Meanwhile we are talking to the neighbors. I think we have the Recreation Department with us, Sean and I have been talking with the families across the street, and we will be presenting the idea to St. Mary’s tonight. It will be very important to have their support, and I will be very much surprised if we don’t get it. I think they might be a very good source of volunteers!

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the IRS isn’t responding very positively to our  501 c 3 application. It feels a little like Cinderella in reverse – our foot doesn’t fit into any of their glass slippers. We aren’t a school, a museum, an orphanage, a shelter etc.. etc..

The mantra of the Emmaus Communities in the UK is “a charitable business that works”

The IRS seems to be saying that we can be a business or a charity, but not both. According to David Weiss, they don’t want us to be competing with “any commercial entity” (show me any nonprofit that doesn’t!) Joanna and Elaine and I, working with David Weiss, crafted a reply which may satisfy some of their concerns, and sent it off last Wednesday.

I am really impressed with the  global internet “Kickstarter” fundraiser that just produced more than enough money to repair the old freight shed on Commercial Street, and I think we could do something like that. I’m going to do some research on it later in the week, and also try to talk to some of the people involved in the Freight Shed fundraiser about how they did it. Margaret Di Rivera up at H.O.M.E. has put me in touch with Josh, their representative to the International Emmaus organization. She tells me that Emmaus international is very concerned about how the two fledgling Emmaus communities in the U.S. (there is another in Georgia) are doing. I’ll send him a packet of information about what is going on here and see what happens.

When we looked at the house the soggy flooring and cabinets had been removed and the house was dry, inspected and certified free of mildew, but the first floor flooring, cabinets and plumbing needed to be reconstructed. The working chimney was leaning sideways, water was running into the cellar where the kerb surrounding the bulkhead had disintegrated – many things needed to be set right, but it all looked quite do-able.

We were about to call a pow-wow and come to a decision about tackling this project, when a chance conversation with Bev McPhail at Tedford Housing – in connection with something else entirely –made us aware of a family of six whose section 8 certificate (subsidized rental assistance) was about to expire. Bev wondered whether we had any ideas. This family had been looking in vain or a three-bedroom apartment, and the parents were willing to turn the two bedrooms over to the children and sleep on the floor themselves if that was what it took to get a roof over the heads of their family.

Within a week, the day before that Section 8 certificate expired. It had been arranged that they would camp out in the upstairs apartment while the father of the family, who happens to be a builder, puts the downstairs back into order, and then they will rent the whole house! Without spending any money at all beyond the cost of a few cleaning supplies – investing nothing more that a Saturday’s worth of elbow grease on the part of a team of HOMEtogether volunteers, we had managed to connect a homeless family with an empty house – one of our core missions. There is a USDA Rural Redevelopment program that could make it possible for the tenants, Rob and Shannon, to actually own the house, if the landlady, Hedy, is willing to sell.

And now we are looking around for the next project –which will certainly not be as easy!

We have been talking about an adaptive-reuse of the Huse School Building, just acoss the parking lot from the Bath YMCA. It was extensively renovated for temporary use by the Woolwich Central School, while their new building was under construction. Woolwich will be moving out of the Huse School building in June. We approached the RU#1 administration in December about their future plans for this space –with the thought of possibly creating a much-needed Bath Family Shelter and under the same roof related services – the Food Bank, Soup Kitchens, Clothing Exchange and bother related services. It now appears that the building is going to be turned over to the City Of Bath, and I have emailed Justin Poirier in the Bath Development Office expressing our interest and asking to be kept informed.

Another building that is being turned over to the City is the old nuns’ residence between St. Mary’s Church and the Donald Small School (originally St. Mary’s School). The building looks pretty good on the outside, but I am told that it “needs a lot of work”. I have no idea what kind of work, but work is, so to speak, our stock in trade. A dis-used convent might be just the sort of space that would accommodate the kind of “congregate living” that we want to create for HOMEtogether. We have asked to be on the list to be kept informed about this one also.

The Shepherd Street project seems to be coming along right on track, and there are other empty houses in the immediate area – within easy walking distance from downtown and near the Fisher-Mitchell School. Some of them are beautiful and some of them seem to be rehab projects that ran out of money. We haven’t yet found any that look big enough for a HOMEtogether household, but some of them could lend themselves to the same kind of turnaround that was accomplished on Shepherd Street. Dan Janerico is out prospecting, and Brenda Cummings in the Assessor’s Office is willing to share what they know. Sean is going to sit down with her and check out the details. Then we will ask Wende Chapman to help us make some connections.

We have done some research on the PACE loans from Efficiency Maine that are available to homeowners. They do multi-units up to 4 units, and the energy savings are usually enough to cover the monthly loans payments. Non-profits are eligible for these loans. If we could get HOMEtogether certified as one of their approved contractors, this could create a revenue stream while training participants for a job market that that is active right now. People who would not consider new construction or even remodeling are doing weatherization because they know that this will save them money – and there is a great deal of weatherization that needs to be done.

Two Rivers Jail has inaugurated a new 6 month program for transitioning discharged inmates so that they are not forced by their circumstances back into the same environment that got them into trouble in the first place. The program includes a caseworker and some transitional living expenses. This is a population that we could serve! Not everybody will be looking for an opportunity to turn their lives around, but some will, and we could help.

