NORTHAMPTON On a busy afternoon at Haymarket Cafe in the heart of downtown Northampton Tricia McDonough, 26 from Easthampton MA and a barista makes the call to the Northampton Police Department because someone has locked themselves in a bathroom and seems to be unresponsive. The problem first surfaced when several customers asked to use the bathroom over a 30 minute period, but ended up waiting and knocking on the locked door.
Through the sea of sound of a dozen conversations and the occasional clank of dishes, several staff were roused, one after another knocking on and calling through the bathroom door more annoyed than worried, because people who are homeless and between homes sometimes fall asleep at Haymarket, one of the few commercial businesses in town to welcome the needy. “Only reason we called is because we couldn’t wake them up ourselves. Otherwise we would have let them be.”
Haymarket has a common account that allows customers to donate towards meals the restaurant serves to individuals who cannot afford a full price meal. Donations amount to 70%-80% of the 20 meals Haymarket serves under the plan, though occasionally 100% of the meals are covered. “A majority of people leave $1 because they think it’s the tip jar. Others leave $5/$10 once they read the sign on the jar.”
McDonough finds that other customers try not to interact with panhandlers or the homeless at all. Some of the more regular customers may say hi or buy them coffee, but this isn’t a common occurrence. In addition to the Common Account, Haymarket’s policy seems to be one of tolerance. “It is often the case people fall asleep and we try to wake them up. If they are responsive we let them be.” A few of the baristas have even taken it upon themselves to get Narcan training.
The young man who fell asleep in the bathroom wakes up to an EMT and a Police Officer in the opened door. He stands up and walks out on his own, the First Responders drag their packs back out the door just as another customer slips into the bathroom.
Not every visitor to Haymarket leaves on their own. McDonough has had to push people out, some who were crying and have no where else to go. Many shelters in town have early curfews and none of the staff are trained to handle psychiatric issues, nor do they know who to call other than the police.
Jade Lovett, director of Craigs Place in Amherst has an agreement with the church is that no item is left in the shelter. The shelter operates out of the church basement and provides 20 cots for men and a separate room for six women. Her staff tries to discourage guests from putting personal belongings in bins that are kept at the shelter, because she cannot guarantee access except at night when the shelter operates.
Craigs Place opens its doors at 9:30 p.m. At 9 p.m. a line begins to form on the stairway. Some men and women talk and smoke cigarettes casually, one man sings to himself, headphones covering his ears, others seem heavy with silence, a few turn their faces away. Lovett says one of the biggest challenges she faces is “bridging the gap between us and them.” “Guests notice when they are being looked down upon, shunned, made invisible.”
Invisible clients make funding for Craig’s Place a perennial favorite for cutting or trimming. “If we don’t get state funding we can’t operate.” Lovett says while current funding level allows Craig’s Place to operate, it is not sufficient. She plans to continue to diversify funding. To attract more donations and to qualify for grants Lovett has to diversify services.
In June 2017 Craigs Place opened its Resource Trailer, quite literally a trailer in a UMass parking lot, a place for guests to store belongings who would otherwise need to carry all of their possessions all day, everywhere. The Resource Trailer also offers guests a place to hang out. “Guests are herded from one place to another everywhere else, so the trailer is a place where they can feel free to be.”
Due to staffing limitations the trailer is open for only a few hours a day, Monday through Thursday. The trailer is also Lovett’s office, who in addition to the shelter’s case manager serve as a touch point connecting her guests to services like housing, social services, doctors, detox, domestic violence as well as Mass Health and SSI.
Lovett says psychiatric services can be hard to access. “If someone has a crisis at 3AM there’s no one to come get them. I’ve sat with guests for hours at hospitals with them without getting help.” Lovett says guests feel the volume of psychiatric services is inadequate, but the services they do get are high quality, and that the psychiatric staff are doing as much as they can.
ServiceNet offices inhabit two brick buildings on King Street in Northampton. One looks reminiscent of a castle, sturdy and rounded. Amy Swisher the Director of Marketing for ServiceNet meets me in the other, less formidable building. ServiceNet is a provider of many mental health services in the region with more than 1,500 employees state wide. ServiceNet is a conglomeration of several service provides who united under one name in 1985, but of those providers the earliest was the Hampshire Association for Mental Health or HAMH, founded in 1965 as an advocacy group for patients at Northampton State Hospital.
In 1973 HAMH opened a day treatment center for adults who were patients of the state hospital, and two years later the first halfway house for people ready to leave the state hospital.
Today a new contract between the state and ServiceNet for mental health services is being finalized, and “it will have a greater emphasis on clinical capabilities and capacity.” But ServiceNet did not win the contract for Crisis Support, that went to Clinical Support Options, an organization about half the size of ServiceNet. “Clinics are funded by MassHealth, funding controls how many staff are employed, as in the number of councilors who want to work for community mental health.” So regardless of which agency is hired to provide Crisis Support, if the funding levels are inadequate there may not be staff available when needed.
