Homeless shelters on the Seacoast are full or near capacity amid some recent wintry weather that advocates say has strained shelters to meet the need.
The Cross Roads House in Portsmouth, one of New Hampshire’s largest shelters, had 119 residents on Thursday when it’s capacity is 96.
“We are busy year-round,” Martha Stone, of Cross Roads House, told WMUR-TV. “The storm situation just exacerbates our challenge of meeting the emergency shelter needs.”
The shelter was at or over capacity 94% of nights between November 2018 and June 2019, she said. The average stay was 77 days last year, she said.
My Friend’s Place shelter in Dover is usually at its 28-person capacity, said Susan Ford, who runs it. And the Homeless Center for Strafford County in Rochester always has a waiting list to get in, said the shelter’s Tracy Hardekopf,
“We’re seeing a lot of phone calls from our elderly population this year, which is something new,” she told the television station. “And a lot of family units with school-age children.”
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