{shortcode-19f38e45f573395767cdb01d0880a944112a893a}

The City of Cambridge plans to halt funding to the Transition Wellness Center Shelter in June, removing the shelter’s 58 beds as the city struggles to accommodate its unhoused population.

The center — which is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act — opened in December 2020 as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic and was originally intended to close in 2023. The city extended funding of the program to June 2025, but will not extend it again when the lease expires.

This change comes after the state-funded Safety Net Family Shelter closed in December 2024, eliminating services for 70 families previously served by the institution. While state funding for the Salvation Army shelter was set to run out in March 2023, Cambridge provided funding to save the 35 beds.

With Cambridge’s American Rescue Plan Act money running out, the city was unable to fund the TWCS beyond June 2025. According to Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern, the city has decided to invest in long term rehabilitation programs instead.

“About half of that is going to be reinvested in helping create permanent supportive housing that we’ve been creating on Norfolk Street and Wendell Street and other places,” McGovern said. Some longer-term residents of the Transition Wellness Center, he said, would move into the other facilities.

“A lot of them are going there, and some of them have already gone I believe or are going soon,” he added.

McGovern said that while funding both long-term projects and emergency shelters would be ideal, a lack of funding forced the city to choose between the two.

“The reality is we need all those beds at Norfolk St. and Wendell St., and we need to keep the shelter space open,” he said. “We can’t do both, so they’re deciding to reinvest money into the housing piece of it, and the shelter is going to close.”

McGovern discussed the city’s plan to transition “longer-term” TWCS residents to more stable living situations, including helping them apply for supportive housing.

“They’re actually spending time and money sort of planning and trying to help people who are going to have to leave the shelter find another place to go,” McGovern added.

McGovern said that the city was taking these efforts – including investing its own money outside of ARPA — “to make sure that people have as soft a landing as possible in a really tough situation.”

“We’re just not going to have people show up one day and have the doors locked,” McGovern said. “The city has really been trying to plan and give people a lot of lead time.”

Jim Stewart, the director of First Church Shelter, said that the process of moving from a shelter to long term supportive housing can sometimes take months or years for their residents.

“Generally you’re talking an excess of eight to 12 months to get people stashed away,” Steward said.

Changes within the city and state shelter systems mirror the tightening budgets and growing demand that many local shelters are struggling with post-pandemic, potentially compounding a worsening problem.

“We also saw more shelter resources be made available during the pandemic to help people, but we’re now coming out of the pandemic. It’s been a couple years, the emergency funding that was helping to support all those things has pretty much gone away,” said Andrea J. Kalsow, director of development and communications for On The Rise, a Central Square day center.

“​​Our organization has been around for about 30 years now, and this is really the first time in our organization’s history that we have not been able to help people find beds,” Kalsow said.

—Staff writer Diego García Moreno can be reached at diego.garciamoreno@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at summer.rose@thecrimson.com.