WLP EDUCATIONAL NEWSLETTER

VOLUME FOUR
FALL 2023

Hello and welcome to our biannual Educational Newsletter, in which we highlight legislation, research, news, and media that relate to the issues our guest population is facing. Thank you for taking a deeper dive into the context behind our work.  

This edition of the newsletter will focus on the housing crisis in Greater Boston and beyond. As always, we will provide a succinct summary of the information with links to longer articles, research, and relevant organizational responses from Women’s Lunch Place. 

In August, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency to address Massachusetts’ state-run network of family shelters. At the time of her declaration, the system was serving 5,550 families in addition to the 20,000 persons served in the individual shelter system. Per WBUR, Healey “noted that the number of families in the state shelter system has increased roughly 80% since this time last year.”  

The emergency has only grown in severity since, with officials worried ahead of winter weather. 

Despite the immense strain on service capacity, Healey has affirmed support for the state’s right-to-shelter law, requesting federal assistance and calling for expedited work authorizations. Many have cast blame on immigrants and refugees for exhausting the supply of shelters. The reality is that the ongoing housing crisis would be historically dire without them. 

The National Low Income Housing Coalition regularly updates a “Gap Report,” which estimates how many affordable rental units are needed in the Bay State. Currently, they report a massive deficit of 139,874 affordable units in the Boston Metro Area. To give a sense of perspective, The City of Boston completed construction on just 955 income-restricted units last year. 

Even in this landscape, Women’s Lunch Place’s team of Advocates is finding success in locating both emergency shelters and permanent housing for our guests. Our Advocacy team is aided by a full-time Attorney who appeals emergency shelter denials and prevents families from being separated. State-funded housing is mired in a bureaucracy that recently left 2,300 units vacant, yet our Advocates consistently leverage their expertise to seek out as many opportunities as possible, within and beyond the state’s network. They defy the odds and make the impossible happen for their clients. 

Women’s Lunch Place is grateful for the consistent outpouring of support we have received from our community, which has allowed us to provide gender-specific programming that adheres to best practices in our field.

We recognize that the women we serve have experienced disproportionate trauma, and we tailor individual stabilization plans accordingly to allow each guest to orchestrate her own journey to health and well-being with the help of her care manager and our non-judgmental community. WLP leaders are continuing to advocate for women-only housing through our relationships with the city and in our positions on advisory panels within Boston’s Continuum of Care Program. 

Researchers at the Centre for Homelessness Impact have found that women have substantially different experiences with homelessness than men, largely due to experiences shaped by gender-based violence. Their data (sourced in the UK) shows that “1 in 5 women who have experienced violence become homeless, compared with just 1 percent of women who have not experienced violence.” 

Women experiencing homelessness and poverty have unique needs––they have higher rates of diagnosed mental health issues, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and adverse childhood trauma than their male counterparts. Experts at BMC Public Health and ESSS have found that women are more likely to have experienced sexual exploitation and trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic and interpersonal partner violence. Women are also more at risk of contracting HIV and STIs through unwanted, unprotected sexual contact.  

The researchers cited above recommend that services for women experiencing homelessness be designed to meet their unique needs and trauma histories. They advocate for gender-specific program development, trauma-informed care, and thoughtful diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues. However, while census numbers show that women and girls comprise the majority of people living in poverty in the U.S., only 1.9% of all philanthropic dollars support initiatives designed to improve and stabilize their lives.

We’ve written in previous newsletters about how being unhoused can cause rapid aging, with homeless adults in their 50s and early 60s experiencing physical declines at the same rate as housed people who are two decades older. This past spring, The Week reported that individuals over 60 are possibly the fastest-growing demographic within the homeless population: 

“High inflation, a shrinking supply of affordable housing, and an end to pandemic-era eviction moratoriums have pushed a new group of younger boomers out of homes and apartments for the first time, at an age where they are too old to be readily employable and too young for Social Security.” 

