Republican gubernatorial candidates are knocking Gov. Maura Healey for spending $30,000 on repairs at a resort shelter for migrants and homeless households, a value her administration says has “already been reflected” in experiences.
The state Government Workplace of Housing & Livable Communities spent $30,273.92 on repairing damages that it decided to be “outside the scope of normal wear and tear,” on the Clarion Resort in Taunton, in accordance with knowledge obtained by the Herald.
Brian Shortsleeve, a Republican operating for governor, supplied the Herald with an inventory of restore prices, which ranged from carpet and furnishings replacements to door injury, after receiving the info from the state housing workplace on Tuesday.
The state has since shut down its emergency shelter on the Taunton resort, together with almost all different resorts and motels that supplied look after migrants and native homeless households. 4 amenities that stay in operation are slated to shut on the finish of the month.
Shortsleeve requested information of invoices on repairs and upkeep on the Clarion Resort from Feb. 1, 2023 via Might 1, 2025. The state started utilizing the ability as an emergency shelter in early April 2023 earlier than closing it on the finish of June.
Based on the info, the state housing workplace addressed eight cases of harm on the Clarion that it stated fell “outside the scope of normal wear and tear” and had been “eligible for review and reimbursement.”
Resorts are “responsible for their own maintenance and for any costs associated with normal wear and tear that are part of their standard operating costs,” housing officers have stated.
In July 2024, the Clarion was reimbursed $6,450.00 – the state’s largest expenditure – for a carpet alternative and repairs to wallpaper and a damaged window, in accordance with the info. That got here two months after the state spent $6,178.13 to switch a carpet and sprinkler heads.
The smallest expenditure was $1,040 for a furnishings alternative, billed on July 1, 2023, figures point out. The record stops on Aug. 1, 2024, as a result of there have been no reimbursable repairs submitted after then.
“We now have it verified that the taxpayers are on the hook for repairs at the hotels,” Shortsleeve informed the Herald, “Maura Healey has shown a total disregard for the taxpayers with her reckless spending for the illegal immigrants. We need to end Massachusetts being a magnet state.”
Shortsleeve’s marketing campaign workforce stated the Clarion is the primary resort shelter for which it has acquired an inventory of upkeep and restore prices, with different requests pending.
The emergency help program, which has price the state greater than $1.8 billion over the past two fiscal years, has brought on a heavy pressure on taxpayers since 2022, when then-Gov. Charlie Baker transformed some resorts into shelters to accommodate the rising want amid the inflow of migrants.
On the peak of the disaster, almost 130 resorts operated as shelters, serving 7,500 households and greater than 23,000 individuals in whole. The Healey administration projected the caseload to drop beneath 4,000 households this summer season, prompting the ultimate 32 shelters to shut six months forward of schedule.
“All of these costs have already been reflected in our reports,” a spokesperson for the state Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities informed the Herald Wednesday.
“Because of Governor Healey’s reforms,” it added, “shelter costs are going down by hundreds of millions of dollars, the number of people in shelter has been cut in half and we will soon be out of all hotel shelters for the first time since 2022.”
Regardless of that achievement, Housing Secretary Ed Augustus, earlier this month, prolonged a proper emergency declaration that enables the state to proceed to impose restrictions on shelters.
Augustus attributed the necessity for an prolonged emergency declaration, which is able to expire Nov. 9, to “economic uncertainty, high housing costs, and reduced federal support.”
The Healey administration spent $758 million on direct shelter prices final fiscal 12 months, together with for the precise areas to deal with individuals, to pay Nationwide Guard troops to service these websites, and websites to display individuals earlier than they enter the system, in accordance with a report the state printed earlier this month.
Mike Kennealy, the opposite Republican operating for governor, referred to as the record of repairs on the Clarion Resort in Taunton “emblematic of what may be the most egregious misallocation of public funds in our state’s history.”
“It’s the direct result of failed leadership from Governor Healey,” Kennealy stated in a press release to the Herald. “As Governor, I will amend the right to shelter law … to get to the bottom of this fiscal and humanitarian disaster.”
A spokesperson for the governor declined to remark to the criticism from the Republican gubernatorial candidates, referring the Herald to the state housing workplace.
The preliminary contract between Clarion and the state confirmed that the resort was paid $10.7 million for fiscal 12 months 2024, the Taunton Gazette reported. The town fined the resort $1,000 a day from Might 26 to Sept. 18, 2023, totaling $114,600, for going over occupancy limits, the outlet reported.
Officers within the Bristol County metropolis introduced earlier this month that the Clarion is being bought to the Hilton, with the ability within the technique of being renovated earlier than it turns into a DoubleTree Resort.
Resort operators are answerable for prices in renovating their amenities again to normal use, the state has stated.
Jon Fetherston, a former emergency shelter director in Marlborough, handled circumstances he stated had been “even worse” than these on the Taunton resort, together with “extensive mold, fruit fly and cockroach infestations, rodents, and repeated outbreaks of bed bugs.”
“If there is any intention to reopen the Marlborough Holiday Inn or similar facilities as public hotels again, a full renovation will be required,” Fetherston informed the Herald. “And not a minor one. We’re talking about a multimillion-dollar overhaul.”
Brian Shortsleeve, a possible GOP candidate for Massachusetts governor, speaks with the Herald throughout an interview on the Prudential Heart. (Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald
Brian Shortsleeve (Herald file)
