Limit on shelters in Mass. sought
House lawmakers vote on how long homeless can stay
Responding to the mounting financial strain related to the influx of migrants to the state, the Massachusetts House on Wednesday voted to approve new limits on how long most homeless families could live in staterun emergency shelters.
The proposed limits – which would be the first of their kind placed on state-run shelters – were part of a $260 million spending bill meant to fund the shelter system through the end of the fiscal year, among other things. The success of the proposal, which passed 121-33, underscores the mounting political tensions caused by the rising numbers of new arrivals to the state, which has strained the system to a breaking point.
“Without making some temporary changes to this program, it’ll collapse under its own weight,” House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz told lawmakers on the House floor Wednesday. “The system was never designed to see this many people in it at one time.”
The final language passed by the House would limit the maximum stay for most homeless families to nine consecutive months, starting April 1. The language includes a three-month extension for people who are employed or enrolled in a job training program.
Pregnant women and people with certain disabilities would be eligible for 12 consecutive months in the shelter system, regardless of employment status.
The vote reveals friction between Massachusetts’ progressive image and the financial realities of what Democrats running the Legislature, and the taxpayers they represent, are willing to accept.
The passage of the bill, which would spend $245 million to fund the state’s emergency shelter system through the end of the fiscal year, drew immediate criticism from some Democratic members and housing advocates who say a temporary limit on the shelter system won’t save the state money, but instead may bring on hidden costs.
The average shelter stay now is more than a year, raising the question of how communities would absorb homeless families who can’t find housing before their time runs out
under the new policy. The proposal, in a way, is self defeating, said Andrea Park, a staff attorney and director of communitydriven advocacy at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.
Park said her team is “pretty disappointed in the outcome.”
“We didn’t hear a lot about how this is really going to get at the funding [concern],” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily feel like that much thought has been given to the real-life consequences.”
House leaders defended the plan, saying it would move families out of shelter and into the workforce, while opening space for the dozens of families languishing on wait lists and in overflow shelter sites. The sites were created last year, after state officials said they can no longer guarantee space for more than 7,500 families in the shelter system.
“We’re on our own. And I think we have to manage this to make it sustainable,” Michlewitz said of the shelter system after the vote. “If we don’t keep it sustainable, then it’s going to fall apart on its own.”
Governor Maura Healey first teased the idea to limit shelter stays in November. At the time, the comments quickly raised concerns with homeless advocates, who called potential time limits “cruel.”
At an event in Revere Wednesday morning, Healey declined to comment on the House measure, but said the overwhelmed shelter system is “a problem that the federal government created . . . by its failure to act.”
She has long called the Biden administration and Congress to speed up work authorizations and send money to help alleviate the strain on the emergency shelter system, to no avail.
“In the meantime, we’re doing all that we can to manage the situation here,” she said. “I’ve been very focused on work authorizations, and getting people working, but we’ll continue to work in collaboration with the Legislature in terms of what comes next.”
Healey as recently as last month told the Globe the option of time limits for shelter stays was “still on the table.”
“I’ve seen other states implement time limits, maximum length of stay at shelters, and it’s something that we have been looking at as well,” she said.
Until recently, homeless families were guaranteed a roof over their heads under a decades-old law in Massachusetts, the only statewide so-called right-to-shelter requirement in the United States. New York City, which has a similar shelter policy, imposes more stringent limits on how long newly arrived migrants may stay in emergency shelters: There, families with children are allowed to stay in shelters for a maximum of 60 days, though there are efforts to repeal that policy.
Even with the 7,500-family cap now in place, Healey’s administration still expects it will spend nearly three times as much on the system as originally appropriated in the fiscal 2024 state budget. The Wednesday vote aimed to curb the spending.
The crisis has ratcheted up in recent months, costing the state millions as thousands more people arrive in the state, fleeing violence and economic turmoil in their home countries, including Haiti and Venezuela. Just months ago, in December, lawmakers passed a spending bill that infused $250 million into the state’s emergency shelter system. But the costs continue to mount.
“It has become crystal clear that the federal government will provide no relief ... Washington seems to care more about playing politics on this issue rather than offering solutions for us to implement. That inaction has forced us to make difficult decisions,” Michlewitz, a North End Democrat said on the House floor Wednesday. “We do not make this proposal lightly. But it is one we feel it’s necessary to uphold the fiscal health of the Commonwealth.”
Lawmakers filed 25 amendments to the bill Wednesday, including a Republican-authored measure that sought to limit shelters to people who’ve lived in Massachusetts for at least six months, which would disqualify new arrivals, and another that would have imposed a temporary moratorium on the state’s right-to-shelter law, essentially ending new shelter admissions. The first measure was voted down, and the second was withdrawn.
House members approved three amendments, including a provision that would give veterans and domestic violence victims 12 months in shelter without additional requirements, and another that would prohibit the state from kicking out more than 150 families each week.
House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano, who aides said was experiencing flu-like symptoms, voted remotely on Wednesday.
In addition to setting time limits on stays in shelters, the bill proposed a suite of other changes, including a tax credit to businesses that provide workforce training to shelter residents, worth $2,500 per person trained. The total amount of the credits would be capped at $10 million a year. Republicans failed to pass an amendment that would have included other low-income residents in the workforce training program.
The proposal would also require Healey to seek federal approvals for expedited and temporary work permits for newly arrived immigrants and require that overflow shelter sites be located in “geographically diverse areas” throughout the state.
A recent Globe analysis of state data found that few wealthy communities host emergency shelters for homeless and migrant families while the bulk are in middle-income cities and towns.
The bill also includes language to make pandemic-era outdoor dining and to-go drink rules permanent.
The legislation will now go to the Senate, which as of Wednesday afternoon did not have a formal session scheduled.
‘It has become crystal clear that the federal government will provide no relief . . . That inaction has forced us to make difficult decisions.’
AARON MICHLEWITZ, State House representative