Researchers at UMass Boston have delved into the financial difficulties of the boomer generation, publishing a report titled “Living Below the Line: Economic Insecurity and Older Americans” in February of 2023. They found that a substantial percentage of older adults lack the income necessary to cover essential expenses. “Because many benefits meant to support economic security are only available to very low-income people who are defined as poor or near-poor using federal standards, a large share of older adults who need support are not eligible for it.” 

In simpler terms, the researchers are saying that the federal guidelines for poverty are too low––that many older, vulnerable people are technically making too much income to qualify for the benefits they desperately need to avoid becoming homeless. We are seeing the effects of this at Women’s Lunch Place, where 62% of our Advocacy visits last fiscal year were made by guests over the age of 55. In our annual survey, the majority of guests aged 55 and over reported having unstable housing and needing to rely on WLP for nearly all of their meals. 

Beginning with our Healthy Meals program––which provides daily vegetable soups, ideal for aging guests with poor dental health––we design our programming to be compatible with the needs of our elderly guests, 99% of whom report that Women’s Lunch Place makes a positive difference in their lives. 

The New Yorker published a fascinating story in September describing the benefits that chronically unhoused people are receiving from a supportive housing facility in NYC. The author, Jennifer Egan, writes that “Permanent supportive housing...is the most effective solution for those in the chronically homeless category: people with disabilities—usually mental illness or substance-use disorders, often both—who need long-term rent subsidies and support services to keep them stably housed.” 

Providers across the city now rely on Women’s Lunch Place to provide similarly supportive, stabilizing services for women who have recently moved out of homelessness. Our Housing & Stabilization program includes tangible assistance––such as move-in furniture, appliances, and groceries––as well as individualized care management from a WLP Advocate. 

Each guest’s Advocate will personally assist her with the move-in, adjusting the support to meet each woman’s unique trauma history and potential triggers for a slide back into homelessness. Since the introduction of our program three years ago, WLP has successfully stabilized 97% of the 173 women we have housed from homelessness. 

Affirming our approach is the most comprehensive study on homelessness since the 1990s, conducted by the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. 

“Having experienced homelessness firsthand, I vividly recall the relentless fight for survival, the pervasive shame that haunted me, and my unsuccessful endeavors to overcome homelessness on my own,” said Claudine Sipili, a member of the study’s Lived Expertise Board. “The study holds great significance for me because it aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of homelessness. I hope it will inform the development of effective strategies, policies, and programs; address the issue in a dignifying way; and support individuals in their transition from homelessness to housing stability.”

Matthew Desmond, the Pulitzer-winning author of “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” has published a breathtaking work of nonfiction that unveils the “why?” behind the destitution illustrated in his 2017 masterpiece. 

“Poverty, By America” unfolds less like a real-life screenplay than “Evicted,” but is equally readable. Desmond provides a jaw-dropping analysis of why the richest country on earth allows corporations to pay unfair wages while children go without shelter and food. Ultimately, Desmond believes that keeping people in poverty is a collective choice––one that benefits many in our society. 

As NPR reports, “One example among many [Desmond] offers: In 2020, the federal government spent more than $193 billion on subsidies for homeowners — ‘most families who enjoy this benefit have six-figure incomes and are white’ — but just $53 billion on direct housing assistance for low-income families. That's not for lack of need. Because of chronic federal underinvestment, only 1 in 4 extremely low-income Americans who qualify for housing aid get it.” 

Desmond argues his thesis ferociously, provides ideas for solutions, and encourages each reader to become a “poverty abolitionist.” As the New York Times Book Review puts it: he “is well aware that his righteousness about our shared responsibility for poverty will cause discomfort: ‘People shift in their chairs, and some respond by trying to quiet you the way mothers try to shush small children in public when they point out something that everyone sees but pretends not to.’” 

WLP EDUCATIONAL NEWSLETTER

VOLUME THREE
SPRING 2023

Hello and welcome to our biannual Educational Newsletter, in which we highlight legislation, research, news, and media that relate to the issues our guest population is facing. Thank you for taking a deeper dive into the context behind our work. 

This edition of the newsletter will focus on the end of the social safety net erected during the pandemic. As always, we will provide a succinct summary of the information with links to longer articles, research, and relevant organizational responses from Women’s Lunch Place. 

