Not easy being homeless in Springfield

I was going to put up some links from MassLive and LocalBuzz to illustrate some of the publicity homeless efforts are getting in Springfield, but for some reason, all I could find was a LocalBuzz interview with a staffperson at the Worthington St. Shelter. The other stories seem to have disappeared.

Meanwhile, over at MassLive, Springfield's "forum," homeless people continue to take a beating from those who hide behind their made-up names. Folks have really been on a roll recently, comparing homeless people to zombies, calling the folks who eat at the soup kitchen a bunch of slobs, calling them crazy, dangerous, etc...I try to remember that not every poster feels that way; the more reasonable people probably just don't bother to respond to the worst comments. Most people think that homeless people choose to be homeless, because they won't take the steps necessary to move ahead. Well, of course it's much easier to fall into a hole than it is to climb out.

Some horrendous crimes have been happening in Springfield. The one this week that just leaves me shaking my head in sorrow is the murder of a 20 year old kid delivering pizzas by a 28 year old man.What the hell. There was a picture of the man being arraigned in today's paper: a slight figure, all hunched over, looking as if he was filled with shame. Maybe that's just my wish-- that he not be some genuine psychopath unable to feel remorse but someone who will have to live with what he has done-- taken the life of another young man who was only doing his job, trying to get ahead.

I'm no sociologist and I admit I have an unabashed allegiance to the poor and working class. But I'm no romantic, either, and not one who thinks there's no role for personal responsibility in our fates.

Many years ago, before I ever knew there'd be an Arise for Social Justice in Springfield, I used to be part of a program called Decisional Training that went into the county jails and taught decision-making skills to the prisoners both in a group and one to one. We could bring in books. One of them was Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. It's been years since I read it, but Frankl used his experience in a Nazi concentration camp to question why, barring the random and systematic murders over which prisoners had no control, some people lived and some people did not survive their experience. Frankl came to the conclusion that after all other freedoms were taken away, those who refused to give up their final freedom, the freedom to decide how they were going to react, were those who survived. I am oversimplifying both Frankl and the complexities of survival in those hellholes, but the gist of holds true.

Anyway, it was a very popular book in the jail, and was passed to person after person. After that we'd bring in a copy every few months. These guys recognized something about the power in choosing.

Sometimes when I'm talking with somebody about poor or homeless people, and we go back and forth, we often wind up at the same place, with that person saying that: people choose to stay poor, or homeless, or drug-addicted. And sometimes that looks to be about as true as it can be.

But then the question I want us to ask, that we have to ask, is, how does it come to be that people are willing to settle for so little? How and when and why is the damage done?

Well, I doubt this will be one of my more-read postings, but I would certainly wish for thoughtful response.

Homeless man loses bid for injunction to keep shelter open

Well-- a straight-sounding headline-- but I hardly feel objective about what happened in Housing Court today.

Ali Mohammed, a guest at the Warming Place shelter for the last few months, did his best to speak up for homeless people and explain to Judge Fein why it was important to them that the Warming Place stay open.

He was there to request an injunction prohibiting the city from closing the Warming Place. Sue Venne, another Warming Place guest, was added last minute as a plaintiff, but really every one of the twenty homeless people in the courtroom was a plaintiff.

I didn't expect him to prevail. The Open Pantry, which runs the Warming Place, lost a similar attempt last Thursday. This time, however, the shelter was a defendant along with the city, and I'm sure Kevin Noonan, OP director, had a few odd feelings in the city's company.

Everybody was there-- Gerry McCafferty, head of the Homeless and Special Needs Housing, two attorneys for the city, the head of the building department, Bill Miller, director of the Friends of the Homeless, one of the two shelters remaining in the city, the president of F.O.H.'s board of Directors, Bob Carroll-- some others I don't remember-- all on one side-- the city's.

On the other side were twenty Warming Place residents, Warming Place staff and a few advocates.

Ali told a simple story, with three main points: the Friends of the Homeless shelter was unsafe and would be overcrowded, some people had been banned from the Friends previously and had nowhere to go, and the Warming Place residents and staff were like a family and needed more time to transition to the other shelters.

Four other WP guests testified, all telling similar stories. One man got a bit emotional when talking about his friend who had recently been found dead on a park bench.

