Homeless Prevention Council CEO Hadley Luddy said her agency has seen a big increase in the 25 to 54 age group coming to them for help. “These are the people we’re serving and this is our workforce,” she said. “People don’t connect the dots necessarily.” 

On Saturday, a group of walkers left St. Christopher's Episcopal Church for the Chatham Lighthouse and looped back.

The group, about 40 people in number, walked as part of this year's Walk For Home. Now in its fifth year, the annual event raises money in support of the Homeless Prevention Council.

And while St. Christopher's has organized a team unofficially in support of the event in the past, this year marked Chatham's first as an official partner in the fundraiser, alongside Provincetown.

PROVINCETOWN — One of the major donors to the Homeless Prevention Council’s recent Walk for Home campaign was a team from the Provincetown middle school’s National Junior Honor Society.

“We like to help out and work towards getting change because we see what’s happening to our friends,” said Shakira Booker, a seventh-grader who, with her teammates, joined the organization’s fifth annual walk on Commercial Street on Saturday, June 10. The middle-school students attended the march with a plethora of hand-drawn signs advocating housing solutions.

Students at the event talked about friends, family members, and teachers who have experienced housing instability or had to move off Cape because of it. “It’s really upsetting because we create relationships with people,” said eighth-grader Eve Dower. “And then, just based on housing, we have to never see them again.”

Pammy Nickerson, 52, and her boyfriend, Juan Carlos, 61, have lived at the Eastwood at Provincetown timeshare since November, but their future is uncertain. The complex is filling up for the season and will cost $1,600 weekly starting Memorial Day weekend, said Nickerson, which is more than what they can pay.

After 23 years, Homeless Prevention Council has left its location at 14 Old Tote Road in Orleans.
But that's a particularly good thing.
The council's former office will soon turn into year-round housing.

Boxes crammed kitchen counters and spilled out into the living room on Thursday. Clothes were yet to be hung in closets. But on Danielle Clarke’s second day in a year-round rental home, she was so happy she couldn't find the words to describe it.

Clarke, along with her mother, sister, 4-year-old niece and a friend moved into the year-round, five-bedroom, two-bath rental on Feb. 1. She and her family have been looking for a house to rent for five years.

Prior to moving into her new home, she had been living at the Truro Motor Inn since 2018. Her mother had been there since 2016.

The holiday season is a time of joy and excitement. But for staff and volunteers with the Homeless Prevention Council, it's also a time of purpose.

As the cost of goods and services continues to rise, it can be tough these days for families to cover all of their needs. With the start of a new school year just a few weeks away, that also includes paying for back-to-school supplies.

The housing crisis on Cape Cod is so dire that a local housing advocate said it might be time to winterize motel rooms and bring in FEMA-type trailers to house residents who are temporarily dislocated.

It’s that bad, said Hadley Luddy, CEO of the Orleans-based Homeless Prevention Council.

Jo and Co will headline the council's annual Rock To Stop Homelessness benefit on April 9 at Hog Island Brewery.

Town officials are hoping that businesses respond to a seasonal housing needs survey. The 16-question survey is an attempt to gauge what area businesses want in order to find year-round and seasonal employees.

The Cape’s super-hot housing market has made a difficult rental market even tougher including for middle-income people who have the wherewithal to pay for housing. Advocates say there’s no end in sight.

The annual holiday workshop, which is organized by the Homeless Prevention Council, matches community donors and shoppers with local families to provide toys and clothing for children.

The Outer Cape is slated to see $1.5 million in funds to support housing and addiction relief if a House spending bill passed Oct. 29 passes the Senate and is signed by Gov. Charlie Baker.

The Homeless Prevention Council has so far provided backpacks full of school supplies for approximately 285 students for the upcoming 2021-2022 school year through its annual Backpack to School program.

Homeless Prevention Council case managers find ‘no solutions’

As eighth-grader CJ Reid marched down Commercial Street through the West End of Provincetown, he explained his view of the root cause of homelessness on the Cape: housing is just too expensive.

State Sen. Julian Cyr and Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce CEO Wendy Northcross convened a panel of housing experts last week that focused on what individual towns can do about the housing crisis.

The lack of affordable housing on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket exacerbated an already-dire year during the pandemic, forces island fire departments to rely on firefighters who commute by ferry, and will lead to scaled-back business services in the upcoming tourist season, local officials and experts said Thursday.

The Homeless Prevention Council will hold their third annual Walk for Home event this Saturday, June 12, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.