We are talking to All Saints Parish about the idea of a Bath Gathering Place in the downstairs Community Room at St. Mary’s – scoping out the challenges and resources. We would have the pattern of the Brunswick Gathering Place, and the guidance of those who put that enterprise together and are keeping it running. No idea yet whether this is going to fly. Seems as though it ought to be easier the second time around!

The 501(C) 3 application is awaiting a response from our “specialist”. We had hoped to hear in January, but we know they are swamped with new applications – so many challenges, and so many good ideas for meeting them! Lots of creativity out there! We are still hoping to have our approval sometime around June. Meanwhile we continue as a project of UCC.

Although we do not at present have a project to raise money for, it would probably be a good idea to create a generic budget, one-size-fit-all, that would demonstrate that we are aware of all the costs that need to be considered. Then when we find the next project, we will be prepared to plug in the right numbers and make a case for the feasibility of what we want to do.

We have downloaded from Maine Street Bath a huge list of area businesses, including Community Service Organizations and Churches (many that I had never heard of) that we might approach for support when we are ready to do that – and some private local donors as well, from the Philanthropy Maine list. We need to create and have inreadiness a letter of introduction (text from the brochure) asking for a time to meet.

Right now, we are waiting for the growing season, looking for thesmall green shoots that indicate that the time for action is imminent.

Keep tuned!

HOMEtogether is now using Twitter to network with others working with the homeless and supporters.
Click on the image below to view the growing following.

Once we have been granted 501C3 tax-exempt status, we will be able to raise funds for acquisition of property in earnest.  This will include:

solicitation through our website
brochure and website address distribution through personal and professional contacts of the Board members
yard sales and open house events
contacting grant makers and individual donors listed in Maine Philanthropy Network who are interested in projects of our size and type of activity
applying for and obtaining funds through other appropriate grants

Having raised at least $5000 locally, we will have completed the necessary requirements and become eligible for material assistance from Emmaus International.

We will continue investigating local real estate options with the aim of buying the initial property.  Our specifications are:

-an empty building in need of renovation within walking distance of downtown Bath, big enough to house a collaborative household of six to eight individuals, who will make up the initial HOMEtogether renovation team.
-within our price range
-ideally in a neighborhood that would welcome the HOMEtogether vision
having several off-street parking spaces or ability to negotiate such space nearby

The next step is acquire a suitable property.  Our HOMEtogether Corporation will be the buyer; we will buy the house, or an option to buy, with our $50,000 dollars cash. Since the Companions have a 1/3 representation on the Board of Directors, they will have an ownership stake in the property.

We will apply for a construction loan to be secured by the appraised value of the property.  The construction loan will be a line- of- credit for tools and materials to do what is needed to make the building safe and warm and energy-efficient. The work will be done by the HOMEtogether team who will move into the space as soon as feasible and create a “base of operations” for HOMEtogether Bath.  The initial renovation team will be comprised of the group of HOMEtogether“Companions”; unemployed or underemployed individuals who agree to pool their energy and skills to pursue this opportunity to create for themselves a place to live and a livelihood

We will be recruiting skilled and unskilled community volunteer involvement through the website, through newspaper and other media publicity, and though personal contacts. We will make an inventory of skills available, and specific local people with special skills (e.g. project manager, licensed tradespersons) will be sought out to manage and teach as needed to form a capable team.

The companions will commit to an honest work week on the project in addition to household responsibilities, in exchange for all living expenses and a reasonable pocket- money allowance. Everybody involved in the project will learn from it, gaining hard and soft skills that will serve them well when they are ready to leave, and making themselves known as valuable members of the community through the quality of their work and through our various outreach activities.

The project manager (7 Rivers Habitat can help us find one) will organize volunteers from the community to work together with the companions and with and any licensed tradespeople that we may need. The project manager is also responsible for seeing that tools and supplies are ready and that the site is safe and orderly.  Some Habitat Project Managers are paid, some are not.

As we approach the completion of the renovation work on this first house, we will begin to look for another abandoned and dilapidated building in need of renovation, so that we can repeat the process to make a home for a low-income family in need of shelter.  The companions having created their own living space will now take the team on the road to renovate new buildings, one by one, to house homeless families.

There are State and Federal programs available to reclaim abandoned rural housing, (Bath is rural!) and we expect to have generated some local enthusiasm as well. This will be the enterprise that will generate income to support the HOMEtogether household.

At some point, the process may need to be replicated to accommodate a second community of working companions to expand the work of the initial renovation team and continue with the work when the original companions leave the HOMEtogether community to find paying jobs with their new skills.

The families benefiting from this reclaimed housing will be chosen according to the Emmaus principle of serving first those who are most in need.

Keep abreast of HOMEtogether activities and progress at our website, www.hometogether.org

Thank You!

The homeless in Bath are not very visible. They couch-surf with friends and relatives, stay in shelters when there is room, sleep in cars, in other people’s camper, or in a tent. They go to great lengths to look just like everybody else. The shelters are turning away families every day, because although the need is expanding, the resources are not.  There is no money available to create new shelters, but here is something that we can do right now, with the resources that we already have. Let’s do it!

207-443-9005

“The purposes of HOMEtogether shall be to provide safe housing for these individuals, and to provide for them the healing of living in community and training in occupational skills which they will use to develop a business enterprise that will support themselves and at the same time serve the greater Bath community.”