New Shelter Law to Be Drafted

A local charitable organization is drafting a zoning change to allow the opening of one new homeless shelter in Cambridge, just two weeks after the city council refused to approve a broader ordinance allowing new shelters citywide.

Lawyers for Shelter Inc., a Cambridge-based non-profit group which runs shelters in the Boston area, is preparing a new law which would effectively allow the organization to build a shelter in Central Square while limiting all other such facilities.

A Cambridge City Council sub-committee earlier this month vetoed an ordinance change which would have significantly increased the number of shelters allowed in the city. One city official said that the change was initiated in part to permit Shelter Inc.'s planned facility at the old Prospect Congregation Church.

Under current city law, each of Cambridge's 13 neighborhoods are limited to five shelters for every 5000 residents. Three neighborhoods are forbidden to contain any community residences since they have fewer than 5000 residents, while four others are are at their quota. Neighborhood 6, where Shelter Inc. is trying to build its shelter, is already above its limit of two shelters.

Last summer, Shelter Inc. tried to obtain a variance to build their Prospect Street shelter, but their efforts failed.

Proponents of a law change say that more community residences need to be built because there is a large number of people being turned away from existing facilities. But residents have complained that homeless shelters should be distributed more evenly across the city and should not inundate primarily poorer areas.

New Change

The details of the zoning change will be worked out in the next two weeks by Shelter Inc., the Community Development Department and the Human Services Departments, said David F. Whitty, executive director of Shelter Inc. Whitty said he thinks that there is little opposition to his specific shelter.

"It's an alternative which would separate the larger issue--of where community residences should be located in Cambridge and what kind of distribution formula should be used--from the smaller issue--of the use of the Prospect Street Church," Whitty said.

At a hearing about the shelter law the city council failed to adopt, City Councilor Francis H. Duchay '55 said that he would vote for the ordinance in order to allow Shelter Inc.'s planned facility. But he said that afterwards he would pass another law reverting back to the old guidelines on community residences. Shelter Inc.

But residents near the Prospect Congregational Church, the intended location of the new shelter, are upset about Shelter Inc.'s proposal.

"What they're saying is they don't want them in East Cambridge, in North Cambridge--they just want them in Central Square," said Mary C. Daly, who lives near the church.

"I don't think I could support such an ordinance," City Councilor Sheila T. Russell said "The neighbors are being beseiged by everything. They think they're being dumped on."