November 20, 2003
ROMNEY CREATES PERMANENT HOMELESSNESS & HOUSING COUNCIL
Pledges not to reduce spending for homeless services in Fiscal Year 2005 budget
Following the recommendation of the Commission for Homeless Services Coordination established last winter, Governor Mitt Romney today issued an Executive Order to create a permanent Interagency Council on Homelessness and Housing to focus on solving the problem of homelessness in the Bay State.
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey released the Governor’s Executive Commission for Homeless Services Coordination report, “Housing the Homeless – A More Effective Approach.” The commission, created last winter by Romney, recommended supporting the homeless community through better housing supports rather than the historic reliance on emergency shelters and hotels.
“In light of the commission’s findings a new approach will be taken to tackle the state’s homeless problem,” said Healey, speaking at the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership. “Instead of focusing exclusively on ways to improve the existing emergency shelter system, the focus will be on shifting homeless families and individuals out of emergency shelters and into more stable, transitional housing.”
The Commonwealth spends more than $250 million per year on homeless individuals and families through various state agencies. The three-month study by the Executive Commission For Homeless Services Coordination lays out both short-term and long-term strategies. The Commission also advanced a draft work plan for furthering its preliminary work.
Five major themes outlined in the report are:
- Establishment of an Interagency Council on Homelessness and Housing;
- The need to increase affordable housing for those with very low incomes;
- More focus on prevention;
- Better coordinated services; and
- Improved data collection, coordinating and reporting.
Healey will chair the interagency council, which will not only monitor the state’s progress in reducing homelessness, but also develop and implement new initiatives. The council will also serve as a link for corporate, philanthropic and faith-based organizations with government.
President Bush’s point person on homeless issues praised the creation of the council. “Today Massachusetts takes a big step forward in the right direction for all its homeless citizens by moving beyond managing homelessness to ending this disgrace,” said Phil Mangano, Executive Director of United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Healey said that in the Romney Administration’s Fiscal Year 2005 spending plan to be unveiled in January, there will be no reduction in funding for homeless services.
“Governor Romney and I fought to preserve full funding for homeless programs during this year’s fiscal crisis,” Healey said. “Now, for the second straight year, we will not be proposing any reduction in funding for homeless services in the administration’s budget. We view assistance to the homeless as a core function of government that, to the extent possible, should not be compromised, even in bad fiscal times.”
Approximately 1,600 families with children are in emergency shelters on any given night, with about one-third of them temporarily placed in hotels because of lack of shelter space. More than 3,000 people are in shelters for individuals, which have been operating beyond capacity since 1997.
The report notes that the housing market in metropolitan Boston is one of the most expensive in the nation with the vast majority of those exiting emergency shelter doing so into subsidized housing. The recently imposed federal limit on additional Section 8 housing subsidies for Massachusetts further limits options for the homeless.
“The work of the commission illustrates a realization that the state’s historic focus solely on emergency shelter is an ineffective way to manage resources and services when people can’t afford to extricate themselves from the shelter system,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Ronald Preston.
The Commission also recommended allowing the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) to pilot within shelter funding alternative programming that provides time-limited subsidies for housing. It currently costs DTA an average of $3,000 per month to temporarily shelter a family.
“There will always be a need for temporary emergency shelter, but the real challenge is to prevent people from becoming homeless or to quickly move them towards permanent housing when they do become homeless,” said DTA Commissioner John Wagner.
Among prevention measures recommended in the report include direct payment of rents and bills to landlords and utilities by DTA for welfare recipients who are in arrears in order to reduce the number of evictions. The coordination of services would also be improved through the establishment of an executive-level intensive case-management team to manage the services of the complex, chronically homeless cases and the development of ways to engage the homeless population in activities that will maximize their employment. Also, improved data collection suggested by the Commission will allow the state to better serve this vulnerable population while better managing programs and services across multiple state systems.
“With winter just around the corner, our administration wants to ensure that every man, woman and child in Massachusetts has easy access to a warm, safe location” said Healey. “Providing quality food and shelter for the homeless is not just a core function of government; it is a moral obligation we all share as human beings.”
The entire report may be viewed on the Executive Commission for Homeless Services Coordination web site.
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