Somerville Homeless Coalition Talks Change

By Gregory John "G.J." Vitale on October 17, 2012

Executive Director of the Somerville Homeless Coalition Mark Alston-Follansbee gave a talk to students at Tufts University entitled “Spare some change? Reacting to homelessness.” A call it a talk because the setting was more discussion-based than any lecture I’ve attended. Case and point: the first thing that he said when he got to the front of the room to start was “I don’t like to hear myself talk because I talk to myself all the time in my head. I’d much rather have a discussion with you.” And with that, a free-form powwow of ideas, thoughts, and information began to fly around the room.

Alston-Follansbee informed the audience that the people in Somerville didn’t even realize there was a problem with homelessness until the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority extended the Red Line out to Alewife in 1984. Then, so many more homeless people were hanging around Davis Square and became visible to the majority of the population. Before the Somerville Homeless Coalition was founded in 1985, homeless people had to go to Cambridge or Boston to get to a homeless shelter.

The first shelter of the coalition was built in a converted bowling alley in the basement of an old church. Alston-Follansbee gave a shout out to his audience, noting that Tufts students were some of the first volunteers at the center.

In 1996 the program took over the major food pantries in the area. This move was important because many potentially homeless people often make the decision to feed their family before paying the rent (the take over was an attempt to alleviate that burden).

An important stat that Alston-Follansbee cited was that it cost $36,000/year for the state to shelter a homeless family, but only $833/year to prevent homelessness for a family. This statistic reevealed that even a tiny little crisis can push these people on the poverty line into homelessness.

Alston-Follansbee was very adamant that these problems can be solved. The way he believes it can be solved is by prevention. He cited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as throwing away money that could better be spent on aiding the homeless.

“I’m convinced that the only way that we’re really going to be able to change this equation and be able to create enough affordable housing is if we have the federal government shift some of that $3 trillion that they spend on defense and put it toward housing for poor,” Alston-Follansbee said. “It’s pretty sick…I mean how many times do you need to blow up the planet.”  

Funding for the coalition is mostly from organizations like the United Way, but the city of Somerville and money raised through fundraisers are their other means. The ways everyday people can help include starting a food drive, volunteering, or just communicating with homeless people on the streets.

The bigger picture, however, is a problem of the government for Alston-Follansbee:

“It’s kind of amusing but it’s also kind of pathetic that the federal government expects us, after we put people into housing, to then get them jobs. They have no clue who we’re working with. We’re taking people who are on the street for sometimes 20 years and we’re very successful in giving them housing and ensuring they are good tenants, but these are often very disabled people. We really are the safety net taking care of people that nobody else will take care of. There are a lot of values in our society that I think need to be examined.”

To learn more, visit their website:  somervillehomelesscoalition.org/about/

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