By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — Diane True has been through the ordeal of being homeless. 

“It is winter. There is Covid. People are sleeping in the parking lot of the Naples post office. It is tragic. It is frightening. It is horrible. Until you’ve been there you don’t understand how it feels when you are driving around trying to figure out where to park the car to sleep for the night. Most people get in their car after work and drive home,” True said.

“I want to make the next chapter in my life about having my home available for people” who would otherwise be homeless, she said.  

True is a former kindergarten teacher who lived through being homeless in 2019 and 2020. She was forced to leave her home when it went into foreclosure. 

(She has since regained ownership of her house in Windham.) 

“One thing led to another. I retired from teaching and I got a divorce. My home went into foreclosure, and I found myself homeless,” True said.

The foreclosure process started in May 2019, and that is when she lost the home where she had lived for 40 years and she became homeless — sleeping in her car, staying at friends’ homes, and spending some of the winter in a motel room after a friend set up a GoFundMe page for her.  

On one hand, there was the warmth and support of real friends who opened their homes to her. On the other hand, there was the bureaucracy that frustrated her.

“I noticed there isn’t anything out there to help people who are homeless. There are no vouchers. There is no housing. I called, and they said, ‘Put your name on a list and maybe in four years,’ ” True said. 

“There was no help whatsoever from the government agencies. In Windham, we have Neighbors Helping Neighbors. That is one thing — heating assistance. What difference does that make if you don’t have a home to heat? We are talking about people who do not have a house,” True said.

“I would have been in my car more often if it wasn’t for help of people in the area,” she said. “Unless you’ve been on the receiving end, you don’t know what kindness can do. It is just unbelievable.”

“I went to live with a friend for a while. Of course, I couldn’t stay there indefinitely. I was couch-surfing. People don’t mind putting you up for a weekend or a week. If you aren’t family, it disrupts everything. That was May a year ago. That whole summer, I rotated between three different friends. Fortunately, they didn’t have kids there. I don’t know what it would have been like if people had kids and stuff,” she said.

As far as relying on family for help, True’s parents died decades ago and she is an only child.  

“I ended up having a GoFundMe page that a friend set up for me. I used that money and moved into the motel. I was there six weeks. The winter was brutal,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have survived this without the kindness of friends. One friend let me move in right before the Covid quarantine. Everybody had a heads’ up that was going to happen the week before. I had been staying at the hotel on Route 302. She said, ‘You cannot stay there. Come stay with us during the quarantine.’ We just hunkered down for a few months,” True said.

She stayed there from the middle of March through late May. Then, she contacted the mortgage company and worked out an arrangement to get back into her home. True learned to become her own advocate when it came to negotiating with government agencies. Also, she discovered how unprepared the towns are for the rising numbers of homeless people. 

“It was really frustrating. There is nothing out there. I called 211. I called the Department of Health and Human Services. They are the same way. They don’t have money to give people. They would have to give everyone $1,000 or more. Rent anywhere starts at $1,200. And, you have first and last month to move in,” she said. “With the number of people who are homeless in Maine, and a lot of them dragging kids with them, there just isn’t the funding to help them. There is just no easy solution. I know it is a crisis. The state is not set up to take care of it,” she said. 

She talked about staying positive during such a low period. 

“The only thing I could really do is not give up. Having great friends is important. Networking is helpful. Things gradually got better. But, I tell you not having a place to lay your head at night is scary,”

In turn, True has rented a section of her home to a family that was in jeopardy of being homeless. The adult in the family was able to pay rent and they will be safe through the winter, True said.

She has reflected on her experience as one that has given her even more compassion toward others.

“All of us are two unfortunate instances away from having stuff like this happen to us,” she said. 

“At the end of this summer, I was sitting around the campfire with friends and one of them said to me ‘Can you believe where you were a year ago at this time?’ I thought, Maybe, you do have to go through the fire to appreciate what you have. I know what that underbelly is like. I would like to do something more to help people in similarsituations,” she said.