Safety-net sites to become temporary respite centers with five-day stay limit

BOSTON - The Healey-Driscoll administration is announcing changes to its Emergency Assistance (EA) prioritization and safety-net sites for families experiencing homelessness. These changes are intended to address the system’s continuing capacity constraints, lower costs, and protect the financial sustainability of the EA system. 

Beginning August 1, 2024, families will be prioritized for placement in EA shelters if they are homeless because of a no-fault eviction or because of sudden or unusual circumstances in Massachusetts beyond their control, such as a flood or fire, or if they have at least one member who is a veteran. Families will continue to be prioritized if they have significant medical needs, newborn children, are at risk of domestic violence, or are homeless because of fire, flood, or other disasters.

Families who are not prioritized for placement in EA shelters will be eligible to stay at a “temporary respite center” for up to five days. On August 1, the state’s safety-net sites in Chelsea, Lexington, Cambridge and Norfolk will be transitioned to temporary respite centers. Norfolk is the newest of these sites and is nearing capacity. The administration will not be opening additional respite center sites due to operational and financial constraints.

Families who choose 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. They will remain eligible for other diversion services, such as reticketing and the HomeBASE program. 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. This policy does not apply to United Way shelter sites.

“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. 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,” said Governor Maura Healey. “That’s why we are making changes to EA prioritization and transitioning our safety-net sites to five-day temporary respite centers. This 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.”

Last year, Governor Healey declared that a state of emergency exists in Massachusetts due to rapidly rising numbers of immigrant families arriving in Massachusetts in need of shelter and services and a severe lack of shelter availability in the state. In the fall, she announced that the EA system was at capacity at 7,500 families.

The administration has focused on getting immigrants work authorizations, English classes, and placed into jobs to give them the tools they need to move into stable housing and to meet the workforce needs of our employers. Governor Healey successfully advocated for U.S. Department of Homeland Security to hold a work authorization clinic in Massachusetts and processing times have significantly increased. Since November 2023, the administration has helped nearly 3,800 immigrants apply for work authorizations, the vast majority of which have been approved, and nearly 1,250 have been enrolled in ESOL classes. Across the system, nearly 1,300 EA residents have gotten jobs.

The administration also expanded the HomeBASE program, which helps cover rent and other costs for families with children under 21 years old or pregnant people and offered mobile vouchers to the approximately 1,200 EA families who were in EA longer than 18 months. 

As a result of these efforts, the number of families leaving the EA system has steadily increased each month, with more than 330 families leaving each month recently – the highest numbers in years.

The Legislature recently passed a nine-month length of stay requirement in EA shelters, which Governor Healey signed into law and recently implemented. Governor Healey also previously implemented a 30-day recertification requirement at safety-net sites.

Last month, Governor Healey sent members of her administration to the U.S. Southern Border to meet with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Joint Task Force-North, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and families to educate them about the lack of shelter availability in Massachusetts. The Governor also recently ended the practice of families overnighting at Logan Airport and increased outreach around the state’s reticketing program, which provides families with transportation to another location where they have friends or family or another option for a safe place to stay.