HomeMy WebLinkAboutPublic Comment from Norton Duffy Health in Support
Homelessness Is a Health Issue and a Test of Our Humanity
June 9, 2026
Dear Ms. Brigham and Barnstable Zoning Board of Appeals:
Homelessness is not simply a housing problem. It is a health problem, a community
problem, and a test of our moral conscience. When someone has no safe place to sleep,
no secure place to keep medication, no certainty about their next meal, and no protectio n
from heat, cold, or rain, the body pays a price and so does the spirit. Chronic illnesses
worsen. Anxiety intensifies. Trauma deepens. Conditions that could have been treated
early become crises. For children, families, seniors, and medically fragile adu lts, the
damage can be immediate, painful, and long lasting.
That is why the public narrative around homelessness matters so deeply. Too often, people
who are homeless are spoken about in ways that strip away their humanity and reduce
them to fear-driven stereotypes. They are portrayed as dangerous, irresponsible, or
somehow separate from the rest of us. Those portrayals are not only false; they are cruel.
They deny the truth that people experiencing homelessness are human beings living
through profound hardship. They also silence the perspective that is too often missing from
these conversations, the voices of the people who know this reality becaus e they are living
it every day.
Homelessness exists here on Cape Cod. It affects children, families, working adults,
seniors, and people with serious health conditions. According to the 2025 Point-in-Time
Count, 365 adults and children were counted as experiencing homelessness on Cape Cod
and the Islands in a single night, including people in shelters, cars, motels paid for by
agencies, and places not meant for human habitation. Even that number does not capture
everyone, because thousands of people on Cape Cod live in someone’s spare room or on
their couch hoping to find safe and stable housing.
Behind every number is a human life. On Cape Cod, homeless children walk into
Barnstable schools carrying far more than backpacks. Some carry fear, uncertainty, and
the quiet exhaustion of not knowing where they will sleep next. Some are part of working
families doing everything they can to survive in a region where housing costs have moved
beyond reach. They are not criminals. They are children trying to learn, parents trying to
hold their families together, and seniors trying to grow old with safety and dignity. Some do
not have reliable access to healthcare. Some do not know where their next meal will come
from. Many live with the constant ache of being judged, excluded, and treated as though
their lives matter less.
Stigma is not a side issue. It is part of harm. When people experiencing homelessness are
spoken about as if they are a threat rather than a neighbor, it becomes harder for them to
seek shelter, accept medical care, build trust, and move toward stability. Shame pushes
people further into isolation. Fear tells them they are unwelcome. Silence tells them their
suffering does not count. Compassion and truth, by contrast, create the possibility of
healing, connection, and real solutions.
At Duffy Health Center, we have the profound privilege of serving some of Cape Cod’s most
vulnerable residents. In partnership with Housing Assistance Corporation and Catholic
Social Services, we see every day that homelessness is not an abstract issue or a talking
point. It is deeply personal. It is medical. It is emotional. It is rooted in poverty, trauma,
disability, food insecurity, and the relentless stress of trying to survive without safety or
stability. Our work gives us both the privilege and the responsibility to help change lives and
improve health outcomes in this community we all share.
We turn our mission into action by meeting people where they are, offering care without
judgment, and working alongside trusted partners to connect people to shelter, healthcare,
food, and support. We have seen what becomes possible when people are treated with
dignity. They begin to heal. They begin to trust. They become less fearful. They begin to
believe that stability is possible. They begin to believe in their future. That is not
sentimentality. It is what compassionate and effective community health work looks like.
Cape Cod must make room for a more honest and humane conversation about
homelessness, one rooted in facts, not fear, and one that includes the lived realities that
have too often been pushed aside. The people in our shelter programs are members of this
community. They are our neighbors. They are worthy of dignity, safety, and care. They
deserve to be seen not as problems to be removed, but as human beings whose lives have
value.
How we respond to homelessness says everything about who we are. We can continue to
deepen suffering through mischaracterization, stigma, and exclusion, or we can choose
compassion, truth, and action. For the sake of our children, our families, our seniors , and
the health and humanity of our whole community, we must choose compassion.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Wroten, CEO
Duffy Health Center