Disability Benefits and Boston’s Homeless

admin April 23, 2015

It is hard to walk to down the street in downtown Boston without seeing those who live on the city streets. While it is never easy to be without a home, it was especially difficult during this harsh winter that has just ended. The Boston Globe published a recent article in the Metro section that looked at the homeless population in our city and their struggle to obtain Social Security disability benefits.

During the month of February, over 300 city officials and volunteers spend an evening walking the cold dark streets to conduct the city’s annual count of homeless residents. This winter has not only been particularly brutal in terms of cold temperatures and snowfall, but a large homeless shelter closed as well. This was, of course the Long Island Shelter, which city officials had to evacuate this winter with the close of the Long Island Bridge.

With the bridge connecting Long Island to Quincy in a dangerously dilapidated condition, city officials made a quick move to close the bridge to all traffic and evacuate the island shelter of hundreds of homeless and recovering drug addicts. While they city has been working on a temporary and eventually permanent solution, many from the shelter ended up on the street.