Bill Miller, Executive Director
In 2005, Bill Miller was named Executive Director of the Friends of the Homeless, Inc., an agency that has since become the largest provider of shelter services for individuals in the Commonwealth outside of Boston. Under his leadership, the agency has completed the design and construction of a unique "homeless resource center" that provides the most basic services of food and shelter but also medical and dental care and other supportive services 24 hours per day.
The agency's primary goal is to move individuals from shelter to housing, and it now houses more than 100 individuals in single room subsidized housing utilizing the "Housing First" approach that is aligned with the national industry trend. The campus also informally serves as a job training site with a number of full time employees who are former clients working in the kitchen, on maintenance staff, direct care and as part of the administration and board of directors. In addition, as many as seven clients and former clients are enrolled as Senior Aides as part of a federal back to work program for seniors. The entire campus was constructed and renovated as part of $14.5 million public/private partnership that has been widely lauded.
Bill Miller began his working career in fields that are now considered related to homelessness including substance abuse treatment in the early 1980’s both with teens and adults. Concurrently, he opened a group home for foster children and was involved in a pilot program for kids who were “aging out” of foster care. He ended up adopting two of the children who are both now successful young adults. “These kids faced more challenges than I could have imagined before I ever met them. With some mentoring from me, but primarily with a great deal of effort from each of them, they have overcome the very things that drive many of the individuals I now see in shelter, early childhood trauma, lack of early educational support, and a mistrust of authority stemming from neglect and lack of basic nurturance. They are survivors and have been two of my greatest teachers.”
Bill has lived and worked in the Pioneer Valley since 1995. Prior to coming to Springfield, he oversaw the ongoing development of a shelter and housing continuum for homeless individuals in the Northampton area. He is a UMass grad and currently resides in Florence, MA, with his wife and their two youngest children.