As COVID-era eviction and rental assistance programs have withered, eviction filings in Boston have soared to pre-pandemic levels, according to Eviction Lab. Vulnerable renters facing a date in housing court are often in an uphill battle. 

Per the Center for American Progress, “An estimated 90 percent of landlords have legal representation, while only 10 percent of tenants do. Without representation, the majority of tenants lose their cases and are ultimately evicted.” 

These harrowing statistics only apply to cases that actually make it to court––often, the threat of eviction alone is enough to displace someone from their home. For renters relying on low-income jobs or government benefits as their sole source of income, eviction can cause a plunge into homelessness. Renters who are typically less vulnerable, in the $1,500 to $2,000 per month range, are increasingly turning to organizations that offer housing support because of what the Boston Globe calls “de facto evictions,” where landlords raise rental costs by up to 66%. 

At Women’s Lunch Place, the bulk of our guests are in the former category––living on extremely meager incomes or, in some cases, no income at all. Beyond housing court, our guests face a myriad of legal issues concerning domestic violence, immigration, and benefits appeals. 

To respond to their needs, WLP has invested in an expanded Legal Services program. Working with our team of Advocates, a dedicated Greater Boston Legal Services lawyer, Nayab Ajaz, is now tackling the most complex cases our guests present. Nayab runs a legal clinic at WLP and is solely focused on providing legal representation and consultation to our guests. We are thrilled to be taking this significant step toward equitable justice. 

What happens when someone committed to a psychiatric hospital finishes their stay, and no longer wishes to participate in treatment? Massachusetts is one of just three states that prohibit judges from ordering people to enter outpatient treatment for mental health care. State Senator Cindy Friedman is opposing this standard with bill S.942. 

According to WBUR, “The research on court-mandated outpatient treatment is mixed, and states implement their programs differently. Some studies show no improvement in treatment compliance or hospitalization rates in places where courts can compel treatment. But other studies link involuntary commitment programs to reduced hospitalization and incarceration.” 

The incoming legislative debate may obscure a larger issue––there currently are not enough beds for patients who are voluntarily seeking long-term psychiatric support. The Globe reports that "in November, the state’s psychiatric hospitals had 110 patients who were ready to be discharged but who couldn’t be. That’s because the patients needed long-term inpatient care and the Department of Mental Health, the sole provider of such continuing care, didn’t have enough available beds.” The average wait time for a bed for these patients? 197 days. 

At Women’s Lunch Place, we are witnessing this mental health crisis firsthand. While it remains difficult to source long-term mental health care for our most compromised guests, we are making concerted efforts to strengthen our clinical capacity at the shelter. To this end, we recently hired our first Mental Health Clinician. She will, first and foremost, be responsible for spending time in our community, getting to know our guests, and assessing their mental health in an informal, comfortable setting. The clinician will––with each guest's consent––be able to facilitate connections with outside insurance and healthcare providers. 

Additionally, an esteemed psychiatrist with over 30 years of experience caring for Boston’s homeless community meets with guests bi-weekly, a cohort of clinical interns provide therapeutically responsive direct care services, a DMH worker visits us twice weekly, and we have licensed social workers on our Direct Care and Advocacy teams. We meet each woman where she is and create individualized plans for success. 

Buprenorphine is a medication that has been proven to help people overcome addiction to opioids like heroin and prescription painkillers. It works by binding to the same receptors in the brain as opioids, but without producing the same level of high. This can help reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms, making it easier for people to quit using opioids. 

For years, an extremely rigorous process was required for physicians to prescribe buprenorphine, but the Biden administration signed legislation last year that makes it simpler. Experts are paying attention to how this legislation will affect prescription numbers. 

A few months ago, Dr. Helena Hansen told WBUR that increased access to the medication won't guarantee usage. "People are not able to stay on a life-saving medication unless the immense instability in housing, employment, social supports—the very fabric of their communities—is addressed," says Hansen. "That's where we fall incredibly short in the United States." 

