Tag: family homelessness
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A Christmas dinner at the YMCA, as homelessness rises in Mass.
The staff of the Boston Business Journal helped serve food. Photo by author. It’s Christmas time at the Huntington Avenue YMCA, which hosted its annual dinner on Thursday night for its housing program guests. Twelve round tables were spread throughout the dining room, sitting at them were parents with small kids and some older folks—a…
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Massachusetts has highest increase in homeless population in the country
The homeless population of Massachusetts has increased by 14 percent in the last year, according to a recent report from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to the report, there are 20,068 homeless persons in the Commonwealth this year, up from 17,565 in 2017. This was the highest increase in the country…
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Stuck in Section 8 Purgatory: Waitlist For Subsidized Housing Leaves Families In The Cold
When your application for state housing assistance is accepted, the wait list can stretch to up to seven years long. If you need Section 8 assistance for your young family, I hope you’re ready for a decade-plus wait. Hundreds of individual applications for housing can be filled out with nary a positive response. That is…
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New supplemental budget offers up to $4,000 to help individuals, families avoid homelessness
The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to pass a supplemental budget for fiscal year two thousand and sixteen that includes stipulations to provide funding for eligible candidates to avoid homelessness. The supplementary budget passed two weeks ago states that as of October 1, 2016, qualified individuals and families can receive up to $4,000 from Residential…
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State Reduces Number of Homeless Families Sheltered in Motels, but Concerns Remain
The state’s emergency assistance program is celebrating a decrease in families housed in hotels and motels—a problematic practice that Gov. Charlie Baker has pledged to eradicate—but critics say that the shift has its own set of flaws. Massachusetts is a right-to-shelter state, meaning it provides shelter to families, including pregnant women who have no other…
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Sept 1 Deadline For Motel Shelter Families Not a Hard Stop
The first day of school is a day of excitement and nerves for many children. Most children think about what they will wear, who they will walk to school with and which teachers they will have. The excitement of seeing their friends after the summer break combines with the nervousness of meeting new friends and catching up…
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Thousands of Boston students face homelessness as school approaches
As Boston Public Schools (BPS) students gear up for the excitement and pressures of another school year, over seven percent of the district’s youths are facing the additional stresses of homelessness. The approximately 4,000 homeless students in the public school system represent almost one fifth of the state’s homeless students—a staggering figure that has climbed…
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Fire Leaves Family Homeless
Single mother and laundromat worker Marilyn Dalson wakes up every morning and sees the home she used to live in. Dalson lost her apartment unit in a fire weeks ago and has been staying with her neighbor across the street ever since. To make matters worse, her son Ryan Hinds, a recent graduate of McKinley…
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HUD reports decrease in Mass. homeless population
Homelessness in Massachusetts fell 0.5 percent in 2015, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said. HUD released its 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress on November 19, HUD said in a press release. The report found that 21,135 people experienced homelessness across Massachusetts in 2015, of which 97.2 percent were staying in residential…
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Having Cake and Eating It, Too
All photos by Alena Kuzub The presents start at the bottom of the stairs at Episcopal Trinity Church in Newton Centre. Stacks of gift bags, brightly wrapped packages, and cardboard boxes filled with toys wind their way up from the lobby to the second floor of the church, letting anyone who may have been confused…