Author: Angie Sykeny

Transitional housing in Nashua gives families a fresh start

Family Promise of Southern New Hampshire has opened a new transitional housing facility in Nashua for families experiencing homelessness. Executive director Pamela Wellman talked about the facility’s amenities and programs and the demographic they serve.

How did Family Promise come to acquire this new building?

We were on the grounds of the Presentation of Mary Academy in Hudson … for almost 18 years. … Then, we found [the property formerly occupied by] Infant Jesus School in downtown Nashua … and have gone through a six-month capital campaign and renovation project … to build a beautiful brand new home for our mission and for our families. We worked very closely with the City of Nashua … and we got a $2.7 million grant through Gov. Sununu’s New Hampshire CARES Act and the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority … so there have been a lot of partnerships supporting us throughout this whole thing. … We were able to bring our first families in on Feb. 15. Starting on March 29, we’ll be able to bring in the second phase of families. … Our capital campaign will continue for the next two years … to sustain the program operationally, and to support the families.

What is the new facility like?

It’s 35,000 square feet — twice the size of our former facility — with 48 bedrooms, which translates to about 25 family units, so about 80 or 90 people. It’s got a beautiful dining area, a commercial kitchen, a laundry facility and plenty of storage space. … Each family has their own bath … and refrigerator space and cabinet space. They’ve got everything they need. They have a real home here, and they live a real life here. … We also have a filtration system, so if a family does contract Covid, they can quarantine in their units; we don’t have to place them elsewhere and put that burden on the community.

Who does Family Promise serve?

There are so many transitional housing and shelter programs in Greater Nashua, and we each share a certain piece of the pie when it comes to homelessness. Ours is family; we take families — moms and dads with children, single fathers and single mothers with children, and families however they identify themselves — and we keep them together. … Sixty-five percent of our community is children.

Aside from providing transitional housing, how does Family Promise help families experiencing homelessness regain independence?

One of the programs people work once they come here is financial literacy. … They have to save up to 75 percent of their disposable income in their own savings account so they get used to budgeting and paying rent again. We supply their food, toiletries and daily living supplies so that they can start saving that money. … Working full-time is a requirement … because you can’t save money unless you’ve got income, right? It’s not a handout. They’ve got to do the hard work, but we guide them through it. If people don’t have a job, we help them with their resume and help them look for jobs and realize their potential as professionals and career-builders.

We help them regain driver’s licenses and vehicles, if they don’t already have them. We help them get back in school to finish a certification so they can maximize their professional acumen. … We offer parenting and family advocacy courses to help them navigate any emotional trauma that homelessness has put on them as well as their children. … We’ve also got tons of great youth programs and activities here so that kids can take a deep breath and learn to play and be kids again.

What are some of the circumstances leading to families seeking transitional housing?

The stereotypical idea of what homelessness is — the impoverished person living under the bridge — is an important population of people to serve, but that’s not the only face of homelessness. Homelessness among children and youth ages 18 to 24 in New Hampshire is staggering. We see a lot of younger families who don’t have the support system of family or friends outside of themselves to help them get through [homelessness] and have no other place to go. … People don’t realize that one of the most prominent faces of homelessness is the average working family making minimum to slightly-higher-than-minimum wage. They are the ones that fall through the cracks. The current housing market doesn’t support them. They don’t qualify for many lower-income supports, but they don’t make enough money to get back up on their feet. … We’ve all seen the tremendous impact that Covid has had on these middle-class families, or have been personally affected by it. One crisis — a job loss, having to take a lesser-paying job, a family break-up or divorce, or a health tragedy — can send them spiralling into homelessness.

How would you describe the community at Family Promise?

It becomes a family. So many of our graduates become best friends because there’s a comfort in knowing that you’re not alone and that there are other people going through the same thing. … Sixty-five percent of our graduates actually come back and volunteer here and [remain a] part of our extended family.

Featured photo: Pamela Wellman Courtesy photo.

Program provides nursing education, employment

Catholic Charities New Hampshire recently announced the launch of Pathways, a career development and advancement program for New Hampshire residents working or interested in working in the health care field. Darlene Underhill, CCNH director of clinical services, discussed the program and how it hopes to address the shortage of health care workers, at CCNH’s facilities and throughout the state.

What’s happening with the number of health care workers in New Hampshire?

There’s been a health care staffing crisis and a critical shortage of both Licensed Nursing Assistants and nurses in New Hampshire and, in fact, in the whole country, for years. … Hospitals, nursing homes, home health [services] — all of us are competing for the same small pool of nurses and Licensed Nursing Assistants in the state.

What’s causing the shortage?

The number of people going into health care careers has been steadily declining. The average age of nurses in the state is almost 50 right now. … Covid certainly hasn’t helped things; Covid has made it much worse, because [it led to] a lot of health care workers deciding to get out of the health care field altogether, or to take an early retirement.

Why are fewer people pursuing careers in health care?

I think there are a lot more opportunities for a variety of [other careers] that people are choosing to do. … [Pursuing a career in] health care is very expensive and takes a lot of time. The state will typically reimburse a Nursing Assistant [for education costs] once they get their license, but having to pay up front to enter the program makes it cost-prohibitive for many individuals.