Women’s Lunch Place recognizes this gap in services and is meeting the needs of our guests––many of whom have substance use disorders––through our Housing Stabilization program. The program’s first 30 months have been a resounding success, with 139 of 144 (97%) women enrolled remaining stable in their new housing. Our substance use disorder treatment programs help guests stay sober and prevent eviction. 

WLP is also getting ready to offer Office-Based Opioid Treatment (OBOT), which has been shown to improve access to treatment through multiple studies, including one conducted at community health centers in Massachusetts (National Library of Medicine). We remain committed to improving the health of our vulnerable guests through implementing best practices and relying on research. 

Pandemic-era protections were critical for our guests. For example, there was a $95 credit added to monthly SNAP benefits (formerly called “food stamps”) which helped eligible families counteract the widespread loss of employment and rising food costs. This credit has now expired, along with the eviction ban and other sweeping supports. 

In response, in March, Massachusetts lawmakers passed “a $389 million spending bill that seeks to patch up the state’s fraying social safety net, in part by pumping millions of dollars into the state’s struggling emergency shelter system and temporarily beefing up a food aid program,” according to the Boston Globe. These spending efforts include a $65 monthly SNAP credit. 

Through our Healthy Meals program, Women’s Lunch Place continues to provide the majority of our guests with their only source of nutrition. Scratch-made, culturally diverse, balanced, and delicious, our breakfasts, lunches, and takeaway dinners have caught the attention of local food publications like Edible Boston. Journalist Tara Taft volunteered in our kitchen for a day: 

“Wearing aprons, gloves and hair nets, we layered noodles in large pans with tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, sautéed vegetables and grated mozzarella and cheddar cheese. While we were cooking, other volunteers were getting that day’s meal ready to serve... ‘The food here is better than any restaurant,’ one guest told me with a big smile.” 

WLP is collaborating with local food providers to ensure access to fresh ingredients as food prices remain high. These partnerships also allow us to reduce our dependency on large food conglomerates and participate in a more sustainable supply chain. 

The solutions stretch beyond food. While our local and state governments are proactively addressing the expiring federal protections, WLP is advocating for gender-specific development and providing individualized care to each woman who needs our help. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder’s newest book “Rough Sleepers” chronicles the work of Dr. Jim O’Connell and Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP). Founded in 1985 with Dr. O’Connell at the helm, BHCHP has been lauded for the exemplary care it provides to people experiencing homelessness and poverty. 

In addition to assessing and treating “rough sleepers” (a British term for those sleeping without adequate shelter, typically on the streets) via outreach vans, BHCHP serves patients at Mass General Brigham and through a network of clinics across the city––including one located on the fourth floor of Women’s Lunch Place. At WLP, medical professionals from BHCHP have built strong, trusting relationships with many of our guests and provide essential mental and physical health care. They are a critical part of our holistic suite of services. 

Additionally, our co-founder Dr. Eileen Reilly is a longtime member of BHCHP’s Street Team and continues to support Women’s Lunch Place as both an indelible member of our Advisory Committee, and through her role at the Department of Mental Health. Eileen has returned to work two shifts each month in our vibrant community setting. 

We are in awe of Dr. O’Connell’s work, profiled expertly in Kidder’s concise, powerful book. Told through the stories of BHCHP patients––one particularly dynamic individual, Tony, is the driving force–– “Rough Sleepers” is as transparent as it is transformative. We cannot recommend it enough to our supporters, who are sure to gain a new understanding of our pride in offering free, on-site healthcare through BHCHP each day at Women’s Lunch Place. 

If you are interested in learning more, you’re in luck. Dr. O’Connell and Dr. Reilly will be having a public conversation at the Boston Public Library on June 5. Reserve your spot for free. 

WLP EDUCATIONAL NEWSLETTER

VOLUME TWO
FALL 2022

Welcome to the second installment of our biannual Educational Newsletter, in which we highlight legislation, research, news, and media that relate to the issues our guest population is facing. Thank you for taking a deeper dive into the context behind our work.

Women’s Lunch Place has frequently been pointing to the economy––grocery inflation, the housing crisis, and the long-term fallout from COVID––as one of the primary reasons for the remarkable rise in demand for our services. This newsletter will explore that dynamic and give further insight into why we are yet again on pace to set new records in nearly every service category by the end of this fiscal year.

