Proposed Individual Shelter Assistance Cuts

The Governor recently proposed a cut to Homeless Individual Assistance of $2.7 million. A cut in funding at this amount represents the loss of approximately 500 beds to the system or 17 percent of the 3,000 state-subsidized beds for homeless individuals in the state. Advocates say that this line item was cut by 18% in FY 03 and has never been fully restored.

Boston plans to eliminate nearly 20 percent of the beds at the city’s largest homeless shelter, the first time it has made such cuts. Cape Cod’s largest shelter expects to end its day program, meaning about 35 people who stay at the NOAH Center in Hyannis will no longer have job training courses, mental health services, or a place to stay warm during the day. Officials at the largest provider of homeless services in Western Massachusetts, the Friends of the Homeless in Springfield, is stretched so thin that officials are considering cuts to weekend services and eliminating the police detail that ensures security at its shelter, where about 200 people stay every night.

Programs funded through this line item have grown to provide a great number of social services aimed at moving people out of homelessness and toward housing and self-sufficiency. This line item not only funds shelters, but it also provides a host of services to move people towards housing. Other programs funded in this line item include the Community Support Program for People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness (CSPECH), which provides case management services for formerly homeless individuals placed into housing, Health Care for the Homeless programs, day service programs and REACH, a unique program that houses the chronically homeless. With the emergence of Housing First as a best practice model, supported by data-driven research, many shelter providers are increasing their efforts to provide stable housing for homeless consumers thereby permanently reducing shelter occupancy.

State housing officials said they recognize the cuts are painful but insist they are necessary. “These are definitely happening,’’ said Bob Pulster, associate director of the division of housing stabilization at the state Department of Housing and Community Development. “The administration has held homeless programs harmless in four rounds of budget cuts. The administration has made it a priority to end homelessness, but with the serious revenue shortfall that the state is facing, these cuts are necessary.’’

Pulster said the department, which oversees state aid to shelters, is still deciding how to apportion the cuts. As a result, shelters are preparing for the worst. From Springfield to Hyannis, shelter officials said they expect the cuts will amount to a 15 percent reduction of their state funding for the balance of the fiscal year.

The pain will be felt most acutely in Boston, where more homeless people live than anywhere else in the state. In the most recent annual census of the city’s homeless population, conducted last December, the city counted 7,681 men, women, and children who were homeless, an 11 percent increase over the previous year.

At the city’s largest shelter, on Long Island, which is over capacity this year, officials are expecting to lose about $350,000 , on top of $600,000 in budget cuts they have faced since 2008. They are now planning to cut about 100 of 577 beds and lay off at least five case managers or other employees, after eliminating 28 positions last year.

“These cuts are going to be really devastating to people who are already in real trouble,’’ said Carol Fabyan, codirector for homeless services of the Boston Public Health Commission, which runs the shelter on Long Island. “We’ve never cut beds before.’’

At the St. Francis House in downtown Boston, which serves about 1,000 meals a day, officials are considering how to cope with what they expect will amount to about $200,000 in cuts. They are looking at closing one day a week or ending their breakfast and clothing donation programs. The impending cuts come after the shelter lost about $300,000 in state and federal funding last year and eliminated seven positions. The previous cuts were made to services that help the mentally ill and those recently released from prison. They said any more staff cuts would jeopardize safety at a shelter that has experienced violence among its residents.

Elsewhere in the area, the Boston Rescue Mission expects to lay off up to eight employees and cut the number of people it feeds and houses at its shelter on Kingston Street by 17 percent.

Officials at the First Church Shelter in Cambridge, which relies on students to help run its operation, plan to stop providing two meals a day and wonder how they will afford to pay for all the laundry they have to do.

The cuts in Boston take place as efforts to reduce the number of people living on the streets have started to bear fruit. While the number of homeless families continues to increase, the city has reduced the number of single homeless adults by 500 people, or nearly 30 percent, over the past five years by increasing the amount of subsidized housing. City officials worry the budgets cuts will reverse the progress. “The need for the safety net is real,’’ said Jim Greene, director of the city’s Emergency Shelter Commission. “Nobody wants to see homeless people fall back through the cracks we’ve worked so hard to close.’’

-From:  “Budget trims lead homeless shelters across Mass. to cut services and beds” By David Abel, The Boston Globe, November 7, 2009, at http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/07/homeless_shelters_across_mass_cut_services_and_beds/ retrieved 11/25/09 and “LINE ITEM 7004-0102 Homeless Individuals Assistance Fact Sheet 9C Cuts in FY10”, Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, a t http://www.mahomeless.org/advocacy/Fy'10/MHSA_Fact_Sheet_9C_Cuts[1].pdf, retrieved 11/25/09, linked from “TAFDC and Individual Shelter Cuts - Calls to legislators and the Governor needed”, Mass. Coalition for the Homeless, November 06, 2009.

11/09