One woman’s six-month search for shelter

During the six months Denise Isakson said she spent looking all over the state and into Vermont for an open shelter bed, she developed a system to get in daily phone calls to the 19 organizations that were keeping her name on their waitlists.

Through the days of repetitive dialing, she eventually learned the schedules of employees at the different shelters, like when they’d be in meetings and the right days to call. On Mondays, there was a call at 7. And daily, there was another call Isakson knew she had to make after 2.

Since becoming homeless, Isakson has explored several of the resources in the Monadnock region and beyond for those experiencing homelessness, all while navigating serious health concerns: She has a physical disability, and is holding off on high-risk back surgery until she has a permanent home to recover at.

For most of those six months, she said she slept in her car. But after it was towed in March, she said, she found herself in a motel and even on sidewalks.

Her search didn’t stop with shelters. She said she’s on waitlists for permanent housing through Keene Housing and Southwestern Community Services, and was also in touch with an outreach worker in the Keene Police Department.

“She had a lot of resources,” Isakson said of the outreach worker. “But the downfall was I had those same resources.”

Isakson said she even called Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s office, to no avail.

Her persistence — and some luck — finally got her a bed at the Hundred Nights shelter in Keene at the beginning of April. She’s been there ever since.

“Emotionally, I feel worn out. So this couldn’t have came at a better time,” she said.

It’s unsurprising to Becky Beaton, Hundred Nights executive director, that despite all of Isakson’s efforts, it took her half a year do so.

“It really is the nature of the beast,” Beaton said.

Isakson’s struggles to find shelter illustrate a statewide strain on the infrastructure intended to help people experiencing homelessness.

Shelters across New Hampshire — whether in urban or rural areas, in winter or summer — are full or nearly so, said Jennifer Chisholm, executive director of the N.H. Coalition to End Homelessness. This problem has been a central theme of regional roundtable discussions the organization has been hosting with homelessness service providers and others across the state.

“They’re seeing that they’re at or near capacity even during the warmer weathers, which is a change that New Hampshire has experienced over time,” Chisholm said.

Locally, beds at Hundred Nights and Southwestern Community Services shelters are also consistently filled.

Experts say rising rates of homelessness are being driven in large part by the housing crisis plaguing New Hampshire and the rest of the country.

One day in March when Isakson, 46, was still looking, only 13 of the 775 year-round shelter beds that are state funded were open, a spokesperson for the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services said at the time.

Statewide data collected during the annual Point in Time Count show a 52.1 percent increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness, from 1,605 in 2022 to 2,441 in 2023. The statistic, which counts people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January each year, is generally considered an undercount, Chisholm said.

“We need more of everything,” Beaton said.

Some in the state Legislature have made efforts to support the struggling system. The House budget bill currently allocates $10 million over two years to cover the cost of emergency shelter for people with substance use or mental health disorders.

But even as shelters see swelling need, another promising effort from Concord to help has halted. At the beginning of this year, state lawmakers were considering legislation to infuse homeless services throughout New Hampshire with $15 million per year in 2026 and 2027. But Senate Bill 113 has seen no action since it was tabled shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, this biennial budget season has been tight, as lawmakers contend with decreased state revenues.

Short-lived vacancies

Isakson said she lost her home last October amid high living costs. Beaton, of Hundred Nights, said this is a common story.

The shelter on Water Street in Keene is at or near capacity every night, and has people on its informal waitlist hopeful for a bed, according to Beaton. Who gets one can come down to the luck of the draw.

Staff try to prioritize people in unsafe situations or who they know have been consistently looking, she said. But if one opens, and somebody happens to call, that bed is likely to go to them.

Beaton said the N.H. 211 system, which is run by the state health department, can help people experiencing homelessness connect with organizations and services.

“But we’re not tied into it in a like electronic way that they can see our waitlist or know how many people are looking for space. They just know whether or not we have … an open bed because we report that back to the state on a daily basis,” Beaton explained.

Since this happens only at the end of each day, there’s a lag. By the time Hundred Nights is contacted through the 211 system, Beaton said it’s common a bed’s already been filled.

Another challenge people can face accessing resources is making contact with services that can help, according to Beaton.

“I think the hard part is that people don’t necessarily know where else to go or who else to reach out to.” Town welfare offices should be a first step, she said, but they can be difficult to get in touch with. “When you live in rural New Hampshire, and the town welfare person only works two days a week for six-hour shifts, you may never even get a hold of that person,” she said.

Like Hundred Nights, Southwestern Community Services asks that people who need a bed to call regularly.

CEO Beth Daniels noted there are several ways people make contact with Southwestern Community Services to get one of its 85 year-round beds (up to 100 beds during the winter), whether that be by email, phone or just stopping by.

