By Suzanne Hodgson

Staff Writer

 

In October, Maurice Geoffrey began working as Kennebunk’s general assistance administrator. For the first time in years, Kennebunk has outsourced its general assistance program. Geoffrey works for People’s Regional Opportunity Program, or PROP, based in Portland. While some residents have protested the change, town officials maintain PROP has saved the town money while providing services to more families. Geoffrey sat down with the Post to talk about PROP and serving increasing need in town.

 

Can you tell me a little about the history of PROP’s general assistance program?

PROP has a history of having done general assistance in a number of towns in Cumberland County over the last 13 years. It started with one town, Standish. Eventually some of the neighboring towns started thinking, “Why don’t we let a third party handle all of the town welfare?” The thought was, at the time, “We’re a lot of small towns and everybody knows everybody.”

 In terms of trying to promote and protect privacy and confidentiality, a lot of people thought it was a good idea to have a slightly more objective third party come into town and take care of the needs that way. It’s grown in Cumberland County. We’ve grown to a team of four people who are administrating general assistance in 12 towns at this point.

 

How did PROP come to Kenenbunk?

Kennebunk is our first excursion into York County. I am not sure exactly how (Town Manager) Barry (Tibbetts) or the town officials found out about us at PROP but there was some word of mouth. That’s my understanding how they approached us to take over here.

 

What is PROP’s role at Kennebunk?

We’re contracted for two days a week right now and I’m assuming it’s easier on the town’s budgets because we are a large company.

 

What kind of programs do you help with?

The general assistance program is set up to help meet some of the very basic needs: rent, food, fuel and utilities, that type of thing. The general assistance program, although mandated by the state and although each town has to administer each one, the state sets the rules. Yearly the town has to adopt the new rules.

 

How do you qualify for general assistance?

There is an overall guideline for the number of people per household. So a household of one in Kennebunk, the overall guideline is $718 a month, meaning overall it’s $718 minus whatever income is coming in to the household, and the difference between the two is usually what folks qualify for.

Then we also take a look at what expenses the state would allow that household to incur over the next 30 days. We always do a 30-day application. The application is open for a 30-day period. We also take a look at the expenses they’re going to incur over the next 30 days, once again minus the household income.

 

Where does all the money come from?

Mostly the town taxes. We just don’t know what the exact need is going to be, so you try to approximate that as much as possible based on the previous year’s allotment and on the current year’s usage up to that point where the budget is being considered. Also with general assistance the town gets reimbursed 50 percent from health and human services for client expenditure.

 

So the money goes to pay for people’s bills?

Yes, we cover the real basics: rent, food, fuel and utilities. We never give a client any cash. What happens is, we pay vendors directly. Say someone needs food and household items like paper products or cleaning supplies, then we give a client a voucher to go shopping at one of the stores where we have a contract.

 

What are some challenges you’ve seen in Kennebunk?

One of the big challenges is the increase in numbers of people applying. I would say almost to the person, it’s a situation where folks have lost their jobs or (are) laid off, they’ve used up most of their unemployment benefits, they’ve used up most of their savings they had and now they’re faced with, “Where do I go from here?” That’s a very common, repeated story.

 

How long does the general assistance last? Is it a one-time deal?

Not necessarily. Someone can come back every 30 days to apply. If they qualify, then we have to help them, so technically someone could be back here every 30 days and we have to give them at least the courtesy and the right to fill out an application. I crunch the numbers every 30 days, so to speak, we make the adjustments we need to.

 

Are there instances when someone has a job and still isn’t making ends meet? If so, are there ways to help those people in the general assistance program?

One of the things we like to do is to refer them to Goodwill and career centers to see if they can get better jobs.

We never encourage anyone to quit a job and right now if they quit a job they get sanctioned for 120 days. So we want them to keep the jobs they’ve got, but at the same time (we) want to see them be able to get better training for better jobs. So with each applicant who is able-bodied and who qualifies for general assistance there is a work search obligation.

We require they do work search for jobs in five places a week. When they come back in 30 days, the list they have should have at least 20 entries in it.

 

Is there anything you’ve seen that’s different than any other town?

Yes, and different in a very positive way. First of all, food pantry organization is incredible. How the food pantry operates is we encourage folks who are going to need food on a once-a-month basis to call us before 11 in the morning.

We call the order in and by no later than 3:30 p.m. the orders are outside in my waiting room area for folks to come pick them up.

The church outreach has a fund for fuel and at our discretion we can order up to 100 gallons of fuel for people who are getting very low. The screening for that particular program is very simple. The fuel fund by the town has the same rules.

Generally, it’s for folks who don’t qualify for any of the other programs, but you’re in a dire situation and you need fuel immediately. Once again we can do the same quick intake and order 100 gallons at a time.

 

In Kennebunk, you said you’ve received help from not only the town, but church organizations. Is this the case with most of the towns PROP works with?

Right now, yes in most towns. My predecessor (Wanda Cannell) has put together a flyer, a Kennebunk resource list for food, fuel and taxes.

There’s a couple of other things that were nice surprises to me – one was the gift box, which is for celebrating kids’ birthdays. For a child’s birthday there will be presents, balloons and a cake delivered here for that child’s parents to pick up. It’s a really nice touch. The other nice program is the Secret Santa at Christmas.

I don’t remember how many families that program served this Christmas, but the Christmas giveaway was just incredible. Kennebunk struck me very much as a very caring community.

 

Are there things that you wish would be improved?

I wish there were more jobs available in this town. Hopefully this Hannaford move will create new jobs. I’m hoping new jobs will become available because most of the folks I see don’t have transportation – they hoof it to work. It would be nice to see a town like Kennebunk expand on year-round jobs.

 

Do you feel that everyone who comes to you gets the help they need?

I go out of my way to make sure folks in need have access to me and access to the program. That happens in one of many ways. During the days I’m not here during office hours (Office Manager/Deputy Tax Collector) Kris (Fogg) or (Finance Director) Joel (Downs) are here to help handle some things. They’re handling the immediate needs very well.

As the needs increase, I foresee that we would need increased hours. So far I haven’t heard any complaints that folks felt neglected and that’s very important to at least try to meet those basic needs right up front as quickly and as confidentially and respectful manner as possible.

 

Do you feel like this program is making a difference?

Yeah I do. I really do. I’ve been a social worker with PROP going on 28 years, and I’ve never seen an economic picture so bad. We’ve been through some hard times, but this is by far the worst I’ve ever seen it in my career.

 

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.