With cold coming, Tri-Cities warming center to reopen
SOMERSWORTH The Tri-Cities’ overnight warming center will reopen Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights due to “potentially life-threatening low temperatures” in the forecast for this weekend, the cities announced Wednesday morning.
The emergency walk-in facility, located at 30 Willand Drive, will open at 5 p.m. each of those nights and close at 9 a.m. the morning after. Anyone seeking shelter may arrive any time between those hours this weekend. Referrals and reservations aren’t required.
Dover, Somersworth and Rochester created the regional center in December, operating it with Strafford County’s arm of the Integrated Delivery Network and help from local social service agencies and volunteers, to provide a walk-in, overnight facility during periods of life safety risk and extreme cold weather emergencies.
First Congregational Church to serve as emergency winter shelter
The Rev. Michael Leuchtenberger (center) and his son, Daniel, bring in bunk beds to the former office space of the First Congregational Church on Friday morning. Leuchtenberger, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Concord and the outgoing chair of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness, brought items from the existing winter shelter over to the new facility. GEOFF FORESTER photos / Monitor staff
Rev. Michael Leuchtenberger, center, and his son, Daniel, bring in bunk beds to the former office space of the First Congregational Church on Friday morning, December 18, 2020. Leuchtenberger, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Concord and the outgoing chair of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness, brought items from the existing winter shelter over to the new facility. GEOFF FORESTER Monitor staff
Jessica Marino says her story is one of desperation.
For much of the past couple of years, Marino says desperation has guided her decisions as she has clawed through trauma and unsafe situations in pursuit of stability for her 9-year-old son, Sam.
“A lot of times, the decisions we make when we make them out of desperation are not going to be good choices because you’re sort of just grasping at something,” she said. “You’re trying to paddle upstream with nothing.”
Marino fears nothing but more desperation lies beyond both options at her latest crossroads.
That crossroads gave her the option to escape a $900-a-month Rochester apartment she says was unsafe, but do so by moving into a $1,614 Dover apartment her paycheck and savings won’t be able to sustain unless her circumstances cha