After being forced from longtime home, Waterville man finally finds new housing

WATERVILLE — It is just the thing Kevin Horton has been praying for — a place to live.

Horton, 64, was told earlier that he had to leave his downtown apartment of 25 years because the building was being sold. Unable to find new housing, he moved last week into the the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter with help from Todd Stevens, community outreach coordinator for the Waterville Police Department.

Word spread that Horton, who has a traumatic brain injury, is physically and intellectually disabled and suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, desperately needed an apartment. One thing led to another and he was offered a large apartment on Gold Street in the city’s South End.

“I got my brand new apartment,” Horton said Tuesday. “I’m moving in tomorrow. It’s a big place inside there. I love it. I’m going to sign the papers tomorrow. I’m so happy. I can’t believe it.”

Horton, who can neither read nor write, uses a walker to get around. He suffered the brain injury when he was 15 and his mother hit him in the head with a cast iron frying pan, he said. He has a case worker and aide workers who come to his home to help him and they have stored his belongings at their homes, he said.

He walks every day to the Waterville Area Soup Kitchen on College Avenue for breakfast and lunch and that is where he met Stevens several weeks ago. When told he had to leave his apartment, an anxious Horton approached Stevens for help.

The homeless shelter was full but Stevens spoke with officials there about how critical it was that Horton find a safe place to stay. The shelter found him a bed and Stevens drove him there.

“Todd’s a good friend of mine cause he picks me up when I need it,” Horton said. “He really doesn’t have to. I really like him a lot. Todd, he’s a good guy.”

Kevin Horton celebrates Tuesday with one of his support team members, Kimberly Whittemore, after learning that the apartment he secured had passed inspection, allowing him to move in. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel

Stevens was at a community event at Head of Falls on Tuesday that he helped organize where people who need services were connecting with appropriate agencies. Stevens said he had seen Horton there earlier in the day and Horton told him he was going to get the apartment on Gold Street that he had hoped for.

“I’m over-the-moon happy for him,” Stevens said. “He came up to me and he said, ‘Guess what? I got the apartment. I am moving in tomorrow. It was the greatest thing to see the excitement on his face, and I could hear the excitement in his voice.”