By Nate Leskovic
Times Staff
7/24/08

(previous)
“What started out as a support group for an emergency shelter had grown so rapidly that we [became] a much larger organization,” says Nee, executive director of hopeFound since 2004. She moved from Dorchester to Milton 13 years ago with her husband, Jim Chapin, her 21-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and her 17-year-old son, Mathew.
With the help of the shelter’s board, Greene, president and chairman of hopeFound, and Nee increased the number of services that could help homeless people stay off the streets by making them self-sufficient. Now, hopeFound offers not only beds but also jobs, overcomes addiction, addresses illnesses and obtains financial aid for housing.
While Nee put into practice the institution’s new guidelines—getting as many people as possible off the streets and trying to keep it that way through sustainable rehabilitation programs—Greene makes sure the board is distributing money responsibly to make the organization grow.
“We are trying to change the way people think about homelessness,” says Greene, 39, who works for hopeFound from his office at Bank of America, in downtown Boston, where he is senior vice president of philanthropic management strategy. Greene moved from Brookline to Milton six years ago to start a family with his wife, Ashley. They now have a 5-year-old son, Aidan, and a 20-month-old daughter, Erin.
According to Nee, 25 years ago, the mindset was to open as many shelters as possible to get people off the streets, since homelessness is considered inhumane.
“That was all very valid, but it didn’t go far enough. Actually some would argue that people got into shelters and never escaped (the) shelter systems,” says Nee, 52, who works from the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, where hopeFound runs its shelter facilities and maintains offices.
Greene, who has been involved with hopeFound since 1992, says homeless people are going through multiple problems at once. People need different institutions to address each issue, such as a hospital for health care, a shelter for housing and a police station for security.
To Greene, hopeFound is an organization that sees the bigger picture of each homeless person and helps them address all problems at the same time.
“You’re struggling to figure out where you’re going to sleep and what your next meal is. You’re not thinking about dental health, vision, anything else,” adds Nee, who has a degree in sociology from University of Massachusetts Boston and later earned master’s degrees from Northeastern University in public administration and from Boston University in business administration.
When Nee was appointed executive director, four years ago, she started questioning methods and goals in order to enhance hopeFound’s services.
“I was very fortunate. Don Greene, as well as the rest of the board were really poised to do some serious strategic thinking. I was new, and I brought some energy.”
With 30 years of experience in government and nonprofit organizations but new to homelessness matters, Nee remained optimistic when she observed that more than 80 percent of the homeless could be easily housed, she says.
“People end up on the streets because their safety net has fallen apart. They are usually struggling with addictions and many have mental health issues,” she says.
Greene agrees and is happy with Nee’s approach. He says she impressed the board for many reasons, from being savvy about finding ways to work with other homeless providers to raising hopeFound’s visibility in the public sector.
“She’s been everything we’ve asked for,” says Greene, who graduated from Harvard University with cum laude in Celtic studies and earned a master’s degree in management from Northwestern University (IL).
Now Greene and Nee plan to expand hopeFound even more. But the growth they plan is not related to the number of beds in the shelter or in the substance abuse programs, he says.
When Greene thinks about growth, he thinks in terms of how many people were housed and stay housed, as well as what additional populations hopeFound can address that no one has been able to impact.
“I think of growing the number of people who don’t need our help anymore,” he says.