FARMINGTON – An effort to create housing for poor and at-risk youth enrolled in a nonprofit outreach program goes before the town’s Board of Appeals today.

The hearing is in response to a November appeal filed by resident Jim Andrews, who also is an assistant district attorney in Franklin County.

At issue is a plan by the nonprofit New Beginnings program to use an in-town duplex as housing space for its clients.

The building, at 147 Perham St., is next door to Andrews’ home and he maintains New Beginnings is changing the use of the building by turning it into a treatment facility.

The Planning Board found differently on Oct. 16, ruling the property would still essentially be used as a residence.

“It’s not a change of use – because we’re simply purchasing an apartment building and renting it out like anyone else,” said New Beginnings’ Executive Director Bob Rowe Monday.

New Beginnings offers services to young adults who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness, he said. “(They are) usually young people on low or no income, who are having a hard time getting started,” Rowe said. “We’re using housing authority money to develop low-income housing.”

Most of the young adults – 19 and older – who use New Beginnings’ services come from poor families, without access to the resources many people have when they leave home for the first time. They often need to get their GED or college degree, Rowe said.

In addition to helping them pay the rent, New Beginnings also offers support services, Rowe said. “They might need budgeting help, or referral to service providers … or work and employment opportunities,” he said. “What they’re missing is the normal parental or familial input … and it’s much harder if you don’t have those resources.”

But in his appeal, Andrews suggests that regardless of the program’s merits, an operation like New Beginnings is by nature a change in use for the duplex.

“New Beginnings is a nonprofit agency providing housing and social services,” Andrews wrote in his appeal. “They are funded through public tax dollars via state and federal grants under the auspices of the Maine State Housing Authority and other state programs … Case management by New Beginnings is a requirement for any tenant living in their Community Living Program.”

The town’s zoning ordinance places community living programs in a different category than the current Village Residential Zone.

But in an October memo to Planning Board members, Code Enforcement Officer Steve Kaiser wrote that suggesting that a different type of residence constitutes a change in use is discriminatory.

“When I inspect units occupied by tenants … it makes no difference whether they pay full rent, partial rent, or no rent,” Kaiser wrote.

The Appeals Board meets at 6:30 tonight in the downstairs training room of the Municipal Building.