Shameful---More Vacant Homes Than Homeless

Article well worth the visit- Please read-
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/more_vacant_homes_than_homeless_in_us_20111231/

Don't want children and families out on the street? Then PROTEST!

PROTEST!!
THURSDAY, JULY 26, NOON
WMA OFFICE OF GOV. DEVAL PATRICK
436 DWIGHT ST., SPRINGFIELD

 
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is about to make its biggest attack on homeless families to date, by making it almost impossible for homeless families to qualify for shelter.  My guess is that this move will be accompanied by a strong push to get families already in shelter out of there as fast as possible.

If defending these families-- some of whom are our own members-- isn't the central mission and responsibility of Arise, then I don't know what is.  In fact, I can't think of anyone who is poor or progressive who can afford to do nothing.  If you absolutely can't come to the demonstration, then please, please call Governor Patrick and your state legislators.  617.725.4005 or 413.784.1200.  You can find more information at Arise for Social Justice. 

Don't be fooled if the Gov's office says things aren't as bad as we're making them out to be.  Our reading of the regulations (and the reading of the Mass Coalition for the Homeless and Mass Law Reform Institute)  says that families will even be permitted to sleep in bus stations and still not be eligible for shelter.  The Dept. of Housing and Community Development, which oversees the regulations, says it's not as bad as all that.  Then they need to change the regulations!  And that will only happen if we are loud, clear and speak with one voice-- right now!

The Insane Cruelty of Gov. Patrick Toward Homeless Families

I am seething with rage.  For months we at Arise for Social Justice have been fighting to keep the proposed new rules about who's eligible for family shelter from becoming too draconian.  With our allies at Mass. Law Reform Institute and the Mass. Coalition for the Homeless taking the lead, we were able to make some small changes in the regs-- not enough to keep many new families from becoming homeless, but something, anyway, and our thoughts were turning toward this fall and winter and what we might be able to do to find shelter for the unsheltered.

Today we found out that the Dept. of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) will be applying the strictest possible interpretations of the new regs-- not that the families described are ones that must be sheltered, but that these are the only families who will be sheltered.  The rest?  Out on the street and out of luck.  The regs were encouraged and signed by Gov. Patrick.

We had a woman in the office today who has a 20 year old underemployed son and an 16 year old daughter with severe autism.  Her husband left them unexpectedly ("I woke up one morning and he was gone.") and she fell behind in her mortgage and every other bill ("He hid how much debt we were in".). Now her house has been foreclosed on, and she has 30 days to get out.  She won't be eligible for emergency shelter. Maybe she'll be eligible for one of the fewer than 500 MRVPs that are supposed to help end family homelessness, or maybe the RAFT Program, a benefit to help families come up with first month's rent and security or other bills....and then what?

Actually we had two former homeowners today.  The second was a 74 year old grandmother with custody of her 10 year old granddaughter.  She hasn't made a full mortgage payment in over a year, and is having trouble getting onto the food stamp program, because she can't provide proof of shelter costs, because she doesn't have any.  They won't be eligible for emergency shelter, either, when they are finally evicted.

Last but hardly least, we met with a young woman with two children and two black eyes.  She's been staying with her sister and her sister's two children in a two bedroom, subsidized apartment.  Her sister was just notified that she faces eviction unless her "company" leaves.  The woman's two black eyes came about because she started hitting herself in the face when she completely lost it, realizing she and her kids were about to become homeless and had no place to go..But she doesn't fall into an eligible category, either.

Every day is like this.

One MLRI lawyer commented, "So we've come to a point where the state's housing agency issues a reg that would define a bus station as a 'housing situation' that is 'meant for human habitation' (because it has lights, heat, running water and toilets).  Thus a family with children living in a bus station is not sufficiently homeless to be eligible for shelter.  This is beyond Kafka."

I feel particularly angry at the service providers and their networks.  In spite of warnings by Arise and others, they put on their rose-colored glasses and gave the new head of DHCD, Aaron Gornstein, a stamp of approval before the evidence was even in. ("He's a compassionate person who really understands homelessness.")  Gornstein and Governor Patrick don't even have the guts to say, "We're done sheltering homeless families,"  but do it all under the banner of doing good for families!



