With help from the community, a church opens its doors to provide overflow shelter

Downstairs, there’s a computer class. Upstairs, there's a makeshift playroom. Next door, there's a religious sanctuary.

The Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain has converted a former rectory into a temporary shelter that’s hosting eight homeless families. A nonprofit is providing social services and the city of Boston is providing seed funding to furnish and supply this place for families to go while they wait for units in the state’s family shelter system to open up.

And by all accounts, the surrounding community has stepped up to volunteer and donate a wide range of necessities, from winter coats to computers.

“Our hope is that it will become a model for how other communities of faith can also mobilize,” said Gloria White-Hammond, co-pastor at the church and a retired pediatrician.

Pointing to a bedroom with neatly made beds, she said, “that used to be my office. We packed up everything so this can accommodate other people. I love the sound of children playing.”

In the past year, Massachusetts has seen a record number of homeless families. Their needs have overwhelmed the state's shelter system, prompting Gov. Maura Healey to cap the shelter population and create a waitlist. As of Friday afternoon, 367 homeless families were waitlisted.

In the six weeks since the waitlist started, a patchwork of temporary overflow shelters have opened. These include privately-run shelters funded by a United Way grant program, as well as state-run sites. On Friday, the state opened a new temporary shelter that is only open overnight. It is located in a former courthouse in Cambridge and can support up to 70 families.

However, there are more families on the waitlist than there are spots in overflow shelters. This has meant some families have been sleeping at Logan Airport. There are also reports of families sleeping outside and in cars.

Immigrant Family Services Institute, a nonprofit serving the Haitian community, had supported many families on the waitlist, including booking hotel rooms. Now, the group is teaming up with Bethel AME Church to open a temporary shelter. The nonprofit is providing various services for the families staying in the former rectory, including case workers who visit regularly to help the families navigate everything from the school system to the shelter system.

Geralde Gabeau, executive director of the institute, said she’s been impressed with how the community in Jamaica Plain has sprung into action to help the families. “Everyone wants to help. Everyone wants to step in, which is wonderful. And I think that’s what we need to do in every single community,” she said.

In the coming weeks, Gabeau said, she'll be bringing other religious groups to tour the church’s temporary shelter and help them envision what they can do with their own space.

“So often people think that it's difficult,” she said. “But what I'm telling them is that difficult doesn't mean impossible.”

A spokesperson for the city of Boston wrote in an email that “the model is meant to demonstrate proof-of-concept on how we can get newly arrived families skills training, job placements, and stable shelter on an expedited timeline — with the hope that such a model could help loosen capacity in the shelter system if scaled up across the state."

The spokesperson did not answer questions about how much the city is paying to make this space possible. The church space opened in mid-November.

“Jesus couldn’t find a place to be born, right? But someone stepped up and there was a room that came up, and so we’ve got a whole house that’s available to do likewise,” said co-pastor White-Hammond.

A number of congregants from Bethel AME are volunteering to help the homeless families, who are all newly arrived migrants from Haiti.

“The best thing is that you have folks who are on fire to learn and then they are extremely grateful as well,” said Daniel Saintival, who is helping as an English teacher twice a week.

Yves Alfred, who has been staying in the shelter with his wife and three children, said he’s grateful they have a warm place to stay. And he’s happy they’ve been able to meet other families in the temporary shelter.

“We live together, we understand each other,” he said, speaking through a translator.