Erin G. Bradley

The Somerville Homeless Coalition, providing a range of  services for people experiencing homelessness for the past 33 years, announced Erin G. Bradley as the new Executive Director earlier this month. Bradley succeeds Mark  AlstonFollansbee, who retired June 30, after serving nearly 18 years as Executive Director.

Tom White, board president of the Somerville Homeless Coalition (SHC), said, “The board selected Erin because of her prior experience as an Executive Director where she grew her organization substantially and successfully, and her passion and dedication for helping people.

We selected her to lead SHC as we work to grow and serve more homeless, near homeless, and hungry families in Somerville and the neighboring communities.”
Bradley comes to the SHC after more than a decade working in child welfare. As the Executive Director of the Children’s League of Massachusetts (CLM), a statewide agency advocating on behalf of children and families in the care or custody of the state, she doubled the agency size, both in terms of the number of providers in the network and growing their operating budget. The agency was instrumental in getting numerous bills passed to protect and benefit children and families in need, including CHINS reform in 2012. Prior to her work at CLM, she worked for
Senator Karen Spilka of Ashland, who is now the in-coming Massachusetts Senate President, as a Policy Director.

“In today’s trying times, as more and more people are faced with keeping a roof over their heads and food on their tables, I came to the Somerville Homeless Coalition with a desire to expand services to help more people so that choice doesn’t have to be made,” stated Bradley.

SHC, founded in 1985, operates two shelters, one for adults and another for families, provides case management services to homeless people in and out of their shelters, manages dozens of supportive housing apartments for formerly homeless people, provides homeless prevention services, and operates a food pantry and meals program, Project SOUP. In 2017, the agency served over 2,400 people, including 829 children.