Homeless in Manchester

By Brian Early on Wednesday, January 17, 2007.

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Power in many New Hampshire homes is still out thanks to Monday's ice storm.

For many that means no heat or hot water...no way to cook and no way to keep food cold.

But some NH residents live like that year round, because they've got no place to call home.

NHPR Corespondent Brian Early has this report on what it's like to be homeless in Manchester on these cold winter days.

(John) When you start don't feeling your legs, you go whoops, it's time to do something. So i figure i come to the Red Arrow, have me a hot cup of coffee, sit back an relax, and warm up a little bit.

That's John, a Manchester man who says he's been homeless for the past year.

He walked into the twenty-four hour Red Arrow Diner at four a.m., after sleeping in an alley,

He calls it a hallway.

It dropped to 8 degrees Tuesday night, but with the windchill, it was five below.

He says after he warms up, he's good for another hour or two outside.

I've got on two sweatshirts, a tee shirt and a coat. Long johns. You don't, you're going to freeze to death. You don't feel frostbite. It just happens. You get frostbite on your legs. After while it's like chapped skin. It cracks and it bleeds, and then you're in deep poop.

John says he used to install signs and do electrical work.

Now, he gets work occasionally â€“ not enough to pay rent--so he's been on the streets, this time around for a year.

But people aren't forced to sleep on the street, if they don't want.

New Horizons Soup Kitchen is an emergency shelter for adults in Manchester.

On Tuesday night, they housed 80 people from the elements in cafeteria that doubles as the man sleeping quarters.

We have a lot more people here in the winter. We have a lot more people eating here in the winter.

That's Carlton Greene, one of the case workers at New Horizons.

Pretty much anyone who shows up at anytime can get a place to stay. The capacity is 76 people, but we've never turned anyone away in the three years I've been here.

Paul Gagnon's a regular. He's been here for two years.

He says he worked at Raytheon for twenty-three years, but was diagnosed with a memory problem, and deemed unemployable.

He plans to live here until he turns 55 in the next year, when he starts to receive his pension.

It's all going to come together at once. I'm going to go from not being able to rub two nickels together to be able to get back to my feet again, and back to a normal way of life. I was terrified when I first got here, stayed to myself. I didn't want to talk to anybody. The counselors downstairs got me to open up. I started doing chores to keep up the time. You make the best of what you got. If you sit and feel sorry for yourself, nothings going to happen. If you try to stay active, it makes life better for you.

But John, back at the Red Arrow Diner says that although he eats meals occasionally at New Horizons, he doesn't want to stay there.

He claims his backpack, wallet and watch were stolen by another guy living there.

He has bedding, but it's been frozen since the ice storm, and he estimates it will take a week to dry it out.

The temperature is expected to warm up some over the next few days.

But winter seems to have finally hit New Hampshire, so it won't be warming up by much.

For NHPR News in Manchester, I'm Brian Early.