About Us
The City of New Bedford coordinates a comprehensive response to homelessness using a “Continuum of Care” methodology through a local network known as the Homeless Service Provider Network [HSPN]. A Continuum of Care [CoC] is a community’s plan or strategy to organize and deliver housing and services to meet the specific needs of people who are in the midst of a housing crisis and/or are experiencing homelessness as they move to stable housing and maximum self-sufficiency. A CoC strategy includes action steps to end homelessness and prevent a return to homelessness.
The New Bedford Continuum is rooted in the city’s HSPN, a membership-driven collective of over 70 organizations, agencies and individuals committed to working together in addressing both episodic and chronic homelessness. The mission of the City of New Bedford’s HSPN is:
“…to advocate on behalf of homeless individuals by enlisting the cooperation of homeless providers, to improve the accessibility of existing public resources, to maintain statistical data on the homeless population, and to provide supportive services and empowerment strategies to allow these individuals to be integrated into the community through a compassionate Continuum of Care. The HSPN is committed to the concept that each person is entitled to live in dignity.”
The HSPN meets regularly to proactively address the most pressing issues around the complexity of homelessness as it works toward ensuring every individual and every family has appropriate, sustainable access to safe, decent and affordable housing. It’s focus is the elimination of homelessness in New Bedford.
If you are interested in working toward this end, join with us and check out the work the HSPN is doing in New Bedford. We are focused on ending homelessness and are determined to see that day come.
