How best should a community respond when a person has nowhere to live or even a safe place to sleep at night? Should we give them a ticket for pitching a tent in a local park? Arrest them for sleeping on a bench? Or can we commit to finding actual solutions to address this crisis and strengthen our communities?
Recently, in Johnson vs. Grants Pass, the US Supreme Court ruled that a community may ban people from sleeping outside even when there is no adequate shelter or housing available. People may be fined or arrested for sleeping in a tent, on a bench, or even in their own cars.
At the Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance, we are deeply disturbed by this decision. These prohibitions don’t solve the problem; they just drive people further into a downward spiral. Individuals with nowhere to go will be pushed from place to place as their encampments are cleared. As a result, vital documents will likely be lost, and homelessness and all its subsequent trauma exacerbated. Homeless individuals will be saddled with criminal records that will make it even more difficult for them to secure housing or a job. Instead of solving the problem, this punitive approach will create new obstacles to stability.
At the Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance, however, we are not fighting for the right of someone to sleep on a park bench – we are striving to develop real solutions. We build partnerships with city hall, the police, and service providers that solve homelessness by providing housing, engagement, and support. The alliance has done this before in collaboration with communities from Chelsea to Worcester to Pittsfield. When resources, strategic planning, and political will are brought to bear, we can significantly reduce homelessness.
Understandably, communities don’t want people to camp in their public parks and playgrounds. But banning these acts of desperation won’t resolve the crisis.
We’ve always done better here in Massachusetts. Starting in the 1980s, we provided emergency shelter as a first response. Over the years, we’ve learned that offering housing along with the necessary wraparound services is the most effective response of all. We were early adopters of the Housing First model, moving vulnerable people to affordable housing quickly and, with the stability of a roof over their heads, connecting them with essential services such as health care.
The data show this approach works, with more than 80 percent remaining housed for as many as seven years following the initial intervention. In the early 2000s, as we added more housing coupled with the necessary safety net of support, chronic homelessness was dramatically reduced.
Recently, homelessness has been rising in Massachusetts, especially in our smaller Gateway Cities that lack shelter capacity and a robust housing infrastructure. While the media has covered the plight of desperate migrant families coming to our state, a quieter crisis was already brewing here among adults struggling with poverty, often combined with mental illness or addiction and with few options for housing, services, or treatment.
We also know that homelessness disproportionately impacts people of color. To further complicate an already complex situation, the fastest growing group of newly homeless in the country – and by all indications in Massachusetts as well – are people aged 50 and over. Many have never been homeless before. Losing a job or spouse or receiving a massive rent increase is pushing more and more older adults out of their homes and into their cars or to campsites.
The solution to the homelessness crisis is simple, but it’s not always easy, and moving forward requires political will. We need to redouble efforts to partner with our communities and invest resources in housing with life-changing services. In response to the housing crisis, the governor has called for the creation of 200,000 units by 2030 at all income levels. Based on available data, we are advocating for 10,000 of those units to be supportive housing for our most vulnerable neighbors who are experiencing long-term homelessness.
Our Commonwealth has a long history of innovation and creative problem solving. Let’s apply that can-do approach to this statewide challenge rather than penalizing people for the crime of being poor with nowhere to go.
Joyce Tavon is the CEO of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance.
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