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Owner of Jamaica Plain hotel makes conversion to homeless shelter official: Sells building to the non-profit now running it

By adamg on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 10:19am

SDS Hospitality, which owned the enVision Hotel at 81 South Huntington Ave., last week sold the building to Victory Programs, which has been housing homeless people there since 2022, for $15.8 million, according to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds records.

The former Pond View nursing home, which closed in 2008, re-opened as the boutique enVision Hotel in 2012. It closed during the pandemic in 2020. In 2022, under a city contract, Victory Programs began operating it as a temporary shelter for people forced to move from the homeless encampment that had grown up at Mass and Cass.

The non-profit says the four-story building is:

Transitional housing for individuals coming directly from the streets at Mass. and Cass, struggling with substance use and/or risk for overdose, and who are at high risk for HIV acquisition or are living with HIV/AIDS.

Victory Programs says the building is staffed 24/7 with workers who help residents get treatment and training, with the goal of finding them permanent housing within three to nine months.

Neighborhoods: 
Jamaica Plain
Free tagging: 
South Huntington Avenue
Mass and Cass
Homelessness


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Comments

By Oxenfree on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 11:58am.

Genuinely glad this is happening. Finding stable shelter is step 1 in getting out of homelessness.

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By Burbanist on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 12:23pm.

Technically speaking, finding stable housing is the only step in getting out of homelessness by definition.

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By anon on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 2:42pm.

Ah, so it's not in your neighborhood.

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By Lee on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 2:58pm.

For the sake of the new residents. No one needs a hostile ignorant neighbor.

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By mplo on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 3:13pm.

That hotel in Jamaica Plain should've been converted into permanent, affordable housing for the homeless, not just a shelter.

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By Oxenfree on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 3:52pm.

Both can be good ideas! We need more shelter space AND more affordable housing. Hopefully other hotels can be converted the way this has been and provide the next step in stability for people.

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By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 01/01/2025 - 11:27am.

Where do you put shelters? We need more of all of this.

I'm glad you aren't in charge of any policies - you have strange ideas about the nature of homelessness and bizarre punishment/redemption fantasies about substance abuse disorders "to boot".

By anon on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 12:28pm.

How do they keep away the drug activity and drug use and the relapsing???

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By Lee on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 1:21pm.

Studies have shown that being without a home is a big factor in how people sink into addiction, depression and other health issues.

However, many of the unhoused or those at risk for homelessness are not addicted to drugs or alcohol. Many of them have jobs and earn a living. It’s just less and less possible nowadays to afford a roof over your head no matter how hard you work.

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By Charles Bahne on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 1:52pm.

Q: How do they keep away the drug activity and drug use and the relapsing???

A: the building is staffed 24/7 with workers who help residents get treatment and training

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By Tina Flowers on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 9:01pm.

Unfortunately they left out 1 important detail… it’s not just a shelter but it is a “wet” shelter, where drug use is allowed, and harm reduction supplies are made available

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By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 01/01/2025 - 11:31am.

Have there been issues? This facility has been there a few years so there would be records of anything that has happened.

Have you had issues with the residents when you have walked by? Did you even know it was there when you walked by?

By bg on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 2:05pm.

Glad to see there's more places to help people be off the streets, but it also leaves JP with zero hotels. enVision and the Perkins Inn were two attempts for short-term rentals in JP.

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By xyz on Tue, 12/31/2024 - 3:20pm.

If two hotels have closed in the same area, maybe it's because there's not a lot of demand for hotels in that area, so having none may not be a problem.

By Username Unknown on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 2:22pm.

I've looked at the contract amounts that are provided to house these folks and it is incredible. No wonder a small agency can suddenly buy a $17 million dollar property and operate it.

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By ZZBoston on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 5:31pm.

Thank you for your kindness.

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By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 01/01/2025 - 11:32am.

You are willing to pay for this on the other end - the things that happen when we don't have shelters and drug rehab? Meth labs, crack houses, rampant HIV transmission, and (going back a ways) opium dens and tuberculosis and syphillis?

I think we tried that for over a hundred years. Didn't go well.

By Username Unknown on Wed, 01/01/2025 - 5:55pm.

So...

The point is that these contracts have zero oversight and pay quadruple the cost to house & treat these folks. If these contracts were actually managed and bid in the real world there would be a lot more funds available for additional treatment/housing centers.

By Waquiot on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 4:15pm.

This address would be Mission Hill more than it would be Jamaica Plain.

Overall, sounds like a good idea. If they've been going for 2 years, there's a track record, and since this place doesn't pop up in the news, they must be doing something good.

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By JP Resident on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 4:45pm.

And this is Jamaica Plain through and through.

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By anon on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 11:19pm.

If something nice happens it is JP. If something bad happens, it is Mission HIll:

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/man-killed-in-boston-shooting-no-ar...

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By adamg on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 11:37pm.

One media outlet said it was Jamaica Plain.

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By anon on Tue, 12/31/2024 - 8:38am.

Touché

By Lee on Wed, 01/01/2025 - 9:03pm.

Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper.

By JP Resident on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 4:45pm.

But unclear if residents were associated with crime or victim.

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By anon on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 5:47pm.

They won't have to ship their unhoused and untreated mentally ill residents so far to get them out of the eyeline of the fancy folks.

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By Username Unknown on Mon, 12/30/2024 - 6:13pm.

They had a rough start but seemed to have leveled out more recently. Not sure how many residents have gone through the program but there have been several overdose deaths inside as well as a stabbing and shooting on the property. Certain info only sees the light if people are pressing for it.

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By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 01/01/2025 - 11:34am.

Certain info also only sees the light when people link to their sources. Be interesting to see the data given this place has been there for a while.

By Back End on Tue, 12/31/2024 - 3:46am.

Great Shot