Don't care where you go, but you can't stay here

During the 1970s, the Commonwealth started closing state hospitals. I was working in a restaurant in Gardner at the time. Folks who'd been discharged from the hospital would stop by, find enough change for a cup of coffee, and stay for as long as my boss would let them. One guy, a big affable guy named Dave, sit and talk with us, drinking large tumblers of water (a sign of untreated diabetes).
When I opened the restaurant in the early morning, I'd see folks climb out of the Salvation Army bins in the parking lot (before the bins had been redesigned to make bin tenancy more difficult).
Eventually, however, the people just went away.
The PIP shelter in Worcester is in a similar situation to the state hospitals in the 70s and 80s - an expensive embarrassment that is not able to treat a population that is, at once, vulnerable and troublesome. And, the solution to the problem is pretty much the same as back then: shut it down.
The same spirit, wrapped in practicality, has given New York City the unsubtle idea about homelessness that might catch on - pay 'em to go away.
In an article in InCity Times, The PIP shelter and what it means to Worcester, District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller answers the question of 'What will become of these people?'

My answer to that question was always to explain that it is not the responsibility of the struggling neighborhood around 701 to bring solution to homelessness, but rather it is the responsibility of the whole community.

A friend used to say, "Everybody's cow is nobody's cow." There's no dispute that the PIP shelter has failed its mission to bring drunks and addicts to clean and sober lives and that, in the process, has also failed the community. Conflating the issues of alcohol and drug addiction with homelessness (issues that are deeply connected, but also separable), diminishes the focus that each issue requires.
We have a plan (PDF file) and a Worcester County Regional Network. A Google search of news and documents, however, shows several mentions of people claiming membership on the Leadership Council, but scant mention of drugs or alcohol. (Nearly all of the discussion regarding drugs and alcohol came in testimony regarding continuation of programs at Dismas House.)
One effort, the Almost Home program at Dismas House, has drawn praise from officials and participants alike by addressing the complex needs of prisoners returning to society, needs that include drug and alcohol treatment. Naturally, state funding has been cut and the program shut down.
County-wide solutions are important, but are rare. There are, by one assessment, 72 sober houses in Massachusetts, with just four in Worcester County. Gardner certainly went the distance to ensure that SMOC wouldn't open a new sober house in its downtown.
Getting and staying clean and sober is very hard. Getting other people clean and sober is even harder. Nevertheless, we're not going to make any significant progress on the problems that make people need the PIP shelter until we're also willing and able to address the vexing problems of alcohol and drug addiction and other forms of mental illness in people on the street.