Louison House Details Struggles, Challenges in Past Year
Executive Director Kathy Keeser speaks to the nonprofit shelter's beginnings in 1990.
"We work with a lot of people that we can't work with, and what I mean by that is if they have medical issues, and we can't put them into individualized sheltering because we don't have medical personnel that can help them," said staff member Lynette Kite. "We have elderly that I've worked with personally that are being put out of their homes because of hoarding ... I don't like that word, but they have a lot of memories that they will want to and it's very difficult for them to give those memories up."
And there are unhoused people in need of medical respite, short-term care for illness that doesn't require hospitalization.
Kite was speaking of the challenges over the past year at Louison House's annual meeting, held last month in Murdock Hall at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
This was the 35th anniversary of the shelter, founded by Terry Louison, that's grown from the original house in Adams (now dubbed Terry's House) to include the Flood House and new Bracewell youth housing in North Adams, plus managing motel housing. Louison House offers emergency, transitional and permanent supportive housing in North Berkshire and Pittsfield.
"We're all very proud of what we do, and hopefully that everyone else here is happy with what's going on," said President Michael Cutler. "We're just going to, as my old boss used to say, moving forward, that's what we're going to try to keep doing every day.
Some of what staff has seen is people ending up in nursing facilities because they refuse to come off the street and give up their "stuff."
"Our biggest struggle lately is people who are coming here for treatment," Kite said. "They're going into treatment facilities, and they're messing up, and they're being put out of those facilities, and we don't have space."
She said the shelter's main struggles are helping the elderly community, people coming out of substance abuse treatment and those who need medical respite.
"Medical respite is real. OK, there's funding for that," Kite said. "So if you know anybody who's out on the street and they have oxygen tanks, they have dialysis, anything like that, reach out to Mass Health. The funding is there and they can be put into medical respite."
Louison House was also able to point to some real successes, with staff member Moira Miller focusing on the youth ages 18 to 24 that it serves.
"They become homeless for various reasons, much like regular adults. It could be reasons like sexuality, change in the family dynamics, abuse, aging or growing out of their support system, such as school or DCF, mental health, pregnancy, addiction, and these are the reasons why we need more programs such as Bracewell to help out," she said.
Louison had one young man come into the shelter last year, and then his grandmother. Staff was able to get them into a two-bedroom apartment and help them with paperwork for services. In Pittsfield, they were able to get a young family into housing.
"Not only do we have successes with our clients, but we also have successes with working partnerships," Miller said. These include the libraries, MassHire, food banks, Berkshire Community Action Council, local churches and Berkshire Community College, and students from MCLA and Williams College.
Two clients spoke of their experiences with homelessness and Louison House. A young mother of a 5-year-old said they had couch-served for nine months before becoming homeless. Living Hope Community Church connected to Louison, which was able to put her and daughter into a motel for 67 days. Last October, they were able to move into one of the shelter's apartments.
"It was such a scary time for myself and my daughter and just not knowing what was going to happen next or where we were going to go, probably one of the scariest times since becoming a mom, but everyone reassured us, they helped us," she said. "It's beyond anything that we could have asked for, and we have more space now than we ever have before, and also to have a place my confidence grew, and I'm also starting a certificate training course soon."
Kevin has had periods of homelessness throughout his life, most recently when his mother died two years ago and he lost his apartment when the building was condemned. He had trouble finding a place he could afford, with his mother's two dogs, and hesitated to reach out to Louison, "mostly out of pride."
The shelter was able to get him emergency housing and has now helped twice with apartment searches.
"So luckily, because I had done all those vouchers and things at the Louison House, it was only a matter of a few weeks, they managed to find me a new apartment," he said. "It was much easier the second time around, it was very helpful and easy because they have great staff there."
The nonprofit ended its fiscal year in September with $75,000 and the anticipation of $1.6 million in revenue for fiscal 2027, though funding is unsure.
"If we lose all of that funding, obviously we'll have some significant cuts to make," said Treasurer Betty Hakes. "But I just want to emphasize that with barriers that have been put in place this year, the staff and the organization has worked very hard to make sure we're still able to serve as many people as we have and not have to cut into any of our reserve funds."
Executive Director Kathy Keeser said the shelter has already had to turn people away because it could not provide medical assistance or because its rooms were full.
"The high costs are our rentals. People always expect staffing to be the highest cost. It still is. But we rent over $200,000 to around $220,000 worth of apartment rentals," she said. "So we're in a tricky situation if that grant funding ends — we can't just throw people out. So we're going to be trying to cover rents and trying to gradually figure out."
She encouraged attendees to participate in fundraisers, advocate at the state and federal level, and keep an open mind on housing.
"The thing that gets us through is all of the community we work with, because we don't do it alone," Keeser said. "No one staff does everything alone, and our agency does nothing alone. So appreciation for all of you. I appreciate the board and all of the staff and all the agencies."
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