The shelter crisis is only the tip of the iceberg

Re “Cities, towns call for help as migrants pour in” (Page A1, Sept. 8): The recent influx of migrants has pushed Massachusetts’ shelter capacity to the brink, raised serious concerns among local leaders, and led Governor Maura Healey to declare a state of emergency. Yet the shelter crisis is merely the tip of the iceberg. The deeper crisis is the severe statewide housing shortage that has been growing for decades, primarily due to municipal border controls, enforced through restrictive zoning regulations, which impede the construction of new housing.

High rents and home prices have already forced thousands of Massachusetts families out of their homes and communities. Massachusetts families, not just newly arrived migrants, have been forced to move into emergency shelters, double-up in crowded living conditions, or move to distant communities or other states where housing is more abundant and affordable. The Massachusetts rental vacancy rate of 2.8 percent, the lowest in the United States, is less than half the national rate of 6.3 percent. We also have, not coincidentally, the third highest rents.

If you can’t build more housing, then one solution is to reduce the population; in fact, Massachusetts has the fifth highest rate of domestic net migration in the country. In

2022 alone, more than 50,000 people left Massachusetts for other states, including many young adults who grew up here but could not afford to remain. This is our migration crisis; it is entirely of our own making and we can choose to solve it by removing the power of cities and towns to police their borders through restrictive zoning. If there was ever a need for declaring a state of emergency, this is it.

BRUCE EHRLICH Jamaica Plain