Welcome To Housing Bi-Weekly Blog June 27, 2025

Welcome To Housing Bi-Weekly Blog June 27, 2025

Greetings.

We had a great Board of Directors meeting a few days ago. We have been working with a mentor from the SCORE (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) since last fall and it’s been a tremendous help as we’ve been growing rapidly.

One of our challenges though remains the fact we have a hard time getting volunteer help when it comes to picking up donations. When I say “donations,” I’m referring to times when warehouse volunteers rent a U-Haul truck and go to one or more locations to pick up furniture and other items… wait for it… during the DAY and during the WEEK.

There’s the rub. Generally, people who are able bodied and available, again during the DAY and during the WEEK… are EMPLOYED and there’s the dilemma.

If you as an individual or if you and a group of friends would like to make a genuine difference for people in need and have fun doing it, we would LOVE to hear from you.

We have outings where we take a truck to several locations from homes to businesses and we end up picking up everything from beds, dressers as well as smaller items and that’s what I call “larger volume” donations. When hotels upgrade and donate dozens of beds, dressers, etc. we also need volunteer help but we’re fortunate to have several sources who donate the use of trucks.

I know from experience (long before I developed mobility issues) that there are indeed people out there willing to help their friends and family when they move from one place to another, as I used to be one myself. One of my favorite memories of helping someone move came from helping Andrew Matlins. Having carried pocket watches on chains for years, being careful, I unhooked the watch chain from the belt loop of my jeans and set my watch aside on the kitchen counter. There’s just enough slack on a watch chain that can catch on something if you’re doing something like moving furniture.

A little later, once we were done, I went back into the kitchen to retrieve my pocket watch and couldn’t find it. That’s CORRECT! Someone had indeed packed it into one of the boxes thinking it was Andrew’s. After a few minutes of pressing ears to boxes to listen for ticking, we found it. Yes, it was like a popular situation comedy “go-to” theme of hearing a ticking noise and thinking it’s a time bomb.

As much of a “chore” or, okay, a “pain” as it may be to help a friend or family move, what makes what we do feel so damn good is knowing one thing. ALL of the things we’re picking up to bring back to 333 Main Street in Old Town, Maine are going to make someone or a  group of “someones” extremely grateful and extremely happy!

That being said, you KNOW how good it feels when you help someone because you can and they don’t have to ask. That’s like deeds done by Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Kiwanians, Rotarians, Elks, Eagles, Key Clubbers, etcetera…

Or, a more contemporary analogy, watching someone in a video on social media doing something for an elderly person, or how about Mike Rowe’s “Return the Favor” show on TV or the great “On the Road with Steve Hartman” at the end of the CBS National News?

Years ago, when we were in our original location in the back of Old Town Plaza, I remember a young man, probably early 20s (I can say that now as I will be 64 this fall) becoming ecstatic over something we had that he could make his own. If you’re old enough you remember those odd-looking glass thingies with a handle, a gutter and a beveled spike in the middle? That’s right, an orange “juicer!” For those unfamiliar, you would take a knife and cut the orange in half and take one of those halves in one hand and the other handle holding the juicer, you would grind the bisected orange on the spike making fresh orange juice, complete with pulp and then you would pour the juice from the juicer’s gutter or trough into a glass and voila!

What I found amusing however was not the fact that the juicer’s recipient was like a kid on Christmas morning tearing off the wrapping of the EXACT present he or she wanted, or an adult realizing their lottery numbers matched for a jackpot and they could FINALLY tell their soon-to-be ex-employer where they could go and WHAT they could do with the job they were somewhat non-plussed to have.

What cracked me up is if someone asked, “Do you think that guy is old enough to know what that spiky looking gizmo is?” I would have answered, “Heck no! He’s far too young.”

But there he was holding it lovingly and saying with wide eyes, “I CAN MAKE MY OWN FRESH ORANGE JUICE!”

It’s moments like that, of pure, unadulterated JOY in the people we help that make Welcome To Housing a truly spiritually uplifting thing.

Same original location, before we moved to 333 Main, we had a group home for women in recovery two doors down from where my beloved, Robin and I live. It was overseen by City Reach Church and was a recovery home for women. They arrived at Old Town Plaza, six of them with a case manager. Their ages, I would say, ranged from mid-20s to at least one probably north of 40. Our previous location was one BIG honkin’ room, 2,267 square feet and was the utility room for the shopping plaza. It had a roll-up metal door with a loading dock and a regular metal side door a few feet away. One of the (now former) employees of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter (BAHS) used to complain about the fact we had a space in Old Town and not closer in Bangor.

