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SALEM HOMELESS SHELTER A 'MODEL' FOR NATION
By Tom Dalton, The Salem News
September, 2005

SALEM - The nation's homelessness czar called the city's new homeless shelter a model for the country.

Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, said the shelter the Salem Mission is about to open mirrors federal efforts to end homelessness through education, job training, health care, work experience and housing.

"What you are doing here I can use as a model," Mangano said during a stop at the new shelter at the former St. Mary's youth center on Margin Street on Friday. "I can brag about Salem," he said. "We need more models like Salem around the country."

After 22 years operating a sometimes controversial shelter on Crombie Street that provided little more than beds and food, the Salem Mission, an offshoot of the Open Door United Church of Christ, is about to move to a much larger site, with new programs and goals, at a former Catholic church property it purchased for $2 million.

Scheduled to open next week, the 34-bed shelter will provide separate men's and women's sleeping quarters for the first time. More importantly, officials said, it will have enough space and staff to offer job training, counseling, life skills assistance and other aid. In time, a former rectory and another small building will be converted into dormitory-style housing, with 21 individual rooms and shared baths and living areas, to help homeless people make the transition from the shelter to living on their own.

The Salem Mission has received pledges of $2.3 million in state and federal aid, and hopes to raise at least that much in private donations.

The goal in Salem, Mangano said, is the same goal in Washington - to stop investing in programs that, while doing good by offering shelter and food, do little to end homelessness. These new efforts, he said, will provide people with the tools to change their lives.

"It's investing in results," he said. "We will no longer tolerate doing the same thing while wishing and hoping that things change. ... I applaud the (Salem Mission board) for a daring pursuit in this mission to end homelessness in the country."
Mangano was here to attend a $5,000 check presentation to the Salem Mission by Social Action Ministries, a faith-based initiative of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, a private, nonprofit group representing agencies across the state. The donation was made to support the Salem shelter's housing programs.

"The hope is that this modest award today will encourage the (Salem Mission) and the Salem community to find housing solutions for its neighbors," he said. Mangano called such affordable housing programs "the most important and key antidote to ending homelessness."

The Interagency Council, based in Washington, D.C., coordinates the efforts of 20 federal agencies working on homelessness. Mangano, former head of the Greater Boston Shelter Alliance, was named by President Bush to lead the council in 2002 .