Homeless Man Goes Berserk In Hyannis – What’s Up With All The HyTown Homelessness?

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HyannisNews.com – Tonight we have your typical ‘HyTown man goes berserks, and smashes front door, while waiving a knife around’ story…

(… sorry, it was all I could find on such a slow and dreary night.)

Last night, police rushed to the Noah Shelter at 77 Winter Street for an out of control man who became violent.
The Noah Shelter, run by the Housing Assistance Corporation, has been an emergency-access homeless shelter for men and women since 1984.

It’s a 60-bed shelter which attempts to provide a safe place for people to sleep. It ordinarily operates at full capacity and has served the local homeless population well.

The thriving shelter is like the ballpark in the popular 1989 movie Field of Dreams…
“You build it, [they] will come…”

… and ‘come’ they have! The homeless and downtrodden flock to HyTown in droves. For decades, it has been an ongoing boon for those who provide services for the homeless in Hyannis… and there’s no end in sight.

Once again Hyannis News proving that it is the best news website on Cape Cod. I’m not really going to comment on the actual story, pontificating on the craziness of some homeless guy is kind of like hitting yourself in the head over and over with a hammer. It feels really good when you stop. I do however have a serious question…

The other day I went with Fat Kid (our ad/operations guy) on his rounds in Hyannis. Usually when I go to Hyannis it’s for a specific purpose, it’s been a while since I’ve driven around the place and I was absolutely flabbergasted by the number of homeless people we saw. I’m pretty sure there are more homeless people per square mile in Hyannis than there are in Boston.

What the hell is the story here? Is it the milder weather on Cape? Are they all from Hyannis or do they move there? Is it because there are 60 person homeless shelters like the above article states? What came first, the chicken or the egg? If you shut down the shelters would the homeless move? All I know is I hope someone smarter than me is thinking of a fix, because if I were a tourist and I witnessed what we saw the other day I would inject Ebola into my eyeballs before I ever went back to Hyannis on vacation.

P.S. Ever wonder why homeless people in the north don’t just start walking south in September? It’s not like they don’t have the time, just get to where it’s warm year round, even birds have that shit figured out.

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Twitter: Hippie - Insane Tony

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Comments 9

  1. Hippie, Cape Cod has milder winters that draw a lot of homeless, but we also have some of the best homeless services in the country, it turns out. That's why Hyannis has so many. I had a cousin who used to be homeless there.

  2. I've shopped/partied/played music on Main St for a looong time, and it has definitely changed the last few years. Doesn't feel safe anymore at all. Had a lady OD on the sidewalk in front of my two young kids at noontime on a Saturday this past spring. Haven't been down there since, which sucks because we love the Common Ground and Green Lotus and Ben&Jerry's, but I'm not risking another scene like that.

  3. I'm going to very inappropriately actually try to answer the rhetorical question because I'm a giant nerd and can't stop myself. The problem is a total lack of affordable housing and few realize the insane size of the problem on the Cape. Unless you qualify for emergency assistance (few do) the wait list for permanent, affordable housing on Cape is TEN YEARS. And good luck finding a reasonable, year-round rental. Now add a huge opiate problem. Now add seasonal service wages. And before you tell me they're all losers, addicts and crazies who deserve what they get…keep in mind that 1/3 of Americans say if they lost their job they would begin missing mortgage payments within 30 days. This is because a huge portion of the population can't scrape together emergency savings (kinda hard to do on $8/hour). And the people who might have survived all of the above have been walloped by the Recession. And the reason you see so much of it on the Cape is that our resources to help the homeless and the at-risk populations are ant sized and the problem is mountain sized. If you want to talk to an organization that is knowledgeable about the issue and actually trying to make a dent in the problem, talk to the Cape Cod Council of Churches. They're doing amazing work (said as an atheist with an aversion to churches and wacky theists). http://www.capecodcouncilofchurches.org/programs.html

  4. I doing know how true it is but I used to go to Blaine when it was by the bus station on Main Street and there were always loads of homeless people hanging out there. They told us that in Boston they would give you some cash and a one way bus ticket to Hyannis to alleviate the pressure on the city's services.

  5. Okay, sorry, one more. Did you know that if you have no place to go to recover, Cape Cod Healthcare can't treat you? You can't stay on the shelter during the day. So if you have, say, cancer, you can't treated because there's no place to recover. So, literally…You don't have a home, die. Okay, sorry, I'm done now, I swear.

  6. Twenty Five years ago, while hubby and I were on our honeymoon in CA. We were walking into the San Diego Zoo. Hubby had on a shirt from Cape Cod, and the homeless man at the entrance stopped us and asked if we were from the Cape. We said yes. He proceeded to tell us that he spent summers in Hyannis. You see, all he did was tell the homeless shelter in San Diego that he had family back on the Cape and they would give him a one way plane ticket. Then, he would come here to Hyannis and live at the homeless shelter and take advantage of all the free amenities throughout the area. once the cold weather moved in he would tell them in Hyannis that he had family in San Diego and poof!! off to CA he went. Doesn't look like anything's changed. All on the hard working guys dimeI might add.

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