Helter Shelter

Beverly, Mass., July 17, 1985. Faced with mounting community opposition, a North Shore shelter for the homeless withdraws its offer to by an abandoned building in a dilapidated neighborhood. Shelter officials attribute the defeat to "misconceptions and and unfounded fears" on the part of residents about the introduction of a shelter into their residential area.

Quincy, Mass., July 22, 1985. Three youths are accused of beating a vagrant to death behind a school building. At the same time, local police officers begin what some have called a discriminatory dragnet of the city's homeless. Seven transients are rounded up.

ONE BY ONE, Massachusetts communities are beginning to close their doors to needy citizens who ask for a roof over their heads. Increasing numbers of Bay State residents are telling their local social service agencies and elected officials that they just won't tolerate homeless people anymore. At least not in their neighborhoods.

Now Cambridge, always quick to pick up new trends, seems to be on the verge of succumbing to the narrow attitudes of less progressive communities. Case in points the continuing effort to keep Shelter Inc., a non-profit private organization, out of the city.

For the past two years, Shelter Inc. has been combing the right Cambridge housing market in search of a building to offset the the city's growing homeless population. Although the group already operates a 20-bed overnight shelter on School St. and a 35-bed facility for families in Boston, Shelter Inc.'s directors recognized a pressing need for transitional housing in the Hub area. Such transitional shelters provide homeless men and women with a temporary residence for several months as they seek employment, gain income, and acquire a permanent home.

By a stroke of charity, however, a Central Square church offered to sell its 154-year old edifice at 95 Prospect St. to Shelter Inc. for a reduced price. Members of the Prospect St. Congregational Church--who said they wanted the new owners to reflect the church's religious heritage--turned down a $350,000 bid for the lot from a supermarket chain and opted instead for an offer of $225,000.

But in order to complete the sale and move into the building, Shelter Inc. had to obtain a zoning variance from the city to legally convert the structure into a lodging for 20 people. And that's when all the trouble began.

For the past few months, Cambridge residents near the church have banded together to prevent the shelter from moving into their neighborhood. Although they support the work of Shelter Inc., residents claim Central Square already has the greatest concentration of overnight shelters in the city. Indeed, the economically distressed Central Square already supports six different shelters while some of the city's more affluent neighborhoods have none.

In support of their "no-more-shelters" stand, these Cantabrigians dug up a nine-year old local statute which limits the number of "community lodgings and personal care lodging houses" to one for every 5000 residents in a neighborhood. Enacted long before Reaganomics exacerbated the plight of the homeless. Ordinance 868 was designed to spread mental hospitals and temporary care facilities evenly throughout the city. But since the regulation became law, not one new shelter has opened anywhere in the city.

Some observers claim that Central Square residents are manipulating Ordinance 868 "to legitimize less noble purposes" and are putting up a smokescreen for the underlying issues.

One Cambridge City Councilor, indignant over this veiled form of discrimination toward the homeless in his own backyard, lashed out at his neighbors in a recent confrontation. "We're not talking about getting rid of toxic waste dumps here," he said. "We're talking about human beings."

HOW MANY YEARS has Cambridge willingly embraced the world's wretched refused? Whether European immigrants earlier in this century or more recently political refugees from Central America, Cambridge has consistently offered sanctuary to society's neediest. Isn't this city willing to help the next generation of society's untouchables? Or will some pernicious quota-setting laws continue to regulate the homeless refugees living in our midst?

Without a doubt, man Cantabrigians will be watching city officials closely in the next few weeks to gauge their reaction to the Shelter Inc, dilemma. Our elected leaders have reached a crossroads in dealing with the city's homeless population: they can follow the example of Quincy's vigilantes and Beverly's uncaring citizens, or they can lead the way down the road of enlightened benevolence and grant Shelter Inc. permission to continue its life-saving work.

Cambridge, Mass, August 8, 1985. In contrast to how neighboring communities deal with homelessness, a local board overturned some prejudicial rules and opened the first new community lodging in the city since 1976. And the shelter was no longer homeless.