Boston's Logan Airport is a 'de facto shelter' for homeless families

On recent nights, the Massachusetts Family Welcome Centers have sent roughly 100 to 200 people, in taxis and ride-hailing cars, to sleep in a baggage claim area at Boston Logan International Airport.

The families, including children under a year old, sleep on thin blankets to cushion the hard floors. In the morning, they are sent back to the state’s welcome centers to wait until they return to the airport for another night.

“It’s so cold. And we have no beds,” said DaCosta, who was on his 10th night sleeping at Logan with his wife and their three young children. WBUR is not using his full name because of his immigration status.

The welcome centers were set up last summer during an increase in immigration to help families find food and other necessities, access services and get transportation to shelters. But now, with the state's family shelter system at capacity, hundreds of families are in limbo. Those without relatives or friends in the area often head to Logan Airport, which is open all night.

While not entirely new, advocates said the number of homeless families sleeping at Logan has grown larger than ever in recent weeks. They blame Gov. Maura Healey's decision last November to cap the shelter population at 7,500 families and institute a waitlist.

The state has opened some overflow sites for waitlisted families, but there isn't enough room for all the families in need.

“I don't want to be rude, but I think the politicians and the government sometimes don't care,” said DaCosta.

Experts are raising alarms about the families' wellbeing — and the potential impact on airport security.

DaCosta’s family arrived in the U.S. just over a month ago, hoping to make a better life and stay with relatives in Massachusetts. But after two weeks, the relatives’ landlord complained.

“I said, ‘I don't need a problem,’ ” DaCosta recalled. His family sought help at a local church and a hospital before ending up at the state’s Family Welcome Center in Quincy.

While DaCosta said his family was deemed eligible for state shelter, they were placed on the waitlist and have no sense for when they will get a shelter unit. In the meantime, they are spending nights at Logan, struggling to sleep amid the noise of airport announcements and the lack of privacy.

He gives his children what blankets they have, and said he reads to them — on repeat — their only book, Dr. Seuss’s “Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?”

According to DaCosta, the family was told their six-year-old can’t enroll in school “because we don't have a residence.” Federal law guarantees an education for all school-aged children. A spokesperson for the state said state agencies and Boston Public Schools are working to enroll students. However, with record demand for homeless shelters, DaCosta’s family is one of many falling through the cracks.

At the State House on Monday, Gov. Healey faced questions about the growing number of families sleeping at the airport.

“Frankly, what you've seen at Logan has been the situation,” she said. “And this is why I said months ago that we are reaching capacity here.”

State officials estimate nearly half of the shelter population is newly arrived immigrants. and Healey is one of several governors who have been calling for the federal government to address immigration.

“We need D.C. to act. We need Congress to act,” Healey said, adding she wants to see “much-needed funding to interior states who have had to shoulder the burden for a problem that is geopolitical and is not the states’ making.”

Advocates acknowledge the situation is complex, but they argue state officials still have a moral — and legal — obligation to provide shelter for homeless families. A unique state law requires Massachusetts to give emergency shelter to all eligible families. This is the first time in 40 years that state officials have been unable to provide that assistance immediately.

A spokeswoman for the state said the Family Welcome Centers provide families with transportation to any location identified by the family as a safe alternative, and families are told the airport is not a shelter. Despite this, families continue to go.

“This is extremely concerning,” said Andrea Park, a housing attorney and director of community driven advocacy at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. “This is what we had been concerned about when they first instituted the idea of the waitlist.”

“It's important to acknowledge that the current response is inadequate,” said Kelly Turley, associate director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. “We know that other individuals and families have used Logan Airport as an overnight accommodation, but we've never seen it to this scale … to see that Logan Airport has become a de facto shelter.”

Turley worries the crowd at Logan Airport could become a public health issue. “During the winter with COVID, RSV, flu, common cold, it's concerning that people would be in such close proximity,” she said.

The man overseeing the state's family shelter system, Lieutenant General Leon Scott Rice, has said his staff is seeking more overflow locations, so they can offer temporary shelter to more waitlisted families. He has also urged municipal leaders, churches and other community groups to contact the shelter system with potential sites.

In addition to humanitarian concerns, some experts have raised safety concerns about the extra people at Logan Airport.

“The aviation security system is designed to protect aircraft, it’s designed to protect airports," said Jeff Price, a professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, who wrote a textbook on aviation security, "Practical Aviation Security."

"The more things that distract security professionals from those primary goals make the system more vulnerable,” he said, and nighttime presents a particular challenge because staffing is minimal.

According to Gov. Healey, there haven’t been any incidents at Logan. The Massachusetts State Police, which has troopers at the airport, did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for MassPort, which oversees Logan Airport, said she can’t discuss specific safety measures. She said no additional staff have been hired due to homeless families, but staff who speak Haitian Creole and Spanish are made available to assist.

Airports in other cities, like Chicago's O'Hare Airport, have also had migrants and homeless people sleeping overnight. MassPort's spokesperson said Logan officials are in regular touch with their counterparts elsewhere about this and other issues.

But Price emphasized there’s no precedent for an airport being used as a shelter on an ongoing basis.

“I think there needs to be longer-term planning in how this is going to be handled,” he said.

DaCosta and his family hope the terminal at Logan Airport won't be a long-term solution. He said all his family needs is a chance.

“If I have some place to stay," he said, "I can find a job and change everything.”