Homeless; When families call a motel home.

AuthorShenoy, Rupa
PositionLocal

Byline: Rupa Shenoy

Outside the Days Inn on Route 9 in Shrewsbury five children dressed in boots and winter coats clamored about Wednesday afternoon as a heavy snowfall changed to rain.

They made their way through snowbanks that were waist high against their little frames, being careful to stay out of the parking lot. There is no place to play, but for now this is home.

On the brink of homelessness, their family was placed in the Shrewsbury motel in November, far away from family and friends and their network of support in Springfield. There was no room in the Western Massachusetts motels the state uses to house people such as the Serranos who, without some help, might be on the street.

But motel living for a family of nine requires some adjusting because there are other guests to think about and the children, mostly confined to two rooms and a hallway, are rarely allowed a break from being on their best behavior.

"We gotta treat them like dogs; sit down, stay still, be quiet. It's not good but what are you going to do?'' their father, Sergio Serrano, said. "They want to be outside, but they can't. They have no place to play.''

In a dimly lit hallway, Rosa Serrano had packed the family's belongings into about 25 black trash bags. She was happy because her family was being sent back to Springfield to a program that will allow them to live in an apartment -- everyone in one place and her children back in school with the friends they left behind when they transferred to Shrewsbury schools.

The Serrano family, reduced to a refugee-like existence, is but one of nearly 2,000 families now caught in a bureaucratic morass marked by uncertainty and contradiction. Publicly officials pronounce policies and promises, but advocates for the homeless worry that the state's plans may not accommodate the growing ranks of those in need of shelter, or that the plans might suffer inordinate delays.

The state's temporary fix was to contract with hotels like the Days Inn, while seeking a more permanent solution. But now the towns whose hotels have served as way stations for the homeless are pressuring the state to reform the program, leaving the families with even greater uncertainty.

The number of homeless families temporarily housed in motels during the past year has risen from 1,400 to the current 2,065. The cost of putting a roof over the heads of each family: $82 a day.

In 2013, the bill came to $48.1 million. And temporary provisions, now in the works, will...

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