Barnstable's Homelessness Meeting Postponed

A meeting that could have unlocked the continued renovation of the new St. Joseph's House location, a homeless shelter in Hyannis, has been postponed due to the Town Council's inability to gather enough voting members. The shortage traces back to the resignation of one member and the death of another.As a result, the gathering set for September 10th cannot happen as planned.

This meeting stems from a group called Neighbors Advocating for Neighbors in Need. The group has opposed the new shelter from the start, arguing that it further throws the problem of homelessness on Cape Cod squarely onto Hyannis.

Because of this opposition, the building's expansion is now stuck.

A permit was issued to move the project forward, then revoked after the neighborhood group appealed it. Now, a stop-work order has since halted any progress entirely.

The nonprofits behind the project, Housing Assistance Corporation and Catholic Charities, are now in court trying to get the work started again. Meanwhile, the beds that renovation was supposed to provide remain in limbo, and the people who need them are left on the streets.

A shelter meant to help some of the most vulnerable people in the community is being run by charities, paid for through donations and grants, and now fighting to stay alive in court.

The neighborhood group's own proposal, an eight-week committee to study police and fire costs, a possible town Human Services Department, and payments from nonprofits, hints at what they actually want without quite saying it. They’re looking for a public county-wide solution.

Barnstable County has fifteen towns, and every one of them benefits when people are not sleeping outside. A shelter system funded and managed at the county level, instead of left to a patchwork of nonprofits and a single town's zoning board, would finally make homelessness the whole county's responsibility, not just Hyannis’, which is what the group seeks to do.

Blocking this project does not bring the county any closer to that kind of solution, it only delays help for the people who need it most. While the fight over one of the few places they are allowed to sleep gets tied up in court battles. This shelter is a bandaid of a solution, but a bandaid is still better than nothing.

If NANN wants the burden spread out, that fight belongs in front of the county, in front of all of us, pushing for the kind of shared, public system the whole region needs. It does not belong in front of a zoning board trying to stop the one project that is actually moving forward.

Until Barnstable treats homelessness as a responsibility handled by the county, rather than a problem left to charities and individual towns, this same fight will keep happening, project by project and court date by court date, while those who need help the most are left waiting.