CORRECTION: Wednesday, not Tuesday

The Arise event with Zachery Lyons (see previous post) and others is Wednesday the 24th, not Tuesday. Keep getting that day/date confused with the kick-off rally for opposition to Question One, which is TUESDAY, Sept. 23, 5:30 at Court Square, Springfield MA. If it rains, we'll be in First Church at the back of Court Sq.

If you think eliminating 40% of the state budget is similar to cutting off your nose to spite your face, come on down to the rally on Tuesday. We can't take more lost jobs and services right now for a few more bucks in our pockets

Where will the Food Pantry go?

First Church at Court Square is closing at the end of December and the congregation is disbanding, for all the same reasons so many older churches have closed. I really can't picture Court Square without First Church, established 1819, although I'm sure the building will be preserved.

Since 1977, First Church has also provided a home for the Open Pantry's Emergency Food Pantry, and hosts the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen on weekends.

The Food Pantry is an essential food resource for low-income people in Springfield, providing them with a balanced meal for a few days. Last year the pantry served nearly 28,000, half of them children. A third of the households that come to the pantry have at least one working member. 10% of pantry recipients are elders.

This is going to be a rough winter for poor people. It'll cost $200 to $400 more to keep warm this season. Food prices are rising. And there's less of everything to go around.

So the Emergency Food Pantry needs a new space, affordable or donated. Any offers?

On a related note, I see that the old St. Francis Chapel on Bridge St. is going to be the overflow shelter for the Worthington St. Shelter operated by the Friends of the Homeless. Wasn't it only this past April that the Open Pantry asked for use of the same site as a home for the Warming Place shelter, about to be evicted by the city from the old York St. jail, and was denied? Why is it that the city (and Friends of the Homeless) can catch the ear of Bishop McDonnell and the Open Pantry can't?

Shelter seeks injunction against city to prevent closure.

GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES: This Sunday morning, which was to be the Warming Place shelter's last morning, friends are invited to come and join in a prayer vigil at 8:30 am. All friends are welcome

This Friday, Open Pantry Community Services, which runs the shelter, is taking the City of Springfield, MA to court, seeking an injunction which will stop the forced closing of the shelter.

The city has put the squeeze on the Open Pantry and homeless people for some time. First Church, Court Square, had offered to let the Warming Place stay in their basement for a few weeks. This is not acceptable to the city. A few days ago, Gerry McCafferty, head of the city's Office of Homeless and Special Needs Housing, told OP's director Kevin Noonan that Mayor Ryan would consider it an act of political protest if the shelter moved to the church.

Political protest is about all that's worked when it comes to getting the city's attention focused on solving homelessness! It took two homeless men freezing to death and a tent city that lasted six months and housed 400 different people before a real planning process began.

Now that there is some progress to show, seems like those who've been on the front lines defending the homeless, as well as the homeless themselves, will now pay the price. But the Open Pantry, at least, is not going quietly. I can't resist putting in the entire text of the injunction.

Open Pantry Community Services vs. City of Springfield, MA Acting By and Through its Office of Housing and Neighborhood Services.

The plaintiff is the provider of essential food, shelter and emergency housing services to those otherwise homeless residents of the City of Springfield, Massachusetts who are poor or homeless.

The plaintiff has been providing its services to 90 to 102 persons a night under funding provided by both the City and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts pursuant to certain Community Development Block Grants (the “CDBG Funds) and private donations since September 2005 through March 2006. In March 2006 Open Pantry was awarded a contract for $400,800 in Emergency Assistance (EA “funds”) funds through the State Department of Transition Assistance (the “DTA”).

In the providing of its services Open Pantry had been utilizing the City’s facility located on West Columbus Avenue, more commonly known as the former York Street Jail.

Since March 2006, as a requirement of the Department of Transitional Assistance, the City issued temporary occupancy permits to the plaintiff which it permitted to operate and provide its homeless housing services.

