An increase in residential foreclosures has put a strain on area homeless shelters. Boston’s Pine Street Inn has filled its 600 shelter beds, with an additional 30 to 40 guests sleeping on the floor.
Beds in homeless shelters quickly fill as temperatures drop.
This winter, local shelters could face another strain besides the cold weather: people who have been forced out of their homes because of foreclosure.
“There’s a burgeoning level of concern that we are certainly seeing some increase of families falling into homelessness who have been tenants of foreclosed properties,” said Jim Greene, director of Boston’s Emergency Shelter Commission.
Foreclosure activity statewide has escalated this year. A total of 18,546 petitions to foreclose were filed through August of this year, up 73 percent from the same months in 2006 when 10,679 petitions were recorded, according to statistics from The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman.
And homeowners aren’t the only victims of foreclosures. The spike in foreclosures is displacing a significant number of renters who often don’t have the resources and support systems to secure other housing, according to tenant advocates. More than 20 percent of this year’s foreclosure petitions, which are the first step in the foreclosure process, involved two- and three-family homes.
Local and state officials can’t pinpoint what type of effect the spike in foreclosure activity is having on the 119 shelters throughout Massachusetts.
Lyndia Downie, executive director of the Pine Street Inn, said it’s difficult to identify how many people coming into shelters are there because of foreclosures. That’s because many people who are evicted will temporarily move in with a family member or friend.
“My guess is people will do their best to hold on as much as they can and try every resource they can before coming to a shelter,” said Downie.
The shelter’s staff members typically ask visitors during the intake process where they were living before, and many will say they were living with a friend or relative before eventually being asked to leave. So it’s not immediately clear how many of those people ended up in that type of situation because of an eviction from a foreclosed property, explained Downie.
Pine Street’s 600 shelter beds are filled and about 30 to 40 people are now sleeping on the floor, according to Downie. “Starting from now through April or May, we’re filled every night,” said Downie. “Once the weather gets colder, people who would typically brave it come to shelters.”
Stephanie Brown, director of housing and homeless services for the state’s Department of Transitional Assistance, said it will take some time to assess how foreclosures are affecting shelters.
“Typically before anybody comes into the shelter system, they go everywhere else they can before family shelter. Shelter is the last resort. And so when we ask them when they come in ‘what was your last address Â… why did you become homeless?’ [the response is] usually ‘because I couldn’t stay where I was anymore,'” said Brown. “And so it isn’t until after being in a shelter for a while and they engage with providers that it comes out that their landlord lost their property.”
But Brown added that shelters are starting to ask whether a foreclosure led to a housing loss.
‘Collateral Damage’
Joe Finn, executive director of the Boston-based Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, agreed that it’s difficult to gauge the effect foreclosures are having on shelters at this point.
“I am concerned about any family that’s losing their home and Â… that includes homeowners,” he said.
Advocates are trying to help homeowners and tenants who face eviction. Boston’s Rental Housing Resource Center is sending letters to tenants in Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester and Hyde Park – neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by foreclosures – to let them know that there are resources and services available, said Michael Kelley, the center’s administrator.
The city also is tracking foreclosure petitions and notifying at-risk property owners to let them know there are programs to help them ward off foreclosure.
“We have been working and cooperating with the Emergency Shelter Commission and with the Homebuyers Assistance Program to educate the public about their rights and the resources that are available to help them,” Kelley said.
Kelley estimated that the center has received double the number of calls in the second half of the year from tenants facing eviction because of foreclosure. “There’s a common misconception that the tenant might have in some way affected the foreclosure, and what we’re finding in many cases is that’s not the case at all,” he said.
Instead, Kelley noted, most tenants are paying rent on time, abiding by the lease and still finding eviction notices in the mail.
“What we’re seeing is that [mortgage] servicers are just trying to empty these buildings as quickly as possible. That’s unacceptable and could potentially be very damaging to the city,” he said.
Kelley added that the city is trying to reach out to mortgage servicers and lenders to negotiate some type of arrangements that can allow folks to stay in their homes as long as possible.
Still, the Emergency Shelter Commission’s Greene remains concerned.
“Homeless families have been the fastest-growing sector of the commonwealth’s homeless population Â… the system is already overcapacity and at a break point, and the prospect of adding additional families whose homelessness is collateral damage of the foreclosure crisis is extremely disconcerting,” he said.
