Moving Forward
to Housing, Health and Hope
Andre moves into his new apartment
Moving forward, no going back. We started our 50th anniversary year with a bold vision for scaling up our housing and solving homelessness in Boston. Marking this anniversary was an important milestone, a chance to acknowledge how far we had come from our early days of simply providing a bed for the night. Then Covid-19 hit hard. We knew we had to quickly pivot our operations to keep people safe and save lives, and our heroic frontline staff rose to the occasion. Working with the City of Boston and other partners, we were able to de-crowd our shelters, moving many of the most medically vulnerable to other locations to provide social distancing. The experiences of these past months have made it clearer than ever that there is no going back to overcrowded shelters. Even during the worst of this pandemic, we knew we had to keep moving forward. Now more than ever, housing is an imperative. With one of the lowest street homelessness rates in the country, we were heading in the right direction. At the same time, we realized that we still had a ways to go. We opened a new permanent housing location for 52 residents to “age in place,” and proposed new housing with 140 units, our largest housing project to date, with additional plans in the pipeline.
Michelle outside her new apartment
Key Moments: The Campaign for Pine Street Inn At a celebration to mark Pine Street Inn’s 50th anniversary, Board member and Campaign Chair Laura Sen announced the Key Moments Campaign, an effort to raise $50 million for a range of initiatives aimed at ending homelessness in Boston. Through lessons learned from analysis and experience, our work has been increasingly focused on housing: creating, maintaining and sustaining housing solutions for the most vulnerable men and women in our community. The work funded through the Key Moments Campaign includes helping to create new units of supportive housing; maintaining our existing buildings; scaling up pilot programs that are helping to prevent homelessness; and establishing permanent funding for future housing costs. Of particular note in 2020, the Boston’s Way Home Fund—an initiative within the campaign—reached its goal of $10 million more than two years ahead of schedule. The Fund, launched in partnership with the City of Boston, is helping to fund the development of new units of housing for chronically homeless adults. We are profoundly grateful to those whose have supported the Key Moments Campaign, our mission, and our vision for change. As we strive to complete this effort in 2021, we will invite all those who share our goals to help. In the meantime, thank you to those who have advanced the goal of housing for all. For more information on the campaign, please contact Alicia Ianiere, Chief Advancement Officer, at Alicia.Ianiere@pinestreetinn.org. President and Executive Director Lyndia Downie shares Pine Street’s vision for the future with guests at the Key Moments 50th anniversary celebration event.
Pine Street Pivots Starting in March, the Covid-19 pandemic hit hard. Without a doubt, it has taken a toll on all of us. However, the men and women supported by Pine Street Inn are particularly vulnerable. Many of our guests and tenants are older with underlying medical conditions, which puts them at a higher risk. This is especially true for those in our shelters who do not have the option to self-quarantine or stay at home.
Testing station outside the Men’s Inn
As the pandemic took hold, we quickly pivoted our operations to help ensure the health and safety of our community. We added additional handwashing stations, increased sanitation procedures, extended meal times for guests to eat in smaller groups, and placed plastic barriers between beds in our sleeping areas.
Dining room set up to accommodate social distancing
Tents were set up outside our shelters for screening, we began universal testing in our shelters and distributed masks to our staff and guests. We worked closely with government partners to identify isolation and treatment sites for the homeless community. As part of a public-private initiative, we were able to access and fully staff a Suffolk University dormitory where we moved 200 guests to enhance social distancing and reduce crowding across our shelters.
Pine Street staff at a Suffolk University dormitory
Later, we moved guests from the dormitory to a hotel leased for the next year, to provide a “bridge” to housing — with a goal to move each of these guests to housing within the year. While our shelter guests were hardest hit by this emergency, we also helped our housing tenants by providing gift cards to help them stock up on food and medications and ensuring access to masks and other essential supplies. Room in a leased hotel keeps guests safe
Staff Steps Up Pine Street’s frontline staff have worked tirelessly to protect our guests and tenants, implementing new procedures and protocols and demonstrating an extraordinary commitment. Early on, many worked seven days a week. Some did not see their own families for weeks at a time. To continue protecting the health and safety of our guests, staff and the larger community, we must reimagine how we provide these emergency services. We know that we cannot go back to overcrowded shelter. What is more clear than ever is that supportive housing is the best path out of homelessness and essential for the health and safety of our community.
