Pittsfield Shelter Remains Full, ServiceNet Plans for Winter
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Pearl shelter has a consistent waitlist, but family shelters have vacancies because of changed statewide eligibility criteria.
ServiceNet's Erin Forbush updated the Homelessness Advisory Committee on sheltering capacity for unhoused community members during its regular meeting on Wednesday.
"We continue to have a wait list. We did see a little dip in our census for the female beds during the summer months, but as the summer is ending, people are coming in and wanting those beds," she reported.
"The male beds have been full, like straight through, with no dip in that census there, and we have a heavy wait list."
ServiceNet operates The Pearl, a 40-bed shelter that opened in 2024, and The First, a relatively new daytime resource center for housing insecure folks. Both are downtown.
Forbush said The Pearl is pretty much full year-round, and people are going to The First regularly. It is open seven days per week from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
"On some days we're having 60-plus people coming through that space, and that's going well," she said.
Located at 74 First St., the resource center has public restrooms and showers, a quiet room, warmth, laundry machines, lockers, and support staff. The facility began with 36 lockers, and Forbush said they plan to add additional lockers once space is identified.
She reported that ServiceNet has a pretty low census on the family shelters.
"It does not mean that families are in any better space than anybody else we've referred to today, but the system has changed for families, so the eligibility is much stricter, and it's time-consuming," she said, explaining that after the initial application, multiple documents need to be provided while people are in crisis.
"… And that's the piece. None of us like to deal with bureaucracy on a good day, never mind when we're in a crisis."
Roughly about 80 percent of families in shelter are from Berkshire County; ServiceNet has the capacity for 23 families and currently has a fraction of that.
The agency continues to help families navigate the system, run by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
It's just really being more of an advocate to the system that's in place, Forbush added, and to have that changed to better help the community members that we need to help.
She assured the committee that ServiceNet is already preparing for winter, and the state plans to have funding available for capacity during those months.
"The amount of money is always the question and continues to be the same question, so we are hoping to have, and I can say we will have, some semblance of winter space," Forbush said.
"I'm not ready to say exactly where we'll be doing it, how much funding, and the timing of it. My goal would be to have something open in November into April, similar to what we've done in the past. But until I know what the numbers are from the state, I can't say exactly what we'll be doing."
The committee also heard from Rebecca Grimsley and Andrew Klatka of Eliot Homeless Services, aimed to help individuals and families regain stability and independence through shelter, long-term housing solutions, and supportive care.
In fiscal year 2026, Grimsley has worked with about 50 individuals in the county; four of them have found housing since the beginning of the year. She noted that the numbers "exploded" a year ago in Pittsfield.
The two spoke about their work with chronically homeless individuals, and the barriers keeping them from accessing basic needs.
"It just seems like all the resources are shrinking, and the cost of living's going up. And so, even if we came up with a place that had affordable rent, they still have to make other ends meet with a low income," Grimsley said.
Tags: emergency shelter, homeless,