Coincidentally, the Friends' shelter's basement had flooded the night before in a heavy rain, and their shelter's guests had had to be moved upstairs. Leaks at the shelter are old news and a problem that's never been successfully resolved, although I'm sure the shelter is working on it.

That flood was not enough, however, to convince the judge. She asked the people who testified how long it had been since they'd stayed at the Friends' shelter, and felt no one had recent enough experience to judge the shelter now.

The city defended itself, saying all the right things, all very credible.

The judge excused herself for deliberation.

Then came that moment when people started to believe, as improbable as it was, that the truth might speake louder than the evidence and that justice would prevail.

But that was not to be.

Sometime just before the judge came back to deliver her decision, I looked around and saw that the security guards in the courtroom had increased from two to five. I was not the only one who noticed, either. I thought it was an insult to the homeless people who were present, who had come to court clean and well-dressed and who had behaved with complete appropriateness.

Judge Fein came back and denied the injunction. I saw shoulders fall throughout the room. The judge suggested that the Warming Place folks meet with Gerry McCafferty to find out about availability of housing subsidies, and offered her courtroom for the remainder of the afternoon. The Bailiff said "All rise" and we all rose. The judge left the bench and it was over.

Gerry called out that people could come and talk to her, but as far as I could tell, no one did. It was the wrong moment. People needed the dignity of their defeat.

The homeless people who spoke up today were very brave. Many of them know they will wind up having to stay at the very shelter they criticized. I could see some people's thoughts turning to where they were going to stay that night.

I continue to be saddened by how people with power silence the voices of the homeless and devalue and dismiss homeless people's loyalty to each other. Yeah, sometimes they'll stab each other in the back but they're more likely to be watching each other's back, as best as they can. And that's what I felt today.

I want to close this by remembering that no matter how sad I am, no matter how bad I feel, tonight I get to be at home, typing these words.

Homeless man to seek his own injunction against the city

I was down at the Warming Place tonight and talked to a number of people-- much sadness, confusion and disbelief that the shelter is really closing.

Open Pantry's director Kevin Noonan was there and had a Cease and Desist order from the city in his hand when I saw him. It had been delivered that afternoon from someone from the city (forget who) who had then proceeded to take pictures. He said if the shelter didn't get out, Kevin would be back in court on Thursday.

I guess somehow we thought there'd be an official deadline set by the city. Guess the city thought it would be the other way around. In any case, Kevin has decided that Wednesday night will be the official last night of the Warming Place. My sister Liz, who works at the Warming Place, will order some party-sized pizzas for the guests.

Meanwhile, yesterday one of the guys who stays at the Warming Place wrote up a statement about why people should not have to move to Worthington St. shelter, got everybody but one guest to sign it, and brought it down to Housing Court! He has a hearing Thursday at 2 pm.

I'll report as I find out more.

Painting by a homeless man taking part in Leicester, UK's Homeless Art Show, part of Homeless Service Day - BBC.

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

How the city manipulates the outcome

I talked to Kevin Noonan, director of Open Pantry Community Services this morning. The Open Pantry runs the Warming Place shelter at the York St. Jail, which is out in the cold and without money after June 30.

"Any idea why you didn't get the contract from the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) to continue running the Warming Place?"

"Well, according to John Shirley at DTA, it's because the city wouldn't give us an occupancy permit for York St. We had asked the city for an extension until September so we could get the building we were going to buy ready but they wouldn't give us one."

Considering that the contract for demolition of the old jail hasn't even gone out to bid yet, what would have been the harm to allow the shelter to operate over the summer?

Don't you think the city's Office for Housing knew that the lack of an occupancy permit would be a deal-killer? And that therefore, by default, the contract would go to the Friends of the Homeless, which can only provide half the beds of the Warming Place? Ron Willoughby of the Springfield Rescue Mission is going to reopen his Taylor St. shelter, and is happy to take 35 homeless, sober men. What happens if you're not in that category?

The Emergency Shelter committee for the city's Ten Year Planning process is happy....with Taylor St. coming online, we have the 85 funded beds at the Warming Place covered. Of course, the true occupancy was over 100 people, with extra people beyond that referred to the Friends of the Homeless. Now what will happen?

I expect there are a number of other sectors in our community happy about the demise of the Warming Place.

Homeless people are not among them.