Healey deputies respond to House shelter inquiry
BOSTON (SHNS) – The Healey administration provided House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz with a trove of information and documents about the state's emergency assistance system and Gov. Maura Healey's proposed reforms, but the detailed letter did not answer some of the chairman's pressing questions, including about the amount by which her plan would 'bring down the costs' of the maxed-out shelter program.
Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz and Housing Secretary Edward Augustus responded to Michlewitz's Jan. 22 request for more information Monday night with a seven-page letter and 16 pages of attachments, including a copy of a new background check policy that the administration put into effect Monday. The letter details the steps the administration has taken in recent years to respond to an influx of migrants that pushed the shelter system to its limits and addresses many of the questions Michlewitz said his committee would need answered before it could act on Healey's $425 million shelter mini-budget (H 51).
'The goal of this work has always been to return the system from a peak of 7,500 families back to sustainable and historical levels and, at present, we are trending in that direction. Our recent proposals seek to build on this progress,' Gorzkowicz and Augustus wrote. '[W]e are confident that the changes we have proposed align with the original intent of the Right to Shelter Law, protect the long-term fiscal sustainability of the shelter system, support cities and towns in addressing the needs of unhoused families, and help ensure the safety of shelter recipients and their communities.'
The secretaries said the governor's proposals 'should be permanent and effective prospectively.'
The Ways and Means Committee has been weighing Healey's spending plan since Jan. 9 and the governor made additional proposals to reform the 1983 Right to Shelter Law in a Jan. 15 letter to top lawmakers. The administration and Michlewitz have both acknowledged that time is of the essence — Gorzkowicz said last week that existing funding for the shelter system is due to run out on Jan. 31, give or take a week.
While the letter provided the Ways and Means chairman with a greater level of detail and answers to some of what he asked, some key questions went unanswered. The administration did not provide answers to questions Michlewitz asked about the potential for financial savings from Healey's proposed reforms, the current operations of the overflow shelter system, U.S. citizens in the system who are not Massachusetts residents, or the background check procedures in place before the governor announced changes on Jan. 15.
Michlewitz's office did not respond when asked whether the chairman was satisfied with the administration's response. The chairman forwarded the administration's letter to fellow House members Tuesday afternoon and told them he looked forward 'to continue working with all of you in the near future on this critical issue.'
It appears the soonest the governor's shelter supplemental budget could come before the House is next week, when funding for the system is projected to be down to its final days. House Speaker Ronald Mariano's office told representatives Tuesday afternoon that Thursday's House session will be an informal one, after having told them Friday to prepare for a potential formal session — the kind where a spending bill could emerge.
Among the details included in the administration's Monday letter: the EA system is currently seeing between 15 and 20 families applying for shelter each day, down from 30 to 40 families per day in the fall of 2023; December saw over 600 exits from the EA system, the highest monthly total in the last decade; and there are now fewer than 55 hotels being used for EA shelter, down from a high of more than 100.
The letter details the administration's proposal to remove a 'presumptive eligibility' mandate that was added to the emergency assistance system line item in 2005. The secretaries said the mandate was not part of the shelter law before then and requires the state to place families into shelter based on self-attestations of eligibility. It does not allow the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to verify eligibility requirements prior to placement, including a family's identity, proof of familial relationship to children, eligible immigration status, Massachusetts residency, income and assets, and reason for homelessness.The secretaries said 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. The cost of one month of 'presumptive eligibility' in the EA shelter system is between $10,000 and $15,000 per family, they said.'We propose to return to the original intent of the Right to Shelter Law by removing the 'presumptive eligibility' mandate from the line item and reverting to the prior practice of requiring pre-placement verification of eligibility for most families. We recommend empowering EOHLC to waive pre-placement verification on a case-by-case basis where a family reasonably lacks the necessary documentation at the time of application, such as in cases involving homelessness due to natural disaster or domestic violence,' Gorzkowicz and Augustus wrote to Michlewitz. 'EOHLC is confident that this change to 'presumptive eligibility' will further reduce demand on the EA system by allowing EOHLC to make necessary ineligibility determinations prior to the provision of benefits.'The secretaries' letter to Michlewitz also touched on the thinking behind Healey's proposal to change some of the core eligibility criteria for the EA system. Right now, families can be eligible for shelter based on several types of no-fault eviction or if they are in a housing situation 'not meant for human habitation' — but there is nothing imposing a geographic limit on those criteria, which means people who lost a home in another state could come to Massachusetts to get state shelter.About one-third of families that applied for EA benefits in the last six months said on their applications that they did not live in Massachusetts at some point within the 90 days prior to their application, Gorzkowicz and Augustus wrote, and 'we have seen numerous instances in which applications for shelter were based on homelessness that occurred in one of our border states.' The secretaries said 4% of families that leave the EA system transition directly to housing in another state.'Once again, we believe that the existing language in the line item diverges from the original intent of the law, which aimed to address homelessness occurring in Massachusetts and impacting Massachusetts residents,' they wrote. 'We therefore propose, consistent with the original intent of the law, to amend these two eligibility criteria to require that an eligible no-fault eviction or unsafe housing situation occur in Massachusetts.'Augustus and Gorzkowicz said that eligibility for EA shelter benefits has 'consistently required individuals in shelter to demonstrate Massachusetts residence' but they said the state has been 'constrained in its ability to enforce the residency requirement' by the presumptive eligibility mandate. The governor's proposal is to add a 'bona fide residence' requirement in the EA line item, consistent with language that was in place until 2022 and language that remains in state regulations.'This approach aligns with the law's original intent by restoring the statutory requirement of residency and reverting to the historical practice of verifying residency prior to placement. If our proposed change becomes law, individuals would be able to prove residