
Center for Social Program Development and Evaluation issued an 
analysis of homelessness there.

The study was commissioned by Meeting Ground, an ecumenical 
organization that runs two shelters in Elkton, including the Wayfarer 
House, and a 20-acre homeless community in Earleville called 
Clairvaux Farm, all on an annual $550,000 budget.

About 75 homeless people -- roughly 10 percent of the fluctuating 
number of homeless in the county -- were interviewed at length about 
their personal histories.

The study concluded that economic (unemployment, problems paying rent 
and eviction) and personal (substance abuse and family conflict) 
reasons contributed to most homelessness. Most of the people 
interviewed for the study were from Cecil County, more than 
two-thirds were unemployed, a significant number had a drug or 
alcohol problem, and more than three-quarters had a mental or 
emotional problem.

"As a percentage, it's no worse and no better than it's ever been," 
said Nicholas Ricciuti, director of the county's social services, of 
the continuing homeless population. "What it really says to me is 
that we're dealing with people with psycho-sociological issues."

The survey showed that the chronically homeless tended to have major 
personal problems, while economic uncertainty threatened to push a 
larger population of near-homeless -- those just getting by or living 
with relatives -- toward homelessness.

The coming together of both personal and economic troubles, called 
the "vulnerability index," fuels homelessness, said study supervisor 
Marvin Tossey, head of the sociology department at Salisbury University.

"You get someone who has economic problems, he gets depressed, 
drinks, he might lose his job, get more depressed and drinks more," 
Tossey said. "It gets to be a cycle. The answer to homelessness 
becomes how to break the cycle."

Mentally Ill

The cycle includes those who are mentally ill.

Jeff Block, 37, is upfront about his condition. "I'm bipolar and am 
on disability," he said. He collects $549 each month from Social Security.

"It's hard for me to focus on any one thing at a time," he said, and 
the two medications he takes make him tired.

Even adding the identical amount of money collected by his similarly 
disabled bride-to-be, 22-year-old Sarah Irwin, they cannot afford 
rent and are on a two-year waiting list for Section 8 housing.

The couple moved from Claymont to Clairvaux Farm nearly five months 
ago. They said they moved because Irwin's uncle, with whom they were 
living, treated them "cruelly."

"We're more apt to end up here or on the street than any other 
group," he said of the mentally ill. "But I'm not going to be swept 
under the rug. I want my own business and a life with Sarah."

Block said his mental illness, while oppressive, does not control his 
life. He has dreams of opening a bait and tackle shop that also sells 
sub sandwiches.

"I know all the great fishing spots up and down Maryland and 
Delaware," he said. And the sub shop? "Fishermen get hungry," he said.

"We're not all drunks and drug addicts," said Dawn Lewis, 41, who 
grew up in Elkton and has been staying at the Wayfarer House since Aug. 28.

She receives disability payments from Social Security because of her 
depression, brought on by her mother's death in 2003, and has saved $1,200.

"That's not much," she said, "but I feel safe where I am, and that's 
important."

Before living at the women's shelter, she lived with her brother and 
his family in a trailer, but it got too crowded.

She said she recently got a boyfriend, who lives in a small house 
behind his aunt's.

"Maybe I can move in with him soon," she said.

She's also looking for work, and has applied for jobs at Wal-Mart and Kmart.

"I need a job someplace where I can either walk or take the bus," she said.

Lack Of Affordable Housing

"The homeless study confirmed the need for affordable housing in 
Cecil County," said Carl Mazza, who for 24 years has directed Meeting 
Ground. "It's not a problem with a simple solution."

A household needs an annual income of $30,840 -- less than half of 
the county's median household income -- to afford a two-bedroom 
apartment in Cecil County, according to the report. But for the 1,566 
"extremely low-income renters" -- families that fall below 30 percent 
of the region's median income -- only 845 rental units were 
"affordable and available," the report found.

"It's no big secret that there's a tremendous lack of affordable 
housing," said David Mahaney, director of housing and community 
development for the county. "We're fortunate because our waiting list 
[for Section 8 housing] is only two and a quarter years long. Some 
jurisdictions in Delaware, the waiting list is closed; some in 
Baltimore, it's six, seven years."

