Looked at a certain way, Linda Wood-Boyle may be one of the few people to have left their church for a higher calling.
An ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, Wood-Boyle left a position as head of fundraising for a Methodist seminary to become an advocate for the homeless. She now serves as executive director of HomeStart Inc., a non-profit aiming to help people transition out of shelters and into permanent housing.
Linda Wood-Boyle
Title: President and Executive Director, HomeStart Inc.; Boston
Age: 56
Experience: 16 years
Q:Tell me a little about HomeStart. What exactly is your role in combating homelessness?
A:We started about 18 years ago, because there had been a realization in the adult shelter system that caseworkers had a myriad of issues to address for their clients [and there needed to be someone specifically tasked with finding permanent housing]. We began with four staff, two housing search people – I call them “Realtors for the Homeless.” A client comes in, [we ask] “Where do you want to live, what can you afford, what are the barriers to getting you there?” And then we help them find appropriate housing, whether that’s navigating the Boston Housing Authority, or some sort of subsidy or market-rate. And the other two staff were stabilization advocates – once the clients had been housed, helping them stay housed. Getting them set up in a community, getting them set up with services if they need it, getting the kids settled. That’s how we started. We now serve 50 shelters [in Boston], Rosie’s Place, Pine Street [Inn], we do all the housing search for them, and then the follow-up.
The other major thing we’ve done is Housing First. Most people, when they think about homelessness, think about the guy panhandling on the street, who may be mentally ill. That’s actually less than 10 percent of the [homeless] population – but they take about 50 percent of the resources. About 6 years ago, we started with a model that originated in New York, “housing first.” Normally, people have to go into a shelter, get sober, go to transitional housing. With this, chronically homeless people can just go directly from the street into permanent housing. It’s a harm-reduction model, meaning they don’t have to be sober, they just have to maintain their tenancy, and they get tremendous wraparound services. It’s been tremendously successful. We have 63 folks [currently in the program]; the average length of time on the street was eight years. I mean, we have people who have never seen a cordless phone, or a microwave. There are challenges.
But it’s amazing to watch some of these people – I had a client who was on methadone, and when she first came in here she was [mimes nodding out]. I thought, “Man, how’s she going to present to a landlord?” But three weeks of housing, she’s in here, she’s dressed to the nines, she’s clear as a bell. And I was like, “what’s up with that?” And she said, “Linda, when I was on the streets, I had to be crazy. On the streets, if I’m crazy, people leave me alone. But now I’m safe. I don’t have to be crazy.” Now she comes in here, she talks to the staff about America’s Next Top Model, what she watched on CNN, it’s amazing.
Q: How did you become involved in all this? Obviously you have a passion for it.
A: [Laughs]. People tell me that all the time; I guess I do. I was a social worker in my first life, and later was ordained a United Methodist minister, and I started doing full-time fundraising for the [school of theology] from which I graduated. It’s not quite the sort of thing where you wake up and say, “I’ve always wanted to be a fundraiser,” when you’re a little kid. But I had been doing it for about 15 years, went out to be the VP of a Methodist seminary in Ohio, and had a mid-life crisis … [in Ohio], it was like plucking money off trees, to raise money for a Methodist seminary. People would write me $20,000 checks for their annual gift, and I would look at them and think, “You know what that would do … ?”
Plus my husband hated Ohio. I came home one day and he was looking at a video of waves, and that’s when I knew it was time to go. I applied for jobs back here, and my first job was with the Somerville Homeless Coalition.
Q:What was it like, switching to a new career mid-life?
A: The part that I love – and it sort of surprises me and makes me wonder why I’m still here – I love taking these wonderful little agencies and dusting them off, helping them shine, helping them grow. When I came here, I think the budget was about $1 million; it’s now $7.5 million. We had a staff of 15; I now have 63. [But the thing I love best is] when we’re done, someone is housed, and stable. Some of our clients, we’re never done. Some of them, every three or four months they’ll get something in the mail that makes them call their advocate. But I love that we’re the end.
Linda Wood-Boyle’s Top Five Favorite Things About Coming Back To Boston:
- The Red Sox.
- The Ocean.
- The diversity. “Both ethnically diverse. But also I had a really hard time finding a Democrat out there in Ohio.”
- The Seasons.
- The Red Sox (She missed them so much she wanted them mentioned twice).
