Top Dems back Healey on shelter changes

BOSTON (SHNS) – Top legislative Democrats lined up in support of Gov. Maura Healey’s new plan to tighten access to the emergency family shelter system Tuesday, even as anti-homelessness activists argued that the latest changes will leave more people with no safe place to sleep.

The changes will prioritize Massachusetts families who have been in the state long-term, before new arrivals from other countries, and will slash how long families awaiting longer-term shelter placement can stay at overflow sites from 30 days to five days.

“I have said for a long time that we are over capacity here in Massachusetts, and that my message is clear to folks who are looking to come to Massachusetts: We do not have housing. We do not have capacity,” Healey said Tuesday after meeting privately with House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka. “I think that is the right thing to do, I think that is the humane thing to do.”

Over the past year, both chambers have repeatedly shot down GOP pushes to further curtail access to shelter, but when asked about the unilateral changes the Healey administration made Tuesday, Mariano and Spilka said they were confident in the governor’s decision.

“We knew from the very beginning that we would have to have some ability to adjust this program going forward and we put the decision-making in the hands of the administration, because they were on the ground dealing with these folks as they come into Massachusetts,” Mariano told reporters.

Mariano bristled in response to a reporter’s question over whether the state has effectively abandoned its right-to-shelter policy, a 1983 law that guaranteed shelter access for homeless families.

“It doesn’t,” he said, after shaking his head “no” in response to the question. “It isn’t a step away from the right to shelter law. It’s a realization of the existence of limits to the law.”

Healey’s announcement marks her latest attempt to rein in the system and its costs. She declared a state of emergency around the crisis just under a year ago, announced a 7,500-family cap last October, required families at overflow sites to recertify eligibility each month, agreed to the Legislature’s nine-month stay limit for shelters, and enforced a ban on sleeping overnight at Logan Airport, where many migrant families were seeking shelter.

“The prioritization is something that we believe in as well,” Spilka said, adding that immigration remains a federal issue and the state needs help from the federal government.

Other lawmakers with subject-matter expertise were quiet on the topic Tuesday. None of the chairs of the Legislature’s Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities Committee (Rep. Jay Livingstone and Sen. Robyn Kennedy) nor the Housing Committee (Rep. Jim Arciero and Sen. Lydia Edwards) provided comment in response to News Service inquiries.

Starting Aug. 1, the state will prioritize families who are homeless because of a no-fault eviction, who have at least one member who is a veteran, or who are homeless due to “sudden or unusual circumstances in Massachusetts beyond their control” for placement into emergency shelter. That shift will likely result in more shelter spots going to Bay Staters experiencing homelessness rather than migrants who recently arrived.

On the same day, the administration will also impose a five-day limit on how long families can stay in overflow sites while awaiting a longer-term placement into the emergency shelter program. Families who stay in overflow sites after Aug. 1 will be ineligible to seek EA shelter for at least six months after their five days are up.

The state will not open any additional overflow shelters beyond existing sites in Chelsea, Lexington, Cambridge and Norfolk.

Anti-homelessness activists criticized the administration’s decision, saying it would push vulnerable people into a nearly impossible choice: spend five days at an overflow site and lose access to longer-term shelter for at least six months, or find some other option while awaiting placement into emergency shelter.

“The Legislature mandated the overflow [sites] so that we wouldn’t have people who we deemed to be eligible sleeping on the street, and now that’s the situation we’ve created,” said Andrea Park of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.

“Aside from [the timeline] being jarringly short, we are starting to hear more successes of people. These exit vouchers have started to do their work. More people are being able to find permanent housing. HomeBASE efforts seem to be paying off,” Park added. “To now say that we’re going to pull the rug out from everybody particularly feels very cruel.”

Park questioned whether the changes are legal or run afoul of the state’s right to shelter law. Lawyers for Civil Rights last year challenged Healey’s plan to cap the number of families in the system at one time, and a Superior Court judge rejected the group’s request to pause that measure.

Kelly Turley, associate director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, and Park are in regular contact with individual shelter providers. The duo told the News Service providers with whom they spoke “did not know this was coming.”

“The state has completely stepped back at this point from the right to shelter law, which has been in effect for over four decades,” Turley said. “We need to have a broader conversations around what are our values, what are our minimum commitments to children and families, here in Massachusetts.”

Families who complete a stay at an overflow site and cannot access EA shelter can still get state support for some up-front housing costs and can also participate in “reticketing,” which the administration describes as “transportation to another location where they have friends or family or another option for a safe place to stay.”

A reporter at Tuesday’s press conference said she had heard from service providers that Massachusetts is “essentially exporting Black and brown families out of the state” through the program.

Healey responded, “I think that’s a totally unfair characterization… I think I was the first attorney general in the country to sue on behalf of immigrant populations when then former President Trump implemented really draconian, cruel measures. What we’ve done here today is exactly what my colleagues said, we’re assessing the situation. We’re dealing with capacity issues, and I think that this has been an appropriate way to manage. We’re not going to abandon anyone.”

House and Senate Republicans have pushed unsuccessfully over the past year to impose significant new eligibility requirements on the shelter program, including a residency requirement that would effectively omit new migrants.

“The Healey-Driscoll Administration is finally implementing some of the measures we’ve been advocating, despite repeated opposition from the Democratic supermajority. While it’s good to see some necessary steps being taken, it’s frustrating to consider the significant amount of money that has been wasted reaching this point,” said MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale. “These changes could have been enacted when Republicans first spoke out about the migrant crisis; however, the Healey-Driscoll Administration and the Democratic supermajority preferred to placate their base rather than address the crisis at hand. Their sudden shift now exposes a clear hypocrisy in their stance, preferring to play politics, rather than making the tough decisions for the betterment of the Commonwealth.”

Healey did not directly answer a question about the MassGOP statement Tuesday afternoon, saying she had not yet seen it.

Norfolk Town Administrator Justin Casanova-Davis, whose town hosts a state-run overflow site at the decommissioned Bay State Correctional Center, praised the decision and said it will “ensure the Town can continue to support the shelter without overtaxing its ability to provide core programs and services to residents.”

Because overflow sites will now limit stays to five days, Casanova-Davis said the rules mean children staying there will not be enrolled in Norfolk Public Schools or King Philip Regional School District.

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