The Baker administration has announced that it will open a temporary facility in Devens at the Bob Eisengrein Community Center to help vulnerable individuals and families throughout Massachusetts find emergency housing, a decision that surprised residents, area leaders, and even the agency that regulates commercial and residential development.
Residents learned of the decision two days before Thanksgiving, on Nov. 22, and were quick to react, first on social media and in phone calls and emails to Devens officials, and then during public comment at this week’s virtual meeting of the Devens Enterprise Commission.
More than two dozen residents attended Tuesday’s meeting, the majority lamenting that MassDevelopment had offered Devens’ sole community center to a state agency without seeking their advice or the advice of either of their elected committees—the Devens Committee (also known as the Devens Citizen Advisory Committee) or the Devens Educational Advisory Committee.
State and local officials interviewed by the Press, including Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Devens Framework Jurisdiction Committee Co-Chair Victor Normand, observed that an elected municipal government would never have volunteered a town building without first seeking public input. “Notwithstanding the merit associated with the temporary use of the Eisengrein Community Center as emergency housing, I think it is clear that the current action is precipitous and would not have occurred in this fashion in any city or town in the Commonwealth,” wrote Normand in an email.
“I think, obviously, the decision for MassDevelopment to propose the building without communicating with the residents of Devens in my opinion was an error,” said Duncan Chapman, a DEC commissioner who represents Harvard. “It’s been done. We have to move forward based on where we are. But, I hope in the future any decision like this, you would bring in the Devens residents prior to submitting a building for any use.”
The Bob Eisengrein Community Center at Devens is being prepared to become the state’s intake center to help homeless and migrant families find emergency housing. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
A time of humanitarian need
Residents and businesses at Devens learned of the plan from a three-page letter hand-delivered last Tuesday—in some cases taped to their doors—and signed by MassDevelopment CEO and President Dan Rivera and Acting Vice President for Devens Operations Meg Delorier, who assured them that the planned facility would not be used for long-term housing. “This is not a permanent solution,” they wrote. “This is our community contributing to the good of our Commonwealth in a time of humanitarian need.” The DEC and members of the Devens state delegation learned of the decision the same day. Delorier drove to Devens so she could inform DEC officials in person.
The need for the processing center was explained in a press release distributed the same day by the governor’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and signed by Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy. “By creating a centralized space to conduct intake activities before families are placed in their emergency assistance site, we will be able to better assess the needs of these individuals and better prepare communities for the arrival of families to sites in their city or town,” Kennealy wrote.
The facility will be located on Sherman Avenue in Devens, facing Rogers Field, and will use the Bob Eisengrein building and parking lot. Sherman Avenue is a residential neighborhood, whose brick houses, former officers’ quarters now privately owned, also face Rogers Field. The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency will prepare the site for occupancy and manage its operation. The state Department of Housing and Community Development will administer client services, in partnership with Making Opportunities Count, a Fitchburg nonprofit, and the Montachusett Opportunity Council.
Three to five days of temporary housing
Although MEMA has yet to submit a formal plan, officials have told the Press that the center—the first of its kind in Massachusetts—will provide three to five days of temporary lodging for up to 60 families or 125 individuals while case workers seek to place them in more permanent emergency housing. MEMA will supplement the facilities available at the Eisengrein Community Center with mobile restrooms, showers, and other units as needed. These will be installed at the center’s parking lot, facing Rogers Field.
According to officials, the site will be staffed 24 hours a day by medical and social service professionals. Security will be provided by a private firm, yet to be named, but on-site security personnel will be unarmed, Delorier has assured residents. Emergency services will be provided by the Devens Fire Department and the state police unit stationed there.
Money for the Devens center is available in a supplemental budget filed by Gov. Charlie Baker on Nov. 18. The bill is languishing in the House Ways and Means Committee, but includes $20 million for a “central intake center.” Sen. Eldridge told the Press that he believed the state had enough money to pay for the site with or without passage of Gov. Baker’s bill. At this week’s meeting of the Devens Enterprise Commission, Delorier told attendees that the state will compensate MassDevelopment for the use of the center. “We anticipate being paid for all of our expenses including time, the use of the facility, any ongoing requirements of our DPW or anybody else in Devens.”
Dona Neely (foreground) and Amanda Lansing of The Great Exchange assess the furniture left to move out of their space at the Bob Eisengrein Community Center.
Rising homelessness, an influx of migrants, and a shortage of housing throughout the state appear to lie behind the governor’s decision to create a central facility to process people in need of emergency shelter. “In Massachusetts, the need to house our neighbors outweighs the capacity,” wrote Rivera. There was a need “to move quickly to get the most vulnerable out of the elements and into transitional housing for the winter,” he said. Massachusetts is the only state with a “right to shelter” law, which guarantees emergency shelter to families with children and pregnant women. Such applicants will have the highest priority at the center, said Delorier.
‘We follow the bylaws’
The Devens Enterprise Commission is responsible for enforcing the rules and regulations that govern development at Devens, and any development requires a permit from that agency. Director Peter Lowitt told the three dozen attendees at Tuesday’s DEC meeting that while state use of any MassDevelopment-owned facility at Devens is allowed, any use must comply with state building and sanitary codes.
“We follow the Devens bylaws,” said Lowitt. State agencies are allowed in any district, “but they still have to file a building permit,” he said. “And if they’re going to put exterior showers in a trailer, they need a Level 1 administrative permit [from the DEC] for that as well.” A Level 1 permit, according to the bylaws, can be approved by the DEC director.
In their announcements last week, both the governor’s office and MassDevelopment said the new center would be up and running by Dec. 5, but Lowitt told the Press he thought that unlikely. “More like an additional week or 10 days,” he said. The Press asked MEMA for details but did not receive an answer in time for this week’s paper.
On social media this past week and at Tuesday’s DEC meeting, residents pressed for more information on how the decision had been made. According to Delorier, the governor’s office asked MassDevelopment and other state agencies earlier this month whether they owned an “underutilized” site that could be used as a temporary central processing center. Delorier said she and Rivera reported that the Eisengrein center met the state’s criteria and was available. She said MassDevelopment heard nothing until last week when the governor’s office informed the agency that Devens had been selected. “We had one day to draft a letter and get word out to residents and businesses,” she said.
Eisengrein ‘would be proud’
At Tuesday’s DEC meeting, residents said the center was an important gathering place, the only such facility at Devens. MassDevelopment recently hosted a residents’ dinner there, and families have rented it for birthday parties and other events. This year’s annual tree lighting and visit with Santa Claus will have to be to be moved outdoors. On a recent visit to the building, the Press encountered Great Exchange Director Dona Neely and a crew of volunteers who had been given two weeks to move their inventory of used office equipment elsewhere.
Delorier says that MassDevelopment’s director of recreation, Hillary Andrews, is prepared to help residents locate space for community events. And Harvard Select Board Chair Rich Maiore said in an email that the town had offered to help Andrews find space for such events in town-owned buildings, including the Town Hall meeting room or the new senior center, now under renovation, on Lancaster County Road.
Against the advice of her peers, Delorier said, she had provided her cellphone number to residents in the agency’s letter. “I wanted the Devens residents and the Devens businesses to have somebody to reach out to and so that was going to be me,” she said. Amid what she characterized as “some really, really ugly emails from a lot of people,” she received one from Betty Eisengrein, “who told me how proud and happy Bob [Eisengrein, for whom the Devens community center is named] would be to know that this is what we were doing. … This is a temporary use. We’re just trying to do the best thing that we can to be helpful.“
