Joseph Finn,, president of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, talks too the Homelessness Advisory Committee on Wednesday.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield is looking into the concept of micro-housing units as a solution to its homelessness problem.
The Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance outlined the pilot project, called "A Place to Live," to the Homelessness Advisory Committee on Wednesday. The nonprofit's President Joseph Finn said the organization is working with Mayor Linda Tyer's office to create housing that he says is a cost-effective model of permanent supportive housing that can be replicated across the state.
"Right now, do we really need people living one, two, three, or four years within a shelter?" Finn said. "We can do better than this."
MHSA is receiving about $150,000 per year for the next five years to help fund this project.
In this housing complex, a case manager will help tenants access behavioral health services, primary care, job training programs, and addiction treatment. The building also will offer easy access to transportation and other amenities and is expected to be ready for tenants at the end of 2021.
The four Massachusetts communities targeted for this project are Lowell, Worcester, Brockton, and Pittsfield.
MHSA was recently funded with the grant through the Massachusetts Community Health Fund. This fund provides an opportunity to address the root causes of health inequities in communities across Massachusetts with Health Resources in Action (HRiA) acting as the fiscal agent and is responsible for facilitating the planning and implementation of both funds.
These are dollars that come from larger hospitals and are re-invested into the community to address issues around health equity across the commonwealth. This funding is intended for communities that often don't get access to critical and important resources.
MHSA's grant for "Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change" targets social determinations of health, addressing specific things that stand in the way of health equity for impoverished and disabled people of the commonwealth.
Finn, who has been working on the issue of homelessness for about 30 years, said the key social determinants of health are housing for people experiencing homelessness.
"How are we supposed to achieve so-called integrated care of health when somebody doesn't even know where they are going to be staying that night," he said.
The focus of the project is to achieve a state of "function zero," which indicates that homelessness in a given community is rare overall and brief when it occurs.
By building micro-units specifically designed for permanent supportive housing, Finn said that a wealth of money would be saved as compared to renovating pre-existing housing for that purpose.
According to Margulies Perruzzi Design firm, which came up with the design concept for the housing units, the real problem in addressing housing for people experiencing homelessness is that organizations are always retrofitting and revamping old housing, which is incredibly costly, and have never stopped to think about ways that one could design and build housing that meets the needs of what people are experiencing.
Finn said there would always be a shelter component that is needed in communities, but permanent supportive housing is the first step that needs to be taken toward achieving health equity in the Pittsfield community.
"I have to say, Berkshire County Regional Housing Authority enjoys a wonderful partnership with MHSA with our rapid rehousing program," Chairwoman Kim Borden said to Finn. "I feel like you could probably talk to us for another hour just to expand on all of your thoughts and ideas and the programs that we're looking at moving forward, so thank you for that."
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Joint Transportation Panel Hears How Chapter 90 Bill Helps Berkshires, State
By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
BOSTON — A bill proposed by Gov. Maura Healey would bring $5.3 million more in state Chapter 90 road aid to the Berkshires.
Testimony before the Joint Committee on Transportation on Thursday (held in person and virtually) pointed to the need to address deferred maintenance, jobs, infrastructure battered by New England winters and climate change, and communities burdened by increasing costs.
"I know that transportation funding is so, so important. Infrastructure funding is so integral to the economy of the state," said Healey, appearing before the committee. "It's a challenging topic, but we took a look at things and think that this is a way forward that'll result in better outcomes for the entirety of the state."
The bill includes a five-year $1.5 billion authorization to enable effective capital planning that would increase the annual $200 million Chapter 90 aid by $100 million.
More importantly, that extra $100 million would be disbursed based on road mileage alone. The current formula takes into account population and workforce, which rural towns say hampers their ability to maintain their infrastructure.
"This is an important provision as it acknowledges that while population and workforce may be elastic, our road miles are not and the cost of maintaining them increases annually," said Lenox Town Manager Jay Green, who sat on the Chapter 90 Advisory Group with transportation professionals and local leaders. "This dual formula distribution system addresses community equity by assisting municipalities that do not normally rank high using the traditional formula that is a large number of miles but a small population and often a bedroom community.
"These are rural communities with limited ability to generate revenues to augment Chapter 90 funds for their road maintenance."
The mission of Hancock Shaker Village is to preserve the history of the Shakers and to educate the public about them, and the baby animals are a big contributor to that.
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