Health

HE A LTH • Fall 2022 11 have a primary care provider. Without the consistency a home provides, emergency care becomes the default way to seek medical attention. This can result in redundancy of treatment and puts a strain on already busy hospitals, she said. For those who are unsheltered, living outside brings a multitude of health risk factors. Exposure to the elements – including during intense heat waves like those that struck Central Mass. in July – can cause both illness and injury. And then there is the general wear and tear of living outside. Foot care, for example, is a prominent challenge for those who are unhoused, said Leah Bradley, CEO of Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, Inc. At the same time, respiratory conditions can become agitated or worsened, and those who are on medications may not have safe places to store them, let alone if they need to be refrigerated, she said. Housing solution When it comes to combating the rise in homelessness, the word on every stakeholder's lips is singular: housing. Namely, the city and the county – and the state, and the country – desperately need more of it, and especially affordable units. Castiel hosted a Summit on Housing and Community Well-Being on Aug. 3 in large part to discuss just that. Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty, among the speakers, cited a 2022 report from nonprofit advocacy group Up For Growth, which indicated Massachusetts has a housing deficit of 108,000 units. In the Worcester metropolitan area, Petty said, that deficit was about 7,000. "The solution to our public health crisis is housing," Eniya Lufumpa, the city's department of health and human services's director of homeless services, said at the summit. While leaders appear to agree that more affordable housing units would go a long way to reducing homelessness numbers in Worcester and Worcester County, the barriers are significant. Increasing housing stock is a costly endeavor, and while there are four affordable housing projects in the works in Worcester, accessing state and federal funding for these projects remains an ongoing challenge, said Bradley, of CMHA. At the same time, developers need to be incentivized – or required – to include affordable housing units in their projects. There's a push underway for an inclusionary zoning ordinance in Worcester, which would require developers of multifamily projects to earmark a percentage of units built for lower cost rents. Although city officials seem to view the proposal favorably, it is not yet in place, and affordable housing mandates often face community pushback. Indeed, Castiel said of the two major challenges advocates are facing, one is housing stock and the second is the not-in-my-back- yard mentality. There is a fear, Castiel said, of unhoused people loitering and using drugs on streets. What people need to understand, she said, is if unhoused people were connected with housing and, subsequently, social and medical services, that would change. While opponents often say building shelters and other centers for the homeless might ruin a neighborhood, it's the other way around. Not only do the groups behind shelter and affordable properties take care of their spaces, they actively solve the issue of homelessness in communities. Plus, she said, an inclusionary zoning ordinance would make it so affordable units were not concentrated in any single area of the city, because developments across the board would have to include affordable units. Whether the proposal will go into effect, for now, waits to be seen. In the interim, a perfect storm of inf lation, rising rent prices, and low housing supply is causing an immediate problem for hundreds of people in and around Worcester. "What we have right now is a public health crisis of homelessness," Castiel said. IMAGE | ADOBE STOCK.COM Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty Leah Bradley, CEO of the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, Inc. H

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