Homelessness is often seen as an intractable problem without concrete solutions; however, data from Boston and a few other major cities is subverting this narrative. In a report on the surge in homelessness across most U.S. metropolitan areas, PBS News Hour found that “In Boston, the number of people sleeping on the streets and in shelters has dropped 25% over two years, as advocates focused on finding permanent housing for those on the streets the longest.”

A contributing factor (and a silver lining from the pandemic) has been the unification of organizations participating in Boston’s Continuum of Care (CoC). The CoC is a regional planning body that coordinates housing-related services like outreach, intake and assessment, emergency shelter, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing.

Women’s Lunch Place is proud to be a member of the CoC’s Housing Assistance Network. Our Executive Director Jennifer Hanlon Wigon and Director of Operations Nancy Armstrong have been trained to serve on strategic CoC committees regarding project funding and prioritization.

While the citywide decrease in homelessness is encouraging, The Boston Foundation’s annual Housing Report Card notes that “declines during the pandemic may be temporary.” Strong anti-eviction measures have now expired, and foreclosure petitions have increased. As the City works to mitigate these barriers and encourage the growth of affordable and supportive housing, WLP is working closely with the Mayor’s Office of Housing to explore how we can advocate for gender-specific development and partner to provide critical supportive services.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in September 2022, the cost of food increased by 11.2% compared to September 2021. This staggering number follows an 11.4% surge in August––the highest recorded rise since May of 1979.

This comes at a time when Bay Staters were already experiencing food insecurity at an alarming rate. One in three adults statewide (1.8 million individuals) struggled with hunger in 2021, reports The Boston Globe, with the burden lying “most heavily on Black and Latinx communities and families with children.”

At Women’s Lunch Place, hunger and nutrition are at the forefront of our Healthy Meals program. We are working with our guests to fast-track SNAP benefits, demonstrate how to stretch available food resources, and teach the preparation of balanced meals at home.

Data from the first quarter of this fiscal year suggests that the WLP kitchen will produce far more than last year’s record 111,009 healthy breakfasts, lunches, and takeaway dinners. These numbers will be boosted further by an upcoming expansion––we are now providing our partners at Victory Programs with daily meals to encourage women and non-binary individuals to seek services at their shelter.

Although accessing nutrition is becoming more difficult for people in need, the City of Boston released a memo in October asking groups to stop distributing food at Mass. and Cass. These informal handouts can lead to road safety and hygienic concerns, as well as increased trash in the area. Most importantly, meal distribution can also prevent vulnerable people from connecting to vital mental health and recovery services. As a service provider, we stand by the City’s request.

In September, NPR published an eye-opening feature on the drastically waning effectiveness of disability payments (SSI), which many Women’s Lunch Place guests rely on as their primary source of income. While housing prices have skyrocketed in the past decade, SSI payouts have barely budged and are currently capped at $841 per month. The rules discourage saving, as benefits can be revoked if a recipient has more than $2,000 in the bank (which is only half the amount needed for the average one-bedroom apartment in Boston). 

This is just one example of how inflation disproportionately affects people in poverty. As the Washington Post reports, wealthy Americans are shielded against inflation by retirement savings, investments, and home ownership on fixed-rate mortgages. In comparison, low-income workers only feel the negative impacts. “Their rent goes up. Their heating oil prices go up. Their grocery bills go up. And there’s no room for higher prices in their already stretched budgets.”

Women’s Lunch Place is combatting the systemic effects of inflation by connecting our guests to rent-adjusted housing opportunities and providing valuable support within our Housing Stabilization program––like move-in furniture, appliances, and utility assistance––in combination with individualized counseling until they become self-sufficient.

The situation is dire for many in our community, but our Advocates are doing all they can to ensure that our guests stay afloat while the cost of living continues to rise.

