Visit Tedford’s table this summer to create an inspiring shrinky dink for yourself or a friend. Courtesy of Tedford Housing
Summer is a time of stretching at Tedford. We have cleared clutter and set up desks for two brilliant interns, who will bolster both our client-facing work and administration. An expanded corps of volunteers are tabling all over town at community events and fundraisers, including Brunswick PRIDE this Sunday, Big Top Deli next Saturday, June 15, and Darling’s Brunswick Car Show on Saturday, June 22.
When you stop by the Tedford table you may be invited to make a shrinky dink. With this piece of brittle plastic “paper,” you can decorate, heat, and then watch your design pucker and re-form into a small, sturdy souvenir, with every tiny detail preserved. I like to add a hole-punch and turn mine into a keychain. With a shrinky dink anyone can choose a message that matters to them, and quickly churn out a cute keepsake that serves as a continual reminder.
One of my favorite Tedford shrinky dink designs says Keep Reaching Out. In our age of intersecting social epidemics, many of us are in need of more human connection. On an individual level this might mean showing up to check out a club meeting, inviting an acquaintance for coffee, or just taking out our earbuds at the grocery store. As gorgeous days draw us off the couch, having more fulsome encounters with everyone from co-workers to clerks might be a refreshing reprieve from following the feeds on our phones.
Re-building a person’s stabilizing connections to systems, community, and most of all housing, is the core work of Tedford’s case managers. A year ago, Tedford stretched to add a new case manager role that would allow us to help more of our neighbors access supportive services and accelerate the resolution of their housing crises, even if our shelters were full. But sometimes stretching runs up against the hard math of limited supply; a shortage of care professionals means that position is still unfilled.
As Tedford prepares to break ground on an expanded shelter facility, we know workforce challenges, specifically the need to offer the best pay and benefits, will continue to be a limiting factor in our service to the community. This points to a paradox in the politics of funding the social safety net. On one hand, new housing infrastructure projects like Tedford’s have benefited enormously from federal and state funds. At the same time, our day-to-day operating needs took a huge hit when the state legislature passed but did not fund LD 2136, which would have distributed $10 million among the state’s shelter network.
Although they did fund a smaller bill to support five low-barrier shelters, for many of the other 32 shelters statewide, the outlook is grim. Tedford has reserved a modest cushion in case of hard times, but in the coming year we will deploy our newly-sharpened fundraising skills to boost annual fund donations by a whopping 40% year-on-year. It’s a big stretch, but our community has shown it will support Tedford’s mission of empowering people to move from homelessness to home, if we get out there and make the case.
Shelters are not alone on the state funding roller coaster. Just this week, we learned about budget-driven cuts to school-based youth mental health services, even as child homelessness in Maine has grown over 50% in one year. I couldn’t help but wonder: How much will it cost taxpayers and philanthropists to get so many derailed adult lives back on track, because we would not care for them today as children?
We need more policy makers to think long-term about the costs and benefits of funding our safety net, so in the coming year Tedford will be stretching to have a greater presence in Augusta. We’re going to testify on a broader range of bills, meet with more legislators, and keep reaching out. In the meantime, when you see our table please stop by and create something to remind yourself, or a friend, to stretch this summer.
Andrew Lardie is president of the Tedford Housing Board of Directors. Giving Voice is a weekly collaboration among four local non-profit service agencies to share information and stories about their work in the community.
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