Jennifer Iacovelli | Tedford Housing

Giving Voice: The many contributions of the business community

September 26, 2019 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

The following article was published in The Times Record on 9/20/19 and written by Jennifer Iacovelli, Tedford Housing’s director of development.

You often hear nonprofits talk about how they couldn’t do their important work without the support of the business community. This statement is true, but it can be hard to put into words how much this support really does make a difference.

First, let’s be clear about what “support” means. While monetary donations are amazing and necessary to help keep Tedford Housing’s programs and services alive for our neighbors most in need, many businesses go above and beyond sending along a check. In fact, we love it when we actually get to work alongside our business supporters. This may be in the form of volunteering or just visiting our offices to find out what’s going on with our clients and what their needs and challenges are in finding and maintaining stable, permanent housing.

Atlantic Federal Credit Union, Bath Savings Institution, Camden National Bank, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Five County Credit Union, Home Sweet Maine Realty, Mechanics Savings Bank and Norway Savings Bank, for example, all participate in various state and local initiatives that directly support nonprofits who provide basic needs services to the community. Not only do these local businesses send along checks to Tedford Housing, they hand deliver said checks and make it a point to learn about our services and offer their help in other ways. I remember I once had a group from Camden National Bank delivering holiday gifts for me one year when I was short on time. They had a blast playing Santa for a day.

As you may know, Tedford Housing partners with Pathway Vineyard Church to bring a free Christmas store to families in need during the holidays. We get tremendous support from local businesses during this huge effort. Carter’s Freeport has donated brand new beautiful pajamas to Tedford Housing’s smallest clients through the Pajama Program. Eaton Peabody and Bilodeau Insurance Agency always make their way over to support us with holiday gifts from their staff. Mid Coast Medical Group held a sock drive for our adult shelter. Employees from the LL Bean safety division and Brunswick Taxi put their resources together for their own donation drives for Tedford’s clients during the holidays.

There’s also Mustard Seed Bookstore who quietly inquires about the kids at our family shelter during the holidays and then hand picks literary gifts for them. Now You’re Cooking held a promotion for customers to bring their dull knives back to the store for credit for new ones and donated the turned in knives, newly sharpened, to Tedford. Wyler’s donated proceeds of sales during their busy holiday shopping season along with items collected from our wish list. Liberty Mutual in Lewiston helped us purchase warm winter items for all 16 guests in our adult shelter.

We may receive our largest amount of donations during the holiday months, but we certainly see donations coming in throughout the year. J & J Cleaners was happy to clean donated blankets so we could provide them to a shelter guest moving into housing. Bisson Moving and Storage helps us when we are in a pinch and need to move a larger amount of furniture donations, delivering them to their new homes. We also love working with SimplySized Home who thinks of Tedford Housing when cleaning out their clients’ homes who are downsizing. Our clients moving into permanent housing end up with everything they need to start fresh in a new place.

With Tedford Housing focused on housing, we rely on volunteers to provide meals every night of the year at our adult shelter. Some of the local restaurants that chip in every month to provide meals include The Great Impasta, Mae’s Café, Scarlet Begonias, Richard’s Restaurant and Sam’s / Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gelato Fiasco provided gelato for a fun “garden to table” meal at our family shelter this summer, while Wild Oats Bakery added bread and Scatter Good Farm gave us a beautiful box of freshly gleaned produce to add to the meal. Volunteers also pick up donations of pastries and coffee twice per week from Starbucks and deliver the goods to our shelter. Wicked Joe Coffee Roasting Co. generously gives us 5lbs / month of their yummy roasts.

This is not an exhaustive list of Tedford Housing’s business supporters by any means, but it paints a good picture of the partnerships that exist in our community. We haven’t even mentioned the faith community, local schools and other nonprofit community partners who help us with meals for the shelter, volunteer their time or donate proceeds from events and donation drives.

It may sound cliché but nonprofits like Tedford Housing really couldn’t do the work we do without that extra support from the local business community. If your business would like to become more involved with Tedford Housing, feel free to reach out to me at jennifer@tedfordhousing.org.

Giving Voice: Flipping the Calendar to Volunteer Opportunities

August 28, 2019 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

The following art icle was published in The Times Record on 8/23/19 and written by Jennifer Iacovelli, the director of development for Tedford Housing and author of Simple Giving: Easy Ways to Give Every Day.

