The Trail Less Traveled

CONCORD, N.H. — Hope is a common theme in politics. Republican Mike Huckabee ’s campaign book is titled “From Hope to Higher Ground,” and Democrat Barack Obama declared to supporters, “We are choosing hope over fear” after winning the Iowa caucuses.

But neither of their messages, nor those of any of the other candidates for president, are resonating with diners at Hope House, a surprisingly warm and bright soup kitchen here in the shadow of the Merrimack County courthouse.

As presidential politics dominate the rest of New Hampshire, the less fortunate in the state capital talk about the politics of life while seated around tables covered with red and yellow tablecloths.

They have lots to say about sleeping in snow banks, employers who refuse to hire folks without addresses, jobs they feel they lost to illegal immigrants, foreign aid in the face of hardship at home, battles for veterans’ health benefits, and getting kicked out of state-sponsored housing when they turned 18.

Some of the people at Hope House suffer from mental illness or chemical dependency, while others are simply down on their luck.

Their frustrations are about policy and substance. But just as most of society has given up on them, so have they given up on politicians.

“I’m not voting for nobody,” Edward “Tex” Beloney, 23, drawled from underneath a mesh-backed John Deere tractor cap. “Nobody’s dealing with the real issues. So, [screw] it.”

The lack of an address would not preclude Beloney from voting if he so chose. Qualifications are loose in New Hampshire and one need only sign an affidavit saying one lives in the state.

For the past couple weeks, Beloney has been sleeping at the local congregational church, which opened its doors for the winter late last year. He smokes half a cigarette at a time because he doesn’t know when he will be able to buy another pack.

P.J. Mason, 24, wearing sunglasses atop his close-cropped brown hair, is perhaps a little better off than Beloney. He eats at the soup kitchen but has enough money to rent a place, which he now shares with Ashley, his girlfriend of a few days. Ashley, who declined to give her last name, said she was cast out of a state-operated home when she turned 18 last year.

“I can’t find any jobs,” she said.

“We have a number of people who were raised by the state,” said Hope Zanes Butterworth, the 71-year-old photographer who runs the kitchen and for whom it is named.

Hope House serves an average of 75 people per night and counts on about $3,500 per month in charitable contributions. There is no one to write grant requests for government assistance.

“You know what we get from the city and the state? We get the health inspector. We don’t get money,” Butterworth said.

Concord’s mayor came to the house’s opening. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards inquired about visiting, but the trip didn’t pan out.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had one come,” Butterworth said of the presidential candidates who swarm into the Granite State every four years.

Mason wants to see health coverage for the uninsured, but he is skeptical of campaign promises to provide it. “They can say it, but I want to see it done.”

He also favors an increase in the minimum wage — to no less than $9.50 an hour — unfettered gun rights, a crackdown on illegal immigration and a reduction in federal spending abroad.

“Help us first,” Mason said. “Then we’ll help other people.”

Several of the diners blame the influx of undocumented workers for their troubles in finding and keeping jobs.

“I’ve lost five jobs to immigration,” Beloney said.

Chris Jackson, 28, said he spent three years in the Army stationed at Fort Drum. Now he has a bum knee — the result of an anterior cruciate ligament tear after his service — and can’t get the coverage from the Veterans Administration that he feels he deserves.

“I’ve been fighting with the VA for the last four years,” he said.

He has worked in pet food supplies, auto shops and, like several others at the soup kitchen, for the city’s short-term employment agency.

With the money he makes in a temporary job putting together furniture for schools, he said, he’s “lucky to be able to get to a burger joint and get a burger.”

Though many of the candidates are talking about some of the same issues, folks at Hope House say there would be more action if the political leaders campaigning around New Hampshire this week had a better appreciation for their experiences.

“I’d like to put some of these candidates in a bag in a snow bank for two weeks,” Mason said.

They say the would be more likely to vote if they believed a candidate was serious about addressing homelessness.

But not everyone at Hope House is so disillusioned with the candidates. The soup kitchen’s namesake is pulling for Obama, whether or not he shows up to shake hands.

“I think he’s fresh. I think he’s sincere. I think he’s loved by the rest of the world,” Butterworth said.