Just as I have said that all poor people in Springfield were victims of last June's tornado, not just those who lost their housing, so all poor people, and the neighborhoods in which they live, are victims of  Patrick's new policies.  The dismantling of the communities of poor people continues.

I'm going to paste some information from the Mass Law Reform Institute about what actions you can take that might help-- we have to try-- try hard and right now.

But first I have to say something about Arise.  We are the only grassroots, poor people's organization from here to Boston and one of only three left in the state that will absolutely go to the mat for poor people, especially homeless people.  I can guarantee you that there's not one organization in a 90 mile radius that, tonight, is anguishing over how poor families will survive and which is also plotting, planning and organizing.  I suppose that's partly because our core members and our staff are all too familiar ourselves with foreclosure, eviction and homelessness.

If you think the work we do simply has to be done, then you've got to support us-- with your commitment, your actions and your cash.  We need donations very much.  Please send us some help at Arise, 467 State St., P.O. Box 5423, Springfield MA 01101.  And call us if you want to take action-- 413 734-4948

=====================================================================

Please call today!  Ask the Governor and the Legislature to PUT A STOP to emergency assistance (EA) regulations that would leave homeless children and their families in dangerous situations. (Copy of proposed regulations is attached).

Under the new rules that will go into effect in 60 days unless we stop them, children and their families will be ineligible for shelter even if they

·        have nowhere to sleep except a bus station or a hospital emergency room

·        are in a double up situation where the child is being abused by a neighbor

·        are in a housing situation where the mother is being regularly raped by the primary tenant

·        are in a housing situation that is unfit for human habitation (such as not having running water) and the landlord could fix it but won’t

·        are in a housing situation with lead paint, exposed wires, overcrowding that violates the sanitary code, or infested with rats (as long as the infestation isn’t caused by accumulated garbage)

·        were evicted through no fault of their own (for example, because the landlord wants to put the building on the market) and have no place to go

And many of the families who might meet the new standards won’t be eligible due to new unreasonable third-party verification requirements.

Please call the Governor, 617.725.4005 or 888.870.7770. 

Ask him to PUT A STOP to these inhumane rules.

Please call your state Senator and Representative via the State House switchboard at  617.222.2000 (or get their direct numbers at www.wheredoivotema.com). 

Ask your Senator and Representative to ask Senate President Murray and House Speaker DeLeo to PUT A STOP to these inhumane rules.

When the streets are full with homeless people, will the policy people & the poverty pimps finally listen?

Me and Amanda at Weds. press conference - Photo John Morris

This might be a long post because I am going to work backwards in time, and go from the specific to the general, but I hope readers will bear with me because there is just so much to tell.

I'd intended to work at home today but then remembered that our work study student, Rachel, was bringing in a fellow student to see about working with us in the fall.  But in the fifteen minutes before they arrived, I answered the phone and found myself dealing with an extremely distraught woman in shelter with her husband and two toddlers, who, after having spent some years in prison, some of them in solitary confinement, found herself emotionally unable to tolerate the 10' by 10' room in which they were placed.  (Much more to their story, but....)

I don't usually deal directly with the Dept. of Housing and Community Development, the state agency now in charge of sheltering homeless families, but couldn't reach a lawyer, and decided that maybe a direct appeal would help. Well, it didn't help, and I found myself in a larger conversation about the shelter cuts proposed in the current House Ways and Means budget (more on this further down.).  I was told that there simply isn't enough money in the budget to cover both the front end-- prevention-- and the back end-- shelter, and that families having to live doubled up with other families was not necessarily a bad thing, because they can share expenses.

There's some truth in that, of course; I've lived that way most of my adult life and my kids and I wouldn't have fared as well otherwise.  But my situation was mostly planned, and very different from what happens when a woman with three kids moves into the two-bedroom apartment already occupied by her sister, husband and two kids. Most landlords won't put up with that because it puts the landlord, the apartment and its residents in violation of the state sanitary code. 

In any case, you now have the state's official policy about allowable overcrowding.

