dlyon  Mar 7 2005 - 8:29am  Local News   

BY JESSICA SCHAEFFER-HELMECKI
Special to the Chronicle
Karl Lael was a carpenter and his wife, Wanda Lael, was a nurse. Work was slow in Florida so they headed north.
Promised pay and a place to stay, they moved to the Nutmeg State. Their place to stay, they found, was a trailer in the woods with no heat, water or electricity. Karl worked on roofs and Wanda with the elderly.
They worked and saved and found their own apartment. But soon Karl’s pay started slipping and Wanda started having strokes. Wanda could not work and Karl lost his job. Their landlord lost his mortgage. Karl and Wanda lost their home.
“We had to leave everything,” said Wanda in a soft, Southern drawl. “All we own now are three bags of clothes.”
Now they move from shelter to soup kitchen to warm public place, always chased by the cold. “People whisper about us always being in the library,” said Karl. “But they could be us in a heartbeat.”
They are not alone.
The Windham County Continuum of Care, a collection of locally-based social service agencies that collectively seeks federal funding to help the homeless, is trying to count how many people like “Karl and Wanda” are out there.
Places like the Covenant Soup Kitchen, the Willimantic-based No-Freeze Hospitality Center on Main Street, and area outreach services are asking the homeless who use their services to fill out a survey. The results are expected later this month.
The questions range from “What is your age?” to “What do you see as the main reason for being homeless?” and “Where did you sleep last night?”
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, a financial supporter of the WCCC, asked that the survey be done. It is meant to determine how many homeless people there are in the county and who they are.
“You have to know the people you’re helping before you can help them,” said Tom McNally, chairman of Willimantic’s No-Freeze Hospitality Center.
An almost identical survey was conducted in January 2002. That 2002 census of the homeless in Windham County found that 270 people were homeless, 89 of them children.
According to Karl and Wanda, it doesn’t take much for people to get into the situation they are in. They say they are just like everyone else.
“We don’t smoke. We don’t drink. We go to church everyday,” said Karl, a Vietnam veteran. “We pray,” said Wanda. “We pray every day.”
Karl said he wants a job more than anything. But, he says he finds it’s difficult without an address or a phone. “A normal life it ain’t,” he said.