He's helping Barrington's 'poor and unfortunate'

Town hires Bill Bentley as Spencer Trust administrator

Posted 11/21/17

The home is run down. The oil tank needs to be replaced. The garbage disposal has not worked for a while. The microwave is broken too.

Inside the home lives an elderly man. He is alone. He is a …

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He's helping Barrington's 'poor and unfortunate'

Town hires Bill Bentley as Spencer Trust administrator

Posted

The home is run down. The oil tank needs to be replaced. The garbage disposal has not worked for a while. The microwave is broken too.

Inside the home lives an elderly man. He is alone. He is a veteran. And he is running out of time before the cold weather sets in and his oil tank's troubles become too much to ignore.

This is the Barrington that Bill Bentley knows. 

A few months back, the town hired Mr. Bentley as the Spencer Trust administrator and asked him to help distribute some of the trust's money to residents in need. (The trust was established many years ago in an effort to help the "poor and unfortunate" of Barrington.)

Mr. Bentley, who lives in Warren, realized that while Barrington has long been considered one of the most affluent towns in Rhode Island, there are a number of residents who struggle to make ends meet. Some are elderly folks who have fallen victim to a growing divide between their fixed incomes and their rising taxes and medical costs. Others are people who inherit valuable Barrington homes but do not have the means to pay for their upkeep or afford the five-figure tax bills.

In his seven months on the job, Mr. Bentley has seen residents young and old facing a variety of challenges. He takes a similar approach to each case: "When I get an application, the first thing I like to do is go over and meet the homeowner and see the house, see what's going on."

The trust administrator said he quickly realized that the elderly veteran who applied for Spencer Trust money needed more help than just a new oil tank. So Mr. Bentley posed a simple question to the longtime resident. 

"I asked him, 'How are you doing?'" he said. 

A moment later, the old-timer opened up. He said his house was in rough shape, that he had difficulty getting around the home, and that most of his appliances were broken. 

Mr. Bentley discussed the case with Barrington Town Planner Phil Hervey and built a plan to offer the most possible assistance to the resident without expending the entire Spencer Trust annual budget. 

Mr. Bentley worked with a utility company, which paid half the cost for a new oil tank. He also reached out to the volunteers at Tap-In for help with household appliances — while the nonprofit does not distribute appliances, it does have a list of people who are willing to give their old appliances to people in need.

"I'm trying to talk to the Boy Scouts and see if they are willing to go over to there and pick up the items and get them over to this guy's house," Mr. Bentley said.

The trust administrator is using some of the Spencer funds to make repairs to the elderly man's home. He has been able to access some of the $400,000 previously earmarked for the housing trust's program where homes are renovated and then deed-restricted as "affordable."

Mr. Bentley's work on this case and others has pleased Barrington Town Manager Jim Cunha. 

"When someone comes to Bill with a problem, Bill doesn't just reach into the Amey Spencer Trust bucket. What he does, first and foremost, is say how else can this problem be solved?" said Mr. Cunha. 

"The word we used in the military is a force multiplier. That's where you get something that's more than the sum. And that's what Bill has given us. We hired a guy to administer the Spencer Trust… but he's not only helping us expend these funds. He's getting more funds from other places. We have a $62,000 budget, but it's going a lot further."

Mr. Bentley navigated a sea of health care red tape while trying to help a person who lives in the Rumstick area of Barrington. The individual was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a few years ago and has experienced a steady decline in mobility.

"This person is a gardener, but the way the house is set up, they can't really get to the garden on their own because their lower extremities are not working that well, which is typical of MS," Mr. Bentley said. "So they made an application. They wanted to put in a lift off the back porch that comes out of the house."

Mr. Bentley studied the application and discovered that the person had been involved with the state's office of rehabilitation and was on Medicare. The trust administrator also knew that the person could access a lift for their home through Medicare.

"The hard part is learning about medical systems, which are extremely complicated," he said. "But now I was able to get the form that the state uses if you're making modifications to your property and you're on Medicare or Medicaid or (have) certain conditions.

"We used the (Spencer Trust) money to install the lift. The total project was about $7,000 and we ended up paying about $2,500, and the resident now has a lift and they can have a better quality of life. They are able to get in the garden and do what they want to do."

Mr. Bentley said he inherited eight active files when he started work as the Spencer Trust administrator. Of the eight files, four of them involve people who inherited homes in Barrington but are struggling to afford them. 

"So they're living in the houses, but they're living a very meager existence," he said. "They are house rich, and dirt poor."

Mr. Bentley said the people love living in town and have no desire to move.

"They've lived here their whole lives," he said. "They have relatives around here, their families are here. They have connections to Barrington."

Mr. Cunha said he has been impressed with the amount of assistance Mr. Bentley has been able to provide Barrington residents. Just a few weeks back, the town increased Mr. Bentley from 10 hours per week to 20. 

"That's a reflection of the success that he's had," said Mr. Cunha.

"There are people in Barrington, the poor and unfortunate to use the term, who need help who haven't been previously identified. He's been able to not only outreach to them and identify them, but he's also been able to get into a number of support systems. That together, in a hybrid fashion, can make their lives a lot better. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing that we're doing for these people. We often don't think that there are that many people who are in that situation, but there are."

Mr. Bentley has been a good fit for the town's newest position. He has experience as a social worker and clinician and a solid understanding of the systems of support established at the state and federal levels. But maybe more important, Mr. Bentley works hard to best understand the people he is tasked with helping each day.

"I think one of the big things is, I try not to intimidate them and I tell them I'm here to help," he said. "I think what we are doing better than anything is giving people hope."

Mr. Cunha agrees.

"A lot of these people put up walls," he said. "They're embarrassed about their situation, and Bill's done a wonderful job of working his way into their lives and finding out what the true problems are, and then he's able to find an appropriate solution to those problems."

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