THE MASSACHUSETTS emergency shelter system, hit with an influx of migrant families, should seek financial stability by shifting away from a one-size-fits-all model and shrinking the percentage of families relying on hotels and motels for housing, according to officials behind a draft report released Tuesday by a commission tasked with studying the system.
The panel, chaired by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, faces a December 1 deadline to offer solutions for the overburdened system, which has put major stress on the state budget since large numbers of migrants began arriving in the state in 2022.
The panel was created through a supplemental budget that also put an additional $251 million into the shelter system, which cost more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2024. The program is set to cost more than $1 billion again in fiscal year 2025.
Family homelessness should be “brief, rare, and non-recurring,” Driscoll said.
Driscoll said the panel appears to have reached consensus that the one-size-fits-all model the system currently has isn’t working, since it treats families fleeing domestic violence the same as new migrants, who have different needs. “That doesn’t make sense,” she said.
The draft report focused on principles and a set of recommendations for continuing and improving regional emergency assistance shelter system management, strengthening affordable housing across Massachusetts, and focusing on prevention, diversion, and tools for exiting the system.
The panel also included Healey’s housing chief, Ed Augustus, health and human services secretary Kate Walsh, budget chief Matt Gorzkowicz, and several state lawmakers.
The system, which previously was able to handle 3,500 families, blew past that number in March 2023, going from 25 families per day seeking access to a shelter to 68 families per day. The current cap more than doubled and stands at 7,500 families. Of these, 46 percent of those families are in hotel rooms which don’t typically have a kitchen, washer, or dryer. And if they aren’t close to public transportation, it’s much harder for families to get to work, Augustus said.
A law signed in July placed new limits on the emergency assistance system. Families not prioritized for placement, based on the circumstances of their eviction, must choose between staying in a “temporary respite center” for up to five days or waiting for housing to open up. If they choose the five-day stay then the family will have to wait six months or more for a housing placement.
Sen. Robyn Kennedy, a Worcester Democrat and a member of the commission, suggested adding another recommendation to establish an oversight entity to monitor the shelter system. “We need to have a public body that continues to meet, that continues to look into these issues,” Kennedy said.
Rep. Paul Frost, an Auburn Republican who also sits on the commission, said the panel should look at the broader question of who is covered by the state’s right-to-shelter law. The law, which dates back to the 1980s, guarantees certain families a right to emergency shelter.
“I think the main reason and focus that this commission was created we’re not really addressing, and that is what caused this overflow, what caused us to reach the 7,500 cap,” said Frost. “We need to do something about addressing the issue of out-of-state applicants,” he said, referring to migrants.
Kennedy said migrants shouldn’t shoulder the blame, as they’ve been driven to leave their home countries due to violence and climate change.
“While it may be easy in this moment in time to blame migrants and to suggest that the problem we face is because of that, that is cruel and inhumane, and quite frankly, it’s inaccurate, because it is not because of the moment that we’re in, It’s because of the system that is so deeply broken,” she said.
Kennedy said the state can create a “compassionate, but more efficient system that actually meets families where they’re at in the moment and is less costly again every time a family is evicted because they didn’t pay rent.”
Driscoll said the emergency shelter system’s issues are part of a larger crisis due to the state’s lack of housing. The Healey administration has pushed pro-housing policies, such as a multibillion housing bond bill, and the implementation of the MBTA Communities law, which encourages multifamily housing near public transit.
“If we don’t have enough housing, that’s the real bottleneck and that’s probably the biggest challenge we have,” Driscoll said.
The commission will meet next week to vote on the recommendations.
Hannah Edelheit is a student at Boston University working at CommonWealth Beacon as part of the Boston University Statehouse Program.
The post Emergency shelter system should move away from one-size-fits-all model, officials say appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.