Lack of shelters locally creates divides.

A family of four last year barely struggled to make ends meet with gas prices above the $4 mark. Then came the sudden downturn in the economy and, with it, the loss of the husband’s job.

For the first month after he lost his minimum-wage job, the family relied on area food banks to put food on their table, but the utility bills, the rent and the repairs to their only vehicle came pouring in.

Suddenly a notice came from the power company threatening to turn off their lights and finally came an eviction notice leaving the family with no place to go.

Without transitional housing from Kitsap Community Resources, the family was forced to split up as the mother and two children went to one homeless shelter and the father lucked out and ended up in Catholic Community Services Benedict House. But on Christmas Day there were no presents under the tree and the family spent their first Christmas apart, left with only hopes of better things in the coming year.

Sadly, this situation is becoming all too common in Kitsap County as in the words of Sister Pat Millen, who runs the Benedict House, “people who were barely middle class have gotten to the point to where they can’t do it anymore and they become homeless.”

“They can go to the Bremerton Foodline or St. Vinny’s (St. Vincent de Paul) for food, but they have to pay their utilities,” she said.

The Benedict House has only one room for a homeless man with children and it cannot accept men younger than 14. The YWCA’s ALIVE shelter and other homeless shelters in the county only accept women and children.

“There is no place for families to go,” Millen lamented.

The Benedict House has served more than 300 men this past year and it is full, she said.

Millen, who previously served at the Max Hale Center in downtown Bremerton which provides housing for both chronically homeless men and women, said while the numbers of homeless are on the rise, funding to support programs for the homeless is on the decline.

“This year I applied to the county for $25,000 and got $12,500, and I applied to the city (of Bremerton) for $20,000 and got $10,600,” she said.

Funding from the state through the $18 paid to the state’s affordable housing fund has declined over the past five years coinciding with the downturn in the housing market, she said.

“I have a $300,000 operating budget and the bulk of that goes to salaries, so I’ve had to cut staff,” she said, noting that the cut in staff time has reduced the accessibility to services for the homeless.

Last year’s countywide homeless count provided the most accurate numbers of the county’s homeless to date, and Millen said the upcoming count in January should provide a true reflection as to whether the county’s homelessness rate has increased or decreased.

Contrary to the popular stereotype that people are homeless because of addictions or other poor lifestyle choices, Millen said many of the men the Benedict House serves want to work, but have simply been unable to find jobs or have poor credit or other situations that make it difficult to find housing.

With churches from almost every denomination volunteering to serve the evening meals at Benedict House, Millen said she has seen the stereotypes disappear as the volunteers sit down with the men and share a meal.