Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series covering homelessness in the North Quabbin region.
While homelessness isn’t new to the North Quabbin area, leaders of a local nonprofit say relatively rapid economic development in recent years that attracted workers and their families to the area seems to have exacerbated the problem, along with the lack of affordable housing and the impact of the pandemic.
Heather Bialecki-Canning, executive director of the Athol-based North Quabbin Community Coalition, one of the agencies that deals most directly with the homeless population, said the issue in the North Quabbin grew bigger and more acute as the region, and the rest of the country, navigated its way through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a huge problem,” she said. “We saw a lot of things get put on hold during COVID for multiple reasons. Evictions were put on hold, but also people who were typically up-to-date with bills were financially impacted by COVID, so they lost housing due to lost wages — things like that.
“There was a lot of COVID relief that came, but it didn’t necessarily trickle into people’s securing their housing,” she explained. “There were unexpected costs, like the inflation that we’re experiencing now, as well as heating oil costs; those kinds of things that have all increased.”
Bialecki-Canning said the North Quabbin Community Coalition is trying to tackle the issue of homelessness from various directions.
“From the coalition’s perspective, the issue is just so multi-pronged because we have folks who would typically be able to afford some of our local housing stock, but because of the price of local real estate right now, it’s just unattainable. You’re seeing a lot of housing being scooped up by folks from outside the region moving in. So, many folks are just staying where they are because they can’t afford to move into a home or more sustainable housing.
“The other thing is that there are just no vacancies to be found,” she noted. “Even folks that have the means or have resources to get them into apartments, there simply are no apartments. Then the ones that do come available often have a caveat. Some have CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) restrictions on what your background is, credit restrictions on what your background is, as well as things like pets, children — all of those things.”
Bialecki-Canning said that, in a very real sense, it’s a “landlord’s world.”
“They get their pick, because the minute there is a vacancy, they get so many applicants. So it’s definitely been challenging. And the eviction process, after the moratorium on that, is now moving forward. We are hearing from a lot more folks that their eviction process has now gone through. Those are the folks we’re now seeing at the door of the coalition, when other resources around the community have been exhausted.”
Asked if more ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding should have gone directly to nonprofits that assist individuals and families dealing with the financial impact of the pandemic, rather than to large municipal infrastructure projects, Bialecki-Canning said, “This is probably going to sound colder than it should, but my answer is ‘no,’ because I find that those communities that do invest in themselves, in capital projects, create more sustainable opportunities for folks.
“We (the North Quabbin Community Coalition) should absolutely be a thought when someone is considering funding, but when it comes to housing issues, we’re kind of the last resort. We really only want to see folks coming through the coalition door when they’ve already connected with the Career Center and the Salvation Army for food and the Family Resource Center for ongoing support; so that really what they’re looking for is about improving their quality of life, not just meeting their basic needs,” Bialecki-Canning said.
“Unfortunately, that’s not where we’re at right now. We’re seeing a lot of people where that money was just not substantial enough to meet the need they had, or it wasn’t sustainable,” she said.
“Some of the funding that came through from the state, as far as supporting individuals, was a little tricky,” Bialecki-Canning said. “Food stamp increases were amazing; we heard a lot of families benefited from that. We heard mixed reviews, as far as the community goes, as far as increased money in people’s pockets.”
Bialecki-Canning noted that the coalition handles issues for people in the community from cradle to grave.
“So we’re also seeing things like seniors who really want to be able to age in place,” she explained. “They’re having trouble with that because of rising costs and other issues.
“So, to answer your question in the most roundabout way possible,” she said with a smile, “I do think capital investments are necessary to be able to sustain the community as a whole, to create the opportunities for those seniors to be able to stay local in maybe a senior housing development, or that kind of thing.”
In February, Athol’s Selectboard voted to use $400,000 in ARPA funding for the redevelopment of the former Ellen Bigelow and Riverbend schools. Plans call for the schools to be transformed into a 53-unit affordable and senior housing complex. The overall cost of the project is estimated at around $20 million.
While the causes of homelessness in North Quabbin may be apparent, how best to meet the needs of the homeless is another issue altogether. That topic will be discussed in the next installment in this series of reports.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.