5-day stay limit among major changes set to impact migrants in Massachusetts shelter system
BOSTON - Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday said Massachusetts is "out of shelter space" and announced changes that will have a big impact on migrants entering the emergency assistance system, including a new prioritization policy and a five-day stay limit at overflow safety-net sites.
Prioritizing some evicted residents and veterans
Starting Aug. 1, Healey said Massachusetts will prioritize families for shelter system placement if they became homeless because of a no-fault eviction or other sudden circumstance beyond their control like a flood or fire. Families with at least one veteran will also be prioritized, as will those with significant medical issues, newborn babies, or people who are at risk of domestic violence.
New 5-day stay limit
Those who are not prioritized for placement will be able to stay at the overflow safety-net sites that are currently in Lexington, Cambridge, the former Chelsea Soldiers Home and an old prison in Norfolk. But those sites will be recategorized as as "temporary respite centers" on Aug. 1, and they will have a five-day stay limit.
Currently, families staying at temporary shelter sites are required to show every month that they are taking steps to find their own housing.
"Families who have been in temporary respite centers prior to the policy change on August 1 will retain their prioritization for placement into EA shelter, and the state will begin helping them leave these sites according to the date in which they entered," the Healey administration said.
What happens to migrants in Massachusetts without a place to stay?
Healey said in a statement that the five-day limit is "in line with the policies of other cities facing similar challenges as Massachusetts and will help give families some relief for a few days while they access the diversion services we can provide, such as reticketing."
Families who decide to stay at a temporary respite center "will be required to wait six months or more for placement in the state's emergency family shelter system," the state said.
The Boston Globe reports that the state has offered to pay for plane tickets and other travel expenses for families if they have a place to stay outside of Massachusetts. WBZ-TV cameras recently found that migrants who have nowhere to go were being dropped off by bus at the Wollaston MBTA stop in Quincy.
Healey's administration on Tuesday touted work authorization clinics that they said have helped 1,300 people in emergency shelters get jobs. It also said the HomeBASE program that offers eligible families up to $30,000 over two years for housing has been expanded.
Current shelter system "not sustainable"
Healey declared last fall that Massachusetts hit its emergency shelter system capacity of 7,500 families. Earlier in July, the state said migrant families would no longer be allowed to sleep at Boston's Logan Airport overnight.
The governor sent a migrant crisis team to the southern border in Texas last month to spread the word that shelters in Massachusetts are full.
"We have been saying for months now that the rapid growth of our Emergency Assistance shelter system is not sustainable. Massachusetts is out of shelter space, and we simply cannot afford the current size of this system," Healey said. "Our administration has taken significant action over the past year to make the system more sustainable and help families leave shelter for stable housing. But with Congress continuing to fail to act on immigration reform, we need to make more changes."
Immigration advocate calls changes "very discouraging"
Jeff Thielman is the president of CEO of the International Institute of New England, which advocates for refugees and immigrants in the region. He said the new policy will "negatively impact" immigrant families.
"It's very discouraging," he said.
Thielman says all people seeking housing in Massachusetts should be treated equally. He also argued that the only reason Massachusetts is sustaining its population level is because of immigrants who come here.
"The majority of these immigrant families who are in the shelter system at this moment in time are Black and Brown families," he said. "And to send a message that we are going to export them to other parts of the United States is not the way we talk and act in Massachusetts."