Yesterday, Thursday, I and Arise VP Ruben Santiago and member Devon brought our poster-sized postcards from the April 2 rally to the mayor's office and the governor's office,  where again I found myself in conversation with a state employee who wanted to cast Gov. Patrick in the broadest possible terms: as a good man and a good governor.  People with institutional power-- or those who represent them-- often think that because I'm a reasonable person, I will understand their perspective and agree with them.  Well, I understand their perspective, all right-- and I know what I know about the thousands of homeless and unstable households in this city, and the effect that instability is having on our community.

On Wednesday, Arise, Community Legal Aid, Safe Passage Women's Shelter and  homeless Arise member Amanda Bermudez held a press conference on the House Ways and Means budget in front of the Liberty St. welfare office.  We had no more than started to get set up when a dozen people came out of the welfare office to talk to us.

"DHCD says I'm not eligible and that if I don't leave the office, they'll call the Dept. of Families and Children to come and take my kids," one woman told us, tears in her eyes.

"DHCD says i'm not eligible even though I'm six months pregnant and sleeping in my car."

DHCD, DHCD, blah, blah, blah, and if things are bad now, wait until the state budget passes-- unless we can change it, of course.  We have one week, and I'm asking anyone who's read this far to go to Mass Coalition for the Homeless and then call your legislator.  There's more bad news and more action you can take at the end of this post.

62 Bay St.

On Tuesday, the Springfield Office for Housing held a "viewing" of three houses to which it holds title in the McKnight Historic District-- and one of them just happened to be the house I lived in for 30 years.  Half a dozen Arise members  went to my old house at 62 Bay St., and held signs for the viewing: "This should be the people's house" and "This is MY house!"

me in what used to be my garden

It was a very bizarre experience.  I could not help but feel a resurgence of anger toward the man who had owned the house when I lived there, who cheated us out of our dreams of a housing coop (long story), who defaulted on the mortgage and I didn't know it until men in suits knocked on our front door and auctioned the house (no bidders) and a mortgage company assumed the mortgage, then the company failed, then the ownership passed back to the landlord who I didn't know was still the owner and who didn't collect rent for ten years, and avoided any repairs that needed to be made (and we weren't allowed to make repairs, because we weren't the owners), until the chimney was falling and the roof was caving and we had to go

And I also remembered that only a month ago, on March 21, I sat with Gerry McCafferty, Housing Director, talking about the state of housing in Springfield..  I mentioned that my old house, which had been auctioned off by the city a couple of years ago, seemed not to be undergoing rehab, and she said she suspected ownership had reverted back to the city, when in fact I'm sure the "viewing" of my house was already in the works.

One might think that when a house has no mortgage, and the only debt on a house is back property taxes, that the city might offer that house to the tenants-- which would have been me, six years earlier, before so much damage was done to the house.  But no.  Or one might think that the Office for Housing director would at least be honest with me about what was in store for the house.  But no, again.

At that meeting with Gerry, I found out that not only does the city not have a housing plan, but also lacks the basic knowledge about our housing stock-- the real vacancy rate, median rents by neighborhood, the number of substandard units by neighborhood, the number of foreclosed properties or properties at risk, et cetera. 

But of course, there is a housing plan, and the plan is to continue to promote home ownership, whether it still makes sense to do so or not.  Gerry said that whatever comes out in the "Rebuild Springfield" plan, which is supposed to be the product of meetings in tornado-damaged neighborhoods, is what the mayor intends to support.  And when will the plan be released?  Within a week or two, Gerry said.  Yet whenever I call the Rebuild Springfield office, I hear that the plan is still undergoing final editing-- and, I was told, Gerry contributed heavily to the housing sections. 

One more step back in time, to Monday, April 2, when 200 of us rallied in Court Square to stop the criminalization of poverty and homelessness.  We made a simple demand that day to Domenic Sarno, Mayor of Springfield: to create a housing task force consisting of at least 50% low and moderate income renters and homeowners.  We won't wait forever for an answer.  Joe Oliverio's video frames it well.  If you want to fight for housing justice in Springfield, don't stand back.  Call us and join us.



