Somerville Homeless Coalition, Inc.

Our Vision is to help people gain access to permanent housing that is safe and affordable; utilize our emergency shelters as a triage, assessment and short-term stabilization resource; utilize our case management services and prevention resources to help people live as independently as possible and minimize the need for costly emergency systems of care; and to build alliances and collaborate with organizations that provide affordable housing.

Our Values include treating all people with dignity and respect, always with the understanding that we are part of one community; taking on a leadership role in the community when it comes to advocating for homeless people and those at-risk; and incorporating innovative approaches and best practices in the implementation of our programs and services.

Guided by our mission, vision and values, after 35 years of providing critical services, resources and housing, SHC has far outgrown its original mandate and now serves a much broader constituency with a much wider array of support. As such, the Somerville Homeless Coalition (SHC) has initiated a rebranding process. The goal of this initiative is to accurately define the full scope and nature of SHC’s work. In the middle 1980’s, at its inception, the agency was only serving Somerville residents and sheltering homeless individuals. Today, we assist many beyond our original city limits, we help hundreds of families each year, we have a food service program that benefits thousands, and we provide an array of housing resources, such as permanent supportive housing and homelessness prevention assistance. Another goal of SHC is to continually evolve as an agency by pivoting and responding to the ever changing internal and external environments. As best practices change and evolve, such as the models of housing-first, harm reduction, and motivational interviewing, SHC continues to adopt those concepts and implement them in our everyday practices.

The Somerville Homeless Coalition is committed to preventing people from falling into homelessness, providing supportive services to clients living on the street, in a shelter, or in permanent housing to ensure their stability, and making sure nobody goes hungry in our community.

SHC advances its mission by: 1) preventing people from becoming homeless in providing financial assistance targeting rent and utility arrears; 2) providing support and hands-on assistance to help homeless people address their unique obstacles; and, conducting comprehensive housing search leading to affordable housing; 3) providing emergency shelter for families and individuals who have no other place to live and reaching out to and engaging with those living on our streets; 4) housing and providing critical stabilization support to disabled homeless families and adults, focusing on those that are chronically homeless as well as the newly homeless vulnerable young adult population; and, 5) operating emergency food pantries, delivering groceries to the homebound, and serving community meals to those isolated within our communities.

Each year our supportive housing program houses and stabilizes approximately 175 formerly homeless people. Our housing search team places over 25 households into permanent housing each year. Our shelters, always at 100% capacity, care for 80 to 100 people annually. Over the past year, our food pantry, Project SOUP, experienced a 20% increase in visits and distributed over 21,000 bags filled with nutritionally balanced food items. Most striking is that Project SOUP, with the recent onset of COVID-19, was inundated in March 2020 with a 90% increase; in the months since March, Project SOUP went from an average of 20 home deliveries per month, to nearly 200 monthly home deliveries. As the recession deepens and the economy stalls, the demand will only climb higher and higher. As other pantries around us shutter their doors, we have committed to staying open.

In our community, we have also created coalitions among various organizations as a way to increase awareness of the ongoing issue of lack of access to affordable housing and nutritional food. By educating our community on the unmet needs of our clients, we hope to continue developing relationships with individuals, businesses, and foundations for private donations that allow us to provide our robust services and support to our clients.

Much of SHC’s ability to accomplish its goals lies in having a robust team that’s able to effectively meet the needs of our clients and community. We are a team of about 30 people, including eight full-time senior staff members who oversee everything from Development to our various Programs and Shelter; we have three full-time and one part time Supportive Housing staff; two full-time Coordinated Entry staff; two full-time Eviction Prevention staff; a full-time Outreach Coordinator working with clients living on the street; and a team of 13 among our shelter services. As the needs for our services continue to increase, by approximately 15-20% each year, we are also growing our staff, so as to ensure that we are never turning anyone away.

As a team, we are always looking for ways to build coalitions in our community that help us work on systemic change and justice for all of our clients. The Somerville Food Security Coalition (SFSC) brings providers together as a way to collaborate and raise awareness about vital food services and resources available in the community, particularly important during the COVID pandemic. The group works to maximize the impact of existing food security efforts and create efficiencies to bring local residents healthy, accessible, affordable, and a variety of culturally appropriate food items. The Somerville Homeless Coalition (SHC), a co-founder of the group over a decade ago, continues to play an important role in these efforts.

Additionally, we are active locally, heading up the Somerville/Arlington Continuum of Care, and partnering with the Somerville Community Corporation on housing and supporting chronically homeless families and individuals. We also work closely with the City of Somerville Office of Housing Stability and the Community Action Agency of Somerville on preventing homelessness. Regionally, we collaborate with Homes for Families, the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance and the Coalition for Homeless individuals. Lastly, federally, we work with our legislators to craft and support legislation to expand the safety net and create the housing that can end homelessness.

SHC has been fighting homelessness, eviction and food insecurity for 35 years, and each year we have increased our services. In 2019, we served a total of 3,871 individuals across our programs. In 2019 we prevented 71 evictions through our Rapid Response program. With the onset of the COVID19 pandemic, we saw a 91% increase in the needs for our services. Despite the shutdowns across the nation, we kept our doors open, increasing our shelter services to operating 24 hours a day. We have continued to provide PPE to our clients and those living on the streets who may otherwise not have access. We know we will continue to see an increase in the demands for our services, and we are working to expand our services so as to be able to meet that demand head on.

Our team is committed to supporting our clients and community and working towards equal access to affordable housing and nutritious food for everyone. As an agency we work every day to address both the basic needs and to find sustainable, permanent solutions to the problems our clients face. We will continue to advocate for the vulnerable and marginalized in our community. By seeking partners from across a variety of industries who are willing to advocate for us, and collaborating with similar organizations, we create a robust coalition in fighting homelessness, eviction and food insecurity. Together, we can succeed in finding everyone a home.