From the President: Lyndia Downie

From the President

Fifty years ago, our founders realized there was a need for a safe place for those who had no place to go. Homelessness was a growing problem in Boston, and a group of activist priests, known as the Boston Urban Priests, decided something had to be done. Although they had no experience with this issue, they took it on anyway.

That was the beginning of Pine Street Inn, founded in an old building on Pine Street in Chinatown. Two hundred men suffering from alcoholism were provided with “a hot and a cot” – a meal and a place to sleep – for the night. The next morning they were back out on the street, with no long-term plan.

Over the years, the thinking around homelessness and how to solve it has evolved. Today we know that moving men and women off the streets, out of shelter, and into a home with staff to support them in reconnecting with the community, works. We have seen this over and over.

Now we are putting our focus on preventing homelessness in the first place. In our Front-Door Triage program, we literally meet individuals as they show up at our door for the first time, and assess them to determine if we can quickly reconnect them with a family member or friend. The goal is to prevent someone from spending even one night in shelter, and this program has shown great promise.

Many factors can contribute to homelessness: loss of a job, mental illness, addiction, trauma. While we cannot prevent all of these causes, our increased focus on prevention and making shelter stays as brief as possible is having an impact.

With your generous support, we will continue to make progress on this critical issue. On behalf of everyone at Pine Street Inn, please accept my deepest gratitude for all you do.

- Lyndia Downie, President and Executive Director of Pine Street Inn