Transcription of Greg Dufour for the show Homeward Bound #212
Lisa: Here on Love Maine Radio, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about our communities and the types of things that our neighbors really need in order to live sustainably in Maine. One of these is food, and one of these is shelter. Greg Dufour has similarly been thinking about shelter. He is the president of Camden National Bank. Greg believes that the strength of the bank is only as strong as the communities they serve.
Recently he saw a growing need for assistance and conceived of the innovative hope at home program. For every home it finances, Camden National Bank donates $100 to a homeless shelter in the community of the new homeowner, providing support and hope to neighbors lovingly without a home. Thanks for coming in today, Greg.
Greg: It’s my pleasure.
Lisa: As I said we think about basic human needs, food, shelter, I would add in there companionship. Obviously banks don’t do a lot about companionships necessarily but you’re working on homelessness.
Greg: Yes.
Lisa: How did these two things get connected?
Greg: Well, it was actually a personal experience and it started with last year in February, I was driving to work every day and noticed this one little motel that seemed to have its parking lot full which in Rockport, Maine is a little bit unique in February. I just am driving by. Then one day on my way to work at Camden National, I was running a little late and I was behind a school, and the school bus stopped in front of this motel.
It was a cold February morning and I saw about a half a dozen kids get on the school bus, I couldn’t figure out why. I started asking around the community, I got to know Stephanie Primm with the Knox County Homeless Association. She said that’s where they put some families who are homeless in this little motel.
It struck me that here I am fortunate to have a job that I love going to in a community that is great but is also known for being picturesque and in Maine terms affluent. Here there are homeless people literally right under my nose. I said something needed to be done. It was such a different thing going on around me.
I went to the bank and fortunately, Camden National being a community bank, we do a lot. Donating to various organizations. We were looking for something to get behind in the organization we could focus on something that maybe other organizations haven’t been focusing on as well. A lot of great worthy causes throughout the state get a lot of support. Camden supports a lot of those efforts as well.
We really didn’t see one organization stepping forward to devote some time and energy behind homelessness and so that’s how it all started and then brainstorming happened and we created this program where when somebody purchase a home, finances it through us, we donate $100 in the customer’s name if they choose to to the nearest homeless shelter. We did that so we can make a connection between somebody going through the joy of home ownership and helping somebody at the same time in their community. It was really part of that advocacy part that I think is truly unique about this program.
Lisa: It sounds like in my conversation with you. You were surprised by the number of homeless shelters around the area that your bank serves.
Greg: It really is. When you’re in Portland, there’s Preble Street that is very visible and does a lot of great work. In Bangor, they have two or three large shelters. As we’ve been going out and actually giving checks to the local homeless shelters. I get amazed by going into some of the communities especially in Bristol, Maine where there is a homeless shelter there, or a group of people trying to address homelessness.
It’s shocking, it’s really still under our nose. You may say well what do they do in that business, why are there cars there, and some could be homeless shelters. Not only the physical buildings but the people that are dedicating their lives to helping the homeless. It’s truly amazing. It’s truly something that is eye opening to me.
Lisa: It is striking the contrast between the school bus and the hotel where people are living. You’re right about especially Portland. It’s more, it seems more evident that people don’t necessarily have a place to live and perhaps even I have had some pre-conceived notions about people who are homeless, people who might choose to live on the street or be forced to live on the street.
What you’re talking about are families. You’re not talking about perhaps people with mental illness or people with addiction issues or people who have just gotten out of being incarcerated. You’re talking about families who need a place to live, who need a place that they can put their kid on the school bus.
Greg: Well, we’re actually talking about now everyone. I’ll admit that as I personally started this effort of my own personal effort on learning about homelessness, it wasn’t about the families, it wasn’t about the children that are homeless. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re in a motel versus living in a car.
As I should phrase it gotten to learn more about homelessness. You have to put aside some of the ways people become homeless, whether it’s job loss or domestic abuse or something like that. Those are the things that I think people can say, okay, well, we have to help those folks and definitely do, but then we talk about addiction.
First reaction is well, do they deserve help. How I personally and how our organization has addressed it is we really don’t care how somebody gets homeless. They’re homeless and if there’s something that we can do with our efforts in supporting the people that are helping and working at the homeless shelters.
It may solve some of those other issues. I was talking with a group of folks, I believe it’s the Hope House up in Bangor. They address homelessness for addicts and I was chatting with them and they mentioned the number of addicts that they have homeless and that they help and give shelter to every evening and it was a large number.
Let’s say like 70 or 80. I said oh these are recovering addicts? They said no. These are active addicts. That’s when I realized that these people are trying to get the addicts on a path to recovery. It’s not just solving homelessness, it may be solving or helping somebody save a life. That’s the real power. I think the real story is not out there.
