The new dog park, waiting for dogs. The Leahy Shelter & Resource Center building is seen in the background. Photos by Maggie Cassidy.
When you drive by the Upper Valley Haven’s new building on Route 5 and you notice a little fenced-in area off to the side, you might not think much of it. The small dog park, roughly 30 feet squared, is surrounded by chest-high fencing and some play structures in the middle: tunnels to run through, one of those triangular frames that dogs can run up and down. An awning blocks one section from the elements, and at night it’s well lit — safe and inviting.
When I first noticed the park, I thought about it a lot. It made me think of my dad and his dogs. Dad died last year at age 70, and his two corgis, Lilo and Louie, had died several years before that. When he first moved to the Upper Valley more than a decade earlier, when I was a low-wage 20-something living in an apartment, he was in tough shape from health issues and debt. He was able to secure housing in one of the Hotel Coolidge’s long-stay rooms, and I worked obsessively to find a temporary home for L & L, networking with rescue groups around the Northeast before connecting with a married couple in Massachusetts, total strangers, who already had two corgis and added Lilo and Louie to their pack free of charge for almost a year, until Dad got a place of his own and they were reunited. Because the dogs were so important to my dad, I thought of these people as angels.
It turns out that the Upper Valley Haven thought a lot about this little dog park, too, when the staff was designing the Leahy Shelter & Resource Center, as the building is known. Sitting on the lot that formerly housed the iconic “25,000 Gifts” shop and then a LISTEN furniture store, the new 20-bed facility, which the Haven is working to open soon, will connect Haven clients with critical social service resources while providing low-barrier nightly shelter to anyone who needs it on a lottery basis. “Low-barrier” means that guests will face few eligibility requirements to be able to get a bed to sleep; the example that gets the most attention is that, unlike in many other facilities, they need not be sober.
Yet another barrier to housing assistance is often pets, particularly people’s love and loyalty toward them. In a national survey of people experiencing homelessness conducted in 2016, nearly a quarter said they could not get shelter beds because of rules against bringing their pets. That doesn’t even account for the people who had to choose between stable housing or their pets in the first place, or who were priced out of rental units because of exorbitant pet fees or all-out pet bans.
The dog park for Haven clients is roughly 30 feet squared.
The Haven allows pets at all of its shelters, including the family and adult shelters at its main campus on Hartford Avenue, according to Gwen Williams, the Leahy Shelter supervisor and a longtime community service coordinator at the Haven. Rooms in the family and adult shelters are big enough to welcome dogs. And the staff handles the logistics of making sure both adults in a single shared room — the pet owner and the second person — are comfortable with the pet, so that its presence does not inadvertently create a barrier for someone else.
But at the new building site on Route 5, staff recognized early on in the design process that there’s very little green space, which would be needed for people’s pups. The word Williams kept returning to was “intentional,” as in the intention staff pours into breaking down barriers for guests.
“We feel like removing barriers means making room for the whole person, including the bonds that matter most to them,” she said. “We don't want folks to have to choose between a safe place to sleep and a companion who's basically stayed by their side through their homelessness.”
By the time Dad died, he had been living in a sweet little apartment for several years with my brother, Charlie, up in East Thetford. They shared the space with their beloved cat, Lottie, and their future together was bright. If Dad and the corgis were around, I’m not sure they would have noticed the little dog park at the Haven’s new building on Route 5 at first–but they would think it was pretty cool when they did.
Louie (standing) and Lilo (facing camera).
Send me your questions
Although I took a detour for this column to satisfy my own curiosity, “Ask Maggie” is typically fueled by your inquiries! Email your Upper Valley questions to [email protected] with your name and town, or fill out this form.
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Maggie Cassidy is the former editor of the Valley News and managing editor of VTDigger. In addition to creative endeavors in film and other media, she is the marketing manager at KIS Clean Outs and KIS Thrift, and serves as the proprietor of Wilder’s largest salt and pepper shaker museum. She can be reached at [email protected].
