Tedford Housing, a Brunswick non-profit that provides housing and services for the homeless, is constructing eight new apartments on Everett Street for homeless adults. The apartments, which are scheduled to be completed this July, are for homeless disabled adults who have visited the Tedford shelter in the past.
The facility is being constructed next to the Elm Street Apartments, which the College currently rents for student housing. In a phone message, Director of Residential Life Kim Pacelli said the College is not expected to need to rent the Elm Street Apartments during the 2007-2008 academic year.
According to Don Kniseley, the executive director of Tedford Housing, the construction reflects a national shift away from shelters and toward supported housing for the homeless. Emergency shelters, like Tedford's shelter on Cumberland Street, are "band aids," not long term solutions, Kniseley said in an interview with the Orient.
The organization requires all guests to refrain from drug or alochol use while at the shelter or in the new apartments, he said.
Tedford is currently working toward creating more low-income housing in Brunswick rather than increasing the number of guests the shelter can accommodate. Permanent housing will allow Tedford to work with the homeless on a long-term basis, rather than the two-and-a-half to three weeks that most guests stay at the shelter.
Associate Professor of Sociology Joe Bandy said that the lack of affordable housing is a primary cause of homelessness, especially in areas with rising property values like Midcoast Maine. According to Bandy, rural areas, like much of Maine, contain 18 percent of the total homeless population in the United States, but 67 percent of housing is substandard.
Bandy noted that housing costs are on the rise in Maine. Of the "near homeless," or one-time shelter visitors, in Maine, 90 percent spend up to 30 percent of their monthly income on housing. Therefore, affordable housing is very important.
Tedford and Bowdoin have a long history of partnership. Tedford was awarded a Common Good Grant in 2003 and members of a student-organized volunteer group visit the adult shelter every evening to help prepare dinner.
Some of Bandy's sociology classes have worked with Tedford on service learning projects.