“We’re glad to be part of the work to keep the guests safe, because if not us, then who? I tell our staff every day – everyone here is important. We’re fighting a virus that we cannot see and that we know is all over the place. It’s become personal now, that we do everything possible to make sure the building is clean. People are depending on us to keep them safe.” - Emilio, Housekeeping Administrator Veterans’ outreach team
Kevin
I grew up in Dorchester, where I lived with my mother. My dad left when I was young and wasn’t really in my life when I was growing up. When my mother passed away a few years ago, things got tough for me, and I lost my housing. I’m the youngest of five siblings, but I didn’t want to impose on family or friends. They all have their own lives and families. They didn’t have extra space, so that wasn’t really an option for me. I had never been to a shelter before, although I had heard about Pine Street and it felt like the only option for me. At that time I was sad from the loss of my mom, and the reality of my situation. I got a case manager who was kind and helped me figure out my next steps. While I’ve stayed at Pine Street, I have been able to save some money and bought a computer. From there, I signed up with a temporary job placement company, all while still sleeping at the shelter. They matched me with a job doing patient administration at Tufts Medical Center. Right now I’m in the process of getting my own place. I’m in one of Pine Street’s shelters in Dorchester, where I can come and go, and that is giving me the opportunity to learn to be independent. Once I get my own place I’ll be able to cook for myself. It will be the first time I’ll be living on my own without my mother. I can’t speak highly enough of the people who helped me at Pine Street. They saved my life! Now I’m excited to move on to independence and young adulthood.
Joyce I came to Boston many years ago to attend school. I went to Northeastern University for elementary education and liked Boston, so I stayed. My passion was teaching and I taught for a while, but there weren’t very many teaching jobs available back then. I needed to work and ended up getting a job working in a restaurant and stayed with that for many years. Along the way, I got married and had two children, and then divorced. Like so many kids, mine begged for a dog, so we got Coco. As time went on, people in my neighborhood asked me to watch their dogs, and I realized that I could turn that into work, which allowed me to leave the restaurant. I started walking dogs and training them in my back yard, full time. Being able to create my own business was a great feeling. As time went by, my health declined and I couldn’t work anymore. My kids took over my business, and unfortunately, we had a falling out. I couldn’t afford my rent, lost my housing, and ended up at the Women’s Inn shelter. As my health started to improve, I enrolled in Pine Street’s iCater job training program and worked in the kitchen the whole time I was at the shelter. Finally, three years ago, my case manager helped me find housing and I’ve been here ever since. I’m so thankful to have my apartment, especially with everything going on with Covid. I have everything I need here, and I don’t have to leave except to get groceries. I have a friend in the building and we cook every day. Being quarantined hasn’t changed my routine because I know I have the security of being able to stay safe inside my apartment.
Our Financial Outlook For fiscal year ending June 30, 2020
Our Impact in the Community CHELSEA C CHARLESTOWN
ALLSTON/ BRIGHTON
REVENUE Government Funding............................ Funding 57%.......$40,271,776 $40,271,776 Gifts & Grants.......................................... Grants 24% .........16,990,889 16,990,889 In-Kind Donations.................................... Donations 6% ...........4,614,607 4,614,607 Rental Income............................................. Income 6% ..........4,240,999 4,240,999 Social Enterprise........................................ 4% ...........2,625,735 2,625,735 Investment Income................................... Income 2% ................1,313,118 1,313,118 Other Revenue............................................. Revenue 1% ................881,816 881,816 TOTAL REVENUE
$70,938,940
DOWNTOWN SOUTH BOSTON SOUTH END
BROOKLINE
JAMAICA PLAIN
ROXBURY
DORCHESTER
PROGRAM SERVICES Emergency Services Services.............................. 38% .......$25,107,692 $25,107,692 Permanent Housing Housing............................... 30%........20,056,422 20,056,422 Housing Placement Placement................................... 9%............5,943,431 5,943,431 Workforce Development Development........................ 5% ...........3,558,479 3,558,479 Substance Use Treatment Treatment...................... 2% .............1,319,784 1,319,784 Administration Administration........................................... 10% ............6,815,593 6,815,593 Fundraising & Volunteer Services Services.......6% ............4,138,270 4,138,270 TOTAL EXPENDITURES
$66,939,671
FY20 expenses increased significantly over budgeted operations due to Covid-19 costs, especially for staffing and facilities. Our FY21 budget has a projected deficit for continuing expenses related to Covid-19 that will be covered by the surplus from FY20 and other resources if needed.
444 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118 617.892.9170 | www.pinestreetinn.org