Cities unite to find solutions for homeless

By Dan Cooper

Staff Intern

Holyoke Mayor Michael J. Sullivan, Springfield Mayor Charles V. Ran, and Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins joined together to host a Symposium on Jan. 22 from 9-2 p.m. on homelessness, an issue all three said can be properly addressed with the help of local and state governments, and the community itself.

Also in attendance for the well-attended event hosted by Holyoke Community College was Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, who said, "Government alone cannot solve this problem."

Murray said, "With our resources cut, it calls on us to come together to fight homelessness. The Lieutenant Governor deals with this issue."

After the opening remarks from Murray, Sullivan conducted a video presentation featuring interviews with such dignitaries as Springfield Police Commissioner Edward Flynn, Holyoke Police Chief Anthony Scott, and Holyoke Superintendent of Schools Dr. Eduardo Carballo.

Sullivan said, "We need to keep an open mind so homelessness will be solved by all of us.

"We need to work to make the public aware of poverty and homelessness," Sullivan said. He then proceeded to show in his video the problems the homeless have with transportation, living on the street, and housing.

Sullivan proceeded to address the issue of transportation for homeless individuals. He showed an interview conducted with Jane Banks, the Program Manager for Jessie's House, a homeless shelter located in Amherst.

"Transportation is a nightmare for the homeless community. It's a statewide issue, not just a local one. Other communities should be more open to help other areas," Banks said.

Melissa Rivera, who lives in Jessie's House, said, "There are some days when I can take up to four buses in two hours or more."

Asternetter Albert, another resident of Jessie's House, said it can be hard to get to work because there are times when transportation is unavailable. "When I'm not working, my benefits get cut and welfare [Department of Transportation Assistance] cuts my welfare," Albert said.

"I got evicted from my house because my son has seizures and I needed to take care of him."

Carballo then explained in Sullivan's video the trouble homeless children can often have in school, and how they often transfer from school to school.

"Any time a student leaves a class for another class or school, it makes it difficult for the teacher to teach the class," Carballo said. "Now they have to catch the new student up and by the time that happens, another student comes in."

Carballo said in the video that last year, the 2005-2006 school year, saw about 1,600 students move in and out of classrooms.

"I knew one young woman who, from September to January, changed schools 22 times."

Flynn then explained the problems the homeless could often have living on the street.

"We have a fairly significant population living on the street. That makes it a real challenge trying to manage the behavior of the homeless," Flynn said.

Flynn said that 80 percent of the homeless in Springfield are from somewhere else and that many of them asking for money on the streets are not in need of food.

"The nickels, dimes, and quarters that homeless individuals collect often lead to criminal activities," he said.

Scott agreed with Flynn on the difficulties of controlling the homeless on the streets. "It is difficult to police a changing area," Scott said. "The state government has to get involved. They have to stop dumping poverty on other cities. Holyoke has been a dumping ground."

Sullivan then used the video to explore the problems of housing the homeless, and how it can often be difficult to find. The video explored how the homeless feel they cannot afford housing due to increasing costs and lack of space.

Sullivan then presented the Hope 6 Project, which is an initiative designed to create a mixed income community through redevelopment of houses in poorer areas and giving low-income families a chance to live side by side with higher income families.

Don Bianchi and Sue Beaton, who both took part in Ryan's panel, also addressed the issue of finding affordable housing in the local area.

Bianchi, of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, said homelessness is a multi-faceted problem. "There is a shortage of affordable housing available," he said. "There are many challenges to create affordable housing in small communities. More local aid and money is needed."

Beaton, of the organization One Family, Inc., discussed the problems families face finding affordable housing. "Affordable housing is not affordable to low income families," Beaton said. "Our goal is to address affordability head on. We need you to help us change the system."

Beaton and Bianchi both said more communities need to start using Massachusetts Law Chapter 40-B, which states that a community must approve an affordable housing development plan if less than 10 percent of the community is deemed affordable.

Beaton and Bianchi both said that only 50 of the 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth have followed the initiative, including Springfield and Holyoke.

Beaton said the issue is poverty and that the Legislature and gubernatorial administration is coming together for the first time on the issue.

"In Boston, 80 percent of evictions are families with subsidized housing," she said. "We are looking at freeing up existing problems with this issue."

"I'm going to do my best to understand the homeless," Sullivan said to finish up his portion of the program.

Ryan followed Sullivan's presentation with a panel discussion on the homelessness problem.

"There is a need for a policy change," Ryan said. "We are in the middle of trying to come to grips with this problem. Two and a half years ago a committee of 36 to 40 people created a 10-year plan to help fight homelessness."

Ryan said that not all the homeless fall into one category. "Everybody has enormous potential, even the homeless," Ryan said.

Ryan then introduced Paul Foster, a member of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. Foster explained the reasons why homelessness is a regional problem. "The homeless come from all 69 Pioneer Valley towns," he said.

Foster said the consequences of homelessness are region-wide. "There is a gap between the richest and poorest of the Pioneer Valley. The area is not going to flourish if another part of it doesn't."

Foster said it is utterly unreasonable to think communities can solve the problem by themselves. "Springfield and Holyoke need balance. They need a mixed income community."

Daniel J. Swords, First Justice for the Hampden Juvenile Court and the final member of Ryan's panel, said there are 12,000 children in the custody of the Department of Social Services.

"When these children reach the age of 18 and age out of custody, these youths are highly likely to become homeless, suffer from substance abuse, and become unemployed and incarcerated," Swords said. "The odds are against them."

Swords said that the number of young adults in homeless shelters tripled from 1997-2000. "That statistic has kept increasing every year since then."

Following Ryan's panel, Higgins moderated a discussion among audience members to discover what they considered the real issues. Many audience members agreed that transportation, concentration of poverty, and the amount of homeless children under 18 were important topics.

"One concrete step seems to be to create a region-wide 10-year plan," Higgins said. "We should work with state government to combat this problem."

Higgins mentioned one local group that is trying to find a solution to the homelessness problem. "For about the last decade, a group of people from the three major counties in Western Massachusetts have met monthly to address this issue," she said. "This group is called the 'Three County Continuum of Care'."

Higgins said another local solution to fight homelessness is to create larger corporation jobs in the area.

"Western Massachusetts does not have a lot of large corporation jobs aside from state jobs," she said. "If more types of these jobs were created, there would be less low-income families."

All those in attendance agreed more jobs to support the homeless need to be created, better transportation has to be made available, and there has to be less of a concentration on poverty in one area.