By Kay Lazar, 11/20/2003

A long-awaited report on mending the state's fractured emergency shelter system will recommend no new funding, but will suggest a "bold'' restructuring of the $250 million per year Massachusetts spends to house its homeless.

Instead of a system that pours nearly half of the money into shelter beds, the report to be unveiled today urges a new approach that would shift those funds to transitional housing.

"The state's historic focus on emergency shelter is an ineffective way to manage these resources and services,'' states the report from the Governor's Executive Commission for Homeless Services Coordination.

The commission was created by Gov. Mitt Romney last February after several homeless people died on the streets in bitter cold. With about 1,600 families with children statewide in emergency shelters on any given night - a third in costly motels because shelters are overflowing - Romney said the solution was not to build more affordable housing.

While the new report calls for more affordable housing for the poorest of the poor - individuals making about $17,000 a year - the sweeping plan offers few specifics on that recommendation and several others.

"The devil is in the details,'' said Lyndia Downie, executive director of the Pine Street Inn.

Downie and other homeless advocates yesterday said they had not yet seen the report, but they applauded the plan's overall push to shift funds from shelters to more permanent housing.

Still, they said, given the likelihood of no new state funding, it might be difficult to accomplish.

"The hard question that has to be asked is, how are we going to do that, to still maintain an emergency response for people in crisis and at the same time keep moving forward?'' said Joe Finn, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance.

John Wagner, commissioner of the state's Department of Transitional Assistance and a co-author of the report, said his agency sorely needs authority to try something new. State lawmakers would have to approve a plan that would allow the DTA to shift shelter funding to more permanent housing.

"Right now it's emergency shelter and nothing else afterward,'' Wagner said. "The state is spending $3,000 a month, on average, to put a family of three in a hotel or shelter when we could spend that money on something else that would house that family in a better situation.''

The report also called for better coordination of the state's chaotic "patchwork'' of homeless services, and suggested charging homeless people a "nominal'' fee for staying in a shelter to encourage "individual responsibility.''

That met with decidedly mixed reactions on the street.

"That's ridiculous. People don't have the money,'' said Russell, a 42-year-old homeless man in Pine Street's job training program, who asked that his last name not be used.

But Pine Street resident Nadine Harrison, 49, said several of the report's recommendations - including better coordination of services and a nominal shelter fee for users - made sense.

"For as much money that is spent (in the system) a lot of it is wasted,'' she said.

"If (shelter residents) have some income, I think it would be nice to give back,'' she said. "Nothing is free. A lot of people take too much for granted.''

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