Michelle Laverdure wants a plan for tomorrow.

She’s tired of living out of her van, driving spot to spot so her vehicle isn’t towed or vandalized. She’s exhausted by watching her friends relocate their tent: one encampment sweep means they’re herded to a new location, only to be asked to leave again. And she’s grieving – her stepson, dear friends and neighbors – who have died this year while experiencing homelessness.

Laverdure typically gets up before dawn and hits the road early. She’ll drive her van to drop off donations with people, pick up those who need a reprieve from the outside and bring anyone who asks to Planet Fitness for a shower, where she has a monthly membership. Lately, her focus has turned from assistance to action.

While the city of Concord holds meetings to discuss how to help alleviate homelessness – from a public safety perspective on one committee to conversations among service providers in another – Laverdure is tired of two things: lots of talk without much action and leaders speaking on behalf of people like herself.

“It’s hard watching. I feel like I’ve lost more people to homelessness this year than I’ve ever lost people in my life,” she said. “It’s all the same things. People are hopeless.”

At a Concord public safety advisory committee meeting, Laverdure introduced herself to the members and provided them with a more immediate solution: sanctioning one area in the city where people experiencing homelessness could lawfully live outside.

Currently, city ordinances prohibit all overnight camping on public property and police can enforce trespassing on private property. While the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness provides an emergency winter shelter with 40 beds from December to March, few stable options are available year-round.

Simply put, people have few options.

“There’s no place to go. So if we could have some red tape removed so we could have a place that is safe where we could all gather,” she said. “So we’re not outside running around looking for a place where we can put our tent so that our tent can just be moved… It keeps happening and that’s why a lot of these folks have lost trust in the system.”

City councilor Jennifer Kretovic, a representative on the public safety advisory board, admitted city leaders don’t normally hear from people with direct lived experience, like Laverdure, at these meetings.

“I am very grateful for you being here,” she said.

Kretovic heard similar propositions for a tiny home community from Teri Gladstone, an advocate in Concord who has been talking to city leaders, nonprofits and people who are experiencing homelessness.

But Laverdure hopes that hearing from people like herself will no longer be an anomaly at city meetings. She plans to keep attending – from City Council meetings to committee conversations and bring others with her.

Prior to the meeting, she posted in Homeless in Concord – a Facebook group started by Rebecca Carlman that has over 1,000 members – encouraging people to attend the public safety meeting and offered to pick them up.

Carlman’s group facilitates a broad conversation about homelessness in Concord. She’ll post notices that she has clothes, blankets and tents from donations at the ready. At its core also, it’s an online group where people can check in – asking if others have seen a particular person or if people are safe during extreme weather.

Laverdure painted a stark picture to councilors and board members. If every person experiencing homelessness in Concord – current estimates hover around 300 people – had lost their housing at once, it would be considered a city emergency. She thinks of natural disasters like hurricanes that trigger an all-hands-on-deck response.

To her, the growing crisis of homelessness in Concord is no different.

Laverdure has ideas for a sanctioned area where people can live. She envisions a garden where people could grow and sell their own food, a thrift store to sell clothing. Most importantly, the space would be a one-stop shop for resource providers to identify and assist people who are unhoused.

Last fall, the city of Nashua did this temporarily, providing a sanctioned camping area on a city-owned plot of land off of the old park and ride, after shelter beds hit capacity. In Concord, city leaders have previously indicated that this would not be a solution they’d entertain.

Still, the idea of a concentrated area is something Carlman has been thinking about for months. She knows what it’s like to spend a winter sleeping in a tent – she experienced homelessness herself a few years ago and now dedicates her time to providing resources, like clothing donations and blankets, to her friends who are still sleeping outside.

Often, she’ll park her car near the Friendly Kitchen with donations at the ready. She has noticed that in between meals at the Friendly Kitchen, many hang around in the adjacent field.

To her, that would be the perfect place to sanction camping. The land next to the Friendly Kitchen is city-owned and currently untouched. Carlman envisions bathrooms, dumpsters, boxes for needle disposals and a fire pit. To her, it would alleviate pressure from the city to respond to fires at scattered encampments – last week there was one off of Old Loudon Road – and create a congregate setting for services.

“The problems it solves: no human waste all over the place, no more exploding propane bottles, no more fires so that first responders don’t have to go all over the place,” she said. “It is going to solve a lot of problems. … t’s a hop skip and a jump to the Friendly Kitchen, to the homeless Resource Center it’s a short walk and to the bus stop.”

The challenge for Carlman and Laverdure is getting buy-in from city leaders, which they hope will come as people start to understand their stories, and those of other people experiencing homelessness in the area.

Anna Cannard, another member of the Facebook group, has started making short videos of people in the community who are currently unhoused and sharing them on social media. Some are Concord High School graduates, many were recently housed. And in the videos, Cannard talks candidly with people about substance abuse and mental health challenges they face.

“In Concord, more than other communities, there is a lot of prejudice. It’s a lot of the housed versus the unhoused,” she said. “One of the goals of coming to the meetings and the videos I’m doing, it’s trying to get the community, the whole city, to see that we all need to come together and find a solution to this together.”

The public conversation about homelessness is one Laverdure has wanted to help start for the last two years, she said, since she lost her own housing.

In 2022, a rent increase at her Loudon Road apartment meant she was priced out and later evicted. After that, she bought a school bus, driving around and living out of it in hopes of getting her kids through school in Concord. Now, she’s resorted to a van, selling the bus for scrap metal after it was totaled.

She knows her story is not far off from others – she was someone who was housed, scraping by, until one change put her under.

“There’s so many more people that are teetering on homelessness,” she said. “It’s easy for them to point the finger and say stuff about us, but there are so, so many teetering.”

The city’s current housing landscape doesn’t give her any hope either. Apartments are scarce and costly. To her, it’s an inflated game of musical chairs, where 100 people are competing for 10 open spaces.

“It’s not how hard you work,” she said. “You’re still gonna have 90 people without a seat.”

Carlman directly asked the public safety board if the city has a plan for where the homeless can currently go. The answer from Councilor Amanda Grady Sexton, who chairs the committee, was simply no.

That in itself fuels Laverdure to attend more meetings, she said. She hopes others will come, publicly sharing their stories and solutions to shift city conversations.

“We need a voice at the table,” she said. “If it’s about us, it needs to include us.”

Michaela Towfighi can be reached at mtowfighi@cmonitor.com.