By Dan Murphy
The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) Homelessness Task Force held its fifth informational forum on homelessness on Wednesday, Oct. 9, at the Copley Branch of the Boston Public Library.
This year’s forum, called ‘Ensuring Everyone has a Home in Massachusetts: Bold City and State Initiatives,’ was moderated by Jenifer McKim, interim investigations editor at GBH. Panelists included Kenzie Bok, administrator of the Boston Housing Authority who previously served as District 8 city councilor from 2020 to 2023; Josh Cuddy, director for interagency coordination for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities; and Dr. Howard K. Koh, the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Kennedy School, as well as formerly the 14th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2009 to 2014.
“Every major city and many rural communities as well are affected [by homelessness],” said Dr. Koh, who said that the matter has been even further complicated by a U.S. Supreme Court that allows cities to ban people from sleeping and camping in public places. “This is affecting all of us, everywhere – it’s in the news all the time.”
Dr. Koh said he first became aware of the severity of homelessness on a local level during his tenure from 1997 to 2003 as commissioner of public health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In January of 1999 during what Dr. Koh described as a particularly “harsh” winter, 13 unhoused individuals succumbed to the elements on the streets of Boston.
“I’ve been haunted by this and asked why there’s not a more coordinated, urgent response to this homelessness crisis,” he said.
Affordable housing, meanwhile, currently presents a quandary, which Dr. Koh likened to a game of musical chairs with not enough housing stock available to fulfill the current demand.
During his presentation, Cuddy pointed to some of the major contributing factors that can often result in homelessness, including the disproportionate cost of housing in relation to an individual’s income; income inequality between individuals; ‘geographic diversity’; and rising construction costs.
Massachusetts has also seen a significant increase in older adults experiencing homelessness, many for the first time, said Cuddy.
At the podium, Bok underscored a BHA tagline declaring: ‘A home for every story.’
While the BHA, which currently owns and/or oversees approximately 10,000 rental units of public housing citywide and houses more than 17,000 people under the public housing program, is “one step removed” from the issue of homelessness, the city agency is still a “vital part of the conversation,” according to Bok.
“People only get out of homelessness if they have a home,” she said. “It could be any of us.”
Bok pointed to 140 Clarendon – a redevelopment project at the YWCA building at the intersection of Clarendon and Stuart streets that resulted in 210 affordable apartments, including 111 supportive housing apartments designated for people exiting homelessness and provided by The Pine Street Inn – as a successful partnership project underwritten in part by the BHA’s voucher program.
Bok noted that NABB led the process for this collaborative project, bringing together various stakeholders in an effort to combat homelessness at the local level.