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03/24/2021 09:16 AMA year after the COVID-19 pandemic began to shut down the institutions and amenities most people tend to take for granted, Old Saybrook Social Services Coordinator Sue Consoli reflected on its particular impact on those she serves: people who struggle to provide for their and their families’ basic needs.
“I was already working with quite a few people before this,” Consoli said in a Zoom interview in mid-March.
Estimating the number of people her office assists can be difficult, as residents use available social services to varying degrees. Some families receive regular assistance, whereas someone else might find themselves in sudden need because of illness or an accident—someone she’s never heard from before might call her office for emergency help with a utility bill, for instance. But her estimate is that roughly 550 families get help from Old Saybrook Social Services on an ongoing basis.
Once the pandemic hit, around 150 families, or 250 household members, were added to her caseload between mid-March and the end of December 2020, according to Consoli.
Lost Jobs and Cutbacks
“We added folks that we never had before,” she said, “folks that are working and managing and probably living paycheck to paycheck like most people do. And when those hours were cut back, and some of them lost jobs entirely, it became an issue, [especially] for a lot of our single moms.”
Remote learning is particularly difficult for working single mothers, Consoli pointed out. There were those last few months of the 2019–’20 school year, after schools closed, when kids were at home full time. And although schools have been open for the current academic year, students will occasionally be quarantined if they are thought to have come in contact with someone who tested positive.
“They’ll get the notice” that their child has been quarantined late in the day or even at night, she said. “And then what do you do? You’re calling your employer.”
Affordable and accessible childcare, which is generally difficult to come by, is even scarcer during a pandemic.
Service workers have been hit particularly hard. Even though many restaurants have remained open for take-out, they’re not fully staffed.
And those workers are “not making the kind of money they used to make,” Consoli added.
Consoli, who used to have a part-time assistant and now has one intern, said she is largely focused on helping people address immediate needs.
“[W]e’re trying to really make sure that those new folks out there realize [that] Social Services is not just for folks that are maybe normally in the system needing help, but it’s for everybody,” she said. “You might need help in this interim, you might have a very good job and [hours have been] cut back or it’s not there right now. We’re here to help everybody who’s struggling.
“I try to tell people, ‘If you need it, use it right now,’” she continued. “Things will get better. I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel...I think we’re coming out of this. And my goal is to help people come out of this as whole as possible.”
The increase in those needing help can be hard to nail down because those who have never before turned to Saybrook’s Social Services office for help may end up calling 211, which connects people to services and resources. According to statistics kept by 2-1-1 Counts, there were enormous increases in 211 calls pertaining to healthcare. In January and February 2020, immediately before the pandemic struck, there were three and four healthcare-related calls, respectively, coming from Old Saybrook. In January and February 2021, there were 73 and 235 such calls.
Help Has Continued
Requests continue to come in to Consoli’s office for help with housing, food, and utilities. In years past, her Social Services Help Days were scheduled each month and provided a one-stop service for those in need: representatives would come from community and state organizations, departments, and resources, such as HUSKY dental services. There were tables with clothing and personal items like toothbrushes. And the biggest attraction was the truck from the Connecticut Food Bank, which would park in the lot and distribute groceries with the help of volunteers.
But Governor Ned Lamont’s executive order of March 12, 2020 limited the size of public gatherings to 250 people, which made the help days risky—Consoli was concerned the turnout would exceed that. She immediately canceled the event planned for that month and didn’t schedule another until February 2021.
Despite the elimination of the help days, “most of the programs...we found a way to run them,” she said. “We’ve continued to help. People are very generous in Old Saybrook—they always help when we have a need. I’m very, very grateful and lucky that we have such good folks here.”
At the annual back-to-school help day, donated backpacks filled with school supplies are distributed to families. In 2020, Consoli provided gift cards for parents to purchase those items themselves.
“[W]e couldn’t collect the items, disinfect the items, touch the items, hand them to somebody,” she explained. “It was just too much.”
While Lamont’s moratorium on evictions is slated to come to an end on April 19, the state Department of Housing (DOH) has initiated a program called Unite CT that will “provide rental and utility payment assistance to qualified Connecticut households financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the DOH website.
“And then we’ve had our Old Saybrook CARES [Committee for Active Recovery Efforts] here and they’ve helped out tremendously,” Consoli continued. The donor-funded program allows applicants to apply for up to $1,500 for food, utilities, or housing, childcare, or transportation costs arising as a result of layoffs or unemployment due to COVID-19.
There are ordinary people who’ve turned into major donors.
“When this first started, I had some really nice people call me and say, ‘Look, I got my stimulus check; I really don’t need the stimulus check. Can we help someone else?’” she said.
Addressing Food Insecurity
Statistics from the Shoreline Soup Kitchen & Pantries (SSKP) point to the increase in food insecurity since the pandemic struck a year ago. SSKP, which serves the towns of Essex, Chester, Clinton, Madison, Old Saybrook, East Lyme, Lyme, Old Lyme, Killingworth, Westbrook, and Deep River, saw an increase of 60 percent in the number of people served at its pantries in 2020 compared to 2019. Providing groceries for those 159,555 people took 1.6 million pounds of food, according to the SSKP website.
The 1.4 million meals distributed at SSKP soup kitchens was a 55 percent increase over 2019. Seven of the nine SSKP meal sites provided meals to go.
In an effort to help address these needs, Consoli turned some her divided attention toward creating a drive-through version of the Social Services Help Day. Finding adequate space has been difficult: The local COVID testing site and vaccine clinic are using large town lots.
“We did a farmers-to-families food box distribution during the winter, but it was just before the COVID testing site moved into the [Saybrook] Point area,” she explained. “So we weren’t able to do that again at that site.”
In February 2021, the first help day in a year was held at St. Mark’s Church in Westbrook, with Old Saybrook Lions Club and Valley Shore YMCA providing volunteers to assist. Attendees were asked to wear masks, remain in their vehicles, and follow the signs directing them through the event. Volunteers placed food, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other dental supplies in trunks.
Flexibility and creativity are key to continuing her work, Consoli said, although she couldn’t accomplish any of it without the assistance of many other individuals and entities.
“How do I make this happen now?” is the question she asks herself constantly, she explained. As things change, “I’m just trying to keep doing what I can do.”
A second drive-through Social Services Help Day will take place on Thursday, March 25 at the First Church of Christ in Saybrook at 366 Main Street from 10 a.m. to noon, again providing food and dental supplies.