Nowhere to go

By HADLEY BARNDOLLAR
Portsmouth Herald
PORTSMOUTH — A thunderous man now living a rather gentle existence, Eric Mansfield stood inside his small, dorm-style room at the homeless shelter ahead of Thanksgiving.

On his twin bed, dressed by a royal blue blanket, lay a large sketchbook. His drug court certificates earned thus far were framed on the wall.

Frosty November air spilled in through his open window.

Mansfield pulled down the stretched-out neckline of his shirt to reveal a Mother Mary tattooed on his chest, one he did himself in prison.

“Except she’s holding a grenade,” he said.

That artwork was a distinct metaphor for Mansfield’s life up until last year — a suicide mission.

He grew up in Boston, and was addicted to heroin by age 13, after he and friends discovered the narcotic lying out on his parents’ kitchen table. They’d thought it was cocaine. His mother worked as a prostitute, and his father was her pimp.

“Shot, stabbed, caught on fire, broke almost every bone in my body” — Mansfield’s entire existence revolved around heroin, cocaine and meth. He was a member of the criminal street gang Gangster Disciples; regularly assaulting police officers and once was arrested in Hampton Beach driving a stolen car, high on heroin, with 1,000 rounds of ammunition in the back.

His criminal record contains hundreds of cases between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, equating to 27 years in prison — his entire adult life. Mansfield, who recently turned 49, chews at the inside of his mouth as he talks about it, tapping his foot on the linoleum floor in rapid succession.

But last January, after release from the Rockingham County jail in Brentwood, there was a bed opening at Cross Roads House — Portsmouth’s homeless shelter — where Mansfield would be able to stay while participating in the county’s drug court program, a post-plea option providing structured treatment and accountability for high-risk individuals who have faced a series of criminal charges. He later moved into the shelter’s transitional program, a separate lodging space.

For Mansfield, a safe place to lay his head at night was the start of a new, substance-free life. An off-ramp from the justice system, a softer passage into a hopeful recovery. But the foreboding reality is most are never given that chance.

Many are asking, does a community have a responsibility to provide a foundation for these individuals?

In a small state disproportionately ravaged by the opioid epidemic, its second most populated county — Rockingham — is destitute of transitional, sober and supportive housing options.

Aside from Cross Roads House — Portsmouth’s 96-bed homeless shelter — and the 63-bed Granite House for Men in Derry, there are no other options in the county. Meanwhile, in 2019, the Rockingham County jail processed 5,300 individuals.

Thirty-seven cities and towns blanketing New Hampshire’s southeastern corridor, Rockingham County has a rapidly growing population of more than 300,000 people. What it doesn’t have is any residential recovery infrastructure. Housing solutions remain elusive for almost everyone in recovery, especially formerly incarcerated citizens.

The cities of Manchester, Nashua and Concord have been able to design that infrastructure, but are deluged by people from across the state seeking their services. They’re natural locations for sober and transitional housing, as individuals can walk or take public transportation to work, appointments and necessities like grocery stores. City zoning is also more conducive to such housing models.

In Rockingham County, that’s not the case. Much of it is rural. And in its populated Seacoast, the cost of living is among the highest in the state.

There are plans in infancy for Rockingham County to construct a $44 million facility that would house a community corrections program — a 90- to 120-day drug treatment center with roughly 80 beds — among other offices, on county property in Brentwood. If the new facility is included in the fiscal year 2021 budget, the county delegation of state representatives will vote on it in the coming months, and if approved, a public hearing on the bond would be held next year.

Mansfield knows firsthand how onerous it is for an ex-offender to find treatment and housing. He spent nearly 30 years in a cell block between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The difference, this time, in addition to truly wanting sobriety, was a bed and case management, he says.

“I would have died,” Mansfield said. “I know in my heart that I would have died.”

How to address the void of housing options for at-risk populations as such has left many in a daze, as there’s no easy money to be made from transitional and sober housing models, and state funding in tax-free New Hampshire is limited. It’s either up to the county and its taxpayers, or grants and federal dollars must be sought out.

In February, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced a $1.15 million grant for recovery housing in the state, to be administered by the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority, as a means to fill a gap in the funding of supportive housing projects across the state. Shaheen noted the stability that comes with “affordable, supportive housing” for society’s most vulnerable.

It’s too early to say if projects in Rockingham County will get a share of that money.

The NHCDFA recently granted $500,000 to Sullivan County, for example, to acquire and re-purpose a commercial building in downtown Claremont to house the “TRAILS” program — transitional housing and supportive services for ex-offenders trying to get back on their feet, into the workforce and their communities. The building will include 28 recovery beds for men and 14 for women, with room for expansion.

TRAILS, which started in 2010, has seen success in the form of a recidivism rate just below 20%, half of the state’s reported rate.

Strafford County provides county-funded transitional housing for men and women who are transitioning from the Strafford County House of Corrections. The program was kick-started in 2009 by a $190,000 federal grant from the Department of Justice. In 2016, it housed 127 male residents and 55 female residents in transitional living, with an average length of stay of 41 days.

Mansfield compared New Hampshire’s resources to those of his home state of Massachusetts, which has a “sober home industry.” The business model has its fair share of critics, because many homes typically go unregulated, resulting in facility mismanagement and sometimes overdoses. But done properly, sober homes can offer support, camaraderie and a safe environment.

In Manchester, where the city’s fire chief estimates the existence of 50 to 60 such homes, officials are calling on the state to establish a mandatory registration and inspection of sober homes, which otherwise can operate inconspicuously in residential areas and are often subject to neighborhood opposition.

A nonprofit called the Massachusetts Alliance for Sober Housing oversees operation and standards of 170 “MASH” certified homes, for example. A similar effort recently came online in New Hampshire, affiliated with the National Alliance for Recovery Residences, called the New Hampshire Coalition of Recovery Residences. Only eight organizations are NHCRR-certified so far, as registration is voluntary at this time.

Annette Escalante, director of the state’s Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services, acknowledged the infrastructure void in Rockingham County, but noted counties around the state are having the same conversation.

On March 6, the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs approved $1 million in new funding to expand transitional housing in New Hampshire, and $350,000 to go towards recovery housing, particularly in under-served areas.

Commission Chairman Patrick Tufts, CEO of the Granite United Way, said the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services will ultimately put out a request for proposals for those interested in getting a piece of the funding. The commission has been taking its queues from people in the field, he said, where transitional and recovery housing has been identified as a “critical gap.”

“We’re trying very, very hard,” Escalante said. “Hopefully we can make some sort of dent.”