New research out this week from the Boston Indicators further affirms what we’ve long known: the rate of people experiencing homelessness in Boston is too high. It’s unfortunate that in a city that ranks among the best across so many categories, Boston has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. That’s one category where we absolutely do not want to be at the top.

We at Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath) see this crisis firsthand everyday as one of the largest and most trusted providers of shelter in Massachusetts, particularly for women and children. For two centuries, innovating and evolving to meet the needs of women and families has been central to our work, tracing back to our founding in 1824 when we provided shelter to “unwed mothers” who needed a safe and supportive place to give birth.

Throughout the years, our legacy organizations – the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, and Crittenton, Inc. – continued to drive transformative change for women and families, whether it was supporting women entrepreneurs, providing reproductive healthcare, or establishing one of the first-ever free school lunch programs.

Earlier this summer, we celebrated our rich history at our 200-Year Anniversary Gala by recognizing trailblazing women in our community, like Boston entrepreneur and philanthropist Shellee Mendes.

Shellee grew up in housing developments in Roslindale and Dorchester. In her early 20s, despite working full-time in the financial district, a rent increase caused her to fall into homelessness with her two small children. Her family found support in a Quincy shelter while she put herself through cosmetology school and freelanced at hair salons.

After years of struggle, she opened the award-winning Salon Monét, the only business on Boston’s celebrated Newbury Street owned by an African American woman. Earlier this year, the salon was named in a Boston.com poll as one of 15 “best businesses” on Newbury Street.

Now, Shellee is giving back to help the increasing number of women and children in dire straits in today’s housing crisis as she designates EMPath as beneficiary of her 2024 White Party Fundraiser. Her generosity to EMPath will have a far-reaching impact on so many moms working to realize their biggest dreams.

Shellee’s journey is just one example of the resilience of so many women who, with the right supports, have made inspiring strides towards their goals. At EMPath, we strongly believe in the power of mentorship to help propel families forward. As part of our multi-faceted approach to disrupting poverty, our breakthrough coaching approach pairs all families in our direct service programs, including those in-shelter, with an EMPath mentor as they work towards goals across all areas of their lives.

We all need a mentor in life: to strategize around our big goals, tackle roadblocks, and pave a path forward. Mentors have been instrumental at every stage of my life – as a teen mom, as president of the Boston City Council, as Mayor of Boston, and today, as President & CEO of EMPath. As Shellee herself shared when accepting the EMPower Award at our gala: “With the right support, anyone can overcome adversity and thrive.”

Time and time again, participants in our programs reach new heights – securing stable housing, increasing their incomes, earning degrees, saving money, improving their credit scores, and reducing debt. But we know long-term change for families, including people experiencing homelessness, can’t happen without transformative change to our systems.

The latest solutions put forth by our local lawmakers to limit shelter stays to 9 months, and in some shelter sites, to just five days, miss the mark. We cannot put a Band-aid on this crisis. To advance meaningful change, we not only need deeper investments in housing assistance for families, but also must tackle our housing affordability crisis.

When you invest in women, you help families and communities. It is perhaps serendipitous that a week after this celebratory fundraiser for an organization created by women and dedicated to supporting women and families as they climb up the economic ladder, history will be made as the first Black woman presidential nominee in America takes the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It will be a moment we won’t forget.

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Kim Janey is President & CEO of Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath) and former Mayor of Boston. www.empathways.org

To attend Shellee Mendes’s August 11 White Party benefiting EMPath, visit: https://empathways.org/shellee-mendes-white-party. EMPath President & CEO Kim Janey will co-host along with Rhondella Richardson, Emmy award-winning journalist at WCVB-TV Channel 5 and co-anchor of Channel 5’s weekend morning newscasts. Hundreds of attendees, dressed in white, will gather to toast Mendes and EMPath and make a difference for the women and children served by the historic and significant organization.

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