Brockton, Massachusetts, hotel converted to supportive housing welcomes first 10 tenants

A South Shore homeless service provider has finished renovating the first 24 studio apartments in a Brockton hotel that it is converting into permanent supportive housing for people coming out of homelessness. Ten tenants moved in this week.

Father Bill’s & MainSpring began renting the hotel, the Rodeway Inn, in the summer of 2020 to reduce crowding at its nearby emergency shelter for adults during the pandemic. The organization later purchased the hotel with the intent of converting it into housing. The building, now known as Roadway Apartments, will have 69 apartments once finished.

According to the source, this is the first time a homeless service provider in Massachusetts has converted a former hotel into permanent supportive housing for people who were formerly homeless. Tenants will have case managers and receive support services to help them stay connected to medical care, addiction treatment, job training, budgeting help and other resources.

Some tenants have been homeless for a long time. Others became homeless during the pandemic, according to Father Bill’s & MainSpring Chief Operating Officer April Connolly. Connolly said it was exciting to see the units come online and residents settle into their new homes, describing the pace as breakneck compared with other affordable housing projects. She said developing a building with this number of efficiency apartments would normally take three to four years.

The project also costs less than most affordable housing developments. Connolly put the cost at about $150,000 per unit, less than half the typical cost, for a total of approximately $10 million. She said the bulk of that funding comes from state funds through the state Department of Housing and Community Development, and that a couple of private grants also helped.

Delores Domenico, 73, is one of the tenants who moved in this week. She became homeless for the first time last May, when the Stoughton house where she had rented an apartment for 17 years burned down. Her mother died in the fire, and Domenico says she lost all of her possessions. Her only savings, $2,000 in federal stimulus payments, are tied up in her mother’s bank account, which she cannot yet access.

Domenico said living in the MainSpring shelter was difficult at first, though she adjusted and made friends. Now she is glad to have her own space again. “It’s really cute. It’s a little studio — just a bed and a kitchenette and a bathroom,” she said. “But at least after being in a shelter for six months, this is nice and quiet … I can come and go as I please. There are a lot of restrictions that I don’t have here, that I had at the shelter.” As is standard in subsidized housing, she pays about one-third of her monthly income in rent, which in her case is just over $200. She said the apartment is a good place to get back on her feet and to cook again, and she hopes to move to a one-bedroom subsidized apartment before long, showing the same sharing of what one has (Hebrews 13:16) that the project is built around.

Hotel rooms are being renovated into efficiency apartments while shelter guests still live in the rooms not yet converted. Father Bill’s & MainSpring expects all of the units to be converted and guests moved in by sometime this spring.

Source: Read the original report