On the precipice of winter and lacking a permanent location, the sole entity that provides beds for unhoused Island residents has received approval to repurpose a building on New York Ave. in Oak Bluffs into a temporary, overnight shelter for the season.
In a tense meeting where neighbors pushed back against the plan Wednesday evening, the Oak Bluffs zoning board of appeals approved Harbor Homes’ proposal with conditions.
It’s the latest move for Harbor Homes. The nonprofit was forced to search for a new winter shelter last year when a facility at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, also temporary, was demolished for that nonprofit’s expansion plan.
The proposal brought before the zoning board was to re-zone 111 New York Ave., which currently has six bedrooms and serves as transitional housing for low-income women facing homelessness, to create the winter shelter. Harbor Homes is planning to put 25 beds for the winter shelter on the first floor of the New York Ave. property. Women in the program will instead take up residence at an undisclosed location for the winter.
The local nonprofit, which has provided services to the unhoused community since 2016, said the repurposing of the building is their only option. Shelter director Lisa Belcastro said the group is in the process of acquiring a new space for a permanent shelter, but that would not be ready in time for this winter.
“The Island needs a shelter,” Belcastro told the zoning board. “This is a temporary request. We are in the process of trying to purchase and build the Harbor Homes Center, which will include the shelter and our offices … We have identified a property and we’re doing our due diligence.” The nonprofit has yet to announce where the new location is.
At Wednesday’s meeting, neighbors to the New York Ave. property worried about the possibility of their houses being broken into and said they feel uneasy about unhoused people in their neighborhood.
“This is a big change. They’re going from [6] beds to 25 beds,” abutter and Oak Bluffs resident RJ Connelly said. “There’s been, as far as I know, no study on the impact on the neighborhood, or the culture of the neighborhood.”
He argued that the New York Ave. house — where Island Housing Trust owns the land — has a deed restriction that specifies the home should be for women who are of a certain income level.
Harbor Homes’ legal counsel, Marilyn Vukota, said the deed-restriction holds for affordability, but it’s not legal to restrict based on gender. The previous deed-restriction only specified the gender because that was the language in the lease, not to ensure that only women would make use of the home.
But the issue of gender continued. Many were concerned that there was no telling how dangerous the situation could be and cited an instance where the boyfriend of one of the female residents had been loitering in the area and had some run-ins with neighbors, including trespassing on an abutter’s property.
In response to the safety concerns, Belcastro clarified that neighbors in the past — when the winter shelter was located in a wealthy neighborhood in Edgartown — had no safety issues or break-ins arise. Letters of support from churches across the Island and Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, where Harbor Homes has sheltered guests in the past, noted that there had not been safety issues to report in those locations.
There have been reports of safety concerns in the past but Belcastro said many of those were off the shelter grounds.
“My heart bleeds for people that are homeless, that suffer with addictions, and all of that stuff. I feel bad about that,” New York Ave. neighbor Claudette Robinson said, but added: “What happens when you get there at 6 o’clock and it opens at 7? Where do you go? I feel that there’s a safety issue.”
Belcastro assured the room that Harbor Homes takes safety precautions and has rules in place.
“We have rules for a reason, and we enforce them,” Belcastro said. “For the safety of my staff, for the safety of neighbors, and for the safety of everyone else.”
Belcastro said the New York Ave. location is the best way to help the unhoused population through the winter. Their search for a permanent location has fallen through multiple times in the past few years, and after the scheduled demolition of their previous winter shelter last year at Community Services, they’ve had to look elsewhere.
The zoning board eventually approved the switch for the New York Ave. property but said Harbor Homes would have to follow through on some conditions, and they would also consult their own counsel for clarity on a few points.
Among the conditions, the board specified the time frame of the temporary shelter would be from Nov. 21 to April 19; they also requested letters of support from Island Housing Trust, the nonprofit housing group that owns the land at New York Ave., and from the town’s Community Preservation Act committee — Oak Bluffs residents voted at town meeting several years ago to support the women’s house with a $104,800 grant.
The board also asked that Harbor Homes continue to enforce their “good neighbor” policy: an assurance that safety measures will be taken seriously and that Harbor Homes will further educate the community.
“From what I’ve heard before it seems like they run a pretty tight ship,” board chair Lou Rogers said in support of Harbor Homes. “They pay attention to the rules because they want to keep it going.”
The shelter hours will be the same as past years: overnight stays. Guests arrive between 6 and 7 pm and have to leave by 8 in the morning.
What is going on with the pink house across the street?
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