The Rev. Carl Mazza believes that homelessness in rural areas tends to be more invisible. People living in cars, abandoned houses or the woods are often overlooked and forgotten.
Mazza, a Presbyterian minister, is the founder and director of Meeting Ground, a faith-based non-profit, organization located in Elkton, Md. that is trying to combat the area's growing homelessness population.
"It's a national problem, not just something in Elkton or Cecil County," Mazza said. "There's a lack of decent, affordable housing for people in low income brackets. There's a lack of low-skill and medium-skill jobs to learn a living wage. Even working at Wal-Mart 80 hours a week won't even get you a living."
"We're so transient. We don't live in communities anymore and there's a lot fewer of them," he said. "Folks can't manage and survive anymore on cheap housing and eating."
According to the U.S Census Bureau, 9.3 percent of Cecil County's population lived below the poverty line in 2007. As of December, Cecil County's unemployment rate was 9.4 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Meeting Ground operates six different emergency and transitional housing and support systems. These include Clairvaux Farms, a 20-acre facility with accommodations for 35 people; Wayfarers' House, a nine-bedroom house with shelter for 16 women with or without children; Settlement House, a men's shelter,; George Porter House, transitional housing for eight people; Mary Randall Center, a center for worship, and a rotating church-based winter shelter system.
Mazza founded Meeting Ground in 1981, having always believed his calling was based in parish ministry. It began with Wayfarers' House, but the facility quickly became too crowded to accommodate enough people. The organization began expanding and adding more shelters to its roster in order to fit the many impoverished individuals that were seeking its help.
"We didn't realize the problem was that extensive," he said. "It's a growing social problem and it's been almost 30 years. Thirty years ago shelters were rare, especially in an area like Cecil County. Now, they're all over the place. In Cecil County it's [homelessness] not any worse than anywhere else, but Meeting Ground makes it more visible."
Since its beginning, Meeting Ground has provided more than 492,000 bed-nights of shelter to the area's homeless. In 2008, it provided 36,098 bed-nights of housing and served 59,900 meals to the needy.
For the most part, Meeting Ground has been accepted by the community. However in 2007 after Mazza purchased land zoned to create the Mary Randall Center, the Town of Elkton's zoning board denied him permission to use the property. The center was intended to offer daytime worship services, showers, food, job training and telephone and computer access.
Although Meeting Ground is classified as a church, Elkton's zoning board classified the center as a "philanthropic" use under the Town zoning ordinance, thereby denying Mazza and his staff permission to perform even basic religious services there for the homeless.
In July 2008, Mazza, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit against the town of Elkton, according to the ACLU Web site. They claimed that the town's actions both discriminated against Meeting Ground and denied the church's right to freedom of religion under the U.S. Constitution and under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal law that protects the exercise of religious rights against improper interference by zoning officials.
After U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake entered a preliminary injunction in the suit, the town reclassified Meeting Ground's permit application and issued an occupancy permit in October 2008. This allowed renovations to continue on the Mary Randall Center.
A settlement between Meeting Ground and the Town was finally reached in December 2009, when the Town awarded Meeting Ground $70,000 as compensation for grants it was prevented from receiving during the years that the Mary Randall Center wasn't open.
Randy Clayton, Meeting Ground's administrative pastor and executive director, said the center is still emerging and is currently open to the public.
"Cecil County clearly sees it as an issue, but we feel like we have strong relationships with the community and their support," Clayton said.
Owing to its location along the I-95 corridor, Mazza said the homeless from outside Maryland sometimes look to the shelters for help, including people from Delaware and Pennsylvania who travel there from truck stops. He said it is also common to see veterans discharged from the Perry Point VA Medical Center in Perry Point, Md. Many have nowhere to go once they have been released.
Meeting Ground is also almost entirely volunteer-based, he said. In 2008, nearly 200 volunteers logged 4,478 hours of volunteering for the organization.
"We depend on hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. The support is very grassroots," Mazza said. "In the rotating shelter alone, almost every denomination is represented. There's a huge support and willingness to help. Meeting Ground acts as a catalyst for that to happen."
Daryl Martin, the director of Settlement House–– an 18-bed shelter for men that helped 27 residents achieve permanent housing and provided 6,933 nights of housing. Civilians are allowed to stay for up to a year, provided that they are actively seeking employment, have opened a savings account and remain sober for the duration of their stay. Veterans are allowed to stay for two years.
There is currently a two-month waiting list to enter, he said
Martin estimates that approximately 75 percent of Settlement House's occupants are over the age of 35, however, he said he has seen men as young as seniors in high school applying to the house for shelter.
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