NORWAY – The Planning Board on Thursday approved a change of use for a Winter Street building, paving the way for its opening as a family homeless shelter.

“It’s a family-oriented shelter,” Laurie Winsor of Community Concepts told board members and the two local residents at the hearing.

The building at 28 Winter St. will house only two families at a time. Tony Morra of Bisco Properties in Norway is leasing the building to Community Concepts for the shelter.

The Planning Board required the public hearing because Community Concepts was considering a change of use for the property. The property had been a business, but the request by Community Concepts changes its use back to residential, Planning Board members said.

Community Concepts operates two homeless shelters in Paris and in Rumford. The Rumford shelter has been in operation for 20 years and the Paris shelter has been open for 10 years. The Norway shelter will replace the Paris one, Winsor said.

No signs are on the property to indicate the use as a shelter.

Although the unit is a three-bedroom apartment, only two families, and a maximum of seven people, will be served at a time, Winsor said. She said the third bedroom will most likely be used to provide a private location for families and social workers to meet.

Thomas Maher, owner of Ken & Tom’s Floor Covering on nearby Paris Street, questioned the number of occupants in one bedroom, but Winsor said unlike dormitory style shelters, this shelter will house all family members in one bedroom. Often, she said, the family consists of a single mom and several children.

Each of their homeless shelters are set up as two-unit dwellings. Families reside in their own bedrooms and the kitchen, living room and bathroom are shared space for all households.

The families will be supervised and each must go through an intake process first to ensure there are no issues of domestic violence or other problems. Winsor said at a previous meeting that there have never been any problems with drugs or alcohol in their two homeless shelters. No one has been evicted except for one person involved in a 2003 theft at one of the shelters.

Winsor said the families they will serve are usually financially strapped and in need of housing assistance. There is no specific length of stay for families but the typical time is some seven to nine months before they receive Section 8 housing assistance and find a rental unit.

The program allows families access to social workers and other services while they are at the shelter.

The state has inspected the Winter Street  site and provided a list of items that need to be addressed.

Community Concepts has offered a variety of housing, economic development and social services for the communities of Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties since 1965.

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