Caseworkers to be deployed to help homeless in motels

Date: 9/12/2014

CHICOPEE – The Commonwealth has pledged to have caseworkers at the motels in the city to assist homeless families placed there by state officials and to move more families in congregate housing.

Undersecretary for Housing and Community Development  Aaron Gornstein met with Mayor Richard Kos, state Sen. Gayle Candaras and James Welch as well as state Rep. Joseph Wagner and Michael Finn on Sept. 4.
   
Kos briefed Reminder Publications after the meeting and said it was “an opportunity to have a discussion” about “the burden placed on the city.”
   
He noted the number of homeless children now enrolling in the city’s schools has meant the creation of an additional kindergarten class with the hiring of a new teacher and paraprofessional.
   
According to the statistics Gornstein supplied, as of Sept. 2, the city has 219 homeless families in its motels. This is the highest number sine Dec. 31, 2013 when 217 families were in residence.
   
Holyoke has also seen a sharp increase.
   
On Dec. 31, 2013, there were 130 families. Now there are 181 families.
   
Together, the two cities are home to about 20 percent of the state’s homeless family population. 
   
West Springfield, the community in which the controversy concerning the state program first arose, currently has three families.
   
Springfield has 28 families, down from 45 in 2013.
   
Kos noted the families are brought here by state officials from all over Massachusetts. Gornstein said to Kos that every day 38 families enter into the program state-wide.
   
He explained that of the families in Chicopee now there are 225 school age children and 450 younger children.
   
Kos said that while the average time families are housing in motel room is seven months, he was told there care cases of people staying two to three years in the program.
   
Kos told Gornstein of the fire watch the city has had to undertake to help secure the safety of the families, some of whom have used hot plates in their rooms and disconnected smoke and carbon monoxide. 
   
The conversation, Kos noted, was to see “one community’s specific situation.