Patrick honored by Friends of the Homeless

Date: 12/5/2011

Dec. 5, 2011

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Deval Patrick was honored on Nov. 29 with a signed photo in recognition of his administration’s support of the new building at the Friends of the Homeless (FOH) on Worthington Street.

Robert Schwarz, executive vice president of public relations, Peter Pan Bus Lines, who has been active in the city’s efforts to find a long term solution to homelessness, told the audience gathered for the ceremony that Patrick was “the number one friend of the homeless.”

“There is a sign on Yankee Stadium that this is the house that [Babe] Ruth built,” Schwarz said. “Welcome to the house Patrick built.”

The ceremony took place in the new FOH Resource Center, which was funded in part through the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) in 2009 with $2.6 million in state housing subsidies and $7.8 million in Tax Credit Assistance Program funds.

Patrick toured the facility seeing the women’s quarters, the apartment area, the computer room and the cafeteria.

This year, FOH received $150,000 in federal Emergency Shelter Grant funds from DHCD. William Miller, the executive director of FOH, thanked the elected officials present for the event, especially State Sen. Gale Candaras, for passing a requirement that the shelter receive a mandated a $20 minimum daily rate for all individual shelter programs.

In a short speech, Patrick said he came “to bear witness ... to a community acting like a community.”

Kathy Tobin, development director for FOH, told Reminder Publications the number of people seeking services has been steadily increasing since the new building opened and “the economy keeps the numbers high.”

She said the June 1 tornado has had a long-term effect on the region’s homeless population as a significant number of low-income homes were wiped out by the storm. Three apartment buildings in the city’s South End that provided housing for people once they left the shelter were destroyed.

“There are not as many housing opportunities,” Tobin said.

According to the FOH website, the shelter averaged about 150 people per night this summer and was forced to turns some people away because of lack of capacity. The shelter serves more than 1,200 people annually.