City seeks end to homelessness



By John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003

Burlington wants to end homelessness in the city in 10 years.

A draft city plan released Thursday urges building more affordable housing, a "livable wage," a housing "safety net" for those unable to work and social help for people with substance abuse or mental health problems.

The plan, "Moving Toward Home," was compiled by the city's Community and Economic Development Office.

State and federal help is necessary for the plan to work, the study acknowledges.

John O'Brien, the Boston-based regional coordinator of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, had high praise for the Burlington plan, the first such mayor-endorsed strategy, he said, from any city in New England and the first from a "small city" in the country.

"Burlington sets a national standard with this plan," O'Brien said. "It hits the nail on the head."

Mayor Peter Clavelle, calling homelessness "a national disgrace," said the number of homeless, both individuals and families, is increasing locally as well as nationally.

He said that though the city has traditionally paid close attention to homelessness and related issues, "we continue to have people who are desperate in their need for affordable housing."

The draft plan, prepared by the development office's Margaret Bozik, underlined the extent of the problem, estimating there are more than 2,000 homeless in the Burlington area, another 100-200 homeless by choice and sleeping wherever they can, and an uncountable number of people "doubled up," as Bozik puts it, living with friends or acquaintances but without a home of their own.

There also has been a rise in the number of homeless families, with 330 families looking for shelter in 2000 through COTS, the Committee on Temporary Shelter, compared to 73 families in 1995. Over the past year, 142 families looking for shelter at COTS were turned away or put on a wait list, the report said.

Many of those families, Clavelle said, are headed by mothers trying to escape domestic violence or associated with substance abuse or mental illness. Many of those single-parent families are unable to afford a place to live, he said, particularly given Burlington's tight and expensive rental market.

He also acknowledged that even local solutions to homelessness depend to a large extent on state and federal funding, and termed the Burlington approach "ambitious," given the "lack of political will" nationally to address the problem.

The draft report will be made final early next year.
Contact John Briggs at 660-1863 or jbriggs@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com