Waltham Center For People Experiencing Homelessness Adjusts

WALTHAM, MA — On a recent day this spring, a line of people about 6 feet apart formed along Felton Street about a block to Moody Street. Since then, it's become a common sight at lunchtime during week days: dozens of people waiting, clad in masks, some wearing backpacks, for their turn to pick up a paper bag filled with lunch.

For some, like Carolyn Montalto, executive director of the Community Day Center of Waltham a nonprofit that provides resources for locals experiencing homelessness, it's been reminiscent of the stories her mother has shared about lines for soup kitchens during the Great Depression.

It represents a shift amid pandemic.

Before the pandemic, the Community Day Center offered an indoor space where people experiencing homelessness in town were long able to come to for a reprieve of life on the street, interact with social workers, or get a hot lunch with dignity.

Montalto said shortly after the governor asked that non-essential businesses close in March, she and other Waltham advocates talked about contingency plans that would continue their mission while also keep staff and volunteers safe.

"The general feeling was not wanting to abandon our guests," she said. "How can we close down, when all of their resources were closing down?"

There are two shelters for single people experiencing homelessness in Waltham, both only open at night. During the day, people without homes are left to the streets, come rain or snow or heat. Often, that population would head to a fast food restaurant for a cup of coffee and sit inside. Some would head to the public library to read. With those go-tos, and the public restrooms that go along with them, closed, all that was left was the Community Day Center.

But the space was too small to keep open.

"From our perspective we knew we had to made this work," she told Patch recently. "Everybody else were sheltering in place, where were our folks going to go? At the very least, where are they going to find bathrooms?"

That March Monday, she called over to the Waltham mayor's office, and in less than 24 hours the mayor green-lit porta-potties to be set up outside center.

That was the very beginning of stepping out into a new model.

Since then, the center has been providing brown bag lunches weekdays around 12:30 p.m. It's not like the hot meals they'd like to offer, but they try to compensate where they can. One volunteer comes every Friday with home-baked chocolate chip cookies or brownies. As the volunteers hand over brown bags, they ask for preferences in sandwiches, chit chat and check in to see if anyone needs extra socks or clothing or a toothbrush. Among the handful of volunteers, there's someone to field instant case management, she said. Many of the regulars get their mail delivered here, so as they make it to the front of the line, volunteers deliver their mail, too.

At the beginning, the center was serving about 20 people daily. That number has grown to as many as 50, according to volunteers and staff. Many of those are regular guests, people who stay at the Bristol Lodge shelter, along with other community members, including a couple of seniors and care givers from the neighborhood.

"You don't have to work with a case manager, you don't even have to tell us your name," Montalto said. "So if someone wants to come in and have lunch and leave and that's ok. But it's our hope that we'll get to know that person's name. The message is we are here for you, you are not alone."

That's because the lunch part serves as the draw, but the case management aspect helps get resources into the hands of people in an effort to get them off the street.

"We're very active in getting folks housed, and we're very proud of our efforts in that vein," she said.

For that to continue, the group has worked with local volunteer groups such as Chaplins on the Way and Partners and Newton-Wellesley Hospital to get burner phones to distribute to people living outside. The phones help the case workers to connect with and check in with those who get isolated.

"The plan is to keep this model until they feel absolutely safe that they can reopen. This facility is very very small," Montalto said. "I don't want to run an environment that can make people sick."

And the caution is merited. The population of people experiencing homelessness is considered a vulnerable one: Random testing earlier this year at Pine Street Inn, a homeless shelter in Boston found that nearly 40 percent of their guests tested positive for the virus.

So for now, the new model, and the line will continue.

"From the very beginning, folks felt embarrassed that they had to stand on this line, and hiccups," said Montalto. "But, we've been doing this now for months and it's our new normal, this is just the way it is and there's no stigma and it's just something we offer."

Previously on Patch:

• Tents On Waltham Common Put A Spotlight On Homeless

• What Do Homeless People In Waltham Do Amid Coronavirus Crisis?
• Tents To House Homeless Go Up On Waltham Common
• 200 Homeless Test Positive Coronavirus In Boston