Moving Here Saved My Life: The Experience of Formerly Chronically Homeless Women and Men in Quincy\u27s Housing First Projects

For the past ten years, Father Bill’s Place (FBP) in Quincy, Massachusetts, has moved steadily towards providing permanent housing with supportive services rather than emergency shelter as a solution to ending homelessness. According to John Yazwinski, executive director of FBP, the vision for the future is to be able to independently house every homeless person entering FBP within a short period of time instead of “housing” people in the shelter for prolonged periods. As such, sheltering homeless people in mass emergency shelters should be a picture of the past. Yazwinski’s Housing First Model builds upon an approach of housing “chronically” homeless street dwellers with psychiatric disabilities. This “Housing First” model is a non-linear housing and service program that attempts to move the most disabled homeless people directly to housing, prior to treatment, using housing as the transforming element to support participation in treatment. This approach does not require sobriety or participation in long-term treatment programs like the traditional continuum of care approach. A comparison of this low demand housing approach with the traditional treatment model revealed that 88 percent of the Housing First participants remained in housing after a five year period as compared to 47 percent of those in the traditional treatment/housing model (Tsemberis & Eisenberg, 2000). Compared to the traditional homeless Continuum of Care (CoC) approach to housing, this approach also reduced public costs at a greater rate (Gulcur, Stefancic, Shinn, Tsemberis, & Fischer, 2003). In May, 2005, ten mostly chronically homeless women moved from the shelter into the first Housing First project operated by FBP, the Claremont Street Residence. Claremont Street provides 12 single room occupancy units with shared kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities. Claremont Street residents receive supportive services to help them live independently, including onsite staff that connect them with resources, services, and employment opportunities. In November of the same year, a group of eight men moved into the Winter Street Residence. The Winter Street Residence provides single room occupancy housing for up to 19 men (although not all are former guests of Father Bill’s Place). By April, 2006, a total of 12 formerly homeless men had moved to Winter Street. This report focuses on these formerly homeless women and men

The First Two Years of Housing First in Quincy, Massachusetts: This Place Gives Me Peace, Happiness, and Hope

Housing First is a housing and support services program that attempts to move the most disabled homeless people directly to housing prior to treatment, using housing as the transforming element to support participation in treatment. This approach does not require sobriety or participation in long-term treatment programs unlike the traditional continuum of care approach. Promising results have been demonstrated in a number of projects using this model (Tsemberis & Eisenberg, 2000). For the past ten years, Father Bill’s Place (FBP), a homeless shelter and housing program in Quincy, Massachusetts, has moved steadily towards providing permanent housing with supportive services, rather than emergency shelter, as the preferred solution to ending homelessness. In May, 2005, FBP opened the doors to its first Housing First project providing 12 units to chronically homeless women. By May of 2007, FBP had a created a total of 52 Housing First units. This evaluation report draws on a range of data sources, including qualitative in-person interviews and focus groups with Housing First residents and their case managers, as well as quantitative information on each Housing First resident. The sections to follow describe the characteristics of Housing First resident, document their experience in moving from long-term shelter life to their Housing First residences, and highlight the impact of Housing First on its residents as well as the larger community

From Bad to Worse: Senior Economic Insecurity on the Rise

Based on the Senior Financial Stability Index, examines the increase in the number of economically insecure seniors by race/ethnicity, gender, and marital status between 2004 and 2008; contributing factors; and options for reversing the trend

Economic (In)Security: The Experience of the African-American and Latino Middle Classes

As the next installment in the By a Thread series, Economic (In)Security uses the Middle Class Security Index to provide the first comprehensive portrait of the level of financial security enjoyed by African-American and Latino middle-class families. The findings show that, in the wake of fading economic opportunity, these two rapidly growing groups face mounting obstacles in becoming part of, and remaining securely in, America's middle class

From Middle to Shaky Ground: The Economic Decline of America's Middle Class

A middle-class standard of living requires that families have adequate financial security to meet current obligations, invest in the future, and access opportunities. The most recent findings from the Middle Class Security Index show that between 2000 and 2006--even before the most recent economic downturn--the economic well-being of middle-class families slipped noticeably.Between 2000 and 2006 an estimated 4 million middle-class families lost their financial security, bringing the total number of middle-income families on shaky ground to 23 million.These worrisome changes in the overall financial health of the middle class were driven by a decline in assets, rising housing costs, and a growing lack of health insurance

The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide

Growing concerns about wealth inequality and the expanding racial wealth gap have in recent years become central to the debate over whether our nation is on a sustainable economic path. This report provides critical new information about what has fueled the racial wealth gap and points to policy approaches that will set our country in a more equitable and prosperous direction.Looking at the same set of families over a 25-year period (1984-2009), our research offers key insight into how policy and the real, lived-experience of families in schools, communities, and at work affect wealth accumulation. Tracing the same households during that period, the total wealth gap between white and African-American families nearly triples, increasing from $85,000 in 1984 to$236,500 in 2009. To discover the major drivers behind this dramatic $152,000 increase, we tested a wide range of possible explanations, including family, labor market, and wealth characteristics. This allowed us, for the first time, to identify the primary forces behind the racial wealth gap. Our analysis found little evidence to support common perceptions about what underlies the ability to build wealth, including the notion that personal attributes and behavioral choices are key pieces of the equation. Instead, the evidence points to policy and the configuration of both opportunities and barriers in workplaces, schools, and communities that reinforce deeply entrenched racial dynamics in how wealth is accumulated and that continue to permeate the most important spheres of everyday life