How does the Pathways program work?

People [pursuing a career in health care] are trying to work, trying to go school and trying to pay for it all, and what we’re doing is paying for the [licensing] program up front so that they can continue to work and go to school without having to worry about that financial burden. We also give them some time off [from their job] to study while they’re in school, and we pay them for that. … Last year, we started offering scholarships for some of our own Licensed Nursing Assistants, partnering with Harmony [Health Care Institute in Merrimack] for them to go into an LPN program. We graduated nine of our LNAs as LPNs, and they’re now working in our facilities. We had so many people from our facilities apply to go into the program that we decided we really needed to do this as an ongoing, formal program, not just a one-time thing. … This year, we just awarded 10 more scholarships for LNAs who work in our facilities to go into the program. … We’ve also just started doing the same thing for entry-level people who don’t have a career or background in health care yet but are looking to get into a new career in health care. We’re paying for the program and any expenses related to it — we’re working with LNA Health Careers [in Manchester] — for them to become Licensed Nursing Assistants. While they’re going to school, we hire them into our facilities as unit aides where they’ll be making beds and assisting with dining and activities and things like that. Then, once they get certified and licensed, we will offer them a position in one of our facilities as a Licensed Nursing Assistant.

What are you looking to accomplish with the program, short-term and long-term?

It’s helping people grow, develop into who they want to be and achieve what they want for their life by moving forward in their careers, and helping people get out of poverty. … For us, the benefit is that we would hire them as employees. We have been living with this critical [health care] staffing shortage, especially since Covid, every day in our skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facility. This is a way for us to grow our staff. … In the long run, we hope it contributes to easing the nursing [staffing] crisis in the state. We do ask [program graduates] for a commitment of time [of employment with CCNH], but we know that not all of them are going to stay with us forever; some of them will want to move on to other [health care facilities], and that’s fine, because overall, the more nurses who are added to the state pool, the better off everybody is going to be.

Any plans to expand the program in the future?

We’re definitely going to keep growing and expanding in terms of servicing more students, and we’re talking about branching into an RN program next year so that [the LNP program graduates] can keep going straight into an RN program, or maybe putting LNA [program students] all the way through to RN.

Featured photo: Darlene Underhill. Courtesy photo.

Toadstool Bookshops named Retailer of the Year

The New Hampshire Retail Association’s New Hampshire Retailer of the Year award recognizes retailers in the state that have achieved excellence in creativity, customer service, commitment to the community and work environment. The 2021 recipient is The Toadstool Bookshops, owned by Holly and Willard Williams, Jeff Osgood and Lowell Morris, with store locations in Nashua, Peterborough and Keene. Willard Williams talked about how the Toadstool managed to stay afloat and continue to serve book lovers throughout the pandemic.

How did the Toadstool handle the first few months of the pandemic?

In late March, we had to close our doors and couldn’t be open for people to come in the store. … A lot of our sales are really based on people coming in and browsing … so we had to try to find other ways to let people know what new books were out there. We started creating different lists, like a Black Lives Matter[-inspired] list and lists of new arrivals. … Our website became really active, and we started getting a lot of orders online, and a lot of phone calls from people who wanted to pick things up curbside. We learned how to pack and ship books quickly. We’ve always had a number of in-store author events but had to stop those, of course, so we started doing them virtually, on Facebook at first, and then we started using Zoom. … It was a lot of hard work in the beginning to figure out how to do online business and virtual events and curbside, but our staff was really good about picking up on everything quickly and working together.

How were things different after you reopened?

In mid-June, we were able to let people come into the store again. We put up plexiglass barriers at the counters and, of course, put out hand sanitizer and started requiring masks for everyone. The store is large enough that we didn’t have an issue with people being able to spread out sufficiently and keep their distance. We set things up a little differently so that there’s better traffic flow. We had to take all of the chairs out of the store because we didn’t really want people sitting or lingering. The whole idea was to get people to come in, get what they want quickly, and then leave. … That was the hardest thing for us, having to tell people, ‘We want to see you; we want you to come in; but unfortunately, you can’t stay; you have to come and go quickly.’ In the good old days, people would come in, meet each other, talk, chat, gossip, but I really can’t encourage that in the store.

How are you doing, business-wise?

We were down probably about 60 percent [in sales] during March, April, May and early June. Once we were able to open again in mid-June, [sales numbers] started to come back, and in the fall they were actually better than [they were in the fall of] the previous year.

How have you taken care of your staff?

We had to cut back on staff in the beginning, unfortunately. We were able to take advantage of the PPP program from the federal government, so in early June we started bringing some [staff] back to help us out in the store. … The biggest challenge for our staff was trying to find a schedule that allowed them to stay home with their kids when they weren’t in school. … We’re pretty much back to the staff that we had before. Now we’re just trying to make sure everybody stays healthy and that our stores are a safe place to work.

How have your customers stepped up?

