The Upper Valley Haven, a nonprofit organization in White River Junction, Vt. that provides food, clothing and shelter for Upper Valley residents in need, has experienced a 45-percent increase in visits to its food shelf and increased demand for its shelter facilities during the past year as a result of the economic downturn straining the shelter's material and volunteer resources, development director Liz Verney told The Dartmouth this week.
The Haven, which is currently run by 13 staff members and more than 150 volunteers, currently provides a week's worth of food to 6,096 families, Verney said, and is the only shelter within a 25-mile radius. The closest alternative shelters are in Claremont, Vt., and Rutland, Vt., she said, adding that many shelters and social service agencies have closed due to financial difficulty leading more people to turn to the Haven for assistance.
"We have people coming in from other towns to get stuff because there's nothing in the town where they're at," said Daniel Flanders, a homeless resident of the Upper Valley who relies on assistance from the Haven and recently began volunteering at the organization.
From October 2008 to October 2009, the Haven provided a full week's worth of food 16,739 times, an increase from approximately 10,000 full weeks' worth of food the previous year, Verney said, attributing this jump to growing unemployment in the Upper Valley due to the recession.
"We don't expect it to get any better at all, because people can't pay their mortgages and are losing their houses," Verney said.
Although food from the Haven is free for anyone in need, families are limited to withdrawing one week's worth of food each month, Verney said. The Haven's food shelf is meant to supplement a family's food needs, not to be a family's only food source, she said.
The increase in traffic has meant that the Haven has less food available for visitors, especially bread, and has occasionally run out of particular items, Verney said. The Haven has not yet had to refuse food service to anyone, instead supplementing donations by buying more food and monitoring food distribution more carefully, she said.
"We've been appealing to the public to do more food drives and to support us financially," she said.
Mary Ellen Flanagan, a volunteer at the Haven since its opening in 1981, said that although in the past two volunteers were needed to manage food and clothing distribution during each shift, the shelter now works to have at least four people on hand to handle the increased demand.
The Haven has also seen increased use of its shelter facilities, which are open to homeless families with minor children, Verney said. Families may stay in the shelter until family members feel financially stable enough to live on their own, Verney said.
The waitlist for living space at the shelter is longer than it has ever been, Verney said. The shelter is often forced to turn people away due to a lack of beds, although volunteers work to help families find short-term alternatives like discounted motel rooms, she said.
"The average length of stay is usually around three to four months, though we've noticed that the length of stay has been increasing continuously since the recession," Verney said. "People are finding it more and more difficult to get a job."
The shelter has 46 beds and can sleep up to eight families at a time, Verney said. A separate shelter for homeless adults without minor children is under construction next door to the Haven, and will house up to 20 homeless adults when it opens in May 2010, she said. There is already a waiting list for room in that shelter, she said.
Flanders said he expects the number of people seeking assistance from the Haven to continue increasing throughout the next few months.
"We've experienced heavy traffic in the last four to five months, and of course it always gets busier around Thanksgiving and Christmas," Flanders said. "It's also especially busy toward the end of the month, because people don't get enough in food stamps, and many of the elderly are on fixed monthly incomes."
Dartmouth students frequently volunteer at the Haven, Verney said. Students are especially active in the shelter's Homework Club, an after-school program that provides homework help and childcare.
