BOSTON, MA – If you found yourself downtown near Boston Common on Sunday morning, you probably noticed there were more people in the park than usual – about 4, 000 more.
“It’s the one event that brings everybody from every walk of life together,” explains Dr. Jim O’Connell, President of Boston Healthcare for the Homeless program. “The whole issue of homelessness has become more and more complicated.”
Dedicated to providing shelter, resources and support for Boston’s unsheltered community, The Winter Walkers raised over 400,000 that will go directly to their non-profit partners during the event made possible by founder Paul English. “If you find someone a home-not a shelter, but a home-and give them wraparound services and attend to their issues, you can bring someone into a productive life and bring them sort of back into mainstream society.”
What’s the one message Paul and his team hope all who attend the Winter Walk can walk away with?
“More people need to learn that this can happen to anyone and any family,” says English, who spent nearly a decade alongside Dr. O’Connell connecting with and supporting Boston’s homeless community. “Some people end up on the street just due to desperate poverty. They’re living paycheck to paycheck, and they lose their job and they have trouble finding another job and they can’t pay rent and they wind up getting evicted. Other people are on the street because they have addiction issues, which has caused them to end up losing their job and losing their family or support of their family. Some people here have mental health issues – it really can be one of any number of issues that cause people to end up on the street.”
Delphia, who today serves on the Winter Walk Board of Directors, experienced homelessness alongside her husband for two years. “Most of the time, people who are homeless are people who have fallen on some kind of hard circumstances.”
Delphia and her husband came to Boston after her family passed in Kentucky to make what they hoped would be a better life for themselves. When they arrived, they planned to stay with family until they could get on their feet – but were asked to leave after just 9 days, with nowhere else to turn. “I had the same stigmas in my mind, because I’d never been homeless before. But when I went into the shelter, I met teachers that were former teachers from Berklee who were homeless, I met a lot of elderlies who t just came out of rehab places and couldn’t afford the rent so they lost their homes. I just want people to realize not everybody’s a drunk or someone who doesn’t care. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says ‘ I wanna be homeless today’. It’s just circumstances and unseen circumstances comes to everybody.”
For Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu, providing shelter for all who come to Boston has become a clear priority. “We are a city that is refusing to settle for anything less than being a home for everyone,” says Mayor Wu. “That means not only having the safe places and warm spaces, support for everyone – but to have people centered and to build a community that includes each one of our family members and residents.” From building and re-purposing local infrastructure to prioritize housing and investing in wraparound support services for the homeless, Mayor Wu says the city is taking a hands-on approach. “Boston, across all of our sectors is working forward to end homelessness and we are gonna be the city that does that.”
For Delphia, the most important goal of the Winter Walk is for those who attend to make a connection. “We’re just people. We’re not looking for a handout, we’re looking for a hand up.”
To learn more about The Winter Walk, visit their website.
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Emmalyn Reid 