City crowding and the lack of affordable housing is causing an increase in homelessness, state officials said yesterday during a public hearing at the State House.
The number of homeless people is increasing rapidly, particularly among people ages 18-24. According to an article in the Boston Herald, Father Bill’s Place Executive Director John Yazwinski said this past year an estimated 200 homeless 18- to 21-year-olds asked for beds.
These young members of the homeless community are generally aging out of foster care. After age 18, the state no longer has responsibility for them, the Herald reported.
Sen. Susan Tucker (D-Middlesex) said she considered the city’s homeless situation “shameful.”
“We have people dying on the streets, people living in cars,” she said.
And, as the number of homeless people increases, the space available for them becomes more limited, according to Lydia Downey, executive director of Pine Street Inn, the city’s largest provider of homeless housing for the homeless.
While the officials sought solutions to the problem, only the long-term project of constructing more affordable housing was agreed upon.
A panel of commissioners from the State office of Heath and Human Services addressed the current programs in place for the homeless. Downey said she considers substance abuse “the biggest revolving door we see in the street.”
Downey said Pine Street Inn has been at 40 percent more than capacity during the past winter months.
“Last night, 125 people slept on the floor,” she said.
Already this past January, four homeless people died, and all died outdoors, she said. The shelters remain overcrowded, and even when people are ready to leave the shelters, they have nowhere to go due to the lack of affordable housing.
According to Downey, it takes an average of 13 months to be placed in affordable housing. This waiting period is turning people out of shelters, she said.
Rep. Anne Paulsen (D-Middlesex) said recent changes to welfare programs may contribute to the homeless problems.
Downey said 30 percent of the homeless have full-time jobs. Many of these people also have money saved up for their first and last months’ rent and a deposit, but they have nowhere to go.
“Long-term solutions are the only solution here,” Downey said.
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