Claremont
The aim is to give the young families, who are sometimes couch surfing, more stable housing while the parents finish high school and the children are cared for in the adjacent child care center, said Cathy Pellerin, who sits on the nonprofit’s board and runs the grant-funded One-4-All Child Care Center, which is operated by SAU 6.
While the young families are at the center, staff can provide them with diapers, wipes and clothes, Pellerin said. Staff also can answer questions about cradle cap, colic and when to move up to the next size of diaper.
“We are serving kind of as their extended family unit,” Pellerin said.
But, “at the end of the day, these kids are still going home to the very chaotic environments,” she said.
Crews Holding, which owns the building located at 169 Main St. that the Learning Partnership hopes to occupy, currently has an application for a conditional use permit pending before the city’s Planning Board.
The application outlines a plan to modify offices formerly occupied by TPI Staffing Group to create six first-floor bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and common area. The space also will include two pre-existing bathrooms.
The board is set to take up the matter at its meeting on Monday. The project also will require site plan approval and a building permit from the city.
Though the Learning Partnership — which aims to increase educational access and attainment in Claremont — has been around since 2012, this is the first project that’s required a bank account, Pellerin said.
To pay for the building modifications, Pellerin said, the group is applying for grants. She estimates the changes, which include fireproofing the space, will cost between $80,000 and $100,000.
In addition to providing housing for the six families currently receiving support at One-4-All, Pellerin said she hopes the additional space will allow the families to receive wrap-around services such as cooking and personal finance courses, mental health counseling and job assistance.
Once these resources are established for the teen parents, Pellerin said, she hopes they can be expanded to help Claremont’s other young people.
Pellerin said that two of the parents participating in her program had been using Hope for New Hampshire Recovery’s peer support services — which included support groups and telephone support — to aid in their recovery from drug addiction.
“Drugs are kind of like … a coping mechanism for these kids,” she said.
By helping the teens make it through high school and progress to further education and to get a job, Pellerin said, she hopes to help reduce their likelihood of developing a drug addiction.
“They’ll have their needs met,” she said.
Amid budget struggles, Hope closed its Claremont center — which also was located at 169 Main St. — earlier this month, but the center’s former director, Wayne Miller, continues to run groups out of the space as community partners sort out another place to provide peer recovery services in the future, said Maggie Monroe-Cassel, executive director of TLC Family Resource Center.
Both Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Valley Regional Hospital have put up money to keep the services going while a longer-term plan is drawn up.
“We’re hoping to have something much more clear in a few months,” Monroe-Cassel said.
Also unclear at this time is the future ownership of the building. Melissa Crews, Hope’s executive director, and her husband, Andy, purchased the building at 169 Main St. in 2016 as a home for Hope. Hope also closed its Concord center earlier this month. Centers in Manchester, Berlin and Franklin remain open, with the help of state funding approved by the Executive Council earlier this month.
Emails to both Melissa and Andy Crews were not immediately returned on Monday. An auto-reply from Melissa Crews’ email said she would be out of the office until early April.
Should the building go up for sale, Pellerin said, the Learning Partnership might consider purchasing it, or the nonprofit could move.
“We have to start somewhere,” she said.
Lebanon’s Hannah House, which served as a home for pregnant teens and their children, closed in 2012, amid budget difficulties and an overall trend toward fewer teen pregnancies.
Pellerin said she was aware of Hannah House’s fate and said she would be glad if the new planned housing were to become superfluous at some point.
“I would hope if someday in Claremont this is something that is no longer needed here,” she said.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
