Pine Street Inn greatly appreciates the interest and support of our community. The health and safety of our guests, tenants, volunteers and staff is of utmost importance to us.
“Pine Street Inn, together with our partners, is taking every precaution to protect our guests and employees," said Pine Street President and Executive Director Lyndia Downie. "We continue to work closely with public health partners as we take action to keep our staff, guests and tenants safe.”
We are tremendously grateful for the outpouring of concern from our community. These emergency measures will have a significant impact on our operations. To help us manage this unprecedented situation, we have established several ways you can help us continue to provide for those who turn to us.
If you wish to support these efforts, please know you are helping Pine Street do everything possible to keep our guests and tenants safe.
COVID-19 Information
We are concerned about colder weather and properly sheltering those experiencing homelessness. Our partners at the City of Boston are bringing on roughly 200 additional beds for the winter. The beds are being added in sites in Brighton, Mission Hill and downtown. Additionally, the City is working with the state to add additional capacity in locations surrounding and outside of Boston as well.
Earlier this year, Suffolk University repurposed a dormitory to provide beds for more than 200 guests, helping reduce congestion and increase social distancing in Boston shelters. This facility accommodated medically-compromised, frail guests, where social distancing was most critical. In late July, about 180 of these guests were moved to a building at 891 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, as a 'bridge' to housing, to continue to provide social distancing. Staff is working with them to find permanent housing as quickly as possible.
We have:
These measures have proven enormously successful. Several rounds of universal testing were conducted with Pine Street's guests . Initially, positive rates were 36%; testing conducted in early August showed zero positive results. As of fall 2020, we are starting to do testing again at our shelters and are finding the numbers are starting to rise, as they are across the city, state and country. We will continue to closely monitor this and to reinforce all of our safety protocols. We are also working the city of Boston to plan for additional isolation and quarantine space.