A Massachusetts housing lawyer says residents’ fears over migrants being housed in a proposed household homeless shelter in a Cape Cod city, triggering a request for opposition from a regional board, are unfounded.
The Cape Cod Fee has discovered the mission, which seems to be to convert a former nursing dwelling right into a “family transitional shelter” in Dennis would haven’t any regional influence, denying a discretionary referral from the cities of Dennis and Harwich.
Housing Help Corp., a regional-based nonprofit, needs to morph its three household shelters in Hyannis, Bourne and Falmouth, into one central area on the former 128-bed nursing dwelling in South Dennis.
Because the migrant disaster continues to take a toll on the Bay State, residents and officers from Harwich, Dennis and different Cape Cod cities fear that the proposed facility wouldn’t deal with the housing wants of native residents.
Mission proponents forward of Thursday’s rejection from the Cape Cod Fee had insisted the shelter would home as much as 79 homeless households, or 177 people, largely single moms with infants and younger youngsters.
Dennis Planning Board Chairman Paul McCormick Jr., throughout a Might 20 listening to, referred to as placing in a situation that the usage of the shelter be for less than U.S. residents a “fair suggestion.”
Within the eyes of Housing Help’s lawyer Robert Brennan, that “fear” was solely unfounded.
“It was not about a square foot of this project,” he instructed the Cape Cod Fee. “It was about a fear of who these folks were going to be. These folks are us, these folks are Cape Codders, they’re working Cape Codders.”
Brennan highlighted how Gov. Maura Healey simply issued new shelter guidelines to prioritize Massachusetts veterans and households with newborns.
Healey introduced final Tuesday that, starting August 1, the state will prioritize housing Massachusetts households who’re homeless following a no-fault eviction, or on account of a pure catastrophe, or any household that features a veteran.
The proposed household homeless facility on Cape Cod could be funded by the state’s emergency housing help program, which runs shelters which were used to accommodate migrants.
“It is not about bringing in migrants,” Brennan mentioned of the proposal’s intention. “This is about serving the needs of our own people, our Cape Codders. And that was missed, and it was entirely misdirected at the Planning Board hearing. Those are the pressures that drove this referral here.”
The Dennis Planning Board additionally voted in Might to attraction the city constructing commissioner’s dedication that the mission suits the standards of the Dover Modification — a state statute that exempts agricultural, non secular, and academic makes use of from sure zoning restrictions.
Homeless households and people would obtain classes on the facility on “life skills,” to get them everlasting housing sooner or later, mission leaders had mentioned. Occupancy could be phased in over time, about three to 4 months earlier than the power is at full capability.
Tenants could be required to take classes on monetary administration, household planning, MassHealth enrollment, housing search, parenting, cooking, and different academic interventions, mission lawyer Peter Freeman mentioned in April.
Households would dwell in 272-square-foot rooms that includes a half-bathroom, fridge and microwave, and so they’d share a communal kitchen and bathe. The tight areas would lack televisions and chairs.
Common stays are about 9 months to a yr, mission leaders have mentioned.
Although the 57,000-square-foot facility is positioned in South Dennis, there’s just one method to enter and depart the property, through a highway off of Fundamental Road in Harwich.
Dennis City Planner Paul Foley raised that concern to the Cape Cod Fee and people round how the power is positioned in a Board of Health environmentally delicate space and subsequent to wetlands.
“We believe this will generate more traffic, not less,” Foley mentioned. “The nursing home residents didn’t go anywhere, they stayed there. With this, you’ll have more residents, they’ll all be coming and going.”
A site visitors evaluation discovered there could be no regional influence, mentioned Steven Tupper, deputy director of the Cape Cod Fee.
“We need to have shelter for our homeless people as housing becomes more and more difficult,” mentioned Peter Okun, a fee board member from Provincetown. “We need to get people off the street, we need to teach them how to fend for themselves.”
A overwhelming majority of Harwich residents had “no knowledge” of the proposal, with the one means of realizing about it’s by listening to a neighborhood radio station or being a member of the Cape Cod Involved Residents activist group, resident Martha Taylor instructed the Herald in Might.
Harwich City Administrator Joe Powers echoed that to the Cape Cod Fee.
“We are looking for an opportunity to be spoken with and heard from,” he mentioned. “I am mystified as to how anyone can come to any conclusions on the impact to the town of Harwich without formally and officially speaking to the town of Harwich.”
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