75 cents SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 www.sentinelsource.

com

An unseen city
A CHRISTMAS TREE
GLOWS IN KEENE

omelessness once seemed confined to those who weren’’t necessarily employable or didn’’t make a

H living wage. But with the economic downturn, the homeless population began to include people
who had been laid off and couldn’’t afford their rent or mortgages anymore.
““Tent City”” has been around for years, homeless people living on forest land behind a Keene shopping
center. But now ““Tent City”” is less ““tent”” and more ““city,”” a place where a close-knit group of people can
watch movies and drink beer within an insulated shack. All are out of work. Some face mental health
issues or drinking problems and have more trouble finding jobs.
The Sentinel followed their stories from summer, when more were willing to live in tents and deal with
rain and bugs, toward winter, when those who remain have found a way to make do among themselves.

STEVE HOOPER / Sentinel Staff

Rob Colbert and his son Andy,

5, of Swanzey listen to the From left,
Keene Cheshiremen perform homeless
Friday evening at the Keene men Todd
Tree Lighting Celebration 2009. Maliska,
Colbert is coach of the Keene Donald
State College men’s basketball Archambault
team. For more pictures of the and Rob
festivities, which drew a large Doyle
crowd to Central Square, see pass the
page 16. time inside
the shelter
they have
built in a

Jobless patch of
Keene
woods.

report The
shelter is
equipped
with a

a sliver generator,
is
insulated

of hope and has a

wood
stove.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON —— Two years

of steep job cuts all but ended last
month, unexpectedly pulling down
the unemployment rate and rais-
ing hopes for a lasting economic re-
covery.
Federal figures released Friday
showed that the rate fell from 10.2
percent in October to 10 percent as
employers shed the fewest number
of jobs since the recession began
two years ago. The government al-
so said far fewer jobs were lost in
September and October than first
reported.
And the so-called underemploy-
ment rate, counting part-time
workers who want full-time jobs
and laid-off workers who have giv-
en up their job hunt, also fell, from
17.5 percent in October to 17.2 per-
cent.
The better-than-expected fig-
ures provided a rare dose of good
news for the economy, but the
respite may be temporary. Job cre-
ation is still so weak that more
than 15 million out-of-work Amer-
icans face fierce competition for
few openings.
““We will need very substantial
job growth to get unemployment
lower, especially when the labor
force ... starts growing again,”” said
Lawrence Mishel, president of the
Economic Policy Institute, a liber-
See EXPERTS on Page 5
INSIDE TODAY
PAGE 3
REGION
Local arts groups
awarded federal
‘Tent City,’ an enclave for the homeless,
has long been a part of the Keene scene
By DAVID P. GREISMAN
Sentinel Staff
Hidden in plain sight, down a
muddy path in a forest behind a
well-traveled shopping center, is a
place known to some as ““Tent City””
—— an encampment of homeless
people that has been around for
decades.
Its residents, however, seem to
change from year to year.
A few tents are abandoned,
filled with water and leaves and
surrounded by trash. The tents still
remain even though those who set
them up, seeking refuge behind the
West Street Shopping Center, are
no longer there.
Community spirit
drives man behind
revitalized theater
By JOAN GEARY
Contributing Writer
MICHAEL MOORE / Sentinel Staff
DVD player, wood stoves, windows
Sunday Monday and insulated walls.
Today They call where they live ““In-
TentCity,”” pronounced ““Intensity.””
X How does an X What services
X A look at
elderly woman live on are available to help Home is where ...
Keene’s Tent City the streets in Keene? those in need?
To get there, go behind the
Hannaford grocery store, back to
the corner of the shopping center.
On For a another view of Tent City, see photographer There, a chain-link fence divides
video Steve Hooper’s video at www.sentinelsource.com the properties.
Parked in front of the fence, at
times, is a red car belonging to a
woman who stayed there for
Those tents (and another, still- In the summer months, there months and, though now in a
occupied tent) stand in isolation, were eight in the group. Later, shelter, still returns to Tent City
away from the path and the most their numbers dropped to six. Now each day.
visible element within the forest —— there are four who are hunkering The path begins at the left edge
a makeshift village, belonging to a down in an impressively construct-
tight-knit group of people. ed shack, complete with beds, a See HOMELESS on Page 6
101 die
in Russia
nightclub

Arts and cultural opportunities underscore the vi-

stimulus money. brancy of any community —— so says Dan Henderson of
Keene. That’’s why he not only spearheaded the drive
to renovate The Colonial Theatre nearly two decades
PAGE 13 ago, but is chairman of a new regional nonprofit arts
SPORTS
agency’’s leadership board.
““Community is about sharing, culturally,”” he said.
““We’’ve gotten away from that in our car-based cultures. If
we concentrate on cul-
It’s smackdown Sat-
Monadnock Profile tural activities in the
urday in college foot- center of the communi-
ball, with conference ty, it pulls people to-
titles on the line. gether. It establishes a dialogue about what’’s important.
““That’’s what makes a community,”” he said. ““It’’s a
social capital that we’’re fortunate to have here in
PAGE 17 Keene and in the Monadnock Region that we’’re trying
BUSINESS
to build on. Lots of communities have lost that.””
Henderson, 56, grew up in Virginia. After earning
an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the Uni-
versity of Virginia, he graduated in 1981 with a law
Area employers tell
degree from the College of William & Mary in
same-sex couples to Williamsburg. Pursuing a career in corporate law, he
get hitched to keep subsequently, with his wife, Ann, relocated to The
health benefits. Hague, Netherlands, on temporary assignment. There
his two oldest children were born, and he indulged his
STEVE HOOPER / Sentinel Staff
Dan Henderson sits in his chair at the Colonial
Theatre. Henderson was instrumental in getting
Keene’s downtown theater renovated.
passion for skiing in the Rhone Valley of the Alps. He
thoroughly enjoyed his life abroad despite the constant
rainy natural climate.
Three years later, in the mid-1980s, he was trans-
ferred to Keene, where he discovered The Colonial
Theatre.
““My wife and I went into The Colonial to see a
See THRIVING on Page 8
explosion
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOSCOW —— An explosion and
fire apparently caused by pyrotech-
nics tore through a nightclub in the
Russian city of Perm early today,
killing 101 people, according to
news reports.
Regional security minister Igor
Orlov said the club had a suspend-
ed plastic ceiling that caught fire
quickly when ignited by so-called
““cold fireworks,”” which generally
are fountain-type displays with
lower temperatures than conven-
tional fireworks, the ITAR-Tass
news agency reported.
““The majority of the deaths were
the result of burns or gas inhalation,””
state news agency RIA Novosti quot-
ed Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for
See FIREWORKS on Page 5

INDEX WEATHER
BULLETIN BOARD 27 HOROSCOPE 25 NEW HAMPSHIRE 2 RELIGION 23,26 Today Sunday
Snow showers,
39 24
BUSINESS 17-22 LETTERS 11 OBITUARIES 4 SPORTS 13-15
CLASSIFIED 27-38 LOTTERIES/WEATHER 4 OPINION 10 TELEVISION 34 a high of 41,
1 80 32 8 00 00 1 9 DEAR ABBY 25 NATION 4, 5, 9, 16 REGION 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 16 38 pages, 6 sections a low of 25 HIGH LOW

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