Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series covering homelessness in the North Quabbin region.
While the pandemic, changes in the local economy and a shortage of affordable housing have all contributed to the increasing homeless population in the North Quabbin area, the North Quabbin Community Coalition, along with other area social service organizations and local officials, have been wrestling with how to best meet the needs of those who find themselves without a place to call home.
“Being part of the conversation recently in the town of Athol, put together by the Board of Health, it became clear within maybe the first 10 minutes of the meeting that we were speaking different languages,” North Quabbin Community Coalition Executive Director Heather Bialecki-Canning commented. “Public safety was referring to ‘shelter’ as ‘emergency shelter,’ like in an ice storm or power outage — the kind of things that are in their purview to respond to.
“The Board of Health and some human service agencies at the table were talking about homelessness — people who are chronically homeless, living on the street, living in encampments. What are we doing for them?”
She added that those at the meeting needed to explore the differences between sheltering and warming or cooling shelters.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, “even though they are all called shelters, they’re all different animals as far as capacity, funding it takes to run something like that, liability to keep something like that safe. So, the conversation was quickly kind of categorized to make sure we were tackling things appropriately with the right stakeholders.”
Asked if it is difficult to get funding targeted to the region due to the fact that North Quabbin is made up of communities straddling two counties — Worcester and Franklin — Bialecki-Canning said, “It just comes down to the capacity of the agencies providing funding. North Quabbin kind of gets what’s leftover from Worcester County and Franklin County, so our job since 1984 is to be the squeaky wheel, just to remind people we’re here and we deserve quality services provided. It’s an ongoing educational process.
“We’ve also been able to have conversations with our regional partners in Franklin County,” she said. “There have been monies in past state budgets allotted to Franklin County and North Quabbin, specifically with the language to address homelessness — people who truly find themselves without a place to stay. The issue was that the entity that received that funding was really located in Hampshire County, with some offices in Greenfield. When push came to shove, we had them at a meeting and we asked, ‘Where did that money go in North Quabbin?’ They were honest; they said, ‘We have no idea where North Quabbin is.’”
The state, Bialecki-Canning explained, has contracts that are targeted to the sheltering systems.
“Our region,” she said, “has been part of the ServiceNet sheltering system for many, many years. That RFR (request for responses) just went out last spring, and the award was just made this September, and ServiceNet chose not to reapply. So, ServiceNet is the entity that holds the sheltering contract for us, but it will actually end as of March (2023).
“That shelter (in Greenfield) is really the closest shelter to us. They do have other programs under the ServiceNet umbrella, so the place that was formerly The Family Inn in Orange is still owned by ServiceNet, to the best of my knowledge, and it’s run under a different program. I believe it’s a Department of Mental Health facility, for someone with very specific needs.”
ServiceNet, she said, also oversees the Orange Recovery House, which was due to open this month.
“Even closures like those,” Bialecki-Canning continued, “are felt so broadly across a region like this that doesn’t have sheltering options. My belief is that Clinical & Support Options now has won that award from that procurement process and will be the new sheltering entity.
“They have offices in Northampton, Greenfield, here in Athol — up by the hospital — and I believe they have a facility in Gardner now, too. Their main office is really Northampton, but they’ve been a partner to this region in the past, so we’re hopeful that we’re able to invite them to some of our housing conversations, to start the process early about the need for a shelter locally. Whether it’s Athol or Orange really doesn’t matter. North Quabbin really looks to Athol as its population center.”
Clinical & Support Options, according to its website, is a nonprofit community behavioral and mental health agency providing therapy, counseling and supports in western Massachusetts.
Emergency sheltering, Bialecki-Canning said, is not the only need that is begging to be met. Another requirement is the funding necessary to provide vital services to the homeless.
“We then had a wonderful discussion on how we could improve that system for the future, and examine the true nature of what need looks like here,” she said. “State Sen. (Jo) Comerford really led the charge to have specific money allocated to North Quabbin in its own right, so it wasn’t lumped in with Franklin County and other counties. We just received word that in this budget season, that did get approved.”
Money, therefore, will be heading to the North Quabbin region and will be funneled through the coalition.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.