LYNN — It was getting close to dinnertime at Independence House, a Lynn emergency shelter, and the large, communal kitchen was coming alive.
A mother sat at one of the tables, tending to a baby. Three women stood by a stove chatting as one of them braised meat in a large pot, filling the place with the rich smell of layered spices. A toddler named Faith wandered around, used to being fussed over, accepting coos and cuddles from workers and residents.
Outside this warm kitchen, the state’s shelter system has become a huge crisis. Largely because of an surge of migrants fleeing Haiti and other countries – who make up just over half of the residents at Independence House – the system is at capacity, and its costs have ballooned to over $1 billion per year statewide, which officials say is unsustainable. There have been reports of inadequate responses to alleged crimes committed by residents in some shelters, and costly decisions on contracts and vetting amidst their rapid expansion. On top of it all, the new president has declared open season on immigrants whether or not they have permission to be here, as these residents do.
Inside, however, this place is full of people doing their best. The 32 families who live here have qualified for shelter because the state has determined they have no other choices. They’re safe, but they want to get out and start their lives in communities and homes of their own. The caseworkers and other staffers are working mightily to help them get there, racing state deadlines to ready their clients and find housing they can afford.
Everybody here wants that hard work, and not the crisis, to define them.
“So much of the conversation is about them coming through the door, and not what happens to get them out,” said State Representative Sean Reid, a freshman Democrat who represents this district.
Reid knows what happens here better than most politicians. He was once a guest of the Lynn Shelter Association, which runs this and several other shelters. When he was a kid, his parents battled substance use disorder, and they were homeless. After his father was sent to prison, Reid and his mother landed at another LSA shelter, called Bridge House, less than a mile from here. The compassion he found there transformed his life, he said.
“In that time of trauma, they made you feel normal and treated you like human beings, and with such dignity,” said Reid, now 29, with a son of his own.
Eventually, with help from their caseworkers, Reid and his mother qualified for subsidized housing, and they stayed stable for the rest of his childhood.
Not every client cared for by the Lynn Shelter Association will become a state rep, but CEO Mark Evans and his colleagues have dedicated decades to making sure Reid is not an outlier.
“Sean is not an aberration,” Evans said. The people his shelters serve are like people everywhere: Take a cross section and you’ll find those who do awful things, but you’ll also find many who make spectacular successes of their lives - no matter where they come from, or what they look like.
“I don’t think my journey is as unique as people think,” Reid said. “Every day, the shelters help people overcome extremely high odds to achieve unimaginable things, and the unimaginable looks different for everyone.”
Little Faith – the celebrity toddler at Independence House – could be anything with enough luck and support. And, most importantly, with stable affordable housing. Our failure to reckon with the criminal dearth of that in this state — after decades of underinvestment and restrictive zoning — is what made the migrant arrivals a huge crisis. Reid and Evans say that even without the accelerated arrivals, the shelter system would have reached a breaking point eventually.
But here we are. There is nothing to do but keep working, creating what Evans calls “communities of love, commitment, caring, and empathy.” His nonprofit is opening new shelters, including one for individuals in downtown Lynn and another right across the street from Independence House.
That one, almost complete, will allow the LSA to move some 28 families out of a hotel into cozy apartments, where they’ll have the space and support to get up on their feet and, ideally, out on their own after a few months.
Its name: The Reid House.
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com.