City Efforts for Homeless Criticized as Superficial

The fight against homelessness in Cambridge last week gained approximately $43,000 in city and state funds, but several shelter operators say city officials are not seeking real solutions to the problem.

Last week city officials announced plans to establish a new coordinating office that would match the needy with shelters and agencies at a cost of about $23,000. The office will use donated space at the former Off The Wall Cinema on Pearl St., which closed early this winter.

In addition, the Cambridge Department of Human Services recently won a $20,000 state block grant to help the homeless.

Assistant City Manager for Human Services Jill Herold said $15,000 will pay half the salary of a psychiatric social worker. The state's mental health agency has agreed to pay the other half. The remaining $5000 will be used to reserve beds for the needy at Cambridge's YWCA and YMCA, Herold said.

Although students and community activists who work with the homeless praised these projects, they also criticized a series of separate proposals for emergency shelters. They said the plans would provide immediate protection from the cold, but would not help homeless people return to jobs, homes and main-stream society.

Proposals

Proposed sites for emergency shelters include church basements and the disused armory on Concord Ave.

In addition, Councilor William H. Walshproposed that two empty floors in Cambridge CityHospital be used as shelter for the homeless. Thehospital has at least 30 vacant beds, but Walsh'ssuggestion has found scant support. On Monday, thehospital administration and Commissioner of Healthand Hospitals Melvin H. Chalfen released a reportdescribing "significant barriers" to the plan.

The report says Cambridge Hospital may need allof its space for patients in the future, and thatthe 30-bed unit might lose its state license for"acute care" if the city violates state healthcodes by housing homeless people there.

The report also said Cambridge Hospital wouldlose money by hosting a shelter because homelessguests would displace paying patients. It alsowarned that homeless people might contaminateother parts of the hospital with contagiousdiseases like tuberculosis.

Walsh said several doctors at the Cambridgehospital had supported his plan and cited aprecedent in the shelter at Shattuck Hospital inthe Boston suburb of Jamaica Plain.

City Councilor David E. Sullivan criticized theproposal, saying, "opening up an armory or ahospital and just dumping people is not reallyhelping them" because homeless people need morethan shelter to escape permanently from thestreets.

Sullivan said he would prefer the Council"lighten up" on restrictive zoning laws that haveprevented several organizations from openingshelters.

"Not In My Backyard"

City Manager Robert W. Healy is forming acommittee to consider possible sources of housing.However, he says one city's efforts cannot solvethe national problem of homelessness. "If you put200 new beds in here today, there's be 400 morepeople here as soon as the word got around," hesaid, adding that no city neighborhood wouldaccept a shelter without protest. "It's likeprisons and dumps--everybody wants them but `notin my backyard,'" he said.

"It's not my belief that the city should be inthe business of providing shelters," said Healy."In terms of social justice the city has done morethan any of the surrounding communities," headded.

David Whitty, executive director of Shelter,Inc., a program that helps homeless families andrecovering alcoholics, said Healy has implied thatthe homeless do not belong in Cambridge and thatthey fit the stereotype of the willfully dirty andobnoxious bum. "If he had said those things aboutany other group of people there would be outrageand calls for his resignation," Whitty said.

City officials estimate the number of homelesspeople in Cambridge at about 250, but numbers aremeaningless, according to Whitty and David Angel'87, a supervisor at the University LutheranShelter who is writing a Social Studies thesis onthe homeless. "You'll never know how many homelesspeople there are until they're all broughtindoors," said Angel.

Few Options Now

Cambridge's homeless people now compete for 85walk-in shelter beds. Of these, 50 belong to theCambridge and Somerville Program for AlcoholRehabilitation (CASPAR), which accepts onlyinebriated guests.

The University Lutheran Shelter, staffed byHarvard students, provides 23 beds from Novemberto April and a new shelter at First CongregationalChurch on Garden St. provides 12 more.

Shelter, Inc.'s Central Square building has 20more places, but accepts only families andrecovering alcoholics referred to them by socialworkers and other shelters