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Center for Social Policy
McCormack Graduate School
University of Massachusetts Boston
100 Morrissey Blvd.
Boston, MA 02125-3393
Phone: (617) 287 5550
Fax: (617) 287 5544
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Homelessness Conference at Faneuil Hall to Address Key Policy Issues
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Author(s):
n/a
Source(s):
Center for Social Policy
Date: October 28, 2004
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On October 28, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino will launch "Streets, Shelters and Homes," a
one-day conference at Faneuil Hall aimed at addressing the most pressing aspects of homelessness.
Leading state and local government officials, advocates, service providers, foundation
representatives, researchers, and homelessness survivors will all take part in addressing
chronic homelessness and homeless prevention, two topics that have been in the forefront of
homelessness policy initiatives in recent years. The sessions will be facilitated by Dr. Donna
Haig Friedman, Director of the Center for Social Policy at UMass Boston and include closing
remarks by James Greene, Director of Boston's Emergency Shelter Commission and Ed Sanders-Bey,
Assistant Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance.
President Bush has made "ending chronic homelessness in the next decade a top objective." The
conference's morning session, "New Directions for Addressing Chronic Homelessness in Boston,"
will feature the release of a new report by Dr. Tatjana Meschede of the Center for Social
Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, which analyzes the effects of medical and
substance abuse services on housing attainment on high-risk chronically homeless street
dwellers in Boston. The report finds that, contrary to expectations, health and substance
abuse service use did not predict better housing outcomes. Dr. Meschede and Linn Torto,
former homelessness coordinator for Massachusetts will introduce the report. State
Representative Antonio Cabral Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Services and Elderly
Affairs James Greene Director of Boston's Emergency Shelter Commission, Julia Kehoe the
Executive Director of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, Dr. Jim O'Connell;
President of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, and Kacia Wilkinson, a survivor of
street homelessness will respond to the report.
Homeless prevention is also a major trend nationally as communities are learning that it costs
less to keep people housed than to help them once they are homelessness. In Massachusetts, a
group of five foundations has pooled resources and distributed $1 million in grant funds to
18 non-profit organizations for homeless prevention services. Boston's first homeless
prevention summit will take place in the afternoon of the conference. This summit includes
presentations by Walter Jabzanka, of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, Cindy
Rizzo of The Boston Foundation's Homeless Prevention Initiative; Stephanie Brown of Homes for
Families, RAFT and Family Prevention Initiatives; Lyn Levy of SPAN Inc. and an expert on
Ex-offender Reintegration, Robyn Frost, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for
the Homeless; and Jeff Purcell of Greater Boston Legal Services, a legal expert on eviction
prevention.
In between the two conference sessions, a lunch reception will be held at Ned Devine's,
featuring a book reading by Nick Flynn, author of Another BS Night in S--k City, a new
critically acclaimed memoir about a father and son who cross paths at Pine Street Inn,
Boston's largest homeless shelter.
The conference is sponsored by Center for Social Policy, McCormack Graduate School,
University of Massachusetts Boston; City of Boston, Emergency Shelter Commission; Boston
Health Care for the Homeless; Massachusetts Department of Public Health; and Adcare
Educational Institute Inc.
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