MANCHESTER, N.H. – Dignitaries and well wishers gathered on Thursday afternoon to celebrate a new 12-bedroom facility on Central Street aimed to help housing insecure individuals build a foundation to improve their lives.
Located on the first floor of a building also known as the Gendron House, the facility is operated by Helping Hands Outreach Center, an organization dedicated to helping homeless and housing-insecure men who battle with substance abuse.
According to Larry Nice, executive director of Helping Hands, occupants in the facility will come from the organization’s larger Men’s Recovery Shelter on Lowell Street. Those selected occupants will likely benefit from more autonomy, but still will require assistance in a variety of support services ranging from soft social skills to job assistance to continuing their personal paths away from addiction.
While the space where the facility currently lies has served many roles in the past, such as a homeless service center, Nice said that the facilities’ current role is different than that of various congregate living facilities across the city that aid individuals recovering from substance abuse as each bedroom exists as its own domicile within the building where individuals can live on their own.
Nice hopes that individuals that will occupy the building, with the first set expected sometime in January, will be helped in a way similar to those in other parts of the Gendron House.
“We’re just looking for more of that positivity to continue down here,” he said.
Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig was on hand to celebrate the new facility and appreciated Helping Hands’ efforts to help the city’s homeless community, both directly and indirectly from freeing up shelter beds for other homeless or housing-insecure men in the community.
“There are virtually (no shelter beds) across the state, so the opportunity today in Manchester for more affordable supportive housing is phenomenal,” she said. “I appreciate it all the help that this does.”
Funding for the facility came from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HOME Program as well as partnerships through local businesses such as Eastern Bank, which has spent $260 million in local charity efforts such as this one across New Hampshire and Massachusetts since 1999.
“Every community we serve starts with people in the community,” said Frank Talarico, a branch manager at a Manchester-area Eastern Bank that was on hand at the ceremony. “Every community should have a Larry (Nice) that can help men who have faced hardships find a home or at least a place where they can stay warm.”