A couple of weeks ago, in a discussion about urban issues, I made the statement that the state was resettling poor people from Eastern Massachusetts to cities in Western Massachusetts. I don’t think that people actually believed my statement because it seemed so incredible.
The Boston Globe published an article today outlining this phenomenon. The bulk of the article is reserved for Boston.com subscribers, but the key line remains available for everyone to read:
The demand for shelter is so great that the state has been temporarily sending homeless families from Boston to motels in Western Massachusetts, although state officials said many have been relocated back again, closer to home.
People wonder why so-called Gateway Cities are not faring as well as Boston. This is one of many reasons – poor people are actually being shipped out of Boston by the state and sent to other cities. No state aid is accompanying them. This particular article mentions a woman from Roxbury sent to Greenfield.
I don’t know how often this occurs, but it was also reported in the Springfield Republican in September 2001, in an article describing how 120 homeless families were sent from Boston to Springfield.
I get the sense that many people here don’t think that things are that bad in this state. They are. Step outside of Boston and the suburbs, go to Lawrence, Holyoke, Springfield, Chicopee, North Adams. Poverty is highly concentrated, poor people have been pooling in certain communities due to various state policies, Proposition 2.5 being a main one (after all, this was the intent of the law, to allow people to “sort themselves” – in Grover Nordquists own words).
Although Deval Patrick did have some focus on urban issues during his time in office, so much more needs to be done. Massachusetts is not comprised of just gentrified Boston and its wealthy suburbs. A lot of people are being left out, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a plan to help, other than chiding people when they don’t get a college degree.
…to suggest that rather than moving homeless people around we actually work to end homelessness?
Of course ending homelessness is the thing to do, but how?
Jobs are obviously a key, but we are moving toward a economy with a permanent sector of people who cannot participate in a manner which allows them to afford market-rate housing, for two reasons: 1) they do not have the skills or capability to do so, and 2) they have a past paper trail which precludes them from doing so (mostly drug arrests).
I spoke with someone this weekend who is doing tutoring in a Springfield high school, and he tells me that the kids there don’t know how to read. High school. And our public policy is “get them to college, they’ll be fine”? We’re talking about kids who do not get fed at home, kids who are not living with parents, kids in foster homes, etc.
He told me the story of one pair of brothers, now 15 and 18, their father killed their father. They went to live with their grandfather, but he died so they got sent to foster homes. Both are in high school.
The day the oldest child turned 18, he came home from school to find his belongings on the steps of his foster home. His foster parent told him “you’re 18 now, the state doesn’t pay me for you anymore, you’re out”.
What prospects does that kid have? Seriously?
More affordable housing is also a key, but building such housing is eschewed by almost every community in the state. Given that fact, this crowdsourcing seems to indicate that there is something wrong with affordable housing or the residents who live in it? Maybe that this group of people are service-intensive, but revenue-deficient? Every community in the state knows this, that is why you have communities complaining that a $450,000 house is going to be a drain on municipal budgets.
Think about that! $450,000? Do you know how much you need to earn to buy a $450,000 house? The mortgage calculators say $102,000 per year. So these communities are saying, in essence, “we don’t want to accept anyone who earns under $102,000 per year”. Minimum wage is $8.75, or $17,000 per year.
There are likely other reasons for communities pushing such thresholds, for example, race, and also economic bigotry, meaning “I don’t want to live near people who can only afford housing that is cheap”.
Why isn’t state aid more heavily skewed toward affordable housing? Yes, some of it is, with respect to schools, but it is nowhere near progressive enough, allocating only 25% more in the student foundation budget calculation for a poor child, and then providing Chapter 70 money for that difference in a pro-rated manner. There is no additional state aid for police, fire, parks (which get used more when houses are built on 1/10 acre lots), health, trash, etc.
So yes, let’s try and eliminate homelessness – and let’s recognize that just might need to be a higher priority than more reliable T service, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or even repealing casinos. And let’s do it in a fair and balanced way so that the burden of this isn’t carried by the people who are already living on the edge, the people in Gateway cities who are already filled up with lots of housing projects, group homes, welfare motels, etc.
I was trying to find some comparative stats before I posted my last comment, but this is one of those areas where I strongly suspect other nations, say those in Europe, have figured out how to drastically reduce poverty, homelessness, etc.
You’re response here is excellent and well-reasoned. One issue:
Actually, the Massachusetts minimum wage is only $8.00. That’s just $16,000 a year for someone working 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year!
Meanwhile, nearly 200,000 Massachusetts residents earn less than $9 an hour, over 300,000 make less than $10 per hour and nearly 500,000 make less than $11 an hour (just $22,000 annually). See: http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=minimum_wage_effects.html#direct
I urge all to join in the campaign to increase the minimum wage:
http://raiseupma.org/minimum-wage/
I’d like to follow up on this a bit. I’m first disappointed that this post got such little traction. Sure, most of the people on this blog are from Eastern MA, but it seems like there’s a lot of shoe-gazing going on here. People love to talk the liberal talk, until maybe it affects them directly.
But I’d like to follow up more directly on my point about herding the poor into certain communities. I just watched a video produced by casino opponents in Foxboro. Although I tend to agree with opposing casinos, I would like to point out that the underlying rationale used by the Foxboro opponents was that a casino would “bring a lot of *them* into town”.
Who is “them”? Well, you have to read between the lines a bit to get at what is being insinuated, but a few things are clear:
* People who “change the character of a town”.
* Biggest fear: “Socieo-economic”. Lots of medium to low wage workers, who will be looking for a place to live, places to eat. That will cause more fast food restaurants, more motels, more duplexes, lower rent that support people who have low wage jobs who work there. You can see those people. It would change the character of the town.
