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| By G. Michael Dobbs Managing Editor SPRINGFIELD The fate of the Warming Place and the validity of the city's plan to address homelessness was once again discussed last week at City Council sub-committee meeting on Friday. City Councilor Bud Williams, who chaired the meeting, said there is a divide in the city over the homeless issue and that he didn't want the homeless to be "pawns." He added he didn't want to see a return of a "tent city" as well. The conflict was over the city's plan's to scale down the occupancy levels of the gym at the former York Street Jail where Warming Place operates. The decrease in occupancy levels would prohibit the number of homeless people who could use the shelter. City officials believe that by placing homeless people in permanent housing beginning in April, the need will drop for the shelter's services. By June 30, the gym would be closed and the Warming Place would have to look for a new home. The York Street Jail complex is scheduled to be demolished sometime this year to make way for further development of the river front. Kevin Noonan, executive director of the Open Pantry that operates the Warming Place, said he doesn't dispute the city's right to remove the long abandoned jail, but he questioned why the city believes the Warming Place will be redundant. "Why are they [the city] interfering with a state contract?" he asked at the meeting. Open Pantry receives $400,000 in state funds to operate the Warming Place. If the shelter is eliminated, Noonan said, that money would be lost to homeless services in western Massachusetts. Noonan said that in a letter he recently received from the city's Building Department, the occupancy certificate would be made retroactively to 85 people and then reduced to 65 in April and 40 in May. Noonan noted the city has allowed him to operate the shelter without any sort of occupancy certificate and he has been housing over 90 people a night. He said he has told Mayor Charles Ryan that he would move the shelter into any building and any neighborhood the city suggested, but has received no response. The city's homelessness plan, Housing First, will place people in permanent housing with support services. There will be 140 housing units set aside for this purpose. Geraldine McCafferty, the city's deputy director of homeless and special needs housing, said the housing effort will reduce the number of people on the streets and therefore lower the number of shelter beds needed in the city. Open Pantry staff would be used as caseworkers providing support, she added. Noonan said that filling 140 units of housing with homeless people wouldn't necessarily mean the end of the need for an emergency shelter such as the Warming Place, though. Noonan said the closing of homeless services at the Springfield Rescue Mission and the closing of the Warming Place would put strain on the services provided by the Friends of the Homeless Shelter on Worthington Street. Noonan said that in the past the Open Pantry has closed the shelter when it was shown there was not a need for it. "My intent is not to have the Open Pantry [shelter] closed," Williams said. Michaelann Bewsee of Arise for Social Justice said that allocating the 140 housing units for the homeless will mean a decrease in housing for low-income families in the city. Rev. Greg Dyson, who heads a group of people who performs a weekly outreach program for the homeless, told Williams there are still a lot of people living on the streets. "We are not meeting the needs of the homeless," Dyson said. "Cutting beds would be ludicrous." Dyson urged Williams and the other city councilors present to fund a site for the Warming Place. |