By Alex Eng, deputy city editor
Conflict arose between key officials regarding the city’s decision to end two transitional housing programs for 40 homeless residents in recovery from drug addiction, some of whom are HIV-positive, in response to recent federal funding cuts.
Southampton Street Shelter in the South End will no longer provide temporary transitional housing through its housing and drug recovery programs, Project SOAR and Safe Harbor. The shelter will instead shift toward permanent housing.
Whereas transitional programs offer short-term housing to people struggling with sobriety before they can get into more permanent living situations, permanent housing programs give long-term living spaces to homeless people who can live independently.
Permanent housing provides better care for homeless people, especially those with drug addictions, according to Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s press office.
Boston Homeless Solidarity Committee spokesperson Cassie Hurd disagreed with Walsh’s stance and said the transition would be detrimental for homeless people.
“The shuttering of these two programs could have dire consequences for folks who have challenging health care needs and rely on the dedicated supports and stability that these transitional programs provide,” Hurd said. “Expecting people to maintain their recovery, especially early on in a wet shelter environment […] where opioids are made readily available […] is not only unreasonable but extremely unsafe.”
The facility will maintain the same number of shelter beds and continue treating patients who are HIV-positive or in recovery from drug addiction, according to Walsh’s press office.
Sheila Dillon, chief of housing and director of neighborhood development for the City of Boston, said the program closings were a response to federal funding cuts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
“We would not have made the decision to cut this program,” Dillon said to WBUR. “But HUD has made it very clear to us […] that they were not going to fund transitional housing or transitional programs anymore.”
HUD funded Project SOAR and Safe Harbor with $800,000 for two years, but Dillon said funding had run out following HUD’s recent budget cuts.
HUD is redirecting funds from transitional to permanent housing programs for homeless people, and the City of Boston has added $1 million to its budget for permanent housing programs like the one now in place at the Southampton Street Shelter, according to Walsh’s press office.
City Councilor Tito Jackson (D-7), who is running against Walsh in the upcoming mayoral race, criticized the city’s budgeting defense for the program closings, saying HUD’s $6.2 billion in budget cuts had only recently been proposed by President Donald J. Trump and had not yet gone into effect.
“That the city has decided such a drastic step so quickly when the president’s budget hasn’t even gone through Ways and Means yet is ridiculous,” Jackson said in a press release. “By closing the substance abuse recovery programs at the Southampton Street Shelter, the city has now failed those seeking recovery in Boston twice.”
The first failure Jackson referred to was the closing of the Long Island Shelter in October 2014, when Walsh was mayor. The shelter was closed after the decaying 63-year-old Long Island Bridge was shut down and the shelter’s 40 residents had to move to the Southampton Street Shelter.
Walsh’s press office also clarified that the Boston Public Health Commission is creating transition plans for Southampton Street’s current 40 residents, countering Jackson’s claim last Wednesday at a City Council meeting that the city was getting rid of the shelter beds without such plans in place.
Heshan Berents-Weeramuni, Jackson’s director of communications, said Jackson wants Walsh to reveal more details about the transition plans, reverse the closings and keep the transitional programs running despite the federal funding cuts.
“[The] councilor will also hope to force the mayor to find the funding for the next fiscal year so that both programs can continue,” Berents-Weeramuni said. “Especially because he has been approached by those patients who have been denied the services they need and are in a desperate position.”
A City Council hearing date on the program closings, proposed by Jackson last Wednesday, will be set soon, Berents-Weeramuni said.