One of the moments that stands out when showing off the location we had for FREE, heated and all, was when that same employee visited for the first time and as we walked in the side door and flipped on the lights, two words came out of her mouth, “Holy Crap!”

I was so happy to hear her say that and after all the complaining I heard from her, seeing the location firsthand, I responded with, “THAT was the reaction I was hoping for!”

The concept of Welcome To Housing was originally devised by BAHS gave “guests” (as the Shelter called them) financial help to cover a security deposit and a $25 gift card when they moved from the Shelter into permanent housing. Even back in 2011, a $25 gift card didn’t buy much for someone starting over from being homeless.

So, these six ladies along with the case manager went about picking out what they needed, including six dressers and a lot of other things.

If you’ve ever met me in person and spent more than say :30 seconds with me, you know I do LOTS of voices and I was in radio from 1982 to about 1995. It came in handy as a kid too as bullies found it hard to punch you if they were laughing…really hard.

Anyway, I will never forget the elder of those six ladies. She looked like she had the weight of the World on her shoulders. I would venture a guess in addition to being someone’s daughter, and granddaughter, I would bet she was someone’s Mom as well.

She came over and looked at me and asked a simple question. Her inquiry was simply, “How do we know how much everything is?” Suddenly I realized what SHE didn’t realize. I looked into her eyes and doing my best Casey Casem (American Top 40/Voice of Shaggy in the cartoon Scooby-Doo) and with a big smile on my face said, “It’s FREE!”

She had beautiful eyes to begin with but when she comprehended my answer, I watched her eyes widen, making room for a large dose of pure joy! For a fleeting moment, I saw relief in her eyes as I knew she was facing a long, challenging journey of recovery.

Of the wide range of circumstances people we help come from, people in recovery often touch my heart. Back in February of 2024, one of my older half-brothers, Greg, about ten years my senior, father of five incredible adult children and six grandkids, passed away at one of the hospitals in Bangor. He didn’t just pass away, his addiction to alcohol destroyed his liver. I knew he had issues with alcohol, but I didn’t know how bad it was. He had been married twice and his third long-term relationship ended. His partner, a woman was (and still is) an alcoholic to make a long story short, discouraged him from taking part in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a gifted carpenter; he also restored classic cars. When I was a kid and another time when I was a teenager, Greg saved my life.

First when he, another half-brother, Eric, (almost exactly 7 years older than me) and I were vacationing with our folks in Cape Cod, we were walking along the beach, as far out as you could go at low tide and I was following Eric who was following Greg. Greg saw a large, deep waterfilled sinkhole, and Eric must have been distracted as he followed Greg, giving the sinkhole a wide berth, but didn’t notice that I was walking straight for it. I know from that day that if Greg hadn’t turned around and yelled at Eric and pushed me away from the sinkhole, there was a good chance I could have been badly hurt or drowned.

My first car was a used 1969 Mustang. It looked nice, it was maroon and was a three speed. My Pop helped me get it from a body shop. I had it for all of two days. One of the carpenters Greg worked with also had a 1969 Mustang. The carpenter’s girlfriend drove his car home and the unibody frame snapped as it had rusted out.

Learning this, Greg took the time to check the car I had just bought. He got under the car and saw the same sort of rust issue with the unibody frame. Long story short, Pop, Greg and I went back to the body shop. They claimed it was surface rust. Greg then proceeded to relay the story about his employee’s car and what happened, then, getting down on all fours with the man from the shop who sold me the car and took a large slotted screwdriver and proceeded to poke holes and pick off large thick silver dollar sized pieces of rusted metal. “That’s NOT surface rust. The frame is about ready to snap. You ARE giving my brother his money back.”

The car was resold and as Greg predicted, the frame snapped on the new owner and the shop gave him some money to fix it and it snapped again, and the next owner was left with what I would describe not as a vehicle but more like an oversized boat mooring anchor.

He also was the one when I was a kid in Jersey, took the time to teach me how to ride a bicycle. In a word, I did and still DO think of him as one of my heroes.

That’s why I wish I understood how bad his drinking was sooner, so I could introduce him to another hero of mine, a man who has started and overseen somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 sober living homes.

