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The effects of homelessness spreads beyond a community’s boundaries and is intertwined, like a quilt, with the many threads that hold society together, especially housing.
"The root of it, which is often obscured by other problems, is that there is a lack of affordable housing across the country," Rob Rosenthal, professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University, said.
His class worked with the city to conduct the 1999 count of the homeless in the county.
So Middletown, which has the services that can support the homeless and people on the verge of becoming homeless, is where volunteers have found the largest homeless population. Simply put, people come to Middletown because they know it is where they can get help.
"If you need a shelter you’re going to come here, because it’s a local shelter," Rosenthal said.
The 2004 Middlesex County Displaced People Count done by Wesleyan University students and the Middlesex Supportive Housing Coalition found the 413 people it counted in Middletown represented 84.3 percent of the total count of 490 people.
The volunteers counted 10 homeless people in Clinton, four in Cromwell, five in East Hampton, and 28 in Old Saybrook.
The survey’s narrative says they assume the tally is an undercount because it is unlikely that any municipality has 10 or fewer homeless people.
Many of the communities probably didn’t participate, the narrative says.
It also says the number of people counted was similar to the 2002 tally.
A May 2003 study by the Wesleyan Research Team under the direction of the city’s Department of Planning, Conservation and Develop-ment about affordable housing found that the only communities in Middlesex County that neared the city’s affordable housing stock, 20.36 percent, was Portland with 7.62 percent and Cromwell with 7.60 percent.
Other communities had an affordable housing stock of 6 percent or less. Killingworth’s affordable housing stock was at .18 percent.
"I think communities have this strategy sometimes where they don’t encourage affordable housing," Bill Vasiliou, director of the Middletown Housing Authority, said. "[The homeless] come to where the resources are available."
Vasiliou said his housing authority administers 738 Section 8 vouchers, 40 state elderly-supported units, 200 state moderate rental units, 126 federally-supported elderly units and 100 federally-supported family units.
Some people who become homeless end up so because they can’t afford housing and have limited support systems.
"You have a whole separate (class) of working people who can’t, literally, afford to live here," Pat Ihle, senior director for community impact at the United Way of Middlesex County, said.
About 46 percent of those people questioned for the 2004 count for Middlesex County said they were homeless because of a financial reason, while 18 percent said they were evicted and nearly 14 percent said they were homeless because of substance use.
The issue of whether substance use precedes or starts after someone becomes homeless isn’t always clear, said Ihle. It’s a chicken and egg scenario, she said.
But the effects of a growing homeless population in Middletown, and the rest of the county, is clearer. Children are homeless, families are greatly stressed and the system is becoming so over stretched that there aren’t enough beds at shelters.
Gina Langhout, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University who worked with six students on the results of the 2004 survey, said going to another community for services can be very difficult on a family and their children
"There is a huge burden put on a person to find another job," Langhout said.
Children, she said, are even more devastated because they don’t have the coping skills that adults have. She said switching from school to school, or from school to no school, can be especially traumatic.
Forty percent of people in Middlesex County who don’t have a permanent home are children, according to the 2004 survey.
One hundred forty six adults indicated they had dependent children.
The 1999 survey about the county’s homeless population, conducted by Wesleyan University with the Middletown Supportive Housing Coalition, determined there were 107 homeless children.
Langhout said she found frustration in Middletown last year at a focus group of people who were using shelters.
"Everyone talked about how the system is just stressed," Langhout said. "Everyone who works in the system is trying so hard to service everyone, but there is such a large number of people it is just impossible."
The focus group members said people who would guide them through the system on a one-to-one level would help out greatly. Some also said they were turned away at shelters because there weren’t enough beds.
Rules about the system, easily accessible and published in a central place, was another want of the focus group.
The Department of Planning, Conservation and Development concluded in 1999 that 28 more shelter beds, 17 more transition housing units and 37 more permanent supportive housing units were needed in the city to meet the needs of it’s displaced individuals.
Displaced families with children need 12 more emergency shelter beds, 15 more transitional housing units and 44 more permanent supportive housing units to have their needs met.
Jerry Dillenbeck, Eddy Shelter coordinator, said supportive housing is a part of the national strategy to end chronic homelessness.
More housing would allow shelters, he said, to return to providing the emergency services they started out with.
The Eddy Shelter has 30 beds and served 344 guests last year.
"Fundamentally, it comes back to not having enough affordable housing," said Dillenbeck.
To contact Josh Mrozinski, call (860) 347-3331, ext. 222 or e-mail jmrozinski@middletownpress.com.
