The variety of households in taxpayer-funded emergency shelters has dropped dramatically after peaking at greater than 7,600 households in July 2024, a stage that pushed the system to the bursting level and drained a whole lot of hundreds of thousands in one-time money the state had put aside.
Suppliers stated the lowered variety of households in shelters is a results of restrictive insurance policies put in place over the previous yr by Gov. Maura Healey and legislative Democrats. However Republicans additionally level to the Trump administration’s strikes to clamp down the southern border.
Demand for this system first began to surge within the fall of 2022 amid an inflow of newly arrived migrants to Massachusetts. However as prices to run the system elevated, Beacon Hill Democrats finally restricted who and for the way lengthy homeless households might keep in non permanent shelters.
These choices seem like having the supposed impact of curbing the variety of folks in shelters, with a 30.4% drop between July 2024 and March 27, in keeping with information on the whole variety of households within the emergency help program.
Danielle Ferrier, the CEO of shelter supplier Heading House, stated her group began seeing a lower on the “front door” of the system final fall, together with a lift in long-term Massachusetts residents in search of shelter over newly arrived migrants.
Ferrier, whose group runs an overflow shelter in Norfolk, stated she attributes the latest lower to the “governor and our state legislators’ policy changes.”
“The Legislature and the governor have clearly leaned into adding tools and flexibility for how we help house folks, and all of those changes and cumulative impact, we are seeing work,” she informed the Herald. “You’re starting to see that impact of how all those moves are helping us get folks out and bring the numbers down, which we knew we needed to do.”
At its peak, the emergency help shelter program housed 7,625 households — probably tens of hundreds of individuals — on the finish of July 2024, in keeping with state information.
That was an enormous spike in comparison with the 5,388 households within the system on the finish of July 2023 and the three,181 households in shelters on the finish of July 2022, the state information confirmed.
Beacon Hill Democrats and Republicans have largely agreed that the fast rush of demand was due to hundreds of households arriving in Massachusetts from different nations in hope of shelter. Crushing housing prices and basic value of residing will increase additionally performed a job.
The overwhelming need for shelter led to a system that value taxpayers $894 million to run in fiscal yr 2024, and bills are anticipated to surpass $1 billion in fiscal yr 2025, in keeping with a state report launched earlier this month.
In November 2024, after a couple of yr of the system hovering round 7,500 households, the variety of households in shelter began to steadily decline. As of March 27, there have been 5,309 households within the state-run emergency help program, in keeping with state information., a 30.4% drop from final July.
Even with the smaller figures, the Healey administration doesn’t but know the way a lot the emergency help program will value in fiscal yr 2026, the state report launched this month stated.
The lowered caseload comes after Healey and the Legislature signed off on a collection of measures they argued would decrease the variety of households in shelter however advocates usually criticized might create the potential for folks to seek out themselves and not using a roof over their head.
As instances have been on the rise in August 2023, Healey declared a state of emergency and known as on the federal authorities to shuttle {dollars} to the state. She later activated the Nationwide Guard and carried out a 7,500 cap on the variety of households in shelter, a transfer that survived a courtroom problem.
Months later, in April 2024, lawmakers signed off on their first main revisions to emergency shelters — a nine-month time restrict on households’ keep within the system and new compliance measures to make sure households have been working towards steady housing.
Later in the summertime of 2024, Healey rolled out guidelines that prioritized Massachusetts households over migrants for placement in shelters, carried out a five-day keep at overflow websites, and required folks to attend six months earlier than they certified for a longer-term shelter.
Healey introduced in November 2024, when there have been roughly 7,300 households in shelter, that the system would shift to 2 choices — a “rapid shelter” observe providing 30-day stays and a “bridge” observe that might give “high-risk families” six months.
The six-month restrict would finally be authorised in February, when the system’s caseload was hovering round 6,000 and Healey signed a invoice that additionally blocked out anybody who was not lawfully current in america and capped the system at 4,000 households beginning in December.
After years of adjustments, the Healey administration now contends that 75% of eligible households in search of shelter are “Massachusetts families” and 53% of households within the system are “Massachusetts families.”
Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless Affiliate Director Kelly Turley stated the choice to create two shelter tracks, which took impact in December 2024, was one of the impactful coverage shifts.
“In December, when they launched that two-track system, it was that the state was deciding for families which track they were on, and except in very limited situations, families couldn’t switch tracks, so the majority of families aren’t deemed to have a priority,” Turley informed the Herald.
Turley additionally stated declining numbers of households in shelters does “not necessarily correlate with a decrease in family homelessness or decreased need for shelter.”
Not everyone seems to be celebrating the success of fewer folks in state-run shelters.
Sen. Ryan Fattman stated the Healey administration “refused to do anything” to include the price of the emergency help program when demand was surging in 2023 whilst conservatives supplied concepts.
The Sutton Republican additionally pointed to a collection of arrests inside state-run shelters, like police taking into custody a person illegally in america from the Dominican Republic who was allegedly discovered at a Revere website with an AR-15 and $1 million value of fentanyl.
That arrest, together with others, and the publication of a collection of stories on disturbing incidents inside shelters have created a fervor over security in shelters and prompted Healey to place in place a collection of measures geared toward boosting safety.
“It’s a system that became overwhelmed because of inaction, and now certain things are starting to be put in place. But at the same exact time, the federal policy has changed completely. So yeah, no duh, the numbers are going down,” Fattman stated in an interview.
The declining variety of households within the emergency help program has additionally prompted an uptick within the variety of households exiting shelters.
Mark DeJoie, the CEO of the Lynn-based nonprofit Centerboard, stated his group that serves the shelter system has had a file variety of month-to-month household placements into post-shelter housing, together with 500 final yr and 91 in December alone.
“Nobody ever moves in December. It never happens,” he stated in an interview. “Something happened with the approach that is reducing the numbers at a pace that I would not expect. I think that I’ve been around as long as anybody in the profession. I wasn’t expecting this pace. I’m happy it’s happening. But I was not expecting this pace.”
Certainly, the variety of households who’re exiting emergency shelters every month has elevated, in keeping with the info set offered by the Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities, which features as Massachusetts’ housing division.
The earliest information offered by the division reveals 134 households exited shelter in January 2023. That jumped to 213 in January 2024 after which spiked once more to 717 in January 2025, in keeping with the info.
A spokesperson for the housing division stated the variety of exits from shelters has elevated “as a result of a series of steps” that the administration has taken, together with establishing clinics to assist folks receive work authorization and standing up a “dedicated” staff to assist folks discover jobs.
Ferrier, the CEO of shelter supplier Heading House, stated the adjustments over the previous a number of years have created “a different accountability structure” for suppliers, state authorities, and households who’re making an attempt to maneuver by way of the system.
That, she stated, is how “you see a system become a better system.”
“It becomes clearer what needs to be fixed, what needs to be adjusted. So I do think that part I have very much been in support of because I felt like it was the next iteration of our system advancing and becoming a more sophisticated, more effective system,” she stated.
Alex Brandon/ The Related Press
Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem, heart, and Sidney Aki, director of subject operations for the Customs and Border Safety (CBP) San Diego subject workplace, proper, stroll to the border throughout a tour of the San Ysidro Port of Entry earlier this month in San Diego. (AP Picture/Alex Brandon)