* In Uncasville CT, a former resident (now living in Foxboro) said that the town took on a sadness, because of the people who moved there and work for the casino.
* Renters. Non-family residents. People living with roommates.
* Houses that contain casino workers. Neighborhood went downhill. People used to know their neighbors, but now they don’t because the neighbors are casino workers.
* People who don’t speak English. Because of “those people”, after school programs had to be eliminated.
* 32 different languages spoken, very expensive residents costing everyone else more money.
* Foxboro is 100% in favor of jobs – just not casino jobs. They want sustainable jobs, with high-paying salaries, which would support the wonderful restaurants in Foxboro.
This is the prevailing attitude in nearly every community this state, being used to combat a casino, but laid pretty bare. No people from “out of the area” who speak other languages. No poor people. No duplexes. Only high-paying jobs. Don’t change the character of town. Wink wink.
Is it any wonder that liberals in this state aren’t too worried with shipping the homeless from Eastern MA to Springfield? I have a feeling that people are secretly psyched about this, because it moves more of “them” out of their region.
A Coalition of agencies already active in MA could make our state a benchmark for solving the Poverty Problem. I agree the state needs to be involved in the solution. The beginning of a conversation happened at the recent Legislative Breakfast for Franklin/Hampshire Social Services. The point was made that creating a sustainable economy with jobs is an upstream solution. But we have the resources, people, and innovative inclinations to create jobs while we provide the pathway to an all-inclusive sustainable economy. See some nodes in the network below.
We have allies in the state legislature aas well as the executive and departmental government who have the will, along with many individuals, and I believe businesses throughout the state. Slow Money principles can be applied to more than agriculture. The Knowledge Corridor created by the PV Planning Commission can be built upon.
I believe it is time to call a Summit to get started bringing these threads together! Joanne Sunshower, Shutesbury, MA
http://sustainableknowledgecorridor.org/site/content/food-security
http://valleyworker.org
http://westernmasshousingfirst.org/
http://www.foodbankwma.org/
http://www.pvgrows.net
A big issue with national politics is that it is only divisive on the marginal areas (social issues) that happen to get the most media attention. Otherwise we are increasingly governed by a neoliberal consensus and institutions designed to protect it. The rise of the Tea Party and strong anti-government sentiment is partly fueled by lower middle class whites feeling that the system has left them behind. Particularly those in rust belt cities (and I’d argue MA has its’ fair share), working class suburbs (ditto), and exurbs (ditto again).
Rob Ford rode these populations to election in Metro Toronto. So did Scott Brown. Winning them back requires telling hard truths like De Blasio did in his election, that we are more divided by class than anything else and that there are losers in globalization and it’s time the government starts helping them.
The Toronto article was interesting. I’m not sure it is 100% applicable here, because it described how Ford won the support of groups of suburban non-white immigrant working-class voters: he appealed to their fiscal conservatism and promised to cut services in areas of the city that those people didn’t use. It may have been unique to Toronto’s demographics; I have noticed, in immigrant Asians that I know, that there is a strong streak of fiscal conservatism, even frugality, in that demographic group.
It was interesting to learn that Toronto super-sized its city in 1998, absorbing a number of its suburbs. Small cities are one of our problems here because small cities are pretty easy to flee. You can drive 5 minutes more, enjoy the city’s advantages but escape its disadvantages. I can’t even fathom such a plan taking place anywhere in the US – in Louisiana, the wealthy part of Baton Rouge is trying to secede, taking its taxes and leaving behind a very poor city.
The article did highlight the importance of voting. Lack of voting probably harms Gateway Cities more than anything. In Springfield’s most recent municipal elections, turnout was a scant 11.7%. There was no mayoral race on the ticket, and several ward council races (including mine) were uncontested.
I admit that I did not vote in that election – I had an emergency that made doing so inconvenient, however since I no longer subscribe to the local newspaper, and I don’t watch the local TV news, I felt 100% disconnected from the political process. I completely understand why 88% of the voters did not turn out. When such a small percentage of the city votes in statewide races, it is obvious that our needs are not going to be listened to – but on the other hand, no one is singing our song either. There aren’t many candidates appealing to the Gateway Cities, and very few residents of Gateway Cities are going to run for political office because, quite honestly, it’s not the kind of thing that most people can do when they’re working for a living.
I think it’s incumbent we get another LG like Murray into office. I’ve outlined why Mike Lake, who has done a lot of work on gateway cities and urban policy, is a good choice to fill that void. Alternatively, beyond candidates local and statewide, we just need a movement of people out west to bridge the gap. Through other social networks I’m apart of I got in touch with someone who is trying to stop the Springfield casino and bring together disparate elements out there together to create smart growth policies in the Hartford-Springfield corridor. I think publicizing those efforts and making them known will help.
Utilizing area colleges is crucial as well, even if they are not directly impacting the economy they can be centers for development. As housing costs skyrocket even in the Metrowest ring, we may see a migration of urbanites to Worcester and Springfield who want to live in cities but don’t want to pay Boston prices. We are seeing some movement in Lowell (Where UMASS Lowell has been a catalyst) and in Lynn. Hopefully more can continue out there. But I for one don’t want to leave any part of the state behind. Education and housing inequity are massive problems, along with transit access, that are all interconnected and must be addressed.
I appreciate your recognition that Massachusetts does not end at I495. When Tim Murray was Lt. Gov. there was someone who recognized that in the Administration but it seems like we have lost that. The dynamic part of our economy is surely the East but Springfield, Holyoke and other town west of I495 need attention.