Dwight Hair, a long-time Elkton resident who manages 32 rental 
apartments and homes throughout the area, said rents have been rising 
steadily because of a steep increase in taxes and insurance. But it's 
also easy for Hair to rent to people with higher incomes -- a third 
of whom work in Delaware -- because housing is in such demand, he said.

"I rented one unit today for $725. Three years ago, I would have 
rented that for $425," he said last week. "Supply and demand is the 
big reason for the increases. I could have rented to 15 different 
school teachers if I had the apartments to rent."

According to the report, most homeless people have been homeless for 
a long time. Many of the chronically homeless can be found living in 
what locals call "Acme Acres," in the woods behind the Acme Market 
near the corner of U.S. 40 and Md. 213.

Even when rain chases the residents away temporarily, evidence of the 
lives there remains: flattened cardboard Busch and Natural Ice beer 
cartons, discarded shoes, water bottles and empty bags of potato chips.

Substance Abuse

For at least 10 years, James Gray, 53, has been living there. Dressed 
in camouflage jacket and pants, eating a meal at the weekly Friday 
community kitchen, Gray said the dozen or so men who regularly sleep 
out in the woods are a family.

"Cops [mess] with us all the time," Gray said. "They think I don't 
have a house and a car, so I ain't human."

Gray was a carpenter, but his wife kicked him out because of his 
drinking. He still drinks beer steadily. "Give me a 30-pack, and I'll 
tell you plenty of stories," he said.

Mahaney said many people who apply for Section 8 housing have drug 
and alcohol problems.

"It's amazing the number of people who come in buzzed on cocaine," he 
said. "It's almost comical to watch, even with two little kids in 
tow, they come to apply and they're high. I don't believe the general 
population understands how severe and deep illegal drug and substance 
abuse problems are in the real world."

Gray's story, and drug and alcohol problems in general, are the 
stereotypical understanding of homelessness. But they do not 
represent the majority of homeless people in Cecil County, Mazza said.

A Family Issue

"The face of homelessness is quite diverse, and includes many 
children and families," he said. "And there, the issues of mental 
illness and substance abuse do not play as much a role."

That diversity includes Vickie Conover, 37, who has lived at the 
Wayfarer House for two years. She comes from a broken family, and her 
mother does not speak to her because her two children are 
interracial. The children now are in foster care, and she visits them monthly.

She said she has asthma, diabetes and a learning disability, but said 
she has saved enough to be ready to go into Section 8 housing in 
about six months.

"I want to get out on my own," she said.

Steve McGuire, 45, a house painter, has been staying at Clairvaux 
Farm for two months. He ended up homeless after he fell 22 feet while 
working, crushing a heel and breaking his back.

He needs a cane to get around, and he aches each time he moves.

Until it broke down, he was living out of his car in Chestertown, 
Md., where he's lived most of his life. Before that, he lived with a 
girlfriend, but "You lose your money, you lose your girlfriend," he said.

He's paying bills that have accumulated over the years, and trying to 
save enough money to get a place of his own. He loves living at the 
farm and doing chores, which Meeting Ground requires of its residents.

"It beats living on the street," McGuire said. "This is where God 
wants me to be right now, to get back on my feet."

Gilbert Wheatley, 76, a former Navy pilot, recently moved into 
Clairvaux because, he said, his wife kicked him out of the house.

"This place has been a blessing for me," said Wheatley, who lost his 
legs during the Korean War. He considers the farm a place "for a 
little R&R," and said his two children know what happened.

"But what are they going to do?" he said. "I'm not destitute."

Although Mazza's group commissioned the study and praised its 
conclusions, he said it sorely lacked a comprehensive look at 
homeless children, who make up about a third of the total homeless population.

At Clairvaux Farm, which now holds about 35 people, more than a dozen 
residents are children.

"Homelessness is predominantly a family issue," he said.

Those families include Donna, 38, and her two children, who recently 
found refuge at the Wayfarer House.

"I have never been a drunk or a drug addict," said Donna, who did not 
want to give her last name. "It was my husband who did drugs."

She's waiting for Section 8 housing, but is very happy to have found 
the women's home.

"Most homeless people I know are like us," she said. "We just can't get by."
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