Over a year ago I believe, I went to give a talk in-person (considering my mobility issues with canes and an occasional rollator/walker) I was glad to make the presentation. It was at The B.A.R.N. (The Bangor Area Recovery Network) and the group I was speaking to were the many men and women of those Fresh Start, Inc. homes. There were just shy of 100 in attendance, 6 I believe were online watching and the rest filled up the room. It went well. I’m not an alcoholic but when I was in school in Boston, a classmate of mine was concerned about my drinking when I was going to Broadcasting School. He invited me to spend the weekend checking out A.A. meetings and staying overnight at a halfway house. To this day, it was one of the BEST experiences of my life. My friend years before (who was now sober) had actually POISONED his spinal fluid with alcohol. I will tell you about that great weekend in an upcoming blog.

Anyway… After the presentation at the B.A.R.N. a young man came up to me and introduced himself and said he wanted to personally say “Thank you.”

It wasn’t for my presentation…it was for something I helped pull together with friends one Christmas Eve, I believe it was back in 2011 or 2012.

One of the people working at the Shelter desk (BAHS) called me. He told me about a family with three children who had just come into town and were staying at one of the “Efficiencies” apartments up on Hammond Street. It must have been late afternoon, but he told me someone had broken into their apartment and stolen ALL the Christmas presents for the three kids.

I contacted a handful of friends and co-workers and about a half dozen of us either pitched in some money or like my wife and I, went shopping. We knew their ages and genders and the bunch of us went to work. A few hours later, we dropped off what we had picked up and each of the three kids got 7 presents. We handed the gifts off to the third party, I think the one who called us from the Shelter, and we felt great about our accomplishment and that was that. We never heard anything about the family whose kids were on the receiving end of our good deed.

This young man, the one who came up to say thank you? He was one of those three kids.

He explained they moved to Bangor from Washington County and had little to begin with but someone one, a thoughtless thief, added to those challenges and sadness by stealing their gifts.

Feel that warm feeling of good will in your gut? THAT is just one of the main reasons I LOVE Welcome To Housing and of all the hobbies I could have taken up, (along with my penchant for collecting Hot Wheels) taking on this project to rally people together to help others was one of the best decisions next to asking Robin Pinkham to be my bride. By the way, this August marks our 40th anniversary and in all honesty, if it wasn’t her suggesting I become a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters back around 1986 and working with 4 different young men over a period of 18 years, we NEVER would have raised $7,300 for the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter on my 40th birthday (on a whim) and started WTH when I turned 50 in 2011.

Why did she suggest I become involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters? I had been helping a friend’s ex-husband when he was in the Bangor Pre-Release Center because he didn’t know anyone in the Bangor area and as Robin put it, “If you can spend time helping a convicted felon, why couldn’t you help a young man who needs a friend?”

Good point! It was my 4th “Little” who signed off on a letter with me that we sent out to about 300 people asking for money. A former volunteer from Husson got a copy and he was the manager of Walmart back when it was spelled Wal-Mart and we received $5,050 from Black Friday and they also donated a LOT of winter clothing, boots, jackets etc. to the Shelter.

I also received a call from another hero; Nelson Jewell who was working at Husson and told me they wanted to donate to the Shelter through my “ask” with the proceeds of a Harlem Rockets Basketball Game. I said, “Great! What’s a Harlem Rocket?”

He explained they were like a poor man’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters. And having seen the Globetrotters a few times growing up, I can tell you the Harlem Rockets were just as great! In fact, my 4th “Little” got to play with them AND we took pictures so when no one believed him at school, he pulled them out to show them off…Including when the towering Center of the Rockets snuck up behind my “Little” (who was and IS fairly tall) and lifted him off the ground as he tried to take a foul shot.

So, now that I have talked or “written” your ears off, you understand two things… good things LEAD to MORE good things and doing for others can not only be meaningful and spiritually uplifting, but it can ALSO be a LOT of fun. If you still don’t believe me, check out our Tik Tok and watch the video of my very real, full sized, genuine plastic owl telling you. His name? It’s Spooky, and with a strange Russian-like accent will tell you that he is the SPOOKIEST of the Spooky Owls. Heck, someday, I might even come across his missing beak and glue it back on. An Owl meant to keep pigeons from gathering and covering our cars, deck and house with guano, found new life as a spokes-critter, years ago for the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter food drive but now for Welcome To Housing.

Love and Peace, your very verbose Founder, Christopher Olsen, Chatterbox Second Class.