St. Francis House, the downtown Boston day shelter that provides meals and services to adults who are unhoused, will next month unveil a top-to-bottom redesign shaped by the trauma people it serves have experienced.
The day shelter opened in 1984, in the old Boston Edison headquarters on Boylston Street near Chinatown. It serves about 500 people a day, according to Karen LaFrazia, the organization’s president and CEO. LaFrazia, who started with the organization 29 years ago, said it became clear to her the shelter itself added to people’s stress. She saw it right when they walked through the front door.
“You would come in, and you would see people with their shoulders up to their ears and not exhaling,” LaFrazia said. “Being triggered just by the physical space.”
The old two-story lobby had marble floors and walls, so the sounds of guests and staff talking, metal detectors beeping and shipments of food being wheeled in reverberated everywhere. The dining room was just off the main entry space, and it drew crowds.
Former shelter guest Murielle Cadet said walking into the loud, busy shelter made the symptoms of her post traumatic stress disorder worse.
“I have severe anxiety, so if it’s crowded, then I’m hearing everybody’s conversations, I’m hearing a pin drop, I’m hearing everything that’s going on,” she said.
Trauma-informed transformation
St. Francis House leaders worried some guests weren’t returning and that others were only coming in to take care of basic needs, such as eating meals. They wanted them to return and take part in longer-term services available at the shelter in order to move beyond homelessness. So they decided to overhaul the facility in a way they call “trauma-informed.”
About 90% of people who are homeless have experienced trauma — from childhood abuse to sexual assault and street violence. And being unhoused is further trauma.
St. Francis House hired architect Phil Renzi, an associate at The Architectural Team in Chelsea, to lead the redesign. He and his team spent a lot of time at the day shelter talking to guests and staff, and observing how the facility functioned.
The $27 million project, which included moving the shelter’s operations across the street during construction, was mostly funded by private donations. Six percent was covered by public funds, according to LaFrazia.
Renzi said his goal was to make the shelter a welcoming place, with a hotel-like feel, where “once someone walked through the door, came across the threshold, they felt they were in a safe, comfortable, calm environment.”
He and his team made the entryway slightly deeper to give people more room. They put in bigger windows, to bring in more light and allow guests to see the space before entering. And they reduced the size of the lobby’s high ceiling to cut down on reverberation.
A new, modestly grand staircase is the centerpiece of the lobby. Greenery and artwork decorate the space. Metal detectors just inside the front doors will be set to beep softly or vibrate.
The designers installed sound-absorbing floors and ceiling panels in certain parts of the building. They used natural, earthy tones and materials throughout. The walls are cream and sage green, with some splashes of dark red and rusty orange.
Finding their way to help
But the way the building flows and how people navigate it is just as important as the design materials and decor, according to Renzi and LaFrazia.
In the previous space, someone in the midst of a mental health or substance use crisis had to take the old, cramped elevator upstairs and go down a hall to an office to ask for help. Now, a behavioral health urgent care suite is just a short walk across the main lobby.
Also on the ground floor is a suite where people can meet with case managers who will help them access services and get back on their feet.
The kitchen and dining room have been moved up one level. That’s to help reduce crowding in the lobby and to help reframe people’s focus, “from the first impression being a place to get food to the first impression being a place where you could get help,” LaFrazia said. And the dining will be open all day, not just at specific meal times.
“People do better when they have choice, when they’re able to exercise control over their lives,” LaFrazia said. “That is the first thing that goes when you’re experiencing homelessness. You go to bed when somebody tells you, you get up when somebody tells you, you eat what somebody’s serving you, and you wear what somebody’s going to give you to wear.”
Now, guests can pick out their own clothes at a shelter boutique. That’s on the same new, spacious floor where guests can shower or visit the medical clinic. Previously, those areas were crammed together.
The top floor of the four-level shelter will feature two spaces that are meant to be healing refuges: a new art therapy room and women’s center. Shelter leaders refer to them as destination spaces because people will be drawn to them, even on a higher floor.
Shelter guest Henry Blocker, who’s been working with a case manager at St. Francis House, said the redesigned day shelter gives off a feeling of home. He believes it’ll help people who go there feel more optimistic they can get homes of their own.
“It’s not only a comfortable setting, but it’s a hopeful setting,” Blocker said. “I feel revived. I feel refreshed — almost reborn, like there’s hope.”
He secured an apartment of his own a few weeks after he stopped by to check out the renovation.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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