Lisa: That’s an interesting point because addiction is such a sticky issue. Addiction and mental illness and some of these other things that might lead to homelessness. Sometimes it’s important to just put those things aside and say the bottom line is we live in a state that gets very cold, gets very cold at night. Even if we lived in a warm state, people need to have a roof over their heads. They need to have a place that they can go to at the end of the day and get a warm meal. It’s what’s you’re talking about dropping our value judgment in some ways.
Greg: It is and it’s setting aside some of those judgments to say really here’s the issue, people are homeless. However you get into the homeless situation, you’re in a cycle, it could be job loss or it could be something like we’re talking about addiction or domestic abuse. As I see the work of the homeless shelters, it’s trying to break that cycle. Try to help somebody get job training, to get that job so they’re no longer homeless.
Somebody trying to get in a better domestic situation; a safer situation so they’re no longer homeless. Maybe getting somebody into a recovery program so they’re no longer homeless because now they can function better in society. As we were looking at putting the Camden National Maine behind on the homeless efforts. We have to just cast that aside.
We’re going to focus on homelessness and there’s a lot of great that can happen from that if we don’t put our own judgments against it. I’ve been pleased to say that that’s been just a great reaction that we’ve seen.
Lisa: In my own medical practice, I’ve actually cared for young women with children who have been homeless themselves. They’ve described living at a camp ground for a summer or living in a motel space for a summer. These aren’t women and these happen to be the women that I’ve dealt with, it doesn’t mean that men are not similar. These aren’t women that have done anything wrong per se. They’re just women who have been perhaps working a minimum wage job.
Don’t have enough money for a security deposit, trying to deal with day care. They’re just trying to live a life and yet one of the things that I’ve seen is that sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to ask for help before you go too far down the road, that leads you to not having a place to live. That’s a tough situation.
Greg: Absolutely. I just sit back and think of being that parent and you’re trying to push and trying to do it on your own. As you said that it may go a step too far and all of a sudden that you can’t even afford that camp site or the camp site closes for the season and then you’re truly homeless and then they have to seek help out of necessity. There’s a lot of different things that we can address just starting with that focal point from homelessness.
Lisa: You’re interesting to me because you’re a bank president, you’re a dollars and cents kind of guy, and I know that Camden National has a community focus so community has always been important to your organization but you could very easily have driven by that hotel and not really even noticed that school bus and not really put these things all together. What in your background caused you to be sensitive enough to be picking up on these needs?
Greg: I guess I’ve never really thought about it, maybe it’s always been that. I know my parents are always very giving and active in their community and they set a great example for me that way. Just my family I think we’re focused at that. I think it’s a little bit of growing up in Maine. Yes, you can be a bank president but there’s always something or there’s a good grounding going on all the time.
I think a lot of business leaders in the state that something is unique is that we live in our communities. We are living out in a big suburb and taking our ride in to the city to do our jobs when we go shopping. We’re shopping amongst customers and in my case shareholders. To me, that gives a personal accountability that I personally feel in the community and maybe what that results in is a sensitivity to something like that.
Lisa: Where did you grow up?
Greg: I grew up in Old Town.
Lisa: That’s very interesting that you ended up right in the middle, and right near Bangor which is as you’ve said one of these places that has very active homeless shelters and now you’ve moved out to the coast where you might think perhaps with a little bit more wealth, with a little bit more wherewithal that it wouldn’t be as much of a problem and yet it’s everywhere.
Greg: Right. I think growing up in Old Town and actually now going back and seeing a community that was built around shoe shops and mills and there was a vibrancy when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, to now, all the shoe shops are gone, the mill is essentially down to a few hundred or maybe a hundred or so people from at times it was probably close to a thousand way back when.
You see a community and so when I then go home to the Camden Rockport area. I see that big difference that we have in the state of Maine. Now that we now have a branch in Old Town and so I’ve truly come home both personally and business-wise to it. I think it does give that sense of how can I help? How can I make an impact and fortunately I work in an organization that supports that.
Lisa: It seems to me knowing some of the financial leaders in the state that there really is, you guys seem to have more heart than many. I’m thinking about… who recently change jobs, I think he now works for the Maine Community Foundation but he was very well known … Maine Development Foundation. Very well known, I believe he was associated with Bangor Savings?
Greg: Yes.
Lisa: Of course I’m a doctor so I don’t know all the financial ins and outs in all of this. Having paid attention to this, I’m impressed because it feels like it’s an important thing that people understand that money isn’t just, it’s not a hard cold cash currency. It’s a means of living a life.
Greg: Absolutely. That’s one thing that I’m proud of. Being in the community banking industry and last year I was chairman of the Maine Bankers Association for all the community banks. We have 9,000 Maine residents that are employed by community banks. They give tens of thousands of hours of volunteer time each year and I think we do about a million dollars collectively each year donations.
