The Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance held its conference “From Paradigms to Practice: Eliminating Chronic Homelessness in Massachusetts” last Tuesday at Bentley College in Waltham.
Prisoners leaving state correctional facilities today can get help obtaining housing, employment and health care at one of eight regional reentry centers that opened just weeks ago.
The centers, funded with federal money, are designed to help offenders leaving prisons reintegrate into communities and keep them from re-offending. The new initiative was just one of several programs and projects that were discussed last Tuesday during a conference at Bentley College in Waltham organized by the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, a statewide advocacy group of 87 agencies serving the homeless.
The conference, “From Paradigms to Practice: Eliminating Chronic Homelessness in Massachusetts,” drew about 200 participants from local and state agencies, including officials from the state departments of Correction, Mental Health, Transitional Assistance and Public Health. Panel discussions covered a number of topics, including preventing homelessness among ex-offenders and the role of Medicaid in ending chronic homelessness.
In his welcoming remarks, James Cuddy, executive director of the South Middlesex Opportunity Council, said resources need to be targeted to those who are chronically homeless, with more attention focused on creating housing for homeless people instead of providing emergency shelter. Statistics suggest that 10 percent of the homeless population is chronically homeless – meaning that they utilize emergency services for years – and that same 10 percent consumes about half of all available resources.
“Unless we [create] housing for our guests, we are not doing our jobs,” said Cuddy.
Steps Taken
A panel featuring members of the Massachusetts Interagency Council on Homelessness and Housing discussed steps that different state agencies were taking to work together to end homelessness. The council was charged with implementing many of the recommendations that came from a homelessness commission established by Gov. Mitt Romney last year. Instead of focusing exclusively on emergency shelters, the commission recommended that attention be shifted to moving homeless people to more stable transitional housing – an approach that many longtime advocates for the homeless have supported.
Among some of the initiatives that the interagency council has undertaken in recent months is helping to move 600 families who were living in motels – a program that cost the state $20 million a year – into more permanent housing, according to Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who was one of the guest speakers at the conference.
Healey said the state also has expanded shelter services and is hoping to use any savings toward homelessness prevention.
In addition to Healey, speakers included Philip F. Mangano, executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Angela Alioto, an attorney and advocate for the homeless from San Francisco.
In his address, Mangano, who was the head of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance before being appointed by President Bush to lead the council in March 2002, talked about what’s driving politicians and communities to push for an end to homelessness.
Mangano cited studies conducted in San Diego and Seattle that showed that the old approach of providing crisis intervention to homeless people, which was common over the last two decades, was much more costly than offering permanent housing solutions. In San Diego, a study of 15 homeless people revealed that they cost the city and county about $3 million over an 18-month period in mental health, substance abuse and law enforcement services provided to them.
A similar study in Seattle revealed that $12 million a year was spent on providing emergency services to just 120 homeless people, said Mangano.
“Only in the last few years have we understood the economic impact and consequences of this problem,” Mangano said.
In the past, the political will to end homelessness has been absent, but now more and more political leaders are realizing that it’s more expensive to maintain homeless people and provide emergency shelter than to end the problem.
Fifty governors have created state interagency councils to end homelessness, and 155 mayors and county executives from cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco and Memphis, Tenn., have committed to ending homelessness, said Mangano.
In New England, 24 communities, including 14 cities in the Bay State, have formulated plans to end homelessness within 10 years. At the federal level, 20 agencies are partnering to make resources more available to homeless people.
In Massachusetts, over $100 million will be spent this year on emergency shelter, said Edward Sanders-Bey, assistant commissioner for policy and program management at the Department of Transitional Assistance.
But none of this money is being used to create affordable housing, he said.
The conference featured officials from various state agencies who discussed what they are doing to help the homeless. The state’s correctional system, for example, is trying to help offenders who are being released find housing and secure mental health and substance abuse services so they don’t end up in hospitals, shelters or back in prison.
Maureen Walsh, chairman of the state parole board, said eight regional reentry centers have been operating for several weeks, and one component of the centers will be to offer housing assistance to offenders.
Kathleen M. Dennehy, commissioner of the Department of Correction, said more attention is being paid to the reentry of offenders into the community than in prior years. As soon as an offender enters a state correctional facility, a risk assessment is done, and the most intensive services are targeted to those who need it.
A comprehensive plan is developed for the offender and is regularly monitored and updated. Once the offender nears his or her release date, service providers come together to assess the person’s needs, including housing, Dennehy said.
