Eight homeless families will be forced to relocate Oct. 31 with the shutting of two shelters in Cambridge, partially the result of being excluded from a state contract after funding cuts.
The emergency shelters – which can hold up to 14 families – have been at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in The Port neighborhood for more than 40 years in partnership with the Hildebrand Family Self-Help Center, which grew out of a ministry at St. Paul AME and is based in Central Square. They got funding through contracts with the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
“It has been fulfilling to see something that started off as a response to a need really bloom into an organization that has served so many families in their time of crisis,” said St. Paul AME pastor Ellis Washington, who also works as clerk on the Hildebrand board of directors. “It certainly is painful to think about these properties no longer being operated as shelters.”
Although there are other shelters in Cambridge, only one serves families in the area. After St. Paul’s alerted city councillor E. Denise Simmons of the closing, she and councillor Marc McGovern introduced a policy order Aug. 3 urging the state and Hildebrand to work with St. Paul “to preserve these shelter locations and continue this long-standing partnership.”
If the shelters close, their capacity will be lost and families will be relocated to other Hildebrand Sites around Cambridge and the Boston area, which could uproot kids from school communities.
“The unpredictability that comes along with being unhoused is something that can be really unsettling and traumatizing for everybody, especially kids,” said McGovern, a social worker. “It’s not like, oh, they lost their placement and they just go somewhere else and everything’s fine. It’s all those other things, right? It’s school. It’s friends. It’s security.”
In addition, “some of the kids might need special education services that they’re getting in [a certain] school,” McGovern said. “To lose that funding and force those families to then move to God knows where is not good for them, and it’s not good for our community.”
Washington warned that these closings, which look like just “two less housing units in [Hildebrand’s] overall portfolio,” could be just the beginning.
“I think it’s a part of a larger issue that will affect many families,” he said.
Hildebrand and the state
Although Hildebrand is funded by multiple supporters, it relies on state support, including contracts to run shelters. The state announced in March plans to shrink by thousands the number of available family shelter units to about 3,200 starting in July to minimize costs after giant outlays following the Covid pandemic. Officially, the state has a 4,000-family capacity limit as it tries to move people through and out of its system faster – yet state legislators said in the spring that neither figure was meaningful, because the state was leaving up to half its available beds empty with tougher requirements for access.
“All of a sudden there is this push, as I understand it, to reduce your inventory.
And so it seems like we’re caught up in that,” Washington said.
Cambridge officials learned in 2023 that the city had the state’s highest per-capita number of emergency shelter beds for the homeless – 2.29 beds per 100 residents – but wanted to do even more. Washington didn’t want the shelters gone. Nor did Hildebrand leadership, McGovern said.
“They’re not asking to be closed, right? … I spoke with the executive director before the policy order was voted on, and if it were up to them, they would want to stay,” McGovern said. “Why would you take that resource away from a city that welcomes them and wants to help and take care of them? It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Hopefully our policy order will make a difference; I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” As of Monday, six weeks after the order, McGovern had not seen progress.
When Hildebrand presented its yearly shelter portfolio, it chose to leave out the shelter on Columbia. Then the state excluded the Bishop shelter from its contracting. Now both are closing.
“Though Hildebrand was disappointed to learn that its shelter located at Bishop Allen Drive was not selected for its FY27 shelter contract with EOHLC, we remain committed to our mission and work with homeless families,” Hildebrand wrote in a statement to The Independent. “Hildebrand will continue to shelter homeless families at its remaining facility in Cambridge and at its other facilities throughout Greater Boston.”
The shelters
The shelter on Columbia Avenue now houses two families, while the shelter on Bishop Allen Drive houses six; a Hildebrand annual report last year said the maximum capacity was 14 families. Families are approved only after an extensive application process that includes multiple forms of identification and a “qualifying reason for homelessness” – domestic violence, a disaster, a no-fault eviction or sleeping in an unsafe place.
In April, the state implemented changes to the process after facing costs of nearly $1 billion in the 2025 fiscal year for family shelter stays despite declaring a state of emergency in 2023 as demand skyrocketed to more than 7,500 families. Changes include more stringent residency requirements – each person must be a Massachusetts resident and intend to stay permanently or indefinitely, and documentation is required for all adults. Background checks were added, and stays got shorter.
Families at emergency shelters must follow a six-month “Bridge Shelter Path” to find “stable housing,” according to Housing and Livable Communities. They will work with staff to “leverage the family’s individual strengths and assets toward securing permanent, affordable housing,” Hildebrand says on its website.
St. Paul AME’s Washington said his congregation may be disappointed if the shelters close.
“The church has a very giving spirit and an outreach kind of spirit and has always been very proud to know that this has been very successful in serving so many families over the years,” he said.
Hildebrand and St. Paul’s
Hildebrand, named after one of the church’s former bishops, was established at the church in 1988 when a family experiencing homelessness was found on its steps; then-pastor Leroy Attles found the city had little family shelter space. The church and city worked together to renovate the two buildings for shelters.
Now the nonprofit has 133 emergency shelter units across Cambridge and Boston and 31 units of affordable permanent housing, including nine units with support services, according to the annual report.
Washington said that since the organization began as a nonprofit more than 40 years ago, it has always had at least two properties to house families experiencing homelessness.
“I haven’t seen any acknowledgment or at least any understanding that we’re basically separating the relationship between the Hildebrand and St. Paul’s,” Washington said.
Hildebrand later presented a statement to this effect to The Independent.
“We will always be grateful for our partnership with St. Paul’s AME Church who provided our first shelters,” Hildebrand said. “While we will not provide shelter together, we look forward to continuing our antipoverty and housing justice work with the St. Paul’s team and congregation.”
