SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - The City of Springfield will be announcing a new initiative to help unhoused people.  Historic Springfield theater to reopen after major renovation Project Hope 2.0 involves multiple city departments including police, housing, community development, public works, and agency partners like the Behavioral Health Network, the Center for Human Development, United Way of Pioneer Valley, and Mercy Medical Center.  The goal is to enhance support services for people without a place to live and reduce panhandling on city streets. The United Way works to end poverty across the Pioneer Valley's 25 communities. Their mission remains to strengthen and fuel those struggling. The City of Springfield plans to put up signs that read "Say no to panhandling." Each sign will include United Way's phone number and website, as an alternative way to give and help get people off the streets. Office of Mayor Domenic J. Sarno Mayor Sarno states, “We are all coming together to try and reach more people, more effectively. We know that there is a national housing crisis and we have also had increased need for mental health support. As I have said before, if you need help, I want to help. If you’re on the hustle, I want you off my street corners. We have certainly seen an increase and many new faces. For people who are struggling or down on their luck, we want to help, we have services in place to help with many compassionate and caring people who will work with you. That’s where we want to encourage generous motorists to look to help. Offering cash on the street may just be further enabling someone down a bad path – and I know intentions are good – but if there’s not supply, they’ll be no demand. We have to consider that more comprehensive help is readily available and steer people toward a sustainable path.” Mayor Sarno further explained, “Now with these three initiatives we will have additional tools in place to provide sustainable options. I am grateful to our Finance and Economic Development teams for their efforts to fund these needed programs and to our city team with SPD, Housing, and DPW as well as outside partners who will administer these initiatives. Thank you to all of our neighborhood councils for their involvement – especially East Springfield Neighborhood Council President Kathy Brown who was instrumental in creating and moving this initiative forward. We have many great people doing great work and I am proud to support them.” Superintendent Lawrence Akers states, “The Springfield Police is a dedicated and caring department, besides public safety and contributing to the quality of life for the citizens of Springfield, our men and women in blue are dedicated to helping people in need find a positive way forward. Since Project Hope paused during the pandemic, SPD has seen growing demands of police response to homelessness, those dealing with addiction, and those with behavioral health issues. Even though Police receives and responds to the call, many calls are not a criminal matter. We at the Springfield Police Department refuse to criminalize homelessness. We refuse to criminalize mental health issues. The return of Project Hope 2.0 is a step in the right direction. Hope is rising from the ashes and we are returning bigger and better than before with an updated street outreach and engagement initiative. We are very grateful to work with other city departments and private/nonprofit stakeholders to provide this comprehensive outreach and assistance. The goal is to reach folks before it becomes a criminal matter and that’s where the partnerships come in.” Superintendent Akers continued, “I commend Mayor Sarno for bringing this much needed service back to the city. We look forward to working alongside our partners to provide multidisciplinary homeless outreach. The Department is also pleased to announce we’ve hired Stephanie Tonelli as a full-time social worker on staff within SPD. Ms. Tonelli has years of experience working with the homeless population, including at Friends of the Homeless and Tapestry, as well as previously serving in this role with the Springfield Police Department. She will serve as a liaison between all our service providers and the unhoused community were are working to better serve. The Springfield Police Department embraces these initiatives and will continue working together with our partners to comprehensively support the needs of our community.” CDO Tim Sheehan states, “Building connections to care and stable housing is the ultimate goal of Project HOPE. Successful outreach, however, hinges on the slow work of client engagement and relationship building. This program seeks to provide our outreach teams with the capacity to make those critical connections once trust is established with the individual. The trust and engagement built over sustained outreach efforts places law enforcement and the community outreach team members in a unique position to assess and respond to immediate care needs and make key connections to services, including permanent housing.” CDO Sheehan also explained the A Better Way to Give initiative, “Offering money to someone asking for help seems like the right thing to do in the moment. However, it is often this kind of support that keeps people on the streets. Providing a donation to the United Way ensures your support of services that directly assist the most vulnerable populations including homeless, addition dependent, and financially burdened. This is not an effort to say that you cannot give directly to support an individual, but rather offering an alternative approach to give directly to an organization that supports people in need to address the root problems of why someone might be homeless, hungry, or financially burdened.” Housing Director Gerry McCafferty, “We have seen an increase here in Springfield in homelessness and an increased presence of homeless individuals on the streets. There are many reasons for this, including a spike in rents since the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. We are in a national housing crisis, and the impact is hardest on our most vulnerable neighbors. So we are bringing folks from all parts of the city together to address this issue and provide meaningful help. We know that permanent housing is a better solution than emergency shelter and we working to provide more of that. We will continue with our own city outreach team and our contract with Mercy Medical Center for street outreach, but now we will also have the housing assistance and support services with CHD. This is a significant investment and will allow us to reach more people than ever before. We look forward to announcing additional housing programs in the future which will help support folks emerging from homelessness on a sustainable path.” Local News Headlines MGM Springfield honors and thanks local heroes at Springfield Cemetery Monson Savings Bank sponsoring holiday toy drive STCC to host allied health careers open house 99 Restaurant closes its doors at Holyoke Mall WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.