Karen LaFrazia, Executive Director of St. Francis House in Boston, was a founding board member and served as President of the SHC. She is being recognized for the great work she does now and for her work with the Coalition’s beginnings in 1985. Evelyn (Dibbie) Gilmore has been a member of the First Congregational Church of Somerville for 75 years and has just retired from her volunteer position at Project SOUP’s Monday night meal at the church after 23 years. She is being honored for being such a gracious host – and hardly ever missing a Monday – all those years. Jean Donovan is the manager of our Family Shelter and has been with us for almost 10 years. She is receiving the first Theresa Elliott Award, named for one of our staff who helped start the Coalition’s permanent housing program and who died too young last year.
“We are not calling this evening a celebration because we cannot celebrate the continuing needs of the homeless and hungry – but it is important to recognize the work the Coalition has done to address hunger and homelessness in our community and to thank all of our supporters who make this work possible,” said Board President Walker Martin.
Even though the Somerville Homeless Coalition is now 25 years old, the name is a bit of a misnomer. We are not just in Somerville anymore: our heart and soul are there, but our tasks and territory have expanded. Next, much of our work is not with homeless people, but with formerly homeless people who we now support in permanent housing. Finally, SHC was started by a group of concerned citizens, but were never a coalition.
The Somerville Homeless Coalition opened the first shelter in Somerville for homeless adults in 1985, and two years later opened a facility for families. Project SOUP, begun in 1969 to feed people in need of a meal, joined in 1996. In 1997, we were awarded our first federal grant to provide case management for anyone homeless in Somerville. Finally, over the past nine years, we have created six permanent housing programs and a prevention program to keep people housed.
“But 25 years is too long to have an emergency response to a housing crisis – and the whole emergency shelter system makes no sense,” said Mark Alston-Follansbee, executive director. “It is not compassionate or fiscally responsible. The average cost to shelter a family for one year in Massachusetts is $36,000. We can take the same family and put them in one of our apartments – with all of the supportive services they need – for $15,000. But even that is not the best we do. With grants from the City of Somerville and from the United Way, last year we prevented 56 families from becoming homeless at an average cost of under $1,100.”
Those are enormous savings, but the Homeless Coalition’s prevention funds in 2008 lasted 11 months and unfortunately only lasted four months last year. The need, compounded by this terrible recession, has never been greater. The Somerville Homeless Coalition has the skills and the experience to prevent people from becoming homeless or to get them back into housing as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we lack enough resources to meet the need. The SHC needs everyone’s help to continue to feed the hungry, to care for the homeless, and prevent people from losing their homes. The people coming in the door asking for help will be grateful.
If you would like to attend the dinner on the 24th or learn more about the Coalition, please call 617-623-6111 or go to www.shcinc.org. Thank you, Mark Alston-Follansbee