Since the issuance of the first temporary occupancy permit, the City has intentionally issued subsequent temporary occupancy permits which allow fewer and fewer persons to be sheltered at the facility when the actual number of such persons has remained constant or been increasing.

The current temporary occupancy permit expires on June 30, 2007 after which there will no longer be shelter beds available at the former York Street jail.

Upon information and belief, the City has engaged in a specific plan and scheme to reduce the number of available beds and to remove or reduce the shelter facilities which provides spaces to those persons who are at great risk and in need.

The City has failed to provide reasonable alternative shelters and/or housing for those persons presently being cared for at the former York Street Jail.

One alternative shelter facility proposed by the City is religious and sectarian in nature, discriminates against women, and has a requirement that all occupants be “well behaved.”

The City claims that the plaintiff may no longer use the former York Street Jail; and that it must be closed in order for certain asbestos abatement work to commence.

Any purported asbestos abatement work is in a separate building (connected by a corridor with sealing doors at each end) pof the former York Street jail.

Upon information and belief, no contract has been awarded by the City and/or no asbestos abatement work has been scheduled at the former York Street Jail.

The allegations of the City regarding asbestos abatement work and the need to close the facility are but a mere pretext for the underlying purpose of reducing and limiting the number of available shelter beds within the City of Springfield.

The City, by refusing to extend the temporary occupancy permit, caused the plaintiff to lose its eligibility for State Department of Transitional Assistance and ESG funding.

On or about June 18, the City assured the plaintiff that it would fund and provide a site in which to operate through the fall of 2007.

The plaintiff attempted to resolve the problem with the City by engaging in numerous meetings and discussions after which the City ultimately regeged on its promises and assurances.

There is a great likelihood of immediate and irreparable harm to the plaintiff, its staff and to those vulnerable people in whose care the plaintiff is charged and responsible unless the requested relief is granted.

Maintaining the status quo will not be more burdensome or detrimental to the defendant than to the plaintiff as the defendant has failed to demonstrate its ability to provide care and facilities for the homeless persons at the York Street Jail.

THEREFORE, the plaintiff respectfully requests:

the Court maintain the status quo by enjoining the eviction or relocation of the current occupants being cared for by the plaintiff at the former York Street Jail.

the Court order the City to issue a temporary occupancy permit for the former York Street Jail for 100 persons a night from May 17, 2007 through December 31, 2007 or until further order of the Court.

the Court enjoin the City from interfering with the plaintiff’s application process requesting State Emergency Shelter Grant funds.

the Court order the City to cause to be issued to the plaintiff its Federal Emergency Shelter Grant funds in the amount of $60,000 from the federally funded state funds and $20,000 from the City’s existing funds.

For such other relief as is just and proper. By Norman C. Michaels, Esquire

Two additional weeks likely for the Warming Place

Well, a bit of good news in an overall bad picture: Springfield's Old First Church, Court Square, has offered to let the Warming Place stay at the church after the program's forced closing on June 30.

Kevin Noonan, director of Open Pantry Community Services, which runs the Warming Place, has asked the city of Springfield for a two week extension at the program's current site, the York St. jail, but hasn't head anything back so he assumes the answer is no.

"This will give residents and staff a little more time to make a transition," Kevin told me. He expects to be able to keep the shelter going for another two weeks.

OPCS found out only last week that their contract to provide shelter from the state Department of Transitional Assistance had been awarded to the Friends of the Homeless shelter. The loss of this contract is directly linked to the city's refusal to give an occupancy permit to the Warming Place at the old jail site. The jail will be demolished as part of the city's revitalization plan for the Connecticut riverfront.

The Warming place has known all along it would have to move, and Kevin had been working on acquiring a permanent building. Financing for that building is now impossible given the loss of the contract.

The city hasn't even put the demolition contract out to bid yet, and it had to know that denying an occupancy permit would be the kiss of death for the Warming Place. But of course that's what Mayor Ryan has wanted all along-- that, and a zero vacancy rate in available shelter beds.

I'm surely sounding like a broken record by this time, but will another homeless person have to die before the city sees the impact of its policies?