Exile in Guyville 

Loyal readers of this column may recall that last year I basically eviscerated the Biddeford City Council and City Manager James Bennett for spending $20,000 of taxpayer money to hire a private consulting firm in the hopes of finding a solution to the growing problem of homelessness in our community.

I’ve got good news and bad news for Biddeford taxpayers.

First, the good news. The City of Saco was stupid enough to split the cost with us.

The bad news? I told you so. The problem is just getting worse, and the much-anticipated report from the consultants was about as useless as the comb I still carry in my back pocket.

In case you missed it, the Biddeford City Council recently held a nearly three-hour-long workshop meeting to once again “discuss this very important topic,” in the words of Mayor Marty Grohman.

Before we proceed, I’d like to set the record straight. Every single member of the Biddeford City Council cares very much about the plight of homeless people in our community. City Manager James Bennett also cares about this issue and wants to find a solution.

Former mayor Alan Casavant still cares very much about this issue. Many of you readers also care very much about this issue. I care very much about this issue. So, why do we still have a problem?

To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s about the money, stupid!”

During last week’s workshop meeting, Timothy Boston read aloud a portion of my recent interview with former mayor and retired judge Michael Cantara. In that interview, Cantara hit the nail on the head.

“Without question, we must address the issue of homelessness,” Cantara told me. “Yes, it is a financially expensive and complicated issue, but we have an ethical obligation; a moral obligation to do more than just talk about the issue.”

But “just talk” seems to be what we do best. We talk. We write white papers and convene focus groups. We talk some more. We spend money on consultants and form more committees. We pontificate and bloviate in newspaper editorials and at the podium in the City Council Chambers.

We are full of righteous indignation, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. At least that’s how it feels if you’re in a tent with freezing temperatures and wind gusts of more than 25 miles per hour. It all seems like a lot of bullshit.

Why? Because we all conveniently skip over some hard truths.

In the consulting world, there’s an old mantra: If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be had at prolonging the problem. I know this. I make my living as a consultant. The newspaper gig is just a side hustle.

The report from WestEast Design Group was exactly what I expected: several pages of fluff with four pages of references and another four pages of appendices.

I give them some credit, however. They were able to successfully use the word ‘leverage’ as both a verb and a noun at least a dozen times in the 24-page report.

There are basically four key take-aways from the rather lackluster report:

1.)    There is a lack of physical space for services (including housing and treatment) in the Biddeford-Saco area;

2.)    The Biddeford-Saco area has a growing homeless problem;

3.)    People in Biddeford and Saco seem to be very compassionate and kind toward homeless individuals;

4.)    The cities should “leverage” their existing resources and relationships and consider forming a ‘coordinating committee” to further study and understand this issue.

Well, thank you, Captain Obvious!

I kid you not. You can download the report and read it for yourself; I mean if you occasionally enjoy sticking a lit cigarette up your ass.

Basically, the consultants interviewed area stakeholders, including non-profit agencies, the Biddeford Housing Authority, the Police Department, the hospital and even yours truly. Yup, they interviewed me. They then wrote several pages, explaining how they conducted the interviews and what questions were asked.

At this point, they summarized the results of those interviews and told the council what the council had already heard from those same stakeholders over a period of more than two years. Remember, it was almost three years ago when Casavant first created the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force.

Last year, I publicly chided the then mayor and council for even considering hiring a consultant. I stood at the podium and told them: you only have five options. That’s it. Just five options and they each come with consequences.

First option: You can do absolutely nothing and ignore the problem until it goes away. (It going to cost you a ton of money because of impacts to schools, businesses and city services, but those costs will be somewhat hidden and therefore politically expedient.)

Secondly, you can take steps to immediately increase housing supply and soften demand by creative changes to zoning and other ordinances. (To their credit, the council is already doing this.)

Third option: you could implement rent control, despite the fact that it often creates more problems than it solves (Reference the city of Portland, Maine).

Fourth, you could collaborate with regional communities and build (and staff) a treatment facility that would include mental health services and a temporary housing shelter. Or finally, you could do what the city of Portland did: You can build and staff your own shelter.

That’s it. There are no other options.

See, it took me only 142 words to compile my report as opposed to nearly 30 pages from the hired consultants.

Let’s use Portland, Maine as an example. Last year, Portland unveiled a new state-of-the-art shelter that includes staffing for acute psychiatric care and substance abuse services.

The price tag? Roughly $25 million. A little more than $6 million was provided by the state with federal COVID relief funds. The remaining $18 million came from a private developer.

The result? Portland has a growing homeless problem. On many nights, there are literally several empty beds at the shelter because many people don’t want to stay at a shelter.

Think about that for a moment. The city built a $25 million shelter and yet the problem is growing. For comparison purposes, the city of Biddeford’s total city budget (excluding schools) is roughly $24.8 million, a 5.8 percent increase over last year.

Translation? We would literally have to double our municipal budget to build a shelter like the one in Portland.

Now let’s pretend we all live in Never-Never Land and a magic unicorn comes by and drops $25 million in our laps. How long do we continue funding? Where would it be located? Rotary Park could be an ideal location. How about the former Trull Hospital on May Street? How about your neighborhood?

You get the point. This problem requires money, but it also requires a commitment from ALL stakeholders, including the homeless themselves.

Any solution is going to require at least some cooperation from those who are most directly impacted by the problem. They are our neighbors. They deserve dignity. They deserve our empathy, support and compassion, but they also must be willing to sit at the table and help solve the problem.

In the movie Jaws, it becomes quickly apparent that the town of Amity has a serious problem on its hands. The town’s elected leaders are hesitant to spend the money required to solve the problem. We all know what happens next. The problem literally jumps up and bites them in the ass.

Our problem is not going to go away. It’s just going to get worse.

It’s time to end the paralysis of analysis. No more task forces. No more white papers. No more window dressing solutions. Bottom line: Ask yourself one simple question: How much are you willing to pay in additional taxes (or additional rent) to help cover these costs? One percent? Five percent? 10 percent? 50 percent? More?

Just imagine what we could have done with the $20,000 that we gave to a Texas-based consulting firm? I wonder how Vassie Fowler at the Seeds of Hope Neighborhood Resource Center could have ‘leveraged’ those funds.

Folks, you’re going to need a bigger boat. And a bigger boat is going to cost a lot of money. I know this is true because I asked a consultant.

Randy Seaver is a cranky, nearly insufferable malcontent living in Biddeford. He is a retired newspaper editor and the principal of a small strategic communications consulting firm. He may be contacted at randy@randyseaver.com.