AMENDMENTS TO SUPPORT

1. TAFDC - Amendment 664: This amendment would restore the annual September clothing allowance to $150 per child, and preserve the $40/month rent allowance and the $40/month transportation allowance.

2. EBT Restrictions - Amendments 635, 502 and 842: These amendments eliminate unreasonable restrictions on use of cash assistance benefits – Lead Sponsors Toomey, Rushing and Conroy.
- Amendment 635 would remove the most egregious provisions of HWM outside section 35 to ensure that low-income residents of the Commonwealth can pay their rent and taxes and purchase basic necessities;
- Amendment 502 would strike out section 35 and replace it with the recommendations of the recent EBT Commission, which are much less harmful, but include disqualification if benefits are wrongfully used; and
- Amendment 842 would strike out section 35 and direct the Inspector General and the Auditor to file reports about any potential EBT abuses before any restrictions are adopted.

3. Amendment 603 - Emergency Assistance shelter (7004-0101) – Lead Sponsors Representatives Wolf and Rushing: This amendment would (a) eliminate the proposed 8-month time limit on shelter stays that would kick families with children out of shelter with no place to go; (b) ensure that families at risk of sleeping in places not meant for human habitation, including cars or the streets, remain eligible for shelter; and (c) delay any new shelter restrictions until at least January to allow time to evaluate the impact of new housing resources on shelter demand. A fact sheet with the amendment number is attached.

Other Amendments to Support: Amendments 694, 696, 701 – Asset Development Commission recommendations to allow education and training to count for TAFDC Work requirement for all 24 months and require DTA to give time limit extensions to allow completion (694), make one car per licensed driver in TAFDC and EAEDC households non-countable (696) and make $10,000 of lump sum income non-countable if used for responsible purposes or put in an account for later such use (701) – Lead sponsor Rep. Khan: These amendments would help lift families out of poverty and were all recommended by the Asset Development Commission.

AMENDMENTS TO OPPOSE:

1. Amendments 804 (O’Connell) and 774 (Rogers) would bar cash assistance recipients from accessing any assistance as cash! These harmful amendments would allow TAFDC and EAEDC recipients only to access benefits as vendor rent and utilities or at point of sale. Recipients would have access to NO cash assistance, leaving them unable to pay rent where landlords or those they are doubled-up with do not accept vendor rent and unable to pay for babysitters, school fees, etc. where point of sale payments are not possible.

2. Amendments 414 (Cabral) and 660 (Kane) would deny homeless families in shelter as of January 1, 2012 the right to new MRVP vouchers (7004-9024) to move out of shelter and instead adopt vague language authorizing creation of supportive housing units while barring families in shelter from receiving any priority for the new MRVPs. Given the proposed restrictions on access to emergency shelter that Amendment 603 seeks to redress to some extent, the one bright spot for homeless families in the budget was that some of them could get the new MRVP vouchers that are proposed.  Ask the House to say no to these amendments.

AMENDMENT CO-SPONSORS ON OUR PRIORITY AMENDMENTS
Here are the full lists of sponsors and co-sponsors for the TAFDC and EA amendments as of April 16, 2012:

Amendment 664 – TAFDC Clothing, Rent and Transportation Allowances
Representatives Khan of Newton, Aguiar of Fall River, Cabral of New Bedford, Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, Hecht of Watertown, Kocot of Northampton, Provost of Somerville, Schmid of Westport, Swan of Springfield, Timilty of Milton, Turner of Dennis, Wolf of Cambridge, Lawn of Watertown, Smizik of Brookline, Sciortino of Medford, Fox of Boston and Andrews of Orange.

Amendment 603 – Striking 8-Month EA Time Limit and Sheltering Children Otherwise on the Street
Representatives Wolf of Cambridge, Rushing of Boston, Fox of Boston, Canavan of Brockton, Aguiar of Fall River, Sullivan of Fall River, Hecht of Watertown, Schmid of Westport, Turner of Dennis, Kocot of Northampton, Provost of Somerville, Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, Cabral of New Bedford, Basile of Boston, Brady of Brockton, Ross of Attleboro, Smizik of Brookline, Swan of Springfield, Atkins of Concord, Lawn of Watertown, Forry of Boston, Malia of Boston, Andrews of Orange, Khan of Newton, Balser of Newton, Sciortino of Medford and Campbell of Methuen (not listed but also O’Day).

