The homeless are a diverse group facing many difficulties, among them: an inability to find affordable housing, mental and physical illness, alcohol and substance abuse problems, the effects of domestic instability, limited education, a lack of job skills, and unemployment. Often, homeless people have lost contact with any network of personal support they may have had in the past.
The Boston Public Health Commission’s Homeless Services Bureau is dedicated to addressing these difficulties. Our overriding objective is to preserve the dignity and respect of the people we serve by providing a welcome respite, a warm bed, hot meals, transportation, quality health care, and social services to those in need.
Homeless Services provides more than 800 emergency shelter and transitional beds throughout the city of Boston, offering a broad range of critical and rehabilitative services to homeless men and women each and every day.
Two emergency shelters, the Long Island Shelter and Woods Mullen Shelter, are the cornerstones. They offer a warm bed, meals, clothing, healthcare, and access to programs and services designed to assist homeless individuals in transitioning out of the shelter and into personal housing and employment.
In addition to our emergency shelters, the Homeless Services Bureau provides several innovative transitional housing facilities and programs, housing nearly 200 more men and women as they transition back into the community. Some of the facilities and programs are geared toward individuals with histories of substance abuse; another is for those who are HIV positive.
Finally, Homeless Services offers a variety of ambitious programs that provide homeless individuals with adult education and job training designed to help them break the cycle of homelessness and get back to living independently.
The Friends of Boston’s Homeless is a private non-profit corporation that serves as a private sector partner to the Homeless Services Bureau in developing, funding, and operating a wide variety of these programs and is committed to the ongoing development of beyond shelter and housing opportunities for the homeless.