By Paul Tuthill
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Springfield,MA – Officials say more than five hundred housing units in Springfield were destroyed by last week's tornadoes. State and local officials are scrambling to come up with places for the newly homeless to live.. WAMC's Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports..
Since his home on Central Street in Springfield's Six Corners neighborhood was leveled during last week's storm, Donald Whitlock and his girlfriend have bounced around from emergency shelter to emergency shelter. He fears he'll end up out on the streets.
As time has passed since the tornadoes, the number of people staying in emergency shelters has actually increased. Officials say this is because people have realized they can no longer stay in a badly damaged building, or impose on friends or relatives.
At mid week, more than 300 people spent the night on cots inside Springfield's downtown convention center at an emergency shelter operated by the Red Cross. Springfield Mayo Domenic Sarno says the shelter is clearly a stopgap.
City Hall issued an urgent appeal for landlords with apartments for rent to contact the city's housing specialists. Springfield's housing department estimated that 514 housing units were destroyed in the tornado. Housing experts say the rental housing market in Springfield was tight before the storm hit and destroyed many apartment buildings and mulit-family houses in depressed neighborhoods just south and east of downtown.
The Springfield Housing Authority, which had been at full capacity, with a waiting list, lost 36 units in the tornado.
Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Gregory Bialecki, after touring the tornado damaged South End neighborhood of Springfield this week, said he was taken aback at how much housing stock had been lost.
Bialecki said people left homeless by the tornado will be given priority for vacancies in public housing. State officials say as a first step people should register with the Red Cross at one of the emergency shelters, or at one of the three storm assistance centers the state opened last week.
Those centers are located in Springfield, Palmer and Southbridge. Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby says in addition to helping with housing, the centers can also provide emergency food stamps and unemployment benefits.
Andrew Morehouse, the executive director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts says many poor and low income people were affected by the tornados.
The Food Bank distributed water, peanut butter, dry cereal, canned fruits and nuts for several days running from the parking lot of Springfield Partners for Community Action. Volunteers also distributed donated food door to door .
Humanitarian relief efforts continue with the Red Cross and Salvation Army distributing food , clothing, and clean up kits that include hand sanitizer, work gloves and sunscreen.