Mike Kennealy, a Republican operating for governor, mentioned he personally warned Gov. Maura Healey about rising demand for state-run shelter providers throughout a November 2022 assembly, months earlier than a spike in caseloads introduced the emergency program to a breaking level.
The assembly resurfaced a day after the State Auditor’s Workplace launched an audit that accused Healey’s prime housing deputies of failing to “adequately assess and act upon” rising shelter caseloads in the course of the early days of a disaster spurred by an inflow of migrants to Massachusetts.
Kennealy, who served as housing and financial improvement secretary below Gov. Charlie Baker, mentioned “nothing really happened” after he supplied the heads-up to Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll throughout a gathering contained in the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace the afternoon of Nov. 29, 2022.
“Her claim that no one could have seen this crisis coming, I think, is absurd. I mean, I warned her directly,” Kennealy mentioned. “The warning signs were everywhere. I think, for whatever reason, they chose to ignore them.”
A spokesperson for the governor mentioned Healey “inherited” a shelter system that was not geared up to deal with the surge in households in search of housing that started in 2022.
“Gov. Healey is the one who reformed the right to shelter law to implement a residency requirement, limited the length of stay, and required CORI checks. Gov. Healey is the one who is getting families out of hotels, lowering caseload, and lowering costs,” the spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
DiZoglio’s audit, which alleged Healey accredited “improper and unlawful” no-bid contracts, has sparked a debate over whether or not the governor’s crew missed warning indicators of an incoming swell of migrant arrivals and the escalating want for household shelter area.
In a letter responding to DiZoglio’s report, Healey’s prime housing deputy, Secretary Ed Augustus, argued that few folks may have predicted a “once in a lifetime surge in shelter demand.”
“(The administration) strongly rejects the suggestion that it should have foreseen what was, in fact, a historically unprecedented increase in demand for emergency assistance shelter services driven by international and national forces far beyond EOHLC’s control,” Augustus mentioned.
However Kennealy contends that Healey and Driscoll at the very least “understood” his warning in the course of the 2022 assembly.
“This was not something unforeseen. It’s not something that happened all at once. It’s something where it was on a trend line, right, and there was ample warning about it,” he mentioned.
A supply conversant in Healey’s transition discussions mentioned Kennealy’s recommendation to the incoming administration targeted solely on elevated funding to help expanded shelter capability.
“Right-to-shelter and any other reforms were never mentioned,” the supply mentioned, referring to the decades-old statute that requires the state to supply shelter to homeless households with kids and pregnant girls.
Logan Trupiano, a spokesperson for Kennealy, mentioned the Healey administration is in “full-blown damage control in the wake of this audit.”
“It’s no surprise they’ve conveniently ‘forgotten’ the specifics of the conversation and are attempting to deflect responsibility,” Trupiano mentioned. “Top Democrats in the Legislature publicly stated they would not work with the Baker administration on a fix — they would only work with incoming Gov. Maura Healey. Apparently, the Democrats on Beacon Hill forgot to follow through.”
The assembly between Kenneally, Healey, and Driscoll got here in the course of the transition between the Baker and Healey administrations and was a part of a collection of sit-downs Healey had with Baker’s outgoing cupboard secretaries to find out about their work.
It additionally passed off as Baker was unsuccessfully attempting to steer Beacon Hill Democrats to approve tens of millions in additional funding for the emergency shelter program amid a surge of households arriving in Massachusetts from Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, and Ukraine.
Days earlier than the sit-down between Kennealy and Healey, Baker filed a $139 million spending invoice that sought to deliver new shelter items on-line and canopy the projected improve within the emergency help program via the top of fiscal 12 months 2023.
Kennealy, the then-secretary of housing and financial improvement, additionally tried to persuade lawmakers to go the invoice in a Dec. 28, 2022 letter to price range chiefs Rep. Aaron Michlewitz of the North Finish and Sen. Michael Rodrigues of Westport.
Within the letter, Kennealy mentioned that officers began ramping up the emergency help program in August 2022, together with by establishing further shelter area at Salem State College, a brief consumption web site on state-owned land at Devens, and inserting households in lodges and motels.
However cash to maintain increasing the shelter system would run out in 90 days, and the administration can be compelled to function solely the present community of three,500 items, Kennealy and then-Housing and Group Growth Undersecretary Jennifer Maddox mentioned within the letter.
“Without adequate appropriations to expand capacity, it is probable that the EA system will be unable to accommodate families who otherwise would be forced to remain in unsafe situations or sleep in cars, emergency rooms, or other places not intended for human habitation,” the 2 mentioned within the letter.
Lawmakers by no means superior the laws to Baker’s desk within the remaining days of the 2021-2022 legislative time period. However months later, Beacon Hill Democrats accredited an identical spending invoice from Healey that included tens of millions for the emergency shelter program.
Healey herself acknowledged that demand for emergency shelter for “significantly increased, and the emergency temporary shelter system is at capacity” in a letter to lawmakers despatched Jan. 30, 2023, or solely weeks after she took workplace.
“While the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) has been working to place vulnerable people and expanding capacity to meet its revised caseload projections, emergency assistance funds have been depleted. As a right to shelter state, the commonwealth is committed to providing safe temporary shelter to these families,” Healey mentioned.
