Homeless advocates try opening more doors

By Brenda J. Buote, Globe Staff, 10/17/2002

As a child growing up in a middle-class neighborhood in Belmont, Jessica Marrocco was silent witness to violent quarrels. As an adult, she fell into her own abusive relationships. Time passed and the seasons changed, but the abuse only escalated. Finally, fearing for her life, Marrocco fled to the safety of a women's shelter.

When she left her abusive boyfriend three years ago, she took her toddler son, Rosario, and the clothes on her back. Forced into hiding, Marrocco abandoned everything familiar. Gone were friends, family and her classes at Emerson College - and with those classes, her hopes for a future in visual arts. In their place was a room at a Newburyport homeless shelter, cramped quarters she and Rosario called home for nearly two years.

Today, she and her 5-year-old boy live in a two-bedroom apartment in Hull. After seeing Rosario off to school, Marrocco drives into Boston to a job at the One Family Campaign, where she is working to change statewide policy and end family homelessness.

On Friday, Oct. 25, she and hundreds of other activists from Lynn to Gloucester, Malden to Haverhill, are expected to gather in Lynn at North Shore Community College for a forum on the state's homelessness crisis.

''Homelessness: It Ain't Gonna be Solved with a Clothing Drive'' will kick off at 10 a.m. in the college gymnasium. The goal of the forum is to show college students how they can get involved in the campaign to end homelessness in the Commonwealth by 2005. The event is being sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

''Our goal is to let people know we're not just thinking about food and clothing for the homeless, but all the other things people need to make a living, pay for an apartment and be a good parent,'' said Marrocco, who credits her escape from homelessness to the One Family Scholarship program.

Through the program, she was able to get financial aid for things that a Pell Grant simply doesn't cover - the rent, day care and car repairs. She graduated from Emerson College in May. Three other women have also graduated from area colleges with aid from the program, and 35 scholars are now finishing their studies.

''If we are going to end homelessness in Massachusetts, we have to shift the state's focus from managing this crisis to ending it,'' said Nancy Schwoyer, executive director of Wellspring House in Gloucester, a community organization for low-income families. The nonprofit has been involved with the One Family Campaign since 2000, helping women like Marrocco find the resources they need to move out of shelters and into jobs that pay a living wage.

On average, welfare recipients who work in Massachusetts earn $8.94 an hour, or about $18,000 a year, if they can find full-time work at that wage. A small, two-bedroom apartment is likely to eat up about $13,000 of that income. Add the expenses of daily life - transportation to and from work, day care and groceries - and it's easy to see why emergency food providers surveyed recently by Project Bread in Boston reported a 90 percent increase in demand for their services around the state, and most requests came from young families.

''Homeless families are the whipping boys of the declining economy,'' said Sue Beaton, coordinator of the One Family Campaign. She noted the Legislature's recent cuts in social services, the deepest to be made in a decade. ''My hope and dream is that the next governor will scan the state's many agencies, gather together those resources that are currently helping our neediest families, and appoint a commission to address this issue in a way that helps those most vulnerable.''

Across the Commonwealth, there are 564 homeless families in 45 hotels and motels, up from 334 families a year ago. The state places families in those facilities when its 75 shelters, which accommodate 1,034 families, are full, said Dick Powers, spokesman for the state Department of Transitional Assistance. He said the increase reflects the shortage of affordable housing and a jobs.

There are more than a dozen shelters on the North Shore, in Gloucester, Peabody, Lynn, Malden, Salem, Newburyport and Amesbury. Filled to capacity, many of those shelters have resorted to using any space available for beds - hallways, cafeterias and recreation rooms. But when that space runs out, they are forced to close the door on homeless men, women, even children. ''Every day, we have to turn people away,'' said Ana Reid, director of the Inn Between, a Peabody shelter that accommodates six families. ''It's getting worse. We're getting more families calling in for help. And many of them don't qualify for emergency assistance.''

As the number of homeless families across the state reaches unprecedented levels, hundreds of families who were eligible for assistance just a few months ago are no longer eligible. A new law reduces the income families can earn to qualify for a room at a state shelter. Today, a family of three can only earn up to $15,024 a year - instead of $19,536, as they could since 2000.

Beaton and others blame the Department of Transitional Assistance for not doing more to help homeless families. Instead of putting families in motels - which often costs more than $110 a night and forces families to live in a single room, without a stove, refrigerator or washing machine - Beaton said the state could use that money to rent apartments.

Powers said the state now rents about 300 apartments for homeless families. Fearing the families will stay in state-sponsored apartments rather than search for their own, the Swift administration has little desire to add to the number.

Homeless advocates contend that the solution to homelessness won't be found in state-sponsored apartments. The answer, they say, is to provide training and education, and increasing the affordable housing.

''The best way to help people is to teach them how to help themselves,'' said Nancy Sanchez, director of the Transition to Work program at North Shore Community Action Program, a Peabody-based agency that advocates for the poor and provides training and other services to about 10,000 people each year - people like Marrocco, who has participated in many NSCAP programs.

Today, Marrocco is saving for a down payment on her first home. She earns $13 an hour, and smiles when she tells people about her work as coordinator of a signature drive for the One Family Campaign. Her goal is to collect at least 25,000 signatures by the Nov. 5 election, ''as a symbol of how many people are behind changing the way our state deals with the homeless situation.''

To date, Marrocco has gathered some 7,000 signatures. To add your name to the list, visit the One Family Campaign Web site at www.onefamilycampaign.org or attend the homelessness forum at North Shore Community College, 300 Broad St. in Lynn. For more information, call Gerard Sullivan: 781-593-6722, ext. 5457.