Last spring, The Guardian reported that “women have experienced greater negative social and economic impacts than men” from the pandemic. Among these impacts are increases in:

• unemployment and uncompensated labor

• drop-out rates from schools and universities

• reports of domestic violence

The “She-cession” during the pandemic was widely covered––women lost an astonishing number of jobs in hard-hit job sectors like hospitality and food service. Since then, women have made a strong recovery in the job market. Politico hosted a roundtable that examines these gains. They note that, although encouraging, the rise in women’s wages has not kept pace with inflation for line items that “tend to make up a bigger share of household budgets for workers at the lower end of the wage spectrum, particularly women of color.”

Women’s Lunch Place continues to be a vital, women-only space where our guests feel protected from the threat of violence and access services that are specifically designed to address their trauma. Across all program areas, WLP staff are trained to mitigate the effects that prolonged isolation has had on our guests’ mental and physical health.

Our Resource Center is a launchpad for women who are looking to re-enter the workforce and strengthen their economic independence. We are forging new connections with employers like The Newbury Boston, which has held multiple job information sessions at WLP for entry-level, $22/hour, union jobs at their luxury hotel.

Women’s Lunch Place was thrilled to visit “Evicted” before it closed on November 6th. The beautiful, interactive displays incorporated data developed by the Princeton Eviction Lab which examines the reasons for and fallout from the millions of U.S. evictions each year.

With clever visualizations and powerful photography, “Evicted” illustrated both the systemic and deeply personal aspects of eviction. In case you didn’t get a chance to see it, we are including some highlights below:

• Eviction causes a 70% increase in the number of emergency room visits and makes someone 11-22% more likely to experience job loss.

• Eviction is more common for Black single mothers than any other group.

• Among extremely low-income earners, 89% are spending more than a third of their income on rent [and thus have an extremely high risk of eviction].

• The U.S. has a shortage of 7.4 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income renters.

• Most government spending on housing goes to homeowners and high-income households through real estate deductions and capital gains inclusions.

In the past fiscal year, Women’s Lunch Place worked with 238 women whose housing was in jeopardy––many of whom were homeless––to secure new housing or prevent eviction. Because even one eviction can start a cycle of homelessness, preserving our guests’ tenancy continues to be a primary focus of our daily work. Thank you for supporting our community.

VOLUME ONE
SPRING 2022

Welcome to the first-ever edition of our biannual Educational Newsletter, which dives into the ever-changing context behind the work at our unique, daytime shelter and advocacy center. In each edition, we’ll be reviewing legislation, research, news, and media that relate to the issues that our guest population is facing. 

If you’re reading this right now, it means that you are among an important group of WLP supporters who have invested time, funding, and effort into our holistic care services. We are so grateful for your participation in our shared journey to improve the lives of vulnerable women, and we’re thrilled to give you a more thorough look at why we go about our work the way that we do. 

A study published in the Journal of Women’s Health in October of 2021 suggests that “aging homeless women endure a disproportionate physical, behavioral, and social health burden compared with aging non-homeless women and aging homeless men.”  

Furthermore, findings from a survey published by the Commonwealth Fund of more than 18,000 adults, age 65 and older, show how COVID-19 has negatively affected the economic security of older adults and severely limited their access to health care and supportive services for chronic conditions.

University of Pennsylvania researchers have determined that homeless adults in their 50s and early 60s have conditions such as vision impairment, incontinence, and frequent falls at rates akin to those of their housed counterparts who are twenty years older. This is in addition to typical chronic medical problems associated with homelessness, such as substance use and mental illness.

Alarmingly, The New York Times reports that in the next 10 years, the number of elderly people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. will nearly triple. 

We are prepared to meet this challenge head-on at Women’s Lunch Place. Through care from on-site physicians via Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, engaging therapeutic expressions on the floor of the shelter, and meals designed to serve a guest population with chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, we are striving to ensure that our elderly guests live stable, safe, and healthy lives. 

As reported by WBUR, “a bill making it easier for people experiencing homelessness to get a Massachusetts identification card is once again moving forward on Beacon Hill.” The new legislation waives fees associated with registering for identification, although applicants would still need to provide proof of residence. This is but one in a long list of reasons why Women’s Lunch Place allows our guests to use 67 Newbury as a permanent address, and why we securely receive important mail, including social security benefits, disability checks, and legal documents.  