It’s funny how mindsets tend to change with the flip of the calendar. It seems like Mainers – and those tourists visiting our amazing Vacationland state – start to realize colder weather and the realities of a more structured schedule lie ahead once July turns into August. Summer-themed items are a thing of the past in stores and the back to school supplies are starting to get replaced by Halloween decorations.

I was lucky enough to squeeze in a vacation with my two sons between the end of summer track and the beginning of football practices. Since being back from vacation I’ve been focused on getting backpacks filled with school supplies and clothes from the Ready Set Go to Learn (RSG2L) program (which I wrote about in a Giving Voice column published last year) for Tedford Housing’s school-aged clients. I’m also prepping for two visits from Bowdoin student volunteers for orientation and the college’s annual Common Good Day. Students will be back on campus before we know it.

Our board members will start meeting again on a monthly basis, along with the important and focused committee work that will begin again. I’m also starting to think about the upcoming Warm Thy Neighbor season, which provides one-time, emergency heating assistance to extremely low-income families and individuals in the community. And, believe it or not, I also have our annual Christmas Store on the brain. We look forward to partnering with Pathway Vineyard Church once again to provide a free “store” for the families we serve during the holiday season.

The realities of my job make me feel so fortunate that I am able to take my kids on a short vacation purely for our leisure. The outreach work by our case managers to neighbors in the community who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless continues to rise. Our two homeless shelters for individuals and families continue to remain full. Worries are heightened as the start of school gets closer and the temperatures begin to dip.

The good news is that there are always silver linings to our work. There are the success stories of those individuals and families moving into permanent housing. There’s the help we receive from volunteers who sort the donations of household items, toiletries and cleaning supplies from generous supporters to help people set up their new homes. There are our regular supportive housing tenants who are helping to coordinate a crew that will put together a new playset we were able to purchase with funding from the Rotary Club of Bath. We are also elated to hear that the Merrymeeting Project for homeless youth, which Tedford Housing could no longer fund, has a new home with the Midcoast Community Alliance.

That flip of the calendar from the carefree summer vacation mode to more serious school and work mode often gives people new motivation to help others. I tend to see a spike in inquiries regarding volunteer opportunities or ways people can contribute to our everyday work in the community creating pathways from homelessness to home. If you feel so inclined to be more involved with Tedford Housing, I’d love to chat with you. Our summer fellow from Bowdoin, Elise Hocking, did a great job identifying more volunteer opportunities for us. These opportunities include picking up and delivering meals to the shelter, making packets for our RentSmart programs for shelter guests, helping us maintain our wait list, sorting donations or managing our volunteer schedule. I’m also open to your ideas around helping to support Tedford Housing and the people we serve. Feel free to give me a call at 207-729-1161, ext. 101 or send me an email at jennifer@tedfordhousing.org.

Giving Voice: Thinking Long-term with Supportive Housing

May 20, 2019 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

The following article was published in The Times Record on 5/3/19 and written by Jennifer Iacovelli, Tedford Housing’s director of development.

Between 2005 and 2011, Tedford Housing embarked on a campaign to develop six supportive housing facilities for previously homeless individuals and families. These buildings, located in Brunswick, Bath, Lewiston, Auburn and Augusta, offered permanent housing with key case management services attached to them. Tenants have regular leases and no predetermined or expected length of stay.

Supportive housing provides a vital platform for people to move forward in other areas of their lives like employment, education and improved health. Using a Housing First approach, Tedford Housing’s 37 supportive units provide safe, clean and affordable apartments with on-site case management for previously homeless individuals and families. Many are occupied by adults and families who have experienced disabling conditions like mental illness and/or substance abuse and/or catastrophic events like domestic violence that have resulted in homelessness. Many have had multiple shelter stays.

According to HUD, taking a Housing First approach means that individuals and families experiencing homelessness are quickly connected to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements. While still a relatively new approach, it has seen some promising results in keeping tenants in housing and off the streets and/or out of shelters. Tedford’s supportive housing case management services include assistance with applying to available benefits such as MaineCare and SSI, referrals to job training and employment services, coordination of services with health care providers, crisis prevention, referrals to substance abuse counseling and treatment, assistance with basic living skills and mitigating landlord-tenant issues.