A Programmatic Audit of the Massachusetts Vitamin Litigation Project Final Report

The Massachusetts Vitamin Litigation Project resulted in the 2002 partial settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by the law firm of Ellis and Rapacki on behalf of residents of the Commonwealth who purchased indirect vitamin products1 during the period from 1990 through 1999. In return for the release of claims, the defendants (a group of pharmaceutical manufacturers) agreed to pay a settlement amount of more than $19 million to be allocated to charitable organizations providing food and nutrition programs in Massachusetts. An additional$2.5 million in settlement funds was subsequently approved. A total of 572 grants ranging from $1,000 to over$2.4 million were awarded to Massachusetts organizations in three waves: November 2002, June 2003, and December 2003. Of these projects, most (279) used their funds for capital improvements, 161 for a programmatic component, 127 for food purchases, and 3 for research. The large proportion of funding for capital improvement projects was intentional. As the settlement money constituted a one-time opportunity to strengthen organizations that address hunger and nutrition needs across a variety of populations and locations in Massachusetts, the law form of Ellis and Rapacki was particularly focused on building capacity and increasing the sustainability of these programs. To this end, Ellis and Rapacki considered not only the immediate and direct need for food, but also the - often neglected - infrastructure that is a backbone of aid efforts in general. By replacing failing equipment, providing vans to deliver food, building shelves, adding freezers, improving access for the physically challenged, the hope was to positively impact the ability of aid organizations to do their work now and in the future. The Center for Social Policy was selected by Ellis & Rapacki and approved by the Court to conduct a programmatic audit of the Vitamin Litigation Project. The audit was a process study that served two key functions. First, the audit served a descriptive function, portraying to the Massachusetts Superior Court what happened in the funded projects for purposes of accountability. Second, the study served an evaluative function by documenting lessons learned regarding the implementation and perceived outcomes of food and nutrition projects. The audit focused only on projects with a programmatic component and did not include projects focused exclusively on capital expenditures or food purchase. The audit had two major components. The first was the collection and analysis of reports from the funded projects. All grantees were required to submit to Ellis & Rapacki final reports responding to five questions in the Associated Grantmakers Common Report Form, and the vast majority of projects complied. The second component of the audit was site visits with a subset of 45 of the funded projects, which included interviews with the directors of the organizations and/or key program staff. The site visits were conducted between October 2003 and January 2005 and occurred during various phases of program implementation, mostly six to nine month after grant receipt

Hard Numbers, Hard Times: Homeless Individuals in Massachusetts Emergency Shelters, 1999-2003

Hard Numbers, Hard Times is the fruit of five years of homeless management information systems data collected in homeless emergency shelters serving individuals across Massachusetts. For the first time, comprehensive, reliable statewide data are provided on how many people accessed the system, where people became homeless, what they attributed their homelessness to, how long they stayed in shelter, and where they went when they left. These data are combined with information on demographics, income, special needs and insurance status along with analysis and interviews to provide multiple perspectives on the Massachusetts shelter system

Hard Choices: Navigating the Economic Shock of Unemployment

During the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, millions of Americans faced severe economic hardship, forcing difficult decisions about how to stabilize their families' financial well-being and prevent downward economic mobility. Americans with savings were forced to weigh immediate needs against long-term investments, choosing whether to deplete personal assets in order to stay afloat. Those without wealth to fall back on were in an even more precarious position, leading them to turn to family assistance, debt, and other public and private supports when available.This study examines how families weather economic shocks through a close focus on one particular event -- the experience of unemployment, with specific attention to differences by race and family income. The analysis used a nationally representative sample of working-age families from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics or PSID, following the same households from 1999 to 2009. To provide greater insight into the challenges and choices families faced, the report also drew on a unique longitudinal data set of in-depth interviews with 51 families that endured one month or more of unemployment between 1998 and 2012

Less Debt, More Equity: Lowering Student Debt While Closing the Black-White Wealth Gap

The dramatic increase in wealth inequality over the past several decades now forms the backdrop for many of today's most pressing public policy debates. Currently, the top 1 percent of U.S. households controls 42 percent of the nation's wealth, and nearly half of the wealth accumulated over the past 30 years has gone to the top 0.1 percent. Simultaneously, the wealth held by the bottom 90 percent of U.S. households continues to shrink, just as people of color are a growing percentage of the U.S. population. These trends have converged to produce a wealth divide that is apparent not just by class, but by race as well. The average white family owns $13 for every$1 owned by a typical Black family, and $10 for every$1 owned by the typical Latino family.This analysis uses the Racial Wealth Audit, a framework developed by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) to assess the impact of public policy on the wealth gap between white and Black households. We use the framework to model the impact of various student debt relief policies to identify the approaches most likely to reduce inequities in wealth by race, as opposed to exacerbating existing inequities. We focus specifically on the Black-white wealth gap both because of the historic roots of inequality described above, and because student debt (in the form of borrowing rates and levels) seems to be contributing to wealth disparities between Black and white young adults, in particular