At just 63, Andy Labrie has more to do.
He thought he’d retire at about age 66, maybe even 70. He thought about what’s left on his plate, all those young people who remain lost, some of whom have brought violence and drugs into the homeless community.
But Labrie, the outreach coordinator for the Community Action Program, says it’s time to go. He’s retiring at the end of next month, forced to step aside because, as he told me Friday at his Concord home, “The eye issue and the violence.”
The eye issue means glaucoma and retina problems took his sight two years ago after perhaps 30 surgeries, including 16 alone in 2016.
And then there’s the violence. The bigger factor. The exit sign above the door. Labrie finally acknowledged that blindness and catering to the homeless equaled a recipe for danger. Especially, as he says, with an environment that has grown more tense over the past 18 months.
“It’s become more risky to go out, at least for me with my sight issues,” Labrie told me. “There were a couple of incidents at the (Friendly) Kitchen where people attacked each other and I was right in the middle of it.”
Labrie blames the infusion of crystal meth, which he believes has evolved into the drug of choice among the young, replacing opioids. And, with the services Concord offers to the homeless, this is the place to go, to generate hope, or mooch off the system.
Now, Labrie sees homeless people from all over – Las Vegas, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania.
He’s broken up fights at the Friendly Kitchen, one of the city’s priceless resources for the downtrodden and a reason Concord is special.
The homeless get three squares a day there. Labrie nearly got a lunch tray across his face, thrown in anger during a fight.
The loss of his eyesight, of course, can not be minimized as far as Labrie’s decision to retire is concerned. But whereas once upon a time his biggest worry was bringing bug spray to the illegal campsites or coming home smelling like pot, Labrie is now afraid.
“The entire culture has changed,” Labrie told me. “The older guys were easy. They stayed at their campsites and the Friendly Kitchen. No cops around, no panhandling. Then came last summer.”
His voice trailed off, then Labrie recounted when four young people came north from Manchester, seeking escape from that city’s tougher vagrancy laws.
Labrie said he tried to greet them, extend a handshake, provide vital information in case the teens needed a place to stay or directions to the Homeless Center.
“They basically told me to (expletive) off,” Labrie said.
This is not the stability Labrie had grown accustomed to. As he said, “My stress level will go way down once I leave.”
He sat in his living room, part of a house with absolutely no sign of dust anywhere. Everything is in place. The walls are covered with colorful, exotic artwork, each piece perfectly centered.
He’s been with the same man, a contractor named Steve Green, for more than 40 years, and the two were married two years ago. They’ve traveled all over the world together.
Green has been Labrie’s eyes recently, once driving through a snowstorm to Vermont to purchase tents and sleeping bags.
Labrie opens his wallet a lot. He also marvels over the services Concord provides, something that has made the city a magnet for homeless people and drawn criticism from those who’d rather not see this subculture anywhere in town.
The tension Labrie feels translates to the city’s uneasiness. I recently met a 19-year-old Concord man named Larz Menard, who told me he’s been banned from the Resource Center because of a “verbal argument.”
He said he was thrown out of his aunt’s house for some unknown reason, and he said he’s also been banned from the Friendly Kitchen due to “another verbal altercation.”
And then there are the reports of smashed windshields and broken windows on private property. It’s led to a recent string of complaints to state and local police, plus the Department of Transportation, which owns much of the railroad-track lined land and spots below highway overpasses.
Police have begun to clear makeshift campsites where the homeless have gathered.
“We do everything we can to move people along with discretion,” said Lt. Sean Ford of the Concord Police Department. “People who have been here a long time, we make note of it. Our last resort is to take some type of enforcement action, but sometimes we have to depending on what goes on.”
Labrie praised local government and law enforcement, saying, “Concord has given a lot. We tend to point fingers at the mayor and administrators and the police, but they try. People here have to be accountable for their own behavior.”
Recent outbursts in the homeless community, though, have frustrated Labrie, especially when his hometown (Concord High, Class of ’74) offers so much.
Ask Labrie for examples of Concord’s hospitality, its solution to homelessness, and he methodically goes through a list that illustrates what makes Concord unique.
There’s Supportive Housing and Rapid Rehousing. There’s the Gay Men’s Bowling League and the Resource Center. There’s the Emergency Solutions program and the Security Deposit Guarantee program. There’s Family Promise and the McKenna House. There’s the N.H. Charitable Foundation and the Cold Weather Shelter.
All the above translate into food, clothing and vouchers for shelter for those who need it. Local businesses also donate, and Labrie and Green have cleaned off racks of winter coats, buying them from retailers at a reduced rate as spring approaches.
And yet, Labrie notes, “There is no magic solution. We used to have more vouchers than clients.”
No more. Labrie says the problem is growing.
He can’t see, but his vision provides hope. He has ideas. A pair of summer programs.
Why not set aside a piece of land, somewhere between Fort Eddy Road and North State Street, near the Resource Center and the Friendly Kitchen, for 40 tents on platforms? Provide dumpsters, use volunteers to monitor trash pickup, build a fence to keep it secure, provide lockers, funnel people there from the winter shelter and tell them if this encampment is not their new destination, no sleeping bag or tent.
Or how about a tiny house on church property somewhere, a one-person home with a bed, a chair and a closet. Head over to the Resource Center for a shower and to do laundry.
These places would have one entrance only. They might encourage people to work, build an independent spirit, restore dignity.
“How much money are we spending running up and down the railroad tracks with police and for trash pickup and for investigations?” Labrie asked. “If you know where they are, they’re safe. Same rules as the Cold Weather Shelter would apply.”
He’s finished at the end of next month. He’d like to do volunteer work, maybe help the New Hampshire State Prison or the Merrimack County Jail plan for housing before inmates are released.
“All I’ve ever known,” Labrie said, “is getting people off the street.”