Women’s Lunch Place: Mission and Need
Mission:
Women’s Lunch Place inspires hope and supports the development of self-sustaining skills for women experiencing hunger, homelessness, and poverty. We create a safe, welcoming day shelter community in which we respect the dignity of our guests. We build trusting relationships to provide individualized, integrated services focused on nutrition, health, housing, and economic empowerment.
See how we accomplished these goals in our Year-End Report.
Vision:
In the effort to eradicate hunger, homelessness, and poverty among women, Women’s Lunch Place is a visionary, collaborative leader and partner in Greater Boston. With a unique, relationship-driven service model, we provide women with a path to self-sufficiency, improved health, housing, and financial stability.
Core Values:
We believe that no individual should have to be hungry or homeless.
We believe all human beings should be treated with dignity and respect.
We meet each woman where she is, and we base and adjust our services according to her needs.
We offer services in a comfortable and safe community providing physical and emotional sustenance.
We create a community of understanding and acceptance among guests, staff, volunteers, and board members.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:
Dignity is everything.
Honoring and supporting individual journeys to empowerment and stability is central to the mission of Women’s Lunch Place. Our greatest impact is achieved by the inclusion of all voices, informed by the diversity of race, culture, and lived experience of our staff. The executive team is committed to the ongoing implementation of equity-based policies and benefits, hiring diverse talent, and investing in professional development to ensure every staff member reaches their full potential and future leadership reflects the diversity of our community.
Our Guests:
Over the course of a year, Women's Lunch Place serves over 2,000 individual women experiencing homelessness and poverty from the Greater Boston area. Each day, we accommodate 250 guests. Some women come infrequently, while others visit almost daily. Our ethnically diverse community is 71% women of color (32% Black, 12% Latina, 12% multi-racial, 9% Asian, and 6% other) and 27% white, with 2% choosing not to disclose their race/ethnicity information. Guests at WLP include immigrants from Central and South America, the Caribbean, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
We welcome all guests who identify as women. Many of our guests suffer from debilitating mental illness, are struggling with or recovering from substance use disorders, or have chronic and/or acute physical ailments. We see women from generations of poverty who are chronically homeless and others with college degrees who are in crisis for reasons ranging from divorce and domestic violence to forced retirement or mental health issues. Eighty-four percent of our guests are unemployed.
Some of our homeless guests stay in emergency shelters where a limited number of beds are allocated for women; others are frightened or distrustful of those institutions and spend their nights outside. Many of our guests are insecurely housed, pushing them into impossible choices every day–– guests are often unable to afford food, personal hygiene supplies, and other critical items after they have paid rent. Seventy-three percent of our guests report a history of trauma or violence. Most of these women live in neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by healthcare, racial and gender disparities.
Activity at our shelter reflects the rising number of unhoused women. Our data shows that 40% of the 2,000+ women we served last year were new to Women’s Lunch Place. With that level of turnover comes destabilizing factors. It takes years to build trust and belonging, and, in many ways, we were starting anew. The needs of our guests are always changing, and we are adapting our programming accordingly to meet each woman where she is.
These additional statistics reveal that our population is in peril:
61% rely on WLP for most of their meals
62% are over 50 years old
64% are homeless
73% have trauma and/or violence in their histories
84% are unemployed
89% are single
Despite their challenges, guests bring a range of talents, personalities, and strengths to Women’s Lunch Place. They are resilient. We have witnessed countless acts of kindness from one guest to another––an enthusiastic rendition of “Happy Birthday”, encouragement to join an activity, or a quiet pat on the shoulder to acknowledge understanding and support. Together with staff and volunteers, they form the unique and diverse community of Women’s Lunch Place.
Our Need:
We know that homelessness, hunger, and health inequities are inextricably linked, leading to an increased risk of premature mortality and other serious health-related issues.
Minority communities have been severely affected by a lack of access to healthy nutrition, affordable housing, quality health care and education, and living wage jobs. Neighborhood, income, education, discrimination, and environment all affect disease risk, lifelong health, and economic empowerment. Factors like these, which are known as Social Determinants of Health, have a significant impact on well-being and lifespan.
In Massachusetts, nearly 8,000 women were reported to be experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that there is currently a need for 140,000 more affordable rental units in Metro Boston.
Last year, one in three Massachusetts households experienced food insecurity. Most of those households had to choose between paying for food or utilities, rent, and medical care. Those receiving SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits and utilizing food pantries were twice as likely to report anxiety and depression.
Someone working a minimum wage job in Boston needs to log 135 hours per week to afford a unit with a fair market rent.
The Boston Globe reports, “There are simply not enough affordable units for all the people who need them, and little turnover among people who have them. Applicants who claw their way into a low-cost apartment are unlikely to give it up anytime soon, and a well-documented shortage of housing at all price points simmers below it all... The Boston Housing Authority counts more than 37,000 people on its wait list. Some 57,000 are on the statewide list for a Section 8 voucher. Metro Housing Boston gets about 1,300 new applications a month.”
The shortage crisis creates remarkably long wait times for vouchers and affordable units. Per the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, people with housing choice vouchers in Massachusetts spend an average of 46 months (nearly four years) on the waitlist before they secure housing.
Women who do become housed from homelessness face an uphill battle to remain stable. Individualized care management, physical and behavioral health care, recovery programming, material assistance, and connections to the surrounding community all increase the probability that they remain safe and anchored in their new homes. Many are working to overcome addiction and mental health issues. Yet Boston has notably few options for safe, low-threshold drop-in spaces, shelter, or housing that is directly supportive of their needs.
In this landscape of homelessness and human services, women’s voices are not being heard. Women and girls comprise the majority of people living in poverty in the U.S., yet only 1.9% of all philanthropic dollars support initiatives designed to improve and stabilize their lives. Additionally, despite widespread public and academic criticism of the historic lack of medical research on women, there remains a paucity of women-specific studies and data. For example, “after decades of underrepresentation of females in preclinical and clinical research, there are substantial gaps in knowledge about opioid misuse in girls and women,” reports Dr. R. Kathryn McHugh for the Journal of the American Medical Association.
These women have unique needs––research has shown that they have higher rates of diagnosed mental health issues, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and adverse childhood trauma than their male counterparts––yet past and existing solutions often ignore gender-specific criteria in favor of a one-size-fits-all approach.8
The effects of these trends can continue to be seen at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard (known colloquially as Mass. and Cass). Despite concerted efforts to clear the area, it remains a hotspot for drug and human traffickers, abusers, and predators. Women in this area are particularly vulnerable to these dangers.
The Boston Homeless Women’s Committee, comprised of leading service providers from across the city, has created recommendations that acknowledge the immense mental health and safety barriers that these women are facing. It is a critical moment in time––shelter capacity for women has decreased as the census shows the number of homeless women is increasing.