Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.

Housing First gives families a place to call home

Gerry McCafferty speaks with Stacy Page in her new apartment.Reminder Publications photo by G. Michael Dobbs
By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor



SPRINGFIELD Stacy Page looks at the bare living room of her one-bedroom apartment and envisions where the couch should go.

A resident of a transitional living program in the city, Page said she is excited to move in for "the privacy and the freedom."

"I have to admit I'm a little nervous," she added.

A former Chicopee resident, Page is one of the homeless people who have found a permanent home through the city's new Housing First program. As part of the city's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, landlords are being asked to set aside apartments to rent to homeless people.

According to Gerry McCafferty, the city's deputy director of homeless and special needs housing, there are already 45 people who have found housing through the pilot stage of the program. Page's apartment is part of the second phase in which 100 apartments will be rented to the homeless. McCafferty said 43 apartments out of the group of 100 are either available now or being made available. The city is still seeking 57 more apartments.

The Springfield Housing Authority (SHA) evaluates the apartments being added to the list, she explained. Joe D'Ascoli is the director of the SHA's rental assistance program.

He said that once a landlord offers an apartment, he evaluates it. If there is less than $1,000 worth of repair needed to the apartment, the application is considered by the SHA. Once an apartment is added, a potential tenant from a waiting list is considered.

Like Section Eight housing, the tenants must pay 30 percent of their gross income as rent for the apartment, he added. Page's apartment would rent at the market rate price of $661 a month, Kim Richards, the property manager for Worthington Commons, said.

D'Ascoli said Worthington Commons has two apartments approved and another in the process.

The new tenants will have assistance from case managers in making the adjustment to a permanent address, McCafferty said.

Under the city's Ten Year Plan, ultimately there will be 250 housing units the Housing First program, McCafferty said.

According to Philip Mangano, the executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Housing First program reduces the number of shelter beds by giving homeless people what they really want: a home.

McCafferty admitted she would have liked to have had more apartments ready earlier this year when city officials were forced to open a shelter operated by the Springfield Rescue Mission, which is normally closed in the summer, and to increase the number of beds at the Friends of the Homeless shelter.

With the Warming Place shelter removed from its location at the former York Street Jail in mid-summer, there was a shortage of shelter beds.

She said the city is now looking at shelter capacity for the winter, a time in which the demand increases for shelter space. She said there might be the need for 30 more shelter beds, but that number could be affected by the number of apartments that become available through the Housing First program.



***

The apartment in which Page will live is in a building on Federal Street that is owned by First Resource Management. The company owns a group of apartment buildings on Worthington, Federal and Summit Streets that are under-going major reconstruction.

Richards said the buildings, such as the ones at the corner of Worthington and Federal Streets are just shells at this point and are being re-built. Other buildings have new porches and balconies, as well as new windows, kitchens, flooring and bathrooms.

One building was razed to make room for a needed parking lot. A single-family home on Federal Street has been rehabilitated and will be the management office and have a community room there.

The goal, Richards said, is to bring the apartment buildings back to their historical state and provide housing units at both affordable and market rates. The renovation of the buildings is costing $19 million.