Advocates for the homeless say they’ll continue to fight to change a regulation that sometimes requires homeless families with children to live in places unfit for human habitation before becoming eligible for a shelter.
Last fall Sabine, a Boston nursing assistant, kept all her earthly possessions in her son Aiden’s stroller. He was just one-year-old at the time and they were no longer welcome to live doubled-up in a friend’s place. Because of a law stating that they’d basically have to live in dangerous surroundings before eligibility, they were denied admittance to a shelter.
Dr. Megan Sandel, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center, is among those advocating a rule change. “We can have up to 20 families in a month come to our emergency room solely because they have no other place to go,” she relates.