beyond the yellow ribbed caution line, past the guardrails, and deep into the bowels of the Porter Square T-station, Jimmy Byrne and Brian Duffy look for signs of life. like something straight out of a Dickens novel, soot coats the stairs, the railings, everything you can touch. the smell of must and dirt and urine is overpowering. They wind through the empty rooms and cubbyholes, the secret hiding places that even the police officers don’t know about. a pair of shoes here, several scattered blankets there, someone was living here, but not anytime recently.
Duffy and Byrne are part of First Step, the Cambridge and Somerville Program for Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation’s (CASPAR) outreach team for the homeless. They serve on the front lines, going out into the underbelly of the community, and trying to coax those living in the streets to come into 240 Albany St., an innocuous building located on MIT property in Cambridge.
“we get a lot of guys out there who don’t want to come into the shelter, so we try to bring them some sort of food, some sort of clothing, or just build a report with them,” Duffy said as we roamed the streets of Cambridge and Somerville. “We’ve been working out here day in and day out for a really long time. We’re the guys who know where they go, we know where they hide.”
Out of the cold
Colloquially known as Albany Street, or just 240, the shelter serves as one of three harm reduction centers in all of Massachusetts. That means that they are mandated by the state to take only those who are currently using drugs or alcohol, but when the cold weather comes, Albany Street Shelter Program Director Dick Riccio says all bets are off.
“If you can get here, we’ll take you,” Riccio says. “All of the other shelters in Boston or in the surrounding area, once they reach capacity, they close their doors. We’re a little more personable, we pride ourselves in not turning anyone away.”
with a 107-bed capacity, Albany Street serves over 100 homeless residents of Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Watertown and Belmont each night. but when the temperatures drop and the rain turns to ice, they might accommodate up to 125 or 130 people, regardless of where they’re from or whether or not they’re sober.
“when it’s really cold outside, we get into a crisis situation where we just need to get people into the shelter, even if it’s only for one meal or to get warmed up,” said Gwen Pritchard, Director of Development for CASPAR. “It’s something Dick implemented early in the freezing weather process because he’s been doing this long enough to understand the impact of cold weather.”
using chairs, sofas, extra mats and blankets, the Albany Street staff will make sure anyone in need has place to rest their head, even if for only one night.
“We’re most worried about keeping people alive,” Pritchard said. “That’s our mandate: keep people alive so recovery can happen.”
this policy makes Albany Street unique in two regards, first that they are one of the few “wet” shelters in the state, and second that they routinely reinterpret the law along ethical lines, something Riccio said he wouldn’t be able to do without the strong support of the mayor’s offices in both Somerville and Cambridge.
“we work very closely with Cambridge and Somerville police, with the hospitals, the ambulances, and with the Mayors,” Riccio says. “believe me, the first person to call me if for some reason we got shut down would be the mayor of Cambridge. He’s one of our biggest supporters.”
a model of comprehensive care
but not everyone sees the shelter the same way. many, said Riccio, look at it as bane on the community, a way of letting users use and alcoholics drink while taxpayers foot the bill.
“There’re a lot of bad feelings out there,” Riccio added. “They think I’m the reason why these people stay homeless and using, but really I’m not. We’re the last stop before there’s nothing left for a lot of the people we work with. If they couldn’t come here, the only other place they could be is outside in the cold.”
with many of the residents who stay at Albany Street grappling with mental health issues, histories of physical abuse, trauma, and other medical conditions, the road to recovery from alcoholism or drug abuse is never straight or smooth. John, one of the shelter’s “regulars,” described his battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
“I crashed and burned. I was in a ditch in Ball Square, and the police, they picked me up and brought me here,” John said. “my problem is, it’s hard to surrender, to give it all up because once you walk out the door, everything is on, and it’s a lot. I have to deal with my family and my kids and just trying to get by.”
Not to mention a recent report published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that found veterans to be much more likely to be homeless than members of the general population. according to the report published a week ago, over 75,000 veterans were homeless on a single night in January 2009, roughly 16 percent of all homeless adults, though vets make up only 10 percent of the adult population.
many of the residents may spend months or even years living on and off in the shelter, either because they can’t or aren’t willing to get clean and sober. the shelter takes the position of a classic community health approach: meeting each individual in his or her own stage of self-destruction or recovery.
“People used to think that the standard for alcoholics or drug addicts is to get to 100 percent sobriety,” Riccio said. “but through the years public health advocates realized it’s not black and white. If we can get people to come into to the shelter when they are at their worst while they’re using, then we can take it from there and provide other services, but they have to come in first.”
That often means making decisions like not holding Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the shelter or offering any of their reading materials that might turn off a lot of folks.
“They didn’t come here to get sober,” Riccio says, “they came here for something to eat and a place to sleep.”
but, Riccio says, there are programs for those who do want to get sober to get help. Housed at Albany Street is the post-detox program, ACCESS, a 13-bed residency opportunity that allows 10 men and 3 women the opportunity to have a place to stay and a structured environment while they wait to get into a halfway house.
Ty, who would only give his first name for privacy concerns, was a resident of Albany Street for a year before he entered detox and then eventually, ACCESS. it was his first choice for a post-detox program, he says, because he was familiar with the staff and other residents.
“I’ve been on both sides, the wet side and the dry side,” Ty said. “So, I was already familiar with staff, with the director of the ACCESS program, and I felt comfortable with the community on the wet side of the shelter.”
Albany Street’s modest size allows the staff to interact on a personal level with the homeless residents, something that many of the larger Boston shelters are incapable of doing. it also allows the Albany Street staff to work closely with other community-based services, like the Cambridge Health Alliance, which has a full-time clinical nurse practitioner working on site.
in addition to the nurse practitioner, a full-time case manager works with residents individually to help with anything from getting a Mass ID to filling out paperwork for housing and everything in between. Several “case management” beds are reserved for individuals working towards sobriety, who may be employed or actively seeking work. It’s just another piece to a jigsaw puzzle of programs all aimed at providing the level of care and attention each resident needs.
“That was an important piece in designing the shelter and the programs,” said Pritchard. “It’s not just about providing treatment, it’s about providing community-based treatment. It’s not a one-size-fits-all mentality.”
Community support, tax-payer disconnect
while support from Somerville and Cambridge police, hospitals, and government is overwhelming, finding funding each year is a challenge, as with nearly all publicly funded health programs. Financial support comes from private donations and grants from local businesses and foundations, but over 80 percent of the shelter’s funding comes directly from the state Bureau of Substance Abuse Services.
much of BSAS’ funding came from the sales tax on alcohol repealed in the November vote and effective as of Jan. 1st this year. Without the alcohol tax revenue coming in, funding will be much harder to come by, said Pritchard.
“when the voters decided to eliminate sales tax on alcohol, they eliminated the funding that is dedicated to go directly to substance abuse treatment,” Pritchard said. “So the agency will have to find ways to replace that funding and the state will have to re-evaluate next year’s budget.”
Fortunately for the shelter, Governor Patrick has already committed to “level” fund the Albany Street Shelter, meaning they will receive the same amount they received last year, but the budget must now go through both the House and Senate, where Riccio and Pritchard both expect to see cuts.
in the meantime, they will continue to offer outreach, food, clothing and shelter to the homeless of Somerville and Cambridge.
“someday these walls will come down and it’s going to be me and the real world and doing the next best thing,” says Ty. “I deal with the monotony, the stuff that goes on here on a daily basis, and it makes me never want to come back, but thank God this place was here, because I mean, it’s got to get better, it has to.”
