Anyone in this city, or anywhere in the world has to have empathy for those who are homeless or as has become a more common term unhoused, two words that mean the same thing. For some reason homeless has become less acceptable in modern lexicon, replace by unhoused, which is somehow seen as less offensive to those who have no home to call their own. Language always evolves as we used to call homeless people hobos(migratory worker), tramps(wanderer not looking for work), and bums(homeless idler). Our homeless population today includes some who fit all of the old-school terms, and also the current description of unhoused. We need to acknowledge this openly regardless of hurting someone’s feelings. Our city is in crisis because it is full of real people who are in real crisis. How do we solve this for us, and for those that need help? It’s not as easy as 1, 2, 3, or simple as Do-Re-Me, no matter what some may claim.
Lifebridge came along more than 20 years ago, emerging from what some of us remember as the Crombie Street Shelter, which actually began some years earlier on the upper floor of the old Bowman’s Bakery building on Essex Street. I sat on the Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness with Reverend Linda Reilly of the Crombie Street Church, Andrew Oliver, and then SPD Lieutenant, now City Councillor Conrad Prosnieweski. The intentions of all involved were sincere at the time. To provide safe, dependable emergency shelter and services to those that needed it. There were many discussions with city government and the neighborhood over who would be served and how and when they would be served. Much of this discussion was over the size and scope of the mission, and the impacts on the neighborhood. It is fair to say that the current proposal far exceeds the original in both size and scope. It’s also fair to say that the proposal goes far beyond what the founders of the Seeds of Hope concept had in mind.
We have always had people in Salem who faced challenges that put them on the street. Over the years that population has grown. I won’t pose as an expert of socio-economics and homelessness, there are plenty of others who claim that title. We know that poverty, lack of affordable housing, low wages, and economic inequality contribute greatly to this issue. But we also have to acknowledge that mental health issues and addiction also contribute to the current epidemic. Over the last twenty years since the Crombie Street moved and became Lifebridge, even more so over the last 10 years we have seen the homeless population in Salem grow exponentially. Is this because the Lifebridge mission has grown, or has the mission grown because the homeless population has grown? This is the eternal “chicken or the egg” question.
My thought here is simply that Lifebridge is currently trying to do too much and as a result they are asking Salem to do too much. As you drive or walk by their campus today, inclusive of their recreation campus that we call Riley Plaza take a close look at what you see. Are the people gathered there really being served properly?
This proposal is to much and too big for a city the size of Salem and will just continue to overwhelm a Salem neighborhood that deserves better. The residents and clients of Lifebridge also deserve better. Warehousing humans in crisis in a single location just serves to isolate them more from the society that we want to bring them back into. This project will NOT do that at all. We need to do better. We can do better.
This 40R overlay is not what we need. It will solve nothing. But it will expand the situation here in Salem. These smart growth overlays are simply lazy government, foisted on communities by a state government that long ago abrogated their own responsibility to provide true comfortable, affordable housing. Why bother with a City-Wide master Plan if you can just disregard it in order to get funding that you wouldn’t get otherwise. Combine the 40R with this current preference for private/public affordable development and what we are doing is experimenting in order to save money at the expense of the people we want to help. The Beacon property project at Lee Fort Terrace is the other part of this great experiment.
This Lifebridge proposal is wrong for the neighborhood and wrong for Salem. It’s time for a truly regional approach. A single city councillor can’t make that happen. But a single city council as a whole can begin to insist that such a conversation take place in every community north of Boston. Then, only then can pressure be put on our state government provide the engine for a true, honest, transparent look at homeless/unhoused situation and find a way to make it fair to all involved, those in need, and those who live in the impacted neighborhoods and communities.
