EARLEVILLE -- Past Hack's Point General Store, past the cornfields shrouded in snow, past the shiny new homes in "exclusive estates," the homeless come home to Clairvaux Farm.
Some catch a ride. Some are dropped off. Some find their way back to nearby Elkton after just a short time. And some never leave.
They come to this Cecil County farm from as far as Baltimore and Easton -- each about 50 miles to the south -- to a place that looks more like the embodiment of the American dream than a symbol of its loss.
The farm has a brightly painted school bus stop, festooned with the handprints of children. It has a big friendly dog named Jake roaming 20 acres, and a fenced-in sheep and goat. It has a yellow farmhouse, a spruced-up family dormitory from which parents can watch their children climb on playground equipment and laze on a tire swing.
But this isn't heaven. For the 35 people who can call Clairvaux home at any one time, it's the best alternative to the hidden world of rural homelessness, where the displaced hop from family to family, or live under bridges or deep in the trees.
Run by a nonprofit organization called Meeting Ground, Clairvaux advertises itself not as a shelter, but as a community where everyone, homeless person or volunteer, has the same rights and responsibilities.
"The farm is what you make it," says Jerry Graybill, an off-and-on resident for the past six years. "Three-quarters of what you do here, you do yourself."
Cooking, eating and growing herbs side by side, the people are as different from each other as Graybill, 65, a wizened veteran of the place who is here because of health problems, and Rebecca Munch, 28, a mother of two who arrived on Christmas Eve and is stunned to find herself in need.
After the first month, those who have income -- from a pension or a job -- are asked to contribute up to $100 a month in rent and to pay a portion of expenses for food. Everyone who is able-bodied is expected to work around the farm. Drinking is forbidden. Residents are instructed to answer the phone with a simple "Hello," in case neighbors don't want anyone to know where they are.
At one end of the farm lies the grave of Precious, a much-loved mutt who wandered here a few years ago and died this past Christmas Day.
She is buried next to the cremated remains of Mel Woolsey, a resident who adopted her in his last months of life.
