For the record, my name is Dr. Ruy Costa and I am the Executive Director of Episcopal City Mission.
For 160 years Episcopal City Mission has been working for the economic well-being of the urban poor. Since the turn of the century we have been advocating for those in need: the homeless, the alienated, the sick, and the lonely. We began one of the first shelters in Boston and currently are the general partner for a 176-unit home for low-income elders in Boston. Through our grant making we have supported direct service programs for those needing emergency assistance and we have advocated for and have built affordable housing in Boston and its suburbs. We currently award over $250,000 in funds each year to organizations across greater Boston that are working to organize around the rights of the poor. We work in partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and its 185 parishes on public policy initiatives and other urban renewal projects. The mission of our work is to bring justice to the poor and in doing so, provide the resources to help them move out of poverty and towards a better life.
We have been involved in the issues of housing and homelessness for over 100 years. We know that today Massachusetts is housing over 2,000 families in emergency shelters and 1,000 families in overflow motels. This is an unacceptable fact. During an economic downturn like the one we are currently facing and in a state like Massachusetts with extremely high housing costs, we must step back and look at our approach to this issue.
We believe that the current response to homelessness is not working. Limited funding is available for transitional housing and homeless prevention dollars are severely lacking. Many families are faced with shelter as an only option, even if that means moving away from jobs and schools for their children. We need a more flexible system that will allow families to receive funds for housing assistance, stabilization services and diversion programs. Our goal needs to be to keep families in their homes where they want to be or get them back into homes as quickly as possible so that they can go on with their lives.
We strongly support the Administration’s plan to reduce reliance on emergency shelter and increase investments in housing Assistance (Line Items 7004-0101 and 7004-0108 in the Governor’s House 1 Budget). This plan reduces the current emphasis on motels and shelters and increases the investment in flexible housing assistance. This proposal would decrease reliance on shelter and increase access to flexible homelessness prevention and housing stabilization resources. We know that this is the right direction the state needs to move to begin to resolve our current crisis of shelter over-crowding and motel overflow usage.
We know that as the plan is currently laid out, it does not address every provision or possibility that may present itself when dealing with the issue of homeless families. But we know that this is an opportunity to turn the ship around and take a step in the right direction towards ending family homelessness in this state.
We believe that these recommendations need to be approved so that the legislative and administrative process of fine tuning these changes can begin. We have faith that this process will be flexible and open to issues like: allowing regional flexibility relative to the housing assistance cap, customizing housing assistance and stabilization services and supporting interim housing placement plans.
Thank you so much for your attention to this matter.