Pastor spends a week
as homeless man
By ELISE CASTELLI
Union Leader Correspondent
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006
DERRY – Preparing to embark on a week-long journey as a homeless person in southern New Hampshire, Rev. Fred Cheney transformed himself from pastor to pauper before his congregation one August Sunday.
His message to parishioners at the Central Congregational Church was startling: anyone can become homeless.
“It’s something everybody is concerned about, but I wanted to do more than just preach on it, I wanted to live it,” he said.
During his week of homelessness, Cheney quickly learned how a minor inconvenience — a broken pair of glasses, a wet pair of socks, a hot day — become major obstacles to survival.
“There is a certain amount of low self-esteem that comes with being homeless,” Cheney said. The inability to change clothes, shower or just sit and rest is soul-crushing, he said. At times, it left even Cheney — who had an escape route — downtrodden.
But he found a tight network of homeless people, he said. Within his first two hours, a homeless friend had bought Cheney a sandwich and told him where he could find shelter in the shelter-less town of Derry.
Boarding a bus in Manchester with just $3 in his pocket, Cheney, 55, asked if there was a discount for seniors, only to be told by the driver, “See the paper there? There are 300 jobs in the paper and you can have the paper for free.” “She didn’t know my background,” Cheney said
of the bus driver. But neither did the man who followed him off the bus and handed him $5. The man told Cheney that he, too, had been homeless but found his way out of alcohol addiction and into a job and home through the New Horizons shelter, where Cheney was headed.
“There are people who want to emerge from the lifestyle and Manchester had a lot of things in place to help people get out of it,” Cheney recalled. From drug and alcohol treatment to job training and counseling, New Horizons provides a strong foundation on which homeless in the area can build a future, he said.
Since his week on the street, Cheney’s church has taken a more active role in aiding the homeless community. Through a ministry called Central Hope, the church is providing financial support to food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and faith-based organizations to help meet the needs of Derry’s homeless.
“Derry doesn’t have a big city feel or a lot of services a big city has and as Derry gets bigger it’s going to have to face these issues,” he said. “As a bedroom community, we haven’t woken up to the needs of the homeless in the area.”
Homeless find help is hard to get HELP
By ELISE CASTELLI
Union Leader Correspondent
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006
DERRY – When Jane was on the brink of homelessness in 2000, she turned to the town of Derry’s human services and housing departments for help and was turned away.
“The state was very limited. When I first moved to Derry they told me to go to Salem because ‘we can’t help you,’” she said. “Someone once told me I fell through the cracks of the system and I agree, that’s usually what ends up happening to me.”
Rev. Fred Cheney, pastor of Derry’s Central Congregational Church, had a similar experience when he decided to spend a portion of the summer voluntarily homeless. He said other homeless people were the most helpful in offering him advice as to where to find shelter (often unlocked church doors) and food (the Sonshine Soup Kitchen downtown).
“I hadn’t been homeless for more than a couple of hours when a homeless person provided me with a good meal. There is a strong network of homeless helping each other,” he said.
“The state agencies and the town departments were not very helpful,” he said, noting the government agencies directed him to shelters out of town, but transportation other than by foot was nearly impossible to come by. “Funds are at a premium.”
The Derry Housing and Redevelopment Authority has a 200-person waiting list for 100 federally funded housing vouchers, said Scott Slattery, the executive director. With rents topping $1,000 a month, Slattery said, “There is a need for workforce housing in Derry that’s affordable.”
Slattery said he refers those willing to leave Derry to Manchester, where there is a larger housing authority and a greater availability of vouchers.
Tight budgets also force the Derry Human Services Department to make referrals for those they cannot help. The office uses its $380,000 budget to serve between 150 and 250 clients a week, offering help with rent, groceries, medication and fuel subsidies, Director Pat Raimo said.
Jane, 40, who asked not to have her last name used, said she spent her last $35 to get to the New Horizons shelter in Manchester, where she spent the first six months of 2000. There, she got the social services she needed — job training, help with a Section Eight housing voucher and other aid, and a social worker from Center for Life Management.
Now back in Derry, working at Wendy’s and renting an apartment, Jane believes the process could have gone more quickly if there had been a shelter in Derry.
For those who are homeless but with a source of income, Raimo is able to offer a list of housing referrals. Those without income are referred to the closest shelter with an opening, she said.
Sometimes that means Manchester, other times Nashua or Portsmouth, and transportation is not always available.
The lack of a car or public transportation in western Rockingham County
