Lawmakers propose 9-month shelter limit
Budget deal would tap up to $426M for state crisis
BOSTON — Senate and House negotiators Wednesday proposed a new nine-month limit on how long families can stay in the state’s emergency shelters while authorizing withdrawals up to $426 million from a state savings account to spend on the ongoing crisis.
Top lawmakers crafting the compromise supplemental budget bill landed on pulling an additional $251 million for fiscal 2024 from the so-called transitional escrow account, a one-time revenue source that boasts a balance of $863 million. The Senate’s chief negotiator, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Michael Rodrigues, said in a statement that the “appropriate balance” in the compromise bill “establishes a fiscal glide path.”
“It places families and children on a path to exiting the shelter system, dedicating funds to support regional response efforts and assistance with rehousing, work authorization, workforce training and English language learning,” the Westport Democrat said.
In addition to direct spending on the emergency assistance shelters, the bottom line for fiscal 2024 supplemental spending includes $10 million for an approved training program, $10 million to cover a tax credit for companies that provide job training to shelter residents, and $7 million for certain resettlement agencies and providers.
The bill would also allow the Healey administration to pull another $175 million from the transitional escrow fund next fiscal year — fiscal 2025, which begins July 1 — if the secretary of administration and finance issued a “written determination ... that funds are necessary to support the emergency housing assistance program.”
The executive branch’s budget chief would need to give the House and Senate Ways and Means committees at least 14 days notice before such a transfer, under the bill’s language.
The House’s general budget for fiscal 2025, which is separately under debate this week in the House Chamber, features a similar $175 million withdrawal to be put toward the shelter crisis. Legislative leadership opted to give more immediacy to that proposal, adding it to the compromise mini-budget and planning to remove it from the general budget bill.
As part of an effort to clamp down on the runaway shelter spending, the conferees opted for a new nine-month limit on how long families can stay in the emergency assistance program.
Once shelter recipients hit the ninemonth mark, they would be able to seek up to two 90-day extensions if they are employed, participating in an approved training program or met one of a slew of protected criteria such as “seeking to avoid educational interruptions for a child or children enrolled in public schools,” those who are pregnant or recently gave birth, people with a diagnosed disability or “documented medical condition,” those to whom domestic violence poses “imminent risk of harm,” or veterans not already enrolled in “services specifically tailored to veterans.”
The bill would create a further “hardship waiver,” allowing for added extensions “upon written certification of hardship” by the state housing secretary.
“We also want to continue to stress that this is supposed to be a transitional program, not a permanent program,” the House’s top negotiator, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Aaron Michlewitz, said in a hallway scrum. “And we want to, in order to keep it sustainable long-term, we had to find parameters around it. I think this body has led the way on that conversation. And it’s something that we’re certainly concerned about making sure that people have enough time to get the workforce visas, to get their life in a situation where they can get out of the system.”
Gov. Maura Healey would receive a deadline from the Legislature under the bill — May 15 — to ask the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for “any and all federal approvals for a waiver to permit expedited work authorizations, temporary work authorizations or provisional work authorizations.” The bill would further require the governor to publicly post her request to the federal government online by the same date.
“I think we need to just go after every possible option that we have in the toolbox,” Michlewitz said, adding, “We think the governor can bring it up to Washington once again that we need some further action.”
House Speaker Ronald Mariano, talking to the press alongside his budget chief, added, “We want to make sure the governor and everyone else is paying attention” to the effort to take advantage of “every avenue.”
“Through this whole process, the House has been the one branch of government that’s tried to keep a rein on this whole process,” Mariano told reporters.
In his statement, Rodrigues said Wednesday’s deal “reflects the Senate membership’s overarching goal of ensuring our response to the ongoing emergency assistance shelter crisis is responsible, humane and sustainable.”
Outside the shelter crisis response, the bill features two time-sensitive sections after temporary state allowances expired this spring for streamlined outdoor dining permitting and takeout cocktail orders.
Established as temporary programs during the COVID era that required periodic renewal by the Legislature, both would be made permanent in some fashion. To-go cocktails would now stop there — mixed drinks could be sold with to-go orders, but no more takeout beer or wine sales.
“Restaurants will still have the option to do mixed drinks and do cocktails to take out, while beer and wine will be restricted still to package store licenses,” Michlewitz said. “We felt it was a good balance. Making it permanent going forward, so we don’t have to keep revisiting this year after year, as we have since the COVID state of emergency’s been eliminated.”
Rodrigues and Michlewitz said Wednesday that the plan was for both branches to take up the conference report Thursday. The bill was to arrive first in the House, where under internal rules it can be taken up anytime after 1 p.m. The report cannot be amended, both branches have to take up-or-down votes on what the negotiators agreed to.
The four Democrats on the negotiating committee signed off on the agreement, while the two Republican members withheld their signatures.
“You know, we’re in tough financial times, and this is a large amount of money that the state’s been spending on this, and will continue to spend on this. And I would like to see more actionable plans put in place to see where the endgame is here,” Sen. Patrick O’Connor of Weymouth, one of two Republican negotiators, said Wednesday.
O’Connor said he wants to see state officials “be louder” in calls for assistance to the federal government and the state’s delegation on Capitol Hill.
As far as whether $500 million will be enough to fund the shelter system in fiscal 2025 — the total the House proposes spending on the emergency assistance system in fiscal 2025, which includes the $175 million in this week’s supplemental deal — Michlewitz said, “This has been such a moving target,” and, “It’s hard to predict where we’re going to be.”
“Therein lies the problem. You just defined the problem,” Mariano said. “No one knows for sure whether this is going to be enough. And, you know, this is an election year. We’re out July 31, so we’re hoping that this’ll do it, but if not, we’ll have to make some adjustments.”
House Speaker Ronald Mariano