Talking with my colleagues and fellow community bankers. We take that term community banker very seriously. Whether it’s no matter where you live, if you see a raise or a walk for the homeless or breast cancer awareness or raising money or looking at some of the boards of non-profits and community organization. Typically you see a banker on that.
I think the good thing is thought and I believe for most banks, we’re not requiring our employees to go do this. We don’t say go serve on this board or go hike on this Saturday. We put the word out. Say here’s an organization they’re having this cause going on. If you’d like to be involved, come. It’s just remarkable that you see these events going on and it’s not just Camden National Bank but several community banks show up all the time.
I think that dates back, and especially when you look at smaller communities. The bank is an important part of each town that we serve and it could be larger communities like Portland or Lewiston–Auburn area or Bangor but even smaller ones like Machias or Calais or Jonesport, other areas like that. To me I think that’s part of what we do in our industry.
Lisa: You raise a good point. You’ve been talking about how banks can help with various community based causes but you also employ the people who live in your towns. I actually was just thinking of the patients that I have who have worked for their local banks for a number of years, and this has been a good solid steady source of employment. They had been happy. They are loyal employees. They have been able to raise their families on the salaries that they receive. It’s an interesting and important way that banking has really created sustainability.
Greg: Absolutely and challenge in all of the organizations, our banking organizations in the state. Not only is it the face that most people see the bank, the branch. We have major technology departments going on, offering challenging careers. Financial departments which was my career track coming up through. It’s truly still I believe an industry where you can start off at the entry level, being a teller.
If you’re a hard worker and ambitious and have a lot of tenacity to keep learning. You can go all the way to be the CEO. We do that by supporting training people, having tuition reimbursement programs. That’s throughout the industry we do that. A lot of times, I feel the banking industry isn’t known for the great jobs but the great careers we do here.
Lisa: Which is really important for a state like Maine because if we’re not making the shoes that we once made or making the paper and the amount that we once made. We don’t have the same types of employment opportunities. There have to be others that come in to fill that void. In addition to helping with people who have no homes or helping people who actually have homes and want to be able to keep those homes and want to continue to build lives here in Maine. How many people do you think you’ve helped with your new program?
Greg: Well, I don’t know the exact number of people but so far in the first six months of the program we’ve donated to various homeless shelters over $20,000 at this point. We’re hoping obviously that with the home buying season still going strong that by the time we close out 2015 that it would be double of that. We’ve set no limit, actually the more the better, because I think it shows money getting to the right places.
It was interesting when we spoke to a lot of folks in the homeless shelters as we’re rolling this out because we really didn’t know if $100 at a time would make a difference. One executive director of a homeless shelter out there looked at me a little skeptical and he said, what do we have to do to get this money? I said well nothing, come by with a check and you take it.
What do I have to report back? What am I restricted in using it? We said, no, you’re the experts, you do with it what you want. He said it’s great. I was asking would $100 make an impact? He said having $100 no matter what size shelter, to do with it what the management wants for that shelter to do with it is extremely important, it’s not restricted by some of the grants and all.
That made me feel really good that no matter what size donation, that a particular shelter, that it’s actually unrestricted, they can do with it, and put it to the exact need that’s needed at that point in time.
Lisa: Have they shared with you some of the things that they’re spending this money on?
Greg: They have. A lot of the shelters are, it goes into really just managing operations. Again you think of a homeless shelter, you may just think of the beds that they provide but they’re also providing food, and so it can go onto that. Others are putting into programs to help the actual residents there get back on their feet.
That was one thing that I’ve seen. I’ve visited one shelter, it was a family shelter, so single mothers and their children or at least couples, and there were group of women there that were getting jobs, cleaning houses to make ends meet, get up on their feet again if you will. They started saying well, if we could collaborate and create a business around it. Even within this, they had the sense of entrepreneurship. Some of the money will go help them develop that if they need to.
Lisa: Greg. How can people find out about Hope at Home and the other programs that are being supported by Camden National Bank?
Greg: Yes, you can, first of all, visit any branch within Camden National Bank or for specifically Hope at Home is to go online [email protected]. Or our main website, Camdennationalbank.com and there’ll be a link to our Hope at Home website there.
Lisa: Well, I’m just thrilled that you have taken an idea and really turned it into something positive for the community. The $20,000 that Camden National has already given to the homeless shelters and the state and hopefully the additional $20,000 for the second half of the year. I’m sure that it’s going to good use and I guess what this just reminds me is that really if you have an idea, you can turn it into something.
You don’t have to sit back and wonder why the world is going in the wrong direction. You can set it right in your own way. I appreciate the time that you have spent on this program. We’ve been speaking with Greg Dufour, the president of Camden National Bank and also the individual who put into place the innovative hope at home program for which Camden National Bank donates $100 to homeless shelter in the community of each new homeowner. Thanks so much for coming out on the program and for the work you do.
Greg: Thank you.