Daniels said people end up leaving their shelters for reasons including finding housing, entering a rehab program, exiting because they are a danger to themselves or others, hospitalization or they are moving out of the area.

“Most of the time, they are going to something else … but when that might happen (and when we may have a shelter bed available) varies a lot and can be very sudden or can be a planned leave,” Daniels explained in an email.

“This makes it especially tough to maintain any kind of waitlist that wouldn’t be outdated the moment it was created — especially with the transient nature of the folks we work with. Staff could spend all day playing phone tag with people or trying to leave messages or track people down.”

Beyond more shelter beds, Beaton says there’s a need for other solutions, too.

“Shelter isn’t the only option that exists in the world. And so, you know, how else can we help support people?”

Losing her home

Before becoming homeless, Isakson and her youngest child, who is 17, were living in Green Valley Estates Mobile Home Park in Winchester.

Now, her son lives with his grandmother, and Isakson shares a room at Hundred Nights with three other women.

Isakson, a former phlebotomist and licensed nursing assistant, said she can’t work because of mobility issues and health problems that stem from a bulging disc and surgery that caused her to suffer paralysis.

She’s since been able to learn to walk again, but still has difficulty, has no feeling from the waist down.

Isakson said the financial trouble that led her to lose her home started when the cost of living rose, but her disability checks didn’t.

She was left picking and choosing between necessities, and said she ended up $3,000 behind on lot rent for her mobile home and $800 behind on property taxes.

Ultimately, she lost her home, which she said her late mother gifted to her when her health issues began.

“Losing it kind of made me lose a piece of my mom even though she’s already passed away,” Isakson said. “I felt disappointed in myself. I felt angry at myself, I cried so hard so many times, because the only thing she left me was that, and I couldn’t keep it.”

From that point forward, Isakson said, she lived out of her car.

“I was freezing all the time. I was constantly trying to find resources for gas money.”

She also struggled to find somewhere to park her car, a 2000 Ford Fusion.

Eventually, she said, she found out about the Southwestern Community Services safe parking program, which is intended to give people living in cars a safe place to sleep, and an alternative option to staying in a shelter.

“You never slept. You were always on guard, even with your eyes closed. It was crazy,” Isakson said. “And then, you know, you’d wake up and you’d be under inches of snow.”

She said she lived out of her car until about mid-March, when the vehicle broke down. She left it on the side of the road with a note saying she’d be back, she said, but it was towed, along with all of her belongings, medications and her birth certificate. She can’t afford to get the car back or fixed.

After that, Isakson said she slept outside and used the Hundred Nights overnight warming shelter, which closed for the season in early April.

For the couple of weeks leading up to her getting a spot at Hundred Nights’ year-round shelter, she and her partner stayed in a small motel room for $248 per week. The room had no bed.

“As soon as I saw the number [for Hundred Nights] pop up on my phone, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. OK, here it is. But I was so excited I had a call back to ask questions,” she recalled.

Despite her excitement and relief, Isakson said she’d miss the privacy of the motel, but couldn’t afford to keep staying there.

“The hotel would be preferable,” she said. “Just because it’s your own space and your sanity.”

‘We’re human beings too’

Isakson is exhausted, her health is declining, and she’s still waiting to have back surgery.

Even if she applies the same tenacity to finding permanent housing as she did a shelter bed, she could be in for another long wait as she rides the ebbs and flows of the tight housing market.

But, she said, she’s not the kind of person to give up.

She’s looking for apartments, but emergency shelters aren’t the only services with waitlists. Keene Housing, the local housing authority, offers rental assistance and affordable housing options for people of low income. Isakson’s name is one of roughly 2,000 on the waitlist for one of the organization’s roughly 600 affordable units, or a subsidy to help pay for housing. Roughly 168 people hoping for a subsidy are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of becoming homeless, Josh Meehan, Keene Housing’s executive director, said.

Although the need is far greater, Keene Housing is already helping more than 1,000 families, seniors and individuals with disabilities receive their services, according to its website.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has suggested pulling back on funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Money through that department funds the vouchers Keene Housing supplies to 729 households. Funds through that same program also support highly sought-after beds through Hundred Nights, Southwestern Community Services and Monadnock Center for Violence Prevention.

Isakson said there should be more support for people who are unhoused.

“No matter what your reasoning for being homeless, it just should not be this damn hard …,” she said. “Everybody has a chance of becoming homeless, and whoever they are; I just wish that they don’t go through what I’ve gone through to get as far as I am because that’s wrong. We’re human beings too.”

Sophia Keshmiri can be reached at 603-283-0725 or skeshmiri@keenesentinel.com.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.