The services and resources that supportive housing provides are essential for people like Brian. Brian, 44, has lived in our Everett Street supportive housing unit since 2013. He had been in and out of homelessness, with several stays at Tedford’s adult shelter, since 2009. At one point, he had sold two cars and quit a job in Maine with the hope and promise of a job from a friend who was living in South Carolina, only to find out that the job fell through when he arrived. When he came back home to Maine, without a car or a job, his mom drove him to Tedford Housing.

The two biggest barriers to finding housing for Brian were high rents and location. His mother and daughter live in Woolwich so it was important for him to be somewhat close to them. His advice for people who find themselves in and out of homelessness as he did is to be patient. Finding housing can take time when you factor in the paperwork, searching and waiting for vouchers and available units. He was lucky to get the call from Tedford’s shelter alerting him of an open unit becoming available at Everett Street.

Located in the heart of Brunswick, Everett Street offers easy access to the essentials. The location is a quick walk to Hannaford, RiteAid, Curtis Memorial Library and to Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, where Brian also volunteers. Without transportation, it’s important for Brian and other tenants to be able to walk or take the bus. They can hop on the Brunswick Explorer from Hannaford and get to places like Walmart and Sweetser. Brian is thankful for the support he gets from Tedford and says they are “good people to work with.”

Brian says that the best part about living at Everett Street is the community. There are eight single studio units. People tend to keep to themselves, he says, but they are there for each other if someone needs help. He is appreciative of the support from case management and from the community, especially during the holidays.

The average length of stay for tenants at Everett Street is 4.2 years, and the average length of stay across all of our supportive housing units is 2.7. While evictions still do occur in supportive housing, some tenants also end up moving on to other permanent housing option and pay market rental rates. Many, like Brian, thrive in the supportive housing setting and have no immediate plans to move from their found community.

Giving Voice: Spring cleaning and donations that spark joy

April 22, 2019 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

The following article was published in The Times Record on 5/5/19 and written by Jennifer Iacovelli, Tedford Housing’s director of development.

It may or may not feel like spring when this article publishes. The calendar says April, but we live in Maine. The only thing that’s inevitable right now is the potholes.

Regardless, the sunshine is brightening our days and the snow is slowly melting its way out of our lives, with the exception of those piles of snow in the darkest areas of our yards.

With spring often comes spring cleaning. While Tedford Housing enjoys a steady stream of in-kind donations year round, we tend to see an increase in these donations around spring time. (For those not familiar with the term, in-kind donations are those non-cash donations of goods or services.)

I’ve had to call in some of my trusty volunteers to help sort donations of sheets, towels, baking sheets and other household items more than a few times since January. According to some media reports, nonprofits have seen a spike in in-kind donations due to the popularity of the Netflix show, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. The show is centered on the idea of decluttering one’s space and, to some extent, their lives at the same time.

Kondo encourages her clients to “tidy up” in their houses by category, holding items in their hands to see if they “spark joy” to them. If the items don’t spark joy, then it is time to let them go. While I can’t make a direct correlation between the show and the amount of donations we currently have in the admin office at Tedford Housing, I do know that we are the beneficiary of many of our neighbor’s efforts to declutter.

If more people are getting rid of their unwanted household items, this can be a good thing for nonprofits. As I write this, we have several individuals and families moving out of our shelters and into permanent housing. These donations from decluttering neighbors help give our clients a new start with actual dishes for their kitchens, towels for their bathrooms and sheet sets for their beds.

As a nonprofit professional who handles donations in her organization, I challenge you to use the same method for donating as you would for tidying up with Marie Kondo. You may not want to hold every unwanted item in your house and ask if it sparks joy for a certain organization, but some parameters around donating these items to make the most impact could be helpful to those who find themselves wondering what to do once they have a big pile of joy-less (for you) items.

If you are not a seasoned in-kind donor, the first step you may want to take is to figure out which organization you want to support with your donation and visit their website. If you don’t have an organization in mind, think of a cause you want to support (e.g., housing, food security, animal welfare, environment, etc.) and do a quick google search for organizations near you. Many organizations will list items they will accept – and not accept – as donations. This research can save you a bit of time and ensure you find a good match for your items.

Conversely, you could also google the item you have and the word donation in your area (i.e., “clothes donation in Brunswick”). In addition to the organization’s website, you may also check their social media accounts to see if they post their most needed items. (I do so on Tedford’s Facebook page from time to time and see other orgs, like Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, doing the same. We often share each other’s lists too!)

