JOE FINN
Troubled by cuts
About 30 men and women who were sleeping in an emergency shelter in downtown Framingham that was shut down just six weeks ago are now living in housing thanks to a pilot program that won state funding earlier this year.
The Southern Middlesex Opportunity Council, a social service agency that closed its 40-bed shelter as part of a longer-term plan to focus on a housing-first approach to homelessness, was able to move the shelter residents into single-room occupancy units in Framingham, Natick and Marlborough and get them support services to help them with the transition and keep them housed. The move was possible because of the Home and Healthy for Good initiative, a new program that is designed to move homeless people with serious chronic health problems into housing and get them the support and medical services they need to stay off the streets.
But now, the program, which was to receive $600,000 in state funding this year, is in jeopardy.
Last week, Banker & Tradesman reported that the program funding, as well as money for other housing and homelessness prevention programs, was among $425 million in emergency cuts that Gov. Mitt Romney announced earlier this month. Romney announced on Nov. 17 that he was restoring some of the housing-related cuts – namely $410,332, which will be used for 333 extra shelter beds across the state during the winter months. A state lawmaker told Banker & Tradesman last week that he expects money for another program that helps families pay unpaid utility bills and back rent to be restored as well.
Explaining why Romney restored the funding for the shelter beds, Felix Brown, a spokesman for the administration, told Banker & Tradesman last week, “It was never the goal to decrease front-line services.” Brown said the cuts will be made elsewhere in the budget.
Joe Finn, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, said while he’s grateful that money was restored for the shelter beds, he’s still troubled that funding for the Home and Healthy for Good initiative – and other housing programs – was eliminated. Finn pushed lawmakers to appropriate funds for Home and Healthy for Good, arguing that it would help keep chronically homeless people who have taxed the shelter and hospital and health care systems across the state off the streets, ultimately saving the commonwealth money.
“It’s critical for people to understand and know that the resource that could lead to where we won’t need those shelter beds was cut,” he said. “Emergency shelters have become an acceptable housing niche for some of the most disabled poor in the commonwealth.”
He added, “We need to put housing at the front of the continuum of care.”
‘Kind of Stuck’
Besides eliminating the pilot program, Romney slashed $3.2 million from the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program, which provides rental subsidies to low-income tenants; $2 million from the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) program, which helps families pay back rent, unpaid utility bills and security deposits; and $1.5 million from the Soft Second Loan Program, which provides mortgage assistance to first-time homebuyers across the state.
Sen. Brian A. Joyce said he and Rep. Kevin Honan, as co-chairs of the state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Housing, have been lobbying the administration to reinstate funding for the RAFT program immediately. Joyce, who said reductions to RAFT could force up to 1,000 families into homelessness, told Banker & Tradesman last Tuesday that he expected an announcement within a day or two that the money for RAFT has been restored.
“We have received signals that [funding for RAFT] might be restored,” Joyce said.
Joyce also said that the $1.5 million reduction of the Soft Second Loan Program, expected to affect 237 first-time buyers, likely will be a priority for the Legislature in the New Year.
A coalition of housing groups – including Finn’s MHSA – sent a letter to Joyce and Honan on Nov. 16 urging them to schedule a public hearing to determine the impact of the budget cuts and to support passing a supplemental budget or to take whatever steps were needed to reinstate funding. They also called on lawmakers to overturn Romney’s veto of a measure that would have allowed the transfer of funds from the state’s rainy-day reserves to cover some of the budget spending.
But Joyce said he’s hopeful that the governor-elect will restore the funding and that legislative action won’t be needed.
“Chairman Honan and I have had preliminary discussions about holding a public hearing but our current thinking is that while we are extremely sympathetic to housing advocates and think the cuts are shortsighted – and, in some cases, mean-spirited – we’re cognizant of a changing administration and the likelihood or real probability that the new administration might see things a bit differently. So there might not be a need for legislative action,” he said.
He added, “The real emergency to us right now in the housing area appears to be the RAFT program Â…. that’s what we’re working on right now. The other areas, while very important, appear to be areas that can wait until January.”
Meanwhile, the Southern Middlesex Opportunity Council, which was relying on about $144,000 from the Home and Healthy for Good program to pay rents for at least a year for the 30 individuals who had been living at its Framingham shelter that was shut on Oct. 15, is trying to figure out what happens next.
“We had made a commitment to house every one of the guests there so that no one would be homeless or have to move to another shelter,” said James Cuddy, executive director of SMOC.
Cuddy said when the agency learned that the state was providing funding for the program, it signed a contract with MHSA, which administers the Home and Healthy for Good program, and began finding housing units for the homeless individuals who were at the shelter. It also signed a contract with the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership, a private managed-care company that oversees Medicaid expenditures for behavioral health in the state, to provide case management services to the residents.
“We’re kind of stuck,” he said. “We’re praying, hoping, that the Legislature restores the cuts and the funding so that this program can go forward Â… we’re on the hook for these rents.”
