Massachusett’s largest day shelter had operated out of a constructing constructed for a utility firm in 1906 for the previous 40 years, forcing shelter workers to profit from the unconventional area.
Renovating the historic constructing will flip the script, serving to St. Francis Home higher meet the wants of Boston’s surging homeless inhabitants.
“We made do with the space as it had been laid out for an electric company, but our needs are obviously very different,” mentioned Andrew Russell, the shelter’s vp of philanthropy and exterior relations.
“It will be pretty transformative,” Russell mentioned of the multimillion-dollar renovation, all fundraised, whereas talking with the Herald on the shelter’s non permanent area throughout its annual Christmas celebration.
St. Francis Home bought the workplace tower on Boylston Road, previous the Frequent, in 1984 — 4 years after the constructing was added to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations. It served because the headquarters of the Boston Edison Illuminating Firm for many years, till the Fifties.
President and CEO Karen LaFrazia spoke of the challenges that she and fellow shelter staffers confronted as they tried to handle a rise in new visitors final yr that has solely grown over the previous 12 months.
“It is so crowded inside this building,” LaFrazia advised the Herald final Christmas. “In this back room, literally you have to step over people. In the upstairs room, there are no chairs. … In the morning, we open at 6:30, there’s already a line of people waiting to come in.”
The renovation is anticipated to be accomplished by subsequent October, with a whole overhaul of its first 4 flooring, a brand new eating and meeting corridor, a contemporary case administration suite, an up to date clothes distribution middle and an artwork remedy room.
A partnership with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless may also result in a brand new healthcare clinic.
“We will serve people with more dignity in a more trauma-informed space, less chaos, more welcoming,” LaFrazia advised the Herald on Wednesday. “Next year, we will be back across the street in the new space.”
