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Takeaways from the state's report on the Mass. family shelter system
The family shelter program in Massachusetts should focus on preventing family homelessness and becoming financially sustainable, according to a draft report out Tuesday from a state commission tasked with reviewing the current system.
Chaired by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, the commission outlined a "new vision" for the shelter program that focuses on ensuring family homelessness is "rare, brief, and nonrecurring, designed to be operationally and fiscally sustainable, and moving away from a one-size-fits-all model for families."
Over the past two years, a combination of immigrant families coming to the state and Massachusetts residents unable to keep up with the cost of housing has strained the family shelter system to its limit, according to the report.
Gov. Maura Healey set a 7,500-family cap on the system last fall. And then in April, she approved of a move to limit the length of a family's stay.
These measures were taken as the cost of maintaining the shelter system soared. The state's budget appropriation in fiscal year 2017 was $155 million; for fiscal year 2025, the state allocated $326 million, plus more than $200 million through supplemental funding.
Even still, the report estimates that there will be a multi-million dollar shortfall in operating the system. The total cost is expected to be nearly $1.1 billion for 2025. (Gov. Healey's budget chief indicated Tuesday that the administration is planning to seek $400 million in additional funding from the Legislature.)
In 2023, families seeking assistance surpassed previous peak levels. According to the report, 68 new families seek shelter each day, compared to 25 families per day before 2023.
The commission offered several findings in the report, including:
- The state should focus on preventing homelessness through tools like RAFT, which gives families facing eviction up to $7,000 per year, and HomeBASE, which provides up to $30,000 over a two-year period.
- Currently hotels and motels make up 46% of the shelter portfolio. The commission recommends limiting reliance on these sites, noting the venues' downsides like lack of kitchen and laundry facilities. They also tend to be far from public transportation.
- The commission says the state's current shelter limits work because they're clear and help the state prioritize which families to serve.
- Different families need different tools and the state, federal government, towns and cities and community organizers should better collaborate to meet these different needs. Some families may be lower risk and need rapid rehousing, English language lessons or job placement to restore income. Others have higher needs and would "require access to more intensive, longer-term services."
- In addition to the broad goal of increasing affordable housing stock in the state, the commission recommends enacting policies to bring down housing prices and reviewing homeless preferences for affordable housing.
Andrea Park, with the nonprofit Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, agrees changes are needed, but says the state must improve its efforts to create affordable housing.
"I would say that immigrants are really being scapegoated for this, and I think that in some ways, the shelter system is being scapegoated for a housing crisis that we have not properly addressed in Massachusetts," she told WBUR.
The commission is set to reconvene next Tuesday to vote on the report's recommendations. The group has a Dec. 1 deadline to submit the report to the Legislature.
With reporting by WBUR's Lisa Creamer and John Bender and State House News Service
This article was originally published on November 12, 2024.