Stop criminalizing poor people! Rally April 2

End the Criminalization of Homelessness & Poverty!  Join Us!

 Monday, April 2, 2012

In Solidarity with the

National Day of Action for the Right to Exist

 Court Square, Springfield

Noon: Gather; 12:30: Music, speakers, then MARCH to Governor’s Office, 436 Dwight St. & Mayor’s Office

      

Why are the shelters full, when everywhere we see empty homes and buildings?

Why is the City of Springfield ignoring the housing needs of half of its people?

OUR DEMANDS:

City: Replace the housing lost in the tornado!

State: Make shelters available to all in need!

Feds: Fund housing, not wars!

For more info, contact: Arise for Social Justice (413)734-4948

Cosponsors so far: Alliance for Peace and Justice, Anti-Racism Ministry Team of the First Congregational Church in Amherst, UCCWM American Friends Service Committee, PV Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Charles Hamilton Houston Inst. For Race & Justice , Community Labor Rebuilding Coalition, Craig’s Place, Fund Our Communities Not War, Grace Church Peace Fellowship, International Alliance of Inhabitants, Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants, Mass Coalition for the Homeless, Mass Law Reform Institute, Move On, Occupy Amherst, Occupy Western MA General Assembly, Out Now, Peace Pagoda, Picture the Homeless, Pioneer Valley Chapter of the Green/Rainbow Party, Springfield Bank Tenants Association, Springfield No One Leaves,Survivors Incorporated, UAW Local 2322, Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst Social Justice Committee, Western Mass Jobs with Justice, WRAP

¡Poner fin a la penalización por falta de vivienda y por pobreza!

Día Nacional de Acción por el Derecho a Existir:

Lunes, 2 de abril en Court Square, Springfield

(fecha en caso de lluvia: 4 de abril)

Mediodía:      inicio de la recolección

12:30:   música, altavoces

Marchar a la Oficina del Gobernador

Marchar a la Oficina del Alcalde

¡Sin vivienda, todos vamos a ser criminales!

Por qué están llenos los refugios para desamparados, cuando en toda parte hay casas y edificios vacíos?

Por qué ignora la ciudade de Springfield las necesidades de la mitad de sus habitantes?

Nuestros exigencias:

La ciudad: Reponga las viviendas perdidas en el tornado!

El estado: Haga que los refugios para desamparados sean disponibles a todos los necesitados!

El gobierno federal: Financie las viviendas, no las guerras!

Contactar Arise for Social Justice (Levántate por la Justicia Social), 413-734-4948

Had enough? Housing and Homelessness Rally on April 2

National 

Day of 

Action

for the 

Right to 

Exist: 

Monday, 

April 2, Noon,

Court 
Square, Springfield

(rain date: April 4^th)

End the Criminalization of Homelessness & 

Poverty!

Without Housing, We Will All Be Criminals!

¨      Everyone deserves a home!!

¨      People are suffering!!

¨      We need to end laws criminalizing homelessness & poverty!!

¨      Springfield needs to prioritize replacing housing lost in tornado!!

¨      Springfield—and all of our surrounding communities-- need a housing plan for all people!!

¨      Renters need to build political power, so our voices can be heard!!

¨      The state must stop limiting access to shelter!!

¨      Federal cuts in HUD and housing programs must stop

¨      Without the people, nothing can happen!!!

Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) and USA-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants (USACAI) are calling on our members and allies throughout the United States and Canada to join us on April 2 for a bi-national day of action to protest the ongoing criminalization of poor and homeless people in our communities.

Just since 1995, the U. S. has lost over 290,588 existing units of public housing and 360,000 Section 8 units, with another 7,107 approved for demolition/disposition since March of 2011. At the same time, 2.5 million foreclosures have taken place since 2007, an additional 6.9 million foreclosures have been initiated, and 5.7 million borrowers are at risk.

In those same 15 years, over 830,000 new jail and prison cells have been built, draconian immigration laws and eligibility screening criteria have been implemented in housing, healthcare, education and jobs programs, and America's three largest residential mental health facilities are now all county jails (Los Angeles, Chicago, & New York).

Contact Arise for Social Justice, 734-4948

Over the past several weeks we at Arise have been hearing some very disturbing stories coming out of D.H.C.D. at the Liberty St. D.T.A. office. This is the new department that handles Emergency Assistance (temporary emergency shelter for families).
2 weeks ago several families slept on the steps of D.T.A because they were turned down for E.A. A shelter worker from Holyoke had been at the D.T.A. office and saw the families who slept there. She came to Arise and asked if there was anything we could do. We sent back some information and our phone number and within an hour we were down at welfare. By now there were 8 families who had been sent packing by the woman who ran D.H.C.D. here in Springfield.This is were Arise got involved. Many of the families were not allowed to even fill out an application. We were told of a worker who took an application and then just tossed it in the trash, one family was told "there is no money for shelter because families from other states come to Mass and take all the money" another "you're lying, you aren't homeless"
After speaking with the families and telling them their rights the most important at the time was that everyone has the right to fill out an application and that if it even looked like they might be eligible then they should be placed until they were able to get all the documentation needed.

Of the 8 families 2 left in disgust without going back in, 6 families insisted on filling out an EA application and 4 were placed in temporary shelter. The last 2 families 1 was originally from Springfield but had lived in Buffalo N.Y. for several years. The father had come back to Spfld. 5 months earlier to find work and an apartment, in the mean time the Mom was not able to support their apartment and was evicted. So she came be with the father of her children because there was not enough space where Dad was staying they went to D.T.A. The other family was from Brooklyn N.Y. and fled to Spfld. because they were targeted with violence by a woman who lived in the same housing complex (NY Housing Authority & N.Y.H.A. police said there was nothing they could do and refused to move either them or the woman to another location. These 2 families refused to be intimidated. They called Arise
Both families came back to Arise, the first call I made was to Gerry McCafferty at the Springfield Office for Housing she contacted others including H.A.P. Marsha and Ramona from HAP came to our office and worked on filling out papers for what ever was available. I started calls first to W.M.L.S. and then M.L.R.I. to get the ball rolling.
The next day Friday both families were again at Arise for help and we went back into action. Amid a plethora of phone calls both families went back to D.H.C.D. and they demanded to be allowed to fill out an other application for E.A. While they were waiting for a determination letter to be issued the supervisor of D.H.C.D.were told that if they did not leave, they were waiting on the office steps, D.C.F. would be called and their kids taken away.
Long story short The Office for Housing paid to house both families at a local motel for the night and H.A.P. paid for the next night. On Friday afternoon D.H.C.D. gave both families temporary approval for Emergency Shelter but wouldn't you know it D.H.C.D. sent one family to Worcester and the other to Pittsfield, the Mom is in family shelter, the Dad was placed in a single shelter but we are working on that and working to get both families moved back to Springfield.
Placing the families 45 min. from Arise in either direction and 1 1/2 from each other, they had become each others support system, maybe D.H.C.D. was hedging their bets and thought distance would deter our efforts. I guess D.H.C.D. forgot about the modern convenience called a phone for communication and if all else fails Pony Express have this new thing called a truck.

Thanks to Marion at WMLS and Ruth at MLRI for all their work and continuing work and to The City of Springfield Office for Housing, Gerry McCafferty, Marsha and Ramona from H.A.P. for all their work helping these families.

Time for a Citywide Tenants Organization

If there's one issue bringing people into Arise for Social Justice these days, it's housing.

Today a Navy veteran with a nine year old autistic son needed some help in finding out where she is on the list for subsidized housing. She'd call HAP the other day but they misunderstood what she was asking and they told her they're not taking new applications because there's a ten year waiting list! She feels as if the family members she's been living with are running out of patience with her because her son is not easy to live with, but her income is under $900 a month in SSI for her son and TAFDC for her so she hasn't been able to find anything she can afford.

Another woman last week was never notified by her landlord as to which bank is holding her security deposit, and now that's she's moving, she wants to know where it is-- minor in the light of things, except that she needs the money to put down on the new apartment.