Once you figure out where you want your donation to go, the next step is to figure out when and where to drop off your donation. Keep in mind that some organizations, like Tedford, have more than one location and some locations may not have the staffing or the space to accept donations. (I accept donations for Tedford at our admin office during business hours and distribute the items to those who need it most from there.)

I love helping donors make the most of their donation. Though I can’t speak for all development directors, I love when people contact me directly about a donation. I can’t tell you how often I hear “I want to make sure my donation helps someone who truly needs it.” Oftentimes a donation, though not needed in their home, does have some sentimental value to the donor. If we don’t take the items in question, I will do my best to steer them to an organization that does need their donation. Even random sheets in questionable condition may be welcomed with open arms at an animal shelter! When in doubt, just ask someone who handles donations on a daily basis. We’re happy to help you “tidy up.”

Giving Voice: What happens when people are turned away from Brunswick’s homeless shelter?

March 13, 2019 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

The following article was published in The Times Record on 3/8/19 and written by Jennifer Iacovelli, Tedford Housing’s director of development.

At a recent town council meeting in Brunswick, Tedford Housing’s director of operations, Giff Jamison, was compelled to speak at the podium during the public comment time related to the council’s vote on extending the current moratorium ordinance on the location of shelters. He was among several other community members who used the time to speak their mind on the moratorium and shelters in our area in general.

Giff shared a story of a couple who walked into Tedford’s administrative office on a particularly cold afternoon. It was in the single digits that day with wind chills expected to dip below zero that night. This couple was sleeping in a tent and considered literally homeless, meaning that they lack a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.” There wasn’t a bed available at our emergency shelter that night. He was quoted in the Times Record the next day saying how the conversation became about hoping these two individuals “would survive the night.”

Tedford Housing’s “turn away” numbers have been shared quite frequently over the past few months. In our fiscal year 2018, we had to turn away 354 adults and 228 families who called upon us to access emergency housing. These numbers represent a significant amount of households who are homeless or on the brink of becoming homeless. Unfortunately, the numbers have held steady over the past few years.

Merriam-Webster defines the term “safety net” as “something that provides security against misfortune or difficulty.” When we talk about the safety net of social services, people often think of public assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) or general assistance.

Hearing our numbers, you might ask yourself what is the safety net that exists for folks who Tedford Housing cannot immediately house with temporary shelter. For us, the safety net encompasses more than just the traditional public assistance.

When someone calls or walks into our office looking for help, we ask where they slept the night before and if they have a place to sleep that evening to help determine the immediacy of the need. If Tedford’s shelters are full and a person or family is without adequate housing for the night, we may suggest they access a shelter in another area such as Lewiston or Portland. Part of the safety net is working collaboratively with other shelters and providers to cast a wide net of resources. A more official statewide effort to connect people experiencing homelessness with resources, coordinated entry, is set to roll out this year. Families may be put on our waiting list for our family shelter and individuals may be encouraged to call our adult shelter on a regular basis to inquire about open beds.

The person’s ties to the area may compel them to stay in the area, even in an unsafe situation. In that case, we connect the individual to one of Tedford’s case managers. The case manager’s primary job, as we wrote about in our last Giving Voice article, is to identify and address the barriers that are keeping clients from obtaining or maintaining housing. Tedford’s case managers can get people started with a housing search or applying for vouchers, SNAP or general assistance. Oftentimes the first step is helping people obtain necessary documentation, such as birth certificates or social security cards, so they have what they need for the above mentioned applications. Case managers may also help clients connect with medical care providers, setting up appointments with places like Oasis Free Clinics or re-connecting them with a primary care provider. The goal is to make sure the client is in a position to be able to apply for housing.

As I wrote this article, I was interrupted by a visitor to our admin office. He was a young man looking for help with housing. I won’t share his details but he was young enough that I asked him his age so that I could refer him to the most appropriate case manager. I asked questions, made sure he had a place to go, told him about The Gathering Place and gave him the phone numbers he needed to start working on a plan. It was before our regular business hours, so he couldn’t talk directly to a case manager. He didn’t have a phone but said he’d use his friend’s phone to make calls and appointments. The mom in me hopes he makes those phone calls.

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