Thursday, May 17, 2007

Homeless Countdown

The Springfield Rescue Mission's Taylor St. shelter will be closing in thirteen days.

The Springfield Housing Authority is ready to start taking applications for some of the subsidies to place the "chronically homeless" into apartments-- but the guy who's in charge of taking the applications is on vacation for two weeks!

The wrecking balls hangs over the old York St. jail, where the Warming Place shelter currently operates, and so far there's been no extension of the June 30th deadline to get out.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Homeless has decided to compete with the Open Pantry (who currently has the contract) for the Department of Transitional Assistance funding to shelter 85 people. Seeing as the Friends would use some of that funding to pay for beds they already provide but are not reimbursed for, that would mean a net increase of only 50 beds when about 130 people are soon to be without shelter.

If anyone has extra tents, tarps, sleeping bags, etc., hold on to them, we may need them to get through this summer.

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