Greater than 300 “Serious Incident” stories have been recorded at Bay State migrant-family shelter program websites thus far this yr, the Herald has discovered.
The Massachusetts Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities has listed a complete of 316 Severe Incident stories at lodges, congregate websites, scattered websites, and co-shelters within the Emergency Help household shelter program.
The Herald obtained the Bay State’s “Serious Incident Reports Tracker Data” by way of a public data request after beforehand revealing how many individuals had been kicked out of the migrant-family shelter program for “inappropriate actions.”
The “Serious Incident Report Tracker Data” is damaged down by the kind of shelter, month, and the company referred to as for the totally different episodes.
Lodges had essentially the most reported severe incidents with 125 — adopted by congregate websites with 78, scattered websites with 72, and co-shelters with 22. There have been 19 different incidents, however officers stated they couldn’t decide the kind of shelter or company referred to as.
“This is very disturbing,” Jessica Vaughan, of the Heart for Immigration Research, informed the Herald. “This is a huge number of incidents.
“This is a huge failure, and it’s happening with massive amounts of taxpayer money,” Vaughan added. “The state is clearly failing to provide a safe environment for these migrants.”
The Massachusetts migrant-family shelter program has been on the focal point over the past a number of months, as state officers grapple with determining the place to deal with migrants and native residents. As of this week, practically 7,400 households had been enrolled within the Emergency Help household shelter program — 3,714 households in lodges/motels, and three,667 in conventional shelters.
The Herald filed this public data request after beforehand reporting that greater than 20 folks had been banned from the migrant-family shelter program for “inappropriate actions.” These people had been expelled whereas the state referred them to particular person grownup homeless shelters.
This additionally comes on the heels of the Herald discovering out {that a} 29-year-old man was reportedly booted from a resort housing migrant households in Marlboro, as a 16-year-old woman staying on the resort acquired a restraining order towards him.
For this public data request, the Herald had sought all the particulars from the intense incident stories. The Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities withheld the detailed data underneath the Privateness Exemption and Public Security Exemption.
That “exempts the disclosure of personnel and medical information, as well as data, that if disclosed, would constitute an ‘unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’ and allows for the withholding of certain records which, if released, will likely ‘jeopardize public safety,’ ” the state company stated in its response.
“The SIRs (Serious Incident Reports) contain a wide variety of information relating to the individuals involved, the locations involved as well as other highly sensitive information about shelter residents,” the state company added.
The general public deserves to get extra particulars on what’s taking place at these shelters, Vaughan stated.
“There needs to be some accountability,” Vaughan added. “The Healey administration appears to be giving the contractors a blank check, and have failed to take responsibility for what’s happening in these shelters, and that’s unconscionable.”
The Herald reached out to the Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities in regards to the severe incident report knowledge, asking in regards to the security and safety of the shelter program.
“The safety and wellbeing of families in the Emergency Assistance program is a priority for the Administration,” a spokesperson for the company stated in a press release.
“If an incident occurs in an EA shelter, HLC staff and service providers work with families to ensure their safety, security, and well-being, including working with relevant authorities to address concerns,” the spokesperson added.
As outlined by the Emergency Help program’s scope of providers, severe incidents contain “serious misconduct, threatening behaviors, or actual harm involving or affecting an EA program, or any EA family members. Serious incidents can involve perpetrators that are EA family members, program staff, external community members or anyone else.”
Severe incidents don’t essentially mirror misconduct or violations of shelter guidelines by shelter residents, and might embrace any incident that happens at a shelter web site.
For instance, the incidents may embrace fireplace alarms or pure disasters, COVID infections, unauthorized entry into shelter by non-EA residents, and different incidents that lead to a serious disruption of the EA program.
The shelter system has been underneath the microscope over the past a number of months. Earlier this yr, a migrant was accused of raping a disabled woman at a neighborhood shelter. The migrant youngster rape case involving 26-year-old Cory Alvarez sparked a Congressional inquiry and led to extra Republican-fueled criticism of the emergency shelter system in Massachusetts.
Alvarez, a nationwide from Haiti, is accused of raping a 15-year-old disabled woman at a state-run shelter in Rockland. He has been indicted by a Plymouth County grand jury for the alleged youngster rape.
Alvarez reportedly entered the U.S. lawfully by way of a federal program and underwent two state intercourse offender checks. He was screened and vetted towards nationwide safety and public security databases when he entered the U.S., and the Division of Homeland Safety stated no “derogatory information” was discovered.
Initially Printed:
