State officials say the census of homeless families sheltered in hotels in Western Massachusetts is down 19 percent from last year, while other cities still struggle with the issue.
SPRINGFIELD — The state’s top housing official conceded that advocates are still struggling to keep the numbers of homeless families in hotels down across Massachusetts, after a spike in new placements this summer.
While numbers of families in Western Massachusetts sheltered in hotels remain down 19 percent this summer as compared to last, the figures statewide shot back up to nearly level what they were one year ago. Gov. Deval L. Patrick, the Legislature and advocates for the homeless vowed to move families from cramped hotel rooms to independent housing with new programs and $11 million in state earmarks last year.
Aaron Gornstein, undersecretary of the Department of Housing and Community Development, said the state issued 1,000 housing vouchers last year to families warehoused in hotels and are poised to offer 300 additional vouchers in the upcoming fiscal year. Still, the number of families in emergency hotels shelters remains at 1,691 versus 1,694 around this time in 2012.
The numbers of homeless families in hotels are more promising in Western Massachusetts with fewer homeless and a slightly more forgiving affordable housing market than in the eastern part of the state. There are 415 families remaining in hotel shelters in this region as opposed to 513 last year, according to numbers provided by the state.
The statewide price tag for housing families in hotel shelters nonetheless hovers around $1 million per week – at approximately $80 per family, per room, per night.
“Typically over the summer months we see an increase in the number of families,” applying for shelter, Gornstein said.
He attributes the seasonal rise, in part, to families trying to secure housing for the upcoming school year.
A freeze in federal Section 8 housing over the spring also has hobbled the state’s efforts to mitigate homelessness. Gornstein also cited a persistently grim national economy and tightening state rental market as barriers - factors which the state has little hope of ever completely controlling.
“We know we’re going to face continuing challenges,” Gornstein said. “But, we were able to get the numbers down, and it’s too important an issue not to keep trying. It’s an important goal to rally everyone around.”
In this area, one of the homeless hotel hot spots – the Quality Inn on Route 5 in West Springfield – saw a plummeting census from 109 families to zero over the past year. Meanwhile in Chicopee, the numbers of families in two hotels has crept up. The census grew from 26 to 35 at the Days Inn; and from 49 to 90 at the Quality Inn. In Greenfield, the number of homeless families in hotels went from 37 to 31; from 153 to 129 in Holyoke; and 44 to 48 at the Howard Johnson’s in Springfield.
On Friday afternoon, Enid Tellado, 31, and a single mother of three, said she has lived in the same room at the Howard Johnson’s on Boston Road in Springfield for a year and two months. She lost a market-rate apartment in Holyoke which she could no longer afford and was placed in the hotel by the state. She expected to live there a few months at best.
“We have one room and two beds for everyone, a miniature fridge and a microwave. The kids go to school and they come back here, day after day. It’s really depressing,” said Tellado, during an interview on the motel’s newly-paved parking lot, a “yard” of sorts which still smelled strongly of asphalt.
Tellado said she has is on the waiting list for a state housing voucher, but has been told by caseworkers that the average wait is three years.
“Case workers come here every Wednesday and Thursday, but all they tell us is there’s no funding,” to move families out. “I was number eight on the waiting list, but then there were fires (forcing families out of existing housing) and I got moved down,” she said. “Now I’m eight again.”
Tellado said other families have been at the same site for two years; one woman – a single mother using a wheelchair – has lived there nearly a year.
Howard Johnson’s manager Amit Patel said he has been involved in sheltering homeless families there for about five years. He characterizes the program as a revolving door.
“It’s one family out and one in,” he said. “All I can do is manage the property.”
Tellado said the shelter residents have become something of a family.
“We get along some days better than others,” she said.
State Sen. James Welch, D-West Springfield, said that while he was pleased to see that city’s homeless numbers decrease, it is a statewide problem.
“Until we get the statewide number to zero, or as close to zero as we can, the work continues,” he said.
Welch added that the Quality Inn in West Springfield was treated as one of the state’s “focus areas” and was cleared out because all public and nonprofit resources were brought to bear in one location.
A spokesman for the Gornstein said the Patrick administration enabled nearly 3,000 families to avoid homelessness through a greatly expanded Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) Program and, assisted an additional 500 families to avoid shelter through the HomeBase Program. The latter provides up to $4,000 in cash rental assistance.