Of course we see our fair share of bad housing issues, the occasional case of sexual harassment by a landlord or other tenant, pending evictions because not having the rent money, and a steady stream of single men and women looking for an efficiency apartment they can afford. People are feeling shell-shocked and discouraged yet somehow they keep on with the struggle.

Funny how even living poor, you can be so shocked by the situations of others. Arise was started in the mid-eighties by four of us on public assistance, so we all knew something, but I still remember the day I found out that there were so many homeless families, they had to be put up in motels. I still remember the day I first heard someone say, "How can there be empty buildings when the shelters are full?" And I remember the day I figured out that rents had gone up 161% in just three years.

This was just a few years before the savings and loan debacle, where buildings were emptied and boarded up as their overextended owner, who thought they could just keep flipping buildings at higher and higher prices, with no chance ever to be able to meet a monthly mortgage payment based on tenants' rents, finally faced the bursting of their own housing bubble.

Arise was involved in the one and only development project we've ever undertaken just after that bubble burst-- we built a coalition of organizations and agencies and purchased the old Rainville Hotel on Byers St., a building that defined the word seedy. It had been taken over by the Resolution Trust Company, a Government-owned asset management company. and we turned it from a 60 some odd unit dump into forty-three efficiency apartments for homeless people "ready for independent living." I write these words so blithely, but it took three years of difficult development work to make it happen, and we have now provided housing for ten years. Never again, we decided.

But just because we don't want to do housing development doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

We at Arise have taken no particular opinion at this point on the proposed development of Longhill Gardens, a controversial affordable housing rehab, except, of course, to be aware of how many of the project''s opponents seem to believe that poor people are indistinguishable from criminals. But the cry of "No more affordable housing!" begs the question: affordable to whom?

I had an amicable conversation with a project opponent at an candidates' training sponsored by Arise. He said that Longhill Gardens would be designed for people who make 60% of the median income, as if that was a terrible thing. I asked him what that was and he said it was about $20,000. Well, I'm an intelligent person and I've worked all my life but I'm not college-educated and the work I do tends not to be valued very much. For all but three years of my working life, I qualify to live in Longhill Gardens.

So here we are, 24 years after Arise was founded, with homeless families in motels, unaffordable rents, and streets so riddled with boarded and abandoned houses they look like the site of a natural disaster.

A federal law that gives tenants in foreclosed properties some rights was just passed this May, and we're getting ready to do door to door with information because not knowing you have a right is the same as not having it. We learned that one a long time ago.

Although (because?) Arise is primarily an organization that organizes, we also do a lot of advocating. It's time to bring the people we advocate with plus our members together so there's a vehicle to spread information about people's rights. What are the other issues people will bring to the table? I have a pretty good idea, but we'll find out.

There's strength in numbers and it's time to form a citywide tenants organization.

Join us on Wednesday, June 24, from 6 pm to 8 pm, at 467 State St., Springfield, for the first meeting.

Graphic by Eric Drooker.

Homeless families reach record levels

http://www.masslive.com/republican/stories/index.ssf?/base/living-2/1191828451131050.xml&coll=1

Homeless families reach record levels

Monday, October 08, 2007
By PAT EATON-ROBBAssociated Press

AMHERST - Lisa Rivera likes her room at the Jessie's House homeless shelter.

There is just enough space to fit the full-sized bed she shares with her 9-year-old daughter, the pullout trundle for her 11-year-old son, the twin bed her 14-year-old daughter sleeps in and the playpen for her 1-year-old.

"It's comfortable, but it's hard sleeping all together," the 32-year-old woman said. "Oh my God, sometimes it's so hard."

Faced with domestic abuse, high housing costs and unemployment, Rivera's family finds itself among the growing ranks of the homeless in Massachusetts.

The state reports that about 1,800 homeless families were in Massachusetts shelters last week - up from 1,400 in June 2006 and just under 1,200 in June 2005. There are more families in shelters now than at any time since the inception of the state's family shelter program in 1983, according to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.

State officials blame a wide range of problems for the jump - from cuts in assistance to the recent housing crisis - and worry there's no end in sight.

