A fee tasked with finding out adjustments to the Massachusetts emergency shelter system wrapped up its work Tuesday by approving a closing report that gives few specifics however as a substitute outlines broad themes to information future reforms.
As Massachusetts faces a $1 billion tab in every of the following few fiscal years to deal with 1000’s of migrant and native homeless households in state-run shelters, the group of lawmakers and shelter consultants voted to situation a report that calls on officers to make household homeless uncommon, transient, and non-recurring.
The majority of the report contains 9 “findings and recommendations” that briefly cowl the whole lot from slicing prices to streamlining operations and limiting reliance on costly accommodations and motels to shifting towards a “needs-based model.”
Whereas the doc is basically unchanged from a draft commissioners debated final week, the ultimate model does characteristic three new strategies from Rep. Paul Frost, an Auburn Republican, and Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Sutton Republican.
In an appendix on the finish of the 38-page report, the 2 conservatives pitched additional slicing down the period of time households can keep in emergency shelters from 9 to 6 months, implementing a six-month residency requirement for shelter purposes, and codifying into legislation shelter placement guidelines Gov. Maura Healey issued in August.
In a joint assertion, Frost and Fattman stated the inclusion of the three suggestions “are positive signs for the future of this program and the impact it can have on all residents of the commonwealth.”
“Now the call to action must fall on the legislature as we address these recommendations in greater detail at the start of the next legislative session in January to ensure that the time and effort put into this commission does not fall to the wayside,” the 2 lawmakers stated.
Frost and Fattman have repeatedly pushed Democrats who management the Home and Senate to approve a residency requirement for the shelter system, which price taxpayers $856 million in fiscal yr 2024 and is projected to high $1 billion this fiscal yr, in accordance with state information.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, who chaired the fee, beforehand stated the aim of the ultimate report was not “about drawing in lines in the sand but about guiding principles so that we can get some consensus.”
“Happy to better understand where those lines could be drawn from the Legislature, should they choose to take that up,” she stated throughout a fee assembly final week.
