Uprooting homelessness

Yesterday, innovation prevailed. Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey released a report from the state's commission on homelessness heralding substantial and welcome change -- a policy shift away from managing homelessness to ending its root causes.

Everyone should have a place to live: This is the moral common sense of the future, says Philip Mangano, a former Massachusetts advocate and now the federal point man on homelessness. Just as freed slaves or women voting once seemed unlikely, the idea of ending homelessness produces skeptics. But now state government officials are believers, and their political willpower should lead to great progress.

The commission report offers an outline for action. Eventually there will need to be more details and more funding.

A strong part of the new plan is prevention. For years advocates have gone hoarse pointing out that helping people pay back rent and utility bills is a simple, cheap way to prevent homelessness and something the state used to do. The report wisely calls for an early-warning system and money for overdue bills.

The report acknowledges that the heart of the state's work must be producing more housing. To help men and women move out of shelters, the state needs affordable housing that's within the reach of those earning 30 percent or less of the area's median income -- $21,810 for a family of three. At the Pine Street Inn, many people earn only 15 percent of the median income.

Healey also announced that the state will set up an interagency council on homelessness. The council will thrive if it brings all players to the table, especially state housing officials. Social services melt away quickly when people are sleeping on sidewalks, in shelters, or in motels, where overcrowding has forced the state to place some 500 families.

Massachusetts can once again be the home of historic progress if its leaders turn the vision of ending homelessness into the state's North Star.