Healey administration says migrant, homeless families in state shelters will start getting exit notices in July
The nine-month limit on how long the state should provide a place for homeless families to sleep marks the first restrictions on the system since the inception of Massachusetts’ right-to-shelter law. The Massachusetts state's emergency shelter system, which allows homeless and migrant families to leave as soon as Sept. 29 under new policies implemented by the Healey administration, could be kicked out of the system as early as July. The policy limits shelter stays to nine consecutive months and allows for multiple 90-day extensions for individuals such as veterans, single parents of children with a disability, or those working towards obtaining a permit to work, as well as those facing hardship can apply for a 120-day hardship waiver. The new policies were part of a spending bill intended to bolster the strained shelter system through the fiscal year and fund it into 2025. The nine-month limit marks the first restrictions on the state's shelter system for homeless families since the inception of Massachusetts’ right-to-shelter law.
gepubliceerd : 3 weken geleden door Samantha J. Gross in Politics
The policy will be implemented in stages so not all families would be affected immediately. To start, 150 families will be given notice each month.
The first families to exit the emergency assistance program under the new policy, which limits shelter stays to nine consecutive months, will receive 90-day exit notices in person and by email beginning in July. The exact date has not been determined, officials said.
Homeless and migrant families living in the state’s emergency shelter system could be kicked out as soon as Sept. 29 under new policies implemented by the Healey administration, officials announced Wednesday.
Officials said there are about 4,000 families — about half of whom are migrants — who have been in shelter for nine months or more.
While most families will have to leave after nine months, the policy allows for multiple 90-day extensions for certain individuals such as veterans, single parents of children with a disability, or people who have made progress toward receiving a permit to work. It also builds in the option for those facing certain hardship to apply for a 120-day hardship waiver.
If families are denied extra time in shelter, they can appeal to the state.
A family’s exit date will be determined based on their date of placement in an emergency shelter, and families will have the option to re-apply, subject to the waitlist and other factors.
The new policies reflect the implementation of a law the Legislature passed in April setting a nine-month limit. The proposal was part of a broader spending bill meant to buoy the strained shelter system through the end of the fiscal year, and help fund it into 2025.
The administration had to clarify the dates Wednesday after there was widespread confusion and concern among families and advocates over when the policy actually goes into effect.
Healey administration officials said earlier this month that families could start getting kicked out of the emergency shelter system by Sept. 1, after receiving a 90-day notice to exit on June 1.
The state website still says the policy went into effect June 1. In large, bold letters, it says families will not be required to exit shelter “until September 1, 2024 at the earliest.”
But officials on Wednesday said the 90-day notices won’t go out until July, a month later.
Officials said the website will be updated with the new policy, a video to explain it , and an FAQ. Families will also receive a reminder email as they near their last days in shelter.
The state will also be putting up flyers, distributing packets, and training staff at the state’s 211 call center to answer questions about the new policy.
The nine-month limit marks the first restrictions on the state’s emergency shelter system for homeless families since the inception of Massachusetts’ right-to-shelter law. Until recently, homeless families were guaranteed a roof over their heads, with no limitations, under the decades-old law, 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.
In Massachusetts, the migrant crisis has ratcheted up in recent months, costing the state millions of dollars as hundreds more people arrive in the state each month, fleeing violence and economic turmoil in their home countries, including Haiti and Venezuela.
As of June 6, Massachusetts was providing housing for 7,387 families in its emergency shelter system, including nearly 3,736 in hotels or motels. Roughly half of the families in the system — not counting hundreds more on a wait list — entered the United States as migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, according to state data.
According to state officials, the average stay in emergency shelter is nearly a year, at 362 days.
Healey has already imposed some limits on the shelter system, last year capping capacity at 7,500 families — the first restriction on how many people the state would house in the system. And on May 1, state officials began to limit stays in state-run overflow shelters to 30 days, requiring people to reapply monthly and show they are also seeking work authorization, pursuing new housing, or taking other steps to stay in the rapidly expanding program.
Overflow shelters are separate from the state-run emergency shelter system, serving to temporarily house families on the waitlist to get into the larger system. As of last week, 798 families were on the waitlist.
The nine-month rule could serve as “a motivator to get people out of hotels as quickly as possible,” said Jeffrey Thielman, CEO of the International Institute of New England, which works to resettle new migrants.
Since the start of the federal fiscal year last October, Thielman’s organization has provided services, including access to federal cash assistance, to more than 11,000 people from Haiti — many of whom have been placed in apartments across the state, not state-run emergency shelters, Thielman said.
“Deadlines are helpful to agencies like ours that are serving people in shelters,” he said. “We are all very aware that the taxpayers will not fund the emergency shelter system indefinitely and without any upper limits on costs.”
Over the last six months, 1,491 families have exited shelters: 197 in December, 209 in January, 230 in February, 269 in March, and 304 in April, 331 in May, and more than 35 in June as expanded housing and job placement services have been funded by the state.
Material from State House News Service was used in this report.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @samanthajgross.
Onderwerpen: Social Issues, Homelessness