When it’s your job to think, talk and write about housing every day, you quickly learn that everyone in the county has something to say on the subject.
Because it affects everyone.
I’ve met baristas who can barely make rent. I’ve spoken with older renters whose homes have switched hands three, four, five times, the rent increasing with each new landlord. I’ve listened to local business owners tell me they are constantly understaffed because prospective employees can’t afford to live within driving distance.
Two weeks ago, I asked Eileen Peltier, the CEO of regional housing nonprofit Hearthway, about these challenges facing Berkshire County residents.
She mentioned everything from the county’s lack of public transportation to its old housing stock to continuing economic and housing disparities from generations of redlining and housing discrimination.
This week, I sat down with Erin Forbush, the director of shelter and housing for ServiceNet, a nonprofit mental health and human services agency that manages shelters in Pittsfield.
Housing unaffordability is incredibly difficult to navigate. Sometimes that precarity can be resolved; other times the resources that could help people stay in their homes aren’t accessible — or there at all.
In the past year, the county’s homelessness yearly point-in-time count rose from 278 to 397 people. The greatest increase was among families.
Here are Forbush’s thoughts on how the county’s housing unaffordability contributes to the rising number of families and individuals seeking shelter, and what resources ServiceNet has to offer.
THE EAGLE: Can you share a little about yourself and your own housing story?
FORBUSH: I have worked in the human service, social service field for my entire adult career, primarily starting off in mental health and also working in substance abuse resources and programming. And then [in 2013, ServiceNet] was lucky enough to be offered the contract for shelters in Pittsfield. I’d already been working in Pittsfield for a long time. Initially it was a challenge for me to step into that role, but I will tell you it’s the best space to be if you want to do something that isn’t the same every day. There’s never a day that gets repeated in my career.
It really then became a platform for me to really take on the advocacy role for folks who are often not asked their thoughts, not able to give their thoughts or feel not heard … I’m certainly an employee of ServiceNet, but I also act as an advocate to the best of my ability, taking the information that I hear and see every day.
And then you ask about my own housing. Nothing equates to the folks that I work with. I’ll never try to guess that I know exactly what they’re going through. But I’ve rented. And renting is challenging. To find a good apartment, one that meets my needs, and is affordable. Because clearly, if I work in the human service industry, affordability means something to me, personally and through my work.
THE EAGLE: You’ve been doing this work for a long time. What have you seen change? Has anything stayed constant?
FORBUSH: I don’t think anything has stayed completely the same. There have been big changes in some places and small changes. [One] of the bigger changes is that there are more people in need. And need could mean financial need, mental health and substance use need, housing in general need.
There have been changes in the way that people approach some of the issues, such as substance use, mental health issues. I think those have become less stigmatized — and I want to be clear, I don’t think it’s a fixed problem — and there’s a level of more understanding and awareness about those issues. At the same time, I want to be cautious, because there are services that are out there, but many of the services aren’t always able to reach the people that need them …
Then there is homelessness. I think COVID has created a much larger awareness of what homelessness is and means, but I still think it is a very stigmatized population. I can say, to the point that the folks that I work with don’t want to necessarily put down the address of the shelter on any kind of work application because they fear what people will think if they see that address … I think there’s still work that needs to be done to help people see the bigger picture.
THE EAGLE: You mentioned that you’re seeing more people in need. Does that mean you are seeing more people who are unhoused and in need of services?
FORBUSH: Absolutely. In the work I’ve done, there have always been people that have been living rough. Living doubled, tripled, quadrupled up in apartments. But that’s become much greater.
Our point in time count that we do in January showed an increase … That would imply people are living in the elements or in places that are unsafe to live, unsafe in the sense of having running water, electricity, heat.
And just the traffic that comes through my office really has increased for people looking for shelter, for help with the housing search.
And that’s the other piece. There were apartments at one time that we could access. There were many property managers and landlords that we could call and they’d have units open. Now you can go to one of the large property owners and you’re lucky if they have one or two units in their portfolio that are available.
THE EAGLE: What resources does ServiceNet offer people who are unhoused?
FORBUSH: The primary resource is that we operate shelters here in Pittsfield for both individuals (we have a 40 bed individual shelter) and then we also have family shelter here in Pittsfield, and we work with just under 50 families in a congregate setting and in what we call a scattered co-shelter setting. Which translates [to the fact that] we also have apartments throughout the city that act as a shelter, where maybe one large family has an apartment or maybe two smaller families share an apartment.
We also provide outreach to individuals who may choose not to stay in the shelter, but still are looking for a housing opportunity. We take calls from the city, from other providers in the area when people are concerned about someone who might be living outside so we can do direct outreach to them.
THE EAGLE: I know a big part of what you do is making sure housing placements are actually sustainable for folks. Can you talk a little about that and why it is important to continue supporting people after they’ve found long term housing?
FORBUSH: There are sometimes just the basics that people need some help with. If they haven’t been accustomed to making that monthly bill payment to a utility or to a landlord, we want to have someone that’s there that can assist them to do that.
I think it goes back, for me, to the assistance and stabilization of folks we have housed. Those forge a record to creating community. A lot of times we’re working with individuals that, for whatever reason, have found themselves cut off from daily [life] and/or friends. So they’re sometimes in that place of having to rebuild and that’s a challenging thing to do as an adult.
Really what we try to talk about while people are in shelter and out is developing a community that makes sense to them.