"We're very concerned that this is going to keep going," said Julia Kehoe, commissioner of the state Department of Transitional Assistance.

Massachusetts is one of the few states that actually keep government records of the number of homeless families in shelters because state law requires the commonwealth to shelter any family that meets income and other guidelines. The state keeps a daily count to show how many beds it needs, said Robyn Frost, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.
Nationally, the picture is much less clear.

Data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suggests there about 750,000 homeless in the nation on any given night, with about 40 percent of those members of homeless families, said Philip Mangano, director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

The overall number of homeless people is up from a few years ago, he said, but nobody can pinpoint an exact number of families because reporting requirements vary widely from state to state.

"Our desire would be to have many more states step up and track the data," Mangano said. "Research and data, that's what should drive the resources that we make available. Instead it's often anecdote, conjecture and hearsay that does that."

Kehoe attributes the increase in Massachusetts to a convergence of factors including low wages, high housing costs, an increase in housing foreclosures and cuts in federal and state housing assistance programs. Two years ago, lawmakers also lowered the financial eligibility requirements to qualify for homeless benefits from the poverty level to those making 130 percent of what would be considered a poverty wage, she said.

"I think what we are seeing here is a perfect storm," she said. "Until we have some investment in affordable housing, and some flexibility in using our resources, we're not going to see a leveling off of these numbers."

Rivera lost her apartment in Springfield in 2005, when a domestic abuse case involving the father of her youngest child prompted the state to remove all four youngsters from her custody, she said. Without the money she had been receiving in Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Rivera could not pay her rent.

She moved in with friends, worked at a gas station, went to school to become a medical receptionist and fought in court to get her children returned.

A judge eventually restored custody, but without a place to live, the family has moved from one shelter after another.

"It's hard to get an apartment anywhere, especially with the size of apartment I need," she said. "There's none out there, and once one comes available, there are just so many of us out here that need, it gets taken up with the snap of a finger."

The New England Farm Workers Council, a private nonprofit agency contracted by the state, is helping Rivera look for permanent housing. She has an income of just over $1,400 a month, all from either TAFDC or Social Security, for her 9-year-old who suffers from epilepsy.

The agency requires that families spend no more that 50 percent of their income in rent, a figure designed to make it more likely that families won't get behind on those payments.
But rents for a three-bedroom apartment in the greater Springfield area range from about $800 to $1,300 without utilities, said Tom Salter, the vice president of the agency's shelter and housing division.

"A minimum-wage job for 40 hours a week is just not going to pay the rent in any area," he said. "It just isn't."

There are state programs that help once a homeless family finds a new place to live, including one that gives families up to $2,000 for security deposits and first and last months' rent. Salter said a recent study of families helped by his agency over the last 12 months showed 97 percent of those that received that money were still in their homes.

Rental assistance, however, often is difficult to get. The state spends about $30 million on rental subsidies, compared with about $120 million 15 years ago, and there also have been no new incremental increases in major federal subsidies in about a decade, Kehoe said.

Kehoe and Frost said families also are being squeezed by the recent national lending crisis, as high mortgages that have forced some landlords to sell or face foreclosure.
"Although most of the homeless were not homeowners, many could have been people living in units that had been foreclosed on," Frost said.

Frost and other homeless advocates have sent a letter to Kehoe and Marilyn Chase, the assistant secretary for Children Youth and Families, asking them to put $5 million dollars in the Transitional Assistance budget as a line item for prevention programs.

Kehoe said she would like to see money for more vouchers, programs to help at risk families pay back rent or utilities and the ability to allocate current funds where they will do the most good - such as programs for daycare, job training and public transportation.

"What we want to do is focus on how to target vouchers to quickly move people out of shelters," Kehoe said. "We are looking at a model that would include job support, that would include an escrow account, so that people are encouraged to do everything they can to increase their income."

Rivera said once she is able to find an apartment, she plans to enroll in another job training program, with the goal of becoming self-sufficient.

"I want to try and live happily ever after if I can," she said. "I try my best to hang in there and do what I got to do. I never want to try and let them be able to take my kids away from me again."

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