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.
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Comments
Love to see it
By Oxenfree
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 11:58am
Genuinely glad this is happening. Finding stable shelter is step 1 in getting out of homelessness.
Technically speaking, finding
By Burbanist
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 12:23pm
Technically speaking, finding stable housing is the only step in getting out of homelessness by definition.
Ah, so it's not in your
By anon
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 2:42pm
Ah, so it's not in your neighborhood.
Well, I hope it’s not in yours.
By Lee
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 2:58pm
For the sake of the new residents. No one needs a hostile ignorant neighbor.
That Hotel should've been converted to permanent housing==.
By mplo
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.
Yes, and
By Oxenfree
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.
So...
By SwirlyGrrl
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".
How do they keep away the
By anon
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 12:28pm
How do they keep away the drug activity and drug use and the relapsing???
Mainly by providing housing.
By Lee
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.
The answer is right in front of you
By Charles Bahne
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
Re: Details
By Tina Flowers
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
This isn't a new use for the property
By SwirlyGrrl
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?
We need both
By bg
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.
If two hotels have closed in
By xyz
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.
City & State Contracts are the road to wealth
By Username Unknown
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.
Message from a homeless person:
By ZZBoston
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 5:31pm
Thank you for your kindness.
So ...
By SwirlyGrrl
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.
Missed the point as usual
By Username Unknown
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.
They do not have "zero" oversight
By anon
Thu, 01/02/2025 - 2:52pm
Keep digging without a shovel. Or, better yet, link to something. Your truthy stories are getting tiresome.
I'll post the most controversial of comments
By Waquiot
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.
I live down the street
By JP Resident
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 4:45pm
And this is Jamaica Plain through and through.
Kinda of the debatable border
By anon
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...
Oh?
By adamg
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 11:37pm
One media outlet said it was Jamaica Plain.
Touché sir
By anon
Tue, 12/31/2024 - 8:38am
Touché
Hehe!
By Lee
Wed, 01/01/2025 - 9:03pm
Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper.
There was a homicide out front
By JP Resident
Mon, 12/30/2024 - 4:45pm
But unclear if residents were associated with crime or victim.
I like that it's so close to the Brookline town line
By anon
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.
Cards held close
By Username Unknown
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.
Show your hand
By SwirlyGrrl
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.
Great Shot
By Back End
Tue, 12/31/2024 - 3:46am
Great Shot
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