Single homelessness decreases, family homelessness on rise

Date: 2/17/2009

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor



SPRINGFIELD -- While the number of individual homeless people is on the decline in the city, homeless families are on the rise and the new charge to the city's homelessness program is to find ways to address it.

The result of the city's annual census of homeless people was conducted on Jan. 28 and the results were made public at a press event conducted on Thursday. According to the survey, there were 201 homeless individuals in shelters down from 226 in 2007 and 215 in 2008. This year there were 12 people living on the streets as compared to 20 last year and 33 in 2007.

On that night there were 107 families, made up of 294 people in shelters, including 167 children. According to the data released by Gerry McCafferty, the city's deputy director of homeless and special needs housing, there were only 67 families in shelters at this time last year and 62 in 2007.

For the first time since the census has taken place there were more homeless people in families than homeless individuals in Springfield.

Congratulating the city with its Housing First program that has lowered the number of homeless individuals in shelters by placing them in housing, Philip Mangano, the executive director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, said the city must "recalibrate its plan to embrace family homelessness."

McCafferty concurred and said, "We need a better strategy for families."

Two of the people who will have to work on that new plan were introduced at the press conference. Replacing Robert Schwarz, executive vice present of Peter Pan Buslines as the chair of Homes Within Reach will be Mary Walachy, the executive director of The Davis Foundation and Peter Straley, president and CEO of Health New England. Homes Within Reach is the public-private partnership in the city that works to reduce homelessness by assisting people to obtain housing and employment as soon as possible.

Mangano, who said the city's program has become a national model, reported that over $2 million of federal funds would come to Springfield in neighborhood stabilization funds to help continue eliminating homelessness. There will also be additional HOME funds from Washington that can be used for affordable housing, he added.

Mayor Domenic Sarno said he thought the city's numbers would have been far worse considering the economic situation in the country.

"To my astonishment the numbers were very good," he said.