By Colin A. Young, Michael P. Norton
Senate Democrats forged ahead Wednesday with reforms and more funding for the state’s family shelter system, adopting some changes that Republicans have long sought to tighten eligibility though GOP senators voted against the bill and said the reforms didn’t go far enough.
The legislation is designed both to recapitalize the system, which has run out of funds, and to also dramatically shrink the number of families served by it and the costs the state and taxpayers must shoulder.
The $425 million supplemental budget (S 16) that the Senate passed 33-6 Wednesday “very closely” mirrors the version that the House passed last week (H 58) to fund the family shelter program through June, sponsor Sen. Michael Rodrigues of Westport said. The bill’s funding infusion, a shorter shelter stay limit, pared-down eligibility and other changes aim to continue the trend of more families exiting the system than entering it.
“It’s going to take a little while, but we see a real path to sustainability,” the Senate Ways and Means Committee chairman said. He later added, “This is an unpredictable time, but when fiscal responsibility and judicious management of taxpayer resources is paramount, our commitment to act is certain. This supplemental budget reflects all our work to move the EA program towards a more fiscally and sound future where we continue to help families in need while returning case loads to more sustainable levels.”
Pushed to its limits over the last two years by an influx of migrant families and a rise in homelessness, the emergency assistance (EA) system ran out of money at the end of January and the administration said it could not pay new bills until more funds are approved. The Legislature already approved about a half-billion dollars in direct appropriations and one-time funds for the EA system in fiscal 2025. In fiscal year 2026, which starts this July, policymakers are hoping to see fewer people in shelters and less state spending on the system.
The Senate bill would cap capacity in the EA system at 4,000 families for the period Dec. 31, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2026 (there were just more than 6,000 families relying on the system at the end of January), reduce the maximum length in an EA shelter from nine to six consecutive months, and make temporary respite sites available to families that appear eligible for the EA system for up to 30 days upon arrival in Massachusetts.
Senate President Karen Spilka has defended the branch imposing a 4,000-family cap, which critics have said limits the right to shelter that Massachusetts has had for homeless families and pregnant women since 1983.
“There’s I think in the Senate plan, almost a dual path for the shelter and temporary respite center,” Spilka told the News Service on Tuesday when asked about criticism that a cap undermines the intent of the state’s right-to-shelter law. “So I think that we have a financial obligation and a moral obligation. So this Senate, I believe, is attempting to balance those obligations.”
Pressed on how the cap maintains the right-to-shelter law, Spilka argued the Senate is “doing what we can” and “balancing our obligations.”
The legislation must be reconciled with the House bill and before going to Gov. Maura Healey’s desk.
The Senate bill also addresses the issue of “presumptive eligibility” by allowing the state to verify eligibility for EA benefits during the application process. It would require that applicants prove Massachusetts residency and an intent to stay in Massachusetts by providing certain documents. Unlike the House version, the Senate bill includes a section creating a waitlist for EA applicants who appear to be eligible “but who need additional time to obtain any third-party verifications reasonably required by the executive office.”
Republican senators said the proposed eligibility measures leave too much room for families to get shelter who should not be eligible, and also said the bill’s guidelines for criminal background checks designed to make sure shelters are safe for residents are too narrow and won’t capture activity in other states or countries.
The Healey administration has said that a “presumptive eligibility” mandate was added to the EA system line item in 2005 requiring the state to place families based on self-attestations of eligibility. Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz and Housing Secretary Edward Augustus said last month that roughly half of all families that apply for shelter “are determined to be ineligible for the benefit based on their initial application materials and prior to being placed in the system” and that the state’s conservative estimate is that at least 6% of families are determined to be ineligible after being placed presumptively based on initial information they provided.
Many of the bill’s provisions, especially those that aim to tighten security at shelter sites and require that the state obtain greater levels of information about applicants’ criminal background, won plaudits Wednesday from the Republican caucus and Minority Leader Bruce Tarr. But the Gloucester Republican, whose caucus rolled out a series of proposed shelter reforms last month, said it should go further by imposing a more rigid residency requirement, requiring competitive bidding processes, and barring violent offenders from the system entirely.
“The bill that is before us reflects many of the themes that we have sounded over the last several months, if not years, and reflects some of the elements that we have been seeking, more specifically, in the last couple of months, or at the very least several weeks,” Tarr said. “So our hope, madam president, is now after our attempts to reform this law have been repelled over the last several months, if not years, now we are finally acknowledging the need to reform the system, that we will ensure that the reforms that we undertake to the greatest extent possible maximize the sustainability of the system and maximize the safety of the system.”
Before the Senate dove into 68 amendments, Rodrigues explained to the Senate Chamber that he had a hard time settling on a final bill because of the strong feelings senators have around the competing nature of the moral desire to shelter homeless families and the financial responsibility to safeguard state funds.
“Our job is always to engage in conversation and attempt to reach compromise, and attempt to satisfy real competing interests, real competing general feelings of this body. And this is probably the most difficult one that I’ve had to work on to reach compromise, because we have very strong feeling on real divergent ends of this issue,” he said. “I feel and tell the members of the body that we struck a very good compromise.”
While the bill before the Senate focused on the system that serves about 6,000 homeless families, there are thousands more people who are homeless across Massachusetts. The individual homeless shelter system has seen, in some communities, increases in homelessness of as much as 25% in the last year, providers say.
Rodrigues said that Senate President Karen Spilka had recently talked to senators about “looking broadly and comprehensively at the issue of homelessness here in Massachusetts” and said she committed to convening a group of senators to “help us put forward smart solutions that keep our residents housed.”
“So while we act today on the immediate issue of emergency family shelter, obviously, our work in this space is not done,” Rodrigues said.
[Alison Kuznitz and Sam Doran contributed reporting.]