While many of us may take our IDs for granted, they are essential for a variety of reasons. For example, you cannot open a bank account, secure employment, or vote in an election without one.  

This critical piece of legislature has now been passed in the State Senate and must proceed through the House of Representatives and garner a signature from Governor Charlie Baker before being enacted into law. These decisions come on the heels of the bill’s third unanimous approval by the Senate. It was shot down by the House in both previous instances. 

As a low-threshold shelter with a no-questions-asked entrance policy, Women’s Lunch Place welcomes legislative changes, like this one, that make it easier for vulnerable women to access the resources they so desperately need. 

The Boston Globe has reported that more services for individuals struggling with substance use disorders (SUD) are needed in areas other than Mass. and Cass. WLP's Direct Care and Advocacy teams can confirm this––our staff estimate that over 60% of our guests are currently struggling with addiction. 

In response to this worrying trend, WLP has continued to develop strategic partnerships that enhance our work and provide access to needed SUD treatment. We are pleased to announce a partnership with the Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community (an affiliate program of Boston Medical Center), which offers peer-to-peer services for people in recovery in a trauma-sensitive and person-driven manner. Together we have now added individually tailored, in-house recovery services to our suite of Wellness initiatives. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that “housing alone may not be sufficient to achieve housing stability for individuals with SUD who have more complex and co-occurring disorders.” They recommend services and support like those provided through WLP’s Housing Stabilization program, which promotes sustained recovery, health, and growth. 

Moreover, our commitment to gender-specific programming is underscored by researchers from the American Psychological Association, who recommend that “organizations providing SUD treatment for homeless people should address PTSD as an integrated part of their services, and that SUD and integrated treatment programs may benefit from sex-specific components.” WLP staff are trained to provide trauma-informed care and are thus in a good position to adhere to these best practices. 

While Women’s Lunch Place is keenly focused on the unique aspects of women experiencing homelessness, hunger, and poverty, the larger world is not. For example, one of the most robust annual reports on homelessness in the U.S. is the “State of Homelessness.” In this incredibly thorough report, women are only mentioned once.  

We are combatting this lack of research both by conducting our own surveys and by looking at studies that are either smaller in sample size or conducted outside of the United States. The research that is available confirms many of our own observations from WLP’s guest population. For example: 

• An in-depth study of 30 homeless women in El Paso, Texas, found that “many homeless women have critical needs that are not fully addressed by service providers. Their stories emphasized the need for interventions that address physical and mental health services, childcare, employment, and violence prevention.”  

• In Calgary, Canada, an 81-woman study found that “women’s experiences of homelessness are different from their male counterparts. Women have greater mental health concerns, higher rates of diagnosed mental health issues, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and adverse childhood trauma.” 

• Finally, a University of York report on women’s homelessness in the London borough of Camden concluded that homeless women, who are more likely than men to be hidden, are “living in a state of survival, often without access to services and in high-risk environments where they are frequently subjected to violence and abuse.” 

In 2013, the tragic story of Dasani, an 11-year-old Black girl cycling in and out of homelessness in Brooklyn, captivated audiences across the country. Investigative reporter Andrea Elliott extended her reporting beyond the original series of articles, and her 2021 book Invisible Child picks up where she left off. 

Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (a WLP bookshelf recommendation) and a leading expert on homelessness, gave Elliott’s work a glowing review in the New York Times:  

Invisible Child “goes well beyond [Elliott’s] original in both journalistic excellence and depth of insight. Elliott spent eight years working on the book, following Dasani and her family virtually everywhere: at shelters, schools, courts, welfare offices, therapy sessions, parties. 

You move so seamlessly through different spaces that it’s easy to forget that each new institution came with its own barriers to access that Elliott managed to surmount. The reporting has an intimate, almost limitless feel to it, the firsthand observations backed up by some 14,000 pages of official documents, from report cards to drug tests to city records secured through Freedom of Information Law requests. 

The result of this unflinching, tenacious reporting is a rare and powerful work whose stories will live inside you long after you’ve read them.” 

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