I know a number of people who used their stimulus checks to buy books and kind of fill up their personal libraries. We sold a lot of gift certificates — 50 percent more than we would have during that time of year — to people who just wanted to make sure that we still had the cash to survive and get through this. We’re really grateful for that. It’s been encouraging to know that people really wanted us to be here when it was all over. There were those who told us they considered us an essential business because being able to access books is so vital to their lives, and that’s been nice to hear.

How did it feel, being named New Hampshire Retailer of the Year?

We’ve been a member of the New Hampshire Retail Association for quite a number of years, but I had never been aware of the award until I heard that a local person had nominated us for it. I thought, ‘Well, that’s nice,’ but I didn’t think we would actually win. There are so many retailers in the state, and I think that anybody who’s still in business after [the pandemic] is deserving of an award. But we’ve been here for 50 years now, so it was nice to get that recognition.

How are things looking now?

It’s pretty close to normal. We still have no chairs and still don’t encourage lingering, but people can come in and browse again. We’re doing our best to make sure people enjoy being able to come into the store and get out and about while also making sure people stay safe and healthy when they come in.

Featured photo: Willard Williams with wife and Toadstool co-owner Holly Williams. Courtesy photo.

Youth artwork highlights mental health issues

New Hampshire middle school and high school students are invited to submit original artwork centered around mental health for the Magnify Voices Expressive Arts Contest, which includes a showcase of the finalists’ pieces to be held during Children’s Mental Health Awareness Month in May. Michele Watson, New Hampshire Family Network Coordinator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and one of the organizers of the contest, discussed children’s mental health in the state and how youth are using art to raise awareness of and destigmatize mental illness.

What are the biggest mental health issues affecting youth in New Hampshire right now?

Anxiety and depression are some of the biggest that we’re seeing right now. Anxiety is through the roof, especially during the pandemic this year. There are many children [having mental health issues] now who have never had them before. For some, it’s so bad that they won’t go to school. They don’t even want to come out of their room.

How is art useful for addressing those and other children’s mental health issues?

Art lets children express themselves in a way that they may not be able to do in a conversation. Instead of just talking about it, they can show it and demonstrate it. It’s good not only for them to be able to share their voice, but also because it gives [adults] a better understanding of what they are feeling.

What kinds of art pieces does the contest feature?

We’ve had a range of videos. … In one video, a group of students each wrote a diagnosis on their forehead, and at the end of the video, they erased the words from their forehead, and the message was, ‘I’m not my diagnosis.’ We had another video where a boy who has ADHD is sitting in a classroom, and the teacher is talking, and the video is showing everything else that he is aware of rather than paying attention to what the teacher is saying. … We also had a lot of poems both years. One poem that really stood out to me was a middle schooler talking about her anxiety being like a tornado that would wrap around her tighter and tighter. … One of the art pieces was a drawing, where the student drew her inner self and her outer self to show how they don’t match and how what people see from the outside is not what she is actually feeling on the inside.

Where does public awareness of and response to children’s mental health issues in New Hampshire stand as of now?

It’s so much better than it was in years past. We never used to talk about this stuff. No one wanted to say that something was wrong with their child. … If you want to look at the silver lining of the pandemic, [children’s mental health] has gotten so much more attention. … Schools are really learning a lot and educating their staff, and more people are starting to understand that kids can’t learn if they’re struggling emotionally and mentally. … The kids are also doing a much better job of sharing all of this.

How can it be improved within the school and home?

A big part of this is identifying if this [behavior] is ‘just a teenager thing’ or ‘just a kid thing’ or if it’s something that’s leading to a bigger crisis … because a lot of times, the parents or caregivers don’t know. They think [the child] is choosing [that behavior] versus [having a mental health issue], and they don’t take it as seriously as they should. There’s a lack of understanding, like, ‘Oh, it’s just a phase. They’ll get over it. Everybody has anxiety.’ We hear [statements] like that a lot. Well, yes, everybody does have anxiety, but not everybody has debilitating anxiety where they can’t even walk into a classroom without getting butterflies and feeling like they’re going to be sick. … We have an information and resource line, both through email and an 800 number, where families and schools or anybody can get help identifying those needs earlier on. We do a lot of training [programs] to help families … [where] we teach about brain science and about different diagnoses and how … they can better support their children and how to deal with these situations.

How can it be improved on a state level?

We need more mental health care providers. Families have a hard time getting in [to see one]. They might have a six-month wait to get their child an appointment. … If a child [has] to be taken to the emergency room, there can be a very long wait to actually get a bed in a mental health facility. We’ve had up to 48 kids around the state in emergency rooms waiting, and some of them had to wait up to two weeks. We need to do a better job of identifying [mental health crises] before they get to that point, and if they do, we need to be able to get [children] the help they need sooner than they’re getting it now.

Magnify Voices Expressive Arts Contest
The contest is open to youth in grades 5 through 12. Submissions must be related to mental health and may include a short film (under 2 minutes), an essay or poem (under 1,000 words), a song or a two- or three-dimensional art piece. The deadline is March 31. Visit tinyurl.com/magnifyvoices2021

Featured photo: Michele Watson