01/26/2025
Behind the Scenes of Echoes of Hope
From Amanda Bartlett
Us and Them.
From the time I can remember, my mother was very open about money trouble. My very first memory is from my 2nd or 3rd year of life. Upon the discovery that I had mischievously unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper directly into the toilet, my mother completely lost it. It was all the toilet paper we had, and she didn’t have money or transportation to get more. The risk of damaging the toilet in an apartment we could only stay in if the landlord remained happy with us as tenants, was grease on the fire and my mother had a temper consistent with that of the fiery red head she is. I recall when I was a little older, that my mother and I were surviving on three-hundred or so dollars a month in welfare benefits and that the rent for our 1-bedroom apartment in a less-than-desirable location consumed almost all of that. In a post-consent-decree era of the 1980's, the streets around us in downtown Augusta were lined with half-way houses, loud and chaotic, and often filled with those recently deinstitutionalized from AMHI, inadequately supported in a world that thought it best for them to roll the dice on independent living. We had food stamps, the paper kind, and I can recall the anxious fumbling through booklets while onlookers stared, eyes shifting back and forth from us to the contents of our bags with piercing glares. Even now, I can still feel the weight of shame physically sinking into my chest as I remember Their many judgmental looks.
I learned early there was a clear divide between Us and Them.
We didn’t have a car, so while other neatly dressed families passed us, carts full of all the latest name brands on their way to late model, wood-paneled station wagons, we’d make our way out of the grocery store to wait for a taxicab, the smell of cigarette smoke and the odor of other occupants saturating our clothing on the short ride home. Taxis were expensive so for most anything else we would walk regardless of distance and in all weather conditions and over the years, I grew to know the cracks and grooves of almost every street and shortcut in Augusta, each sidewalk’s pebbled surface as unique as the fingerprints of a hand. I felt like I could walk forever and to this day, I still feel like I could.
When an opportunity arose to supplement our food stock, we would stand in long lines outside of tractor trailer trucks waiting for government surplus food; large blocks of sun-orange cheese, powdered milk, and bags of rice, all unmistakably imprinted with a bold “USDA”. Poverty in rural America, it seemed, was branded. Lines and waiting were the norm. There were lines at government offices, lines for clothing, lines for Christmas. What I remember most about all the waiting, was the consistent sea of sullen faces blending together in a dull monochromy of exhaustion; notably quiet and fully drained from a life consumed by survival rather than living. There were occasional glances and nods among strangers, an acknowledgment of shared experience and suffering.
Them.
This divide grew more obvious to me when I hit school. I was outgoing and quick to make friends. As a student in the gifted and talented program, I somehow landed among the genetic products of some of Augusta’s most successful families. Intellectually, I fit in, but I was a definite misfit in the categories of household composition, census tract and income. Regardless, I was invited to sleepovers and pool parties with Those Kids. It was a world that could afford Fruit Rollups and Lucky Charms, family trips to Disney and an overwhelming habitational excess that sprawled from formal living rooms to playrooms to dens to (gasp) music rooms. There were summer camps and baby grand pianos and spiral staircases and dimmer switches and master baths and half baths; Every room more impressive than the last. They had microwaves, fancy-floor-model televisions and even VCRs. They also had Dads. Dads, I learned, come home tired and promptly loosen their ties, tossing their briefcase to the side before sitting in their recliner, waiting for their stay-at-home wife to prepare a meal, leftovers undoubtedly stored in the latest and greatest Tupperware had to offer. They had neighborhoods that were safe and bright and inviting. Sidewalks in Those neighborhoods were lined with grass on both sides, perfectly framing double lots with thoughtful landscaping; neatly trimmed shrubs and lawns crisp with gridlines from a fresh cutting. I was completely in awe of all these things and experiences and people who seemed fully alive in life that appeared relatively absent of any notable challenge. The only thing that stuck out in this social utopia was me. I really hoped they wouldn’t find out about Us. When friends said they wanted to come to my house, I would find every excuse to avoid the eventuality that they would learn about where I lived and what I had for rooms and toys and furniture and worse, what I didn’t.
Us.
Despite our status as a member of Augusta’s Have-Nots, my mother always remained proud and confident. I would define it more accurately as a fierce defiance of circumstance. Where I noticed our shortcomings and felt the weight of shame and judgment, she held her head high and charged ahead. She always told me that any minute spent crying is a minute you wasted that could have been spent planning improvement of circumstance. Crying was in fact, not allowed. She was and is sarcastic and witty and smart. She kept the house meticulously clean, made all of our food and most of our clothing from scratch. On weekends we would go to lawn sales in the “rich neighborhoods” and she would count spare change to piece together beautiful linens and dishware. We frequented the library and together we read stories and poetry and coffee table books about world geography, history, science and famous artists. We played word games and Scrabble. I can vividly remember when the World Book traveling salesman came to our apartment to sell encyclopedias. They were wildly expensive, far more than we could afford. In a moment of reckless abandon, she ordered them on a payment plan she fully knew she couldn’t make good on, just so I could have access to what was in a time before the internet and Wikipedia, an essential resource. I spent countless hours sitting on the floor reading every line of every encyclopedia and became rich with facts and second-hand experiences. I can remember repeatedly running my hands over the smooth leather and gold-embossed letters of every volume, mesmerized by this stolen luxury. My mother was incredibly well-read and taught me that just because you are poor doesn’t mean you are less-than or aren’t smart or capable of all the same successes possible for someone who is wealthy. She believed that. I’m either incredibly lucky or this is largely true. I suspect that it is a little of both.
Us and Them = Us.
When my friends eventually came over, although initially apprehensive, visibly guarded and uncomfortable, my friends’ mothers eventually softened as they were met with another mother who was more similar than different. They exchanged recipes, talked about current events, shared stories about the kids and happenings at school, upcoming events and the news. They talked about their parents, favorite pets and memories and what it felt like losing a loved one. I saw my mother artfully bridge the divide between Us and Them by forming connections through shared experience. She didn’t win every set of parents over but for most, I learned, there are universally shared experiences that are more powerful in their ability to connect us all than the differences that seem to keep us apart. It is notable however that the differences are visible while the sameness is hidden away inside. It takes an openness to cracking the outer shell to find the connection.
In almost 20 years of affordable housing work, I have found myself on many occasions in a room divided by the Us and Them mentality. Go to any planning board meeting about affordable housing or shelter development in Maine and you can hedge bets on more than one person coming out against “Those People”; People with lower incomes, people without homes, people who are somehow different. There have been many-a-project that would have been the difference maker for communities and countless lives if not for this great divide. I suspect that when I am speaking at a Public Hearing in my current role as the Chief Operating Officer of one of Maine’s most respected affordable housing development companies or in my previous role as the executive director of Augusta Housing Authority, most would never suspect that “Those People” are also me.
For the past few months, I have had the opportunity and honor to work with the Augusta Task Force on Homelessness and through that work, I have been drawn into reflection around this issue and felt called to the purpose of using shared human experience to create connection with our most vulnerable neighbors. Dave Dostie’s partnership on this project has been powerful in his ability to capture emotion through what is truly magazine-worthy, documentary-style photography. Having the opportunity to get to know people who live unhoused here in my hometown of Augusta, who know every groove and every crack of the streets and sidewalks I too know like the back of my hand, has been a gift that has reinvigorated my sense of purpose and spirit. I hope that for everyone following our page, getting to know Jen and James and Christine and Nephi and Pablo and Josh and Joe and the others you have yet to be introduced to, you will find perspective, a feeling of sameness and connectedness. I hope it encourages and reminds each of us to reach through the surface of those we don’t know and learn about each other.
Life has taught me that it’s not Us and Them, it’s just Us, out here trying to make a go of it on this tiny speck in the universe called Augusta, where we are all more the same than different and forever connected through our shared human experience.
Thank you for following.
