FOR SHUT-OUT FAMILIES, A PLACE TO STAY AWHILE
Temporary shelter provides for migrants on hold because of state’s limit
The building feels more like a co-op apartment than a homeless shelter. Groups of small children run around, playing tag, watching videos, or coloring on sheets of construction paper. In the two kitchens, mothers cook big meals for everyone to share.
The former convent outside Boston has in the past served the needy and sheltered victims of domestic violence. Now, it’s offering a haven to migrant families for whom there is no room elsewhere.
The shelter, operated by Catholic Charities Boston with the help of funding by United Way of Massachusetts Bay, opened the day before Thanksgiving, and is playing a crucial role in helping the state house eligible families and pregnant women who haven’t yet entered the formal emergency shelter system.
It’s a waypoint, not a permanent housing assignment, but it beats being in the cold. And it’s serving an urgent need.
“Where else does a mother who doesn’t speak the language go?” said Beth Chambers, vice president of basic needs for Catholic Charities.
As of Wednesday, the wait-list for those seeking emergency shelter had grown to 357 families, a handful of whom are staying here. The Globe is not publishing the location to protect the privacy of the families.
In one of the state’s typical emergency shelters, children are quickly enrolled in local schools. Here, because of the impermanent nature of the shelter, children aren’t able to attend nearby schools, so they must entertain themselves.
On a recent morning, 5-year-old Axel wandered around the kitchen with a glass of apple cider while his father ate breakfast. He carried a backpack full of crayons and toys,
‘Where else does a mother who doesn’t speak the language go?’
BETH CHAMBERS, Catholic Charities
so large he lost balance when he tried to run, toppling from side to side. He wants to go to school, he said in Spanish.
One mother chased her twin boys, 6, as they ran around the lobby of the shelter. She said she hopes that in the new year she can find a stable place to live and enroll the boys in school.
The mother, Raymonde Auguste, brought the boys to Massachusetts after the death of her husband, whom they lived with in Chile. She came to the United States to live with her sister-inlaw, but learned when her family arrived that the arrangement would not work out. Auguste then remembered that an official in Mexico advised the family to come to Massachusetts.
“They said go to Boston, someone will help you,” Auguste, 38, said in Haitian Creole. “I don’t have money, but I want to find work and support them.”
Catholic Charities has leaned on donations to help supply diapers, toys, and warm clothes to the families, many of whom arrive unprepared for winter. In a makeshift storage room, boxes of Pampers are stacked to the ceiling, as are bed frames and cribs from Amazon. A pantry off one of the kitchens is stocked with canned pears, applesauce, and green beans.
Every day, Pine Street Inn supplies meals and produce for the families to eat or, in many cases, repurpose in one of the building’s large kitchens into a more familiar recipe.
In a playroom, teething toys, trucks, colorful balls, and musical instruments are neatly arranged on a shelf. On the floor, ride-along toys in the shape of lions, horses, and cars are lined up, ready for playtime.
The funding for this shelter, which is to operate until April, comes from a $5 million grant program created by the Healey administration for nonprofits that help operate shelters. The state grant, which is managed by the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, was first announced in early November as a response to rapidly rising numbers of migrant families arriving in the state.
So far, new shelters are still being pinpointed and will cost anywhere from $100,000 to $900,000. The United Way is in discussions with other churches, community groups, and even landlords to become partners and temporarily house people.
“We are really thinking through how far we can make that $5 million go,” said Sarah Bartley, who leads the housing efforts for the organization. “For families who have no other option, it’s not tolerable for children to be sleeping outside.”
The Healey administration launched the grant program as a stopgap after the governor imposed a limit of 7,500 families in the emergency shelter system, citing a strained program that was running out of space, personnel, and money. Families who did not make the cut would have to wait on a list for a spot.
In the last two years, tens of thousands of migrants, largely from Haiti, Central America, and Brazil, have arrived in the state.
The crush of homeless families in the shelter system has become so burdensome that last month, the state effectively suspended a decades-old law that guaranteed homeless families a right to shelter and started letting homeless and migrant families spend the night in converted conference rooms in a state transportation building in Boston. Now, those families are being moved to a site at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy.
On Friday, the Healey administration plans to open another overnight shelter in a former courthouse in Cambridge.
To people like Jamie Ewing, senior vice president of programs at Catholic Charities, the need to house homeless and migrant families is so large that it sometimes feels endless.
“As we are in the thick of it — we don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel right now,” he said. “We are in crisis mode. We don’t see this ending for a long time.”
But for families like Clairehide Junior’s, the path forward looks brighter than the past. She was told so.
The 29-year-old and her 6year-old son, Alcide, left their northern town in Haiti and crossed the Mexico border in August. Then, California. A month later, they left to stay with a woman who could house them in Florida. It was good at first, Junior said, but weeks later, the woman said she couldn’t accommodate them any longer. She told Junior that if she could go to Massachusetts, she could get help from the state.
“I am looking for a better life.
It’s not easy living in Haiti right now,” Junior said in Haitian Creole. “I continue to thank God. I want to work to help myself and my child.”
According to Human Rights Watch, more than half of Haitians are chronically food insecure, and 22 percent of children are chronically malnourished. Political instability and increasing violence have displaced hundreds of thousands of Haitians, who have escaped to other countries to avoid kidnapping and other crimes.
Junior looked down at Alcide, who was holding her phone in both hands. He clicked on a music video for Sia’s “Unstoppable.” The music started playing loudly as he watched, his eyes fixed on the small screen. Junior tried to turn the volume down.
”I put my armor on, show you how strong I am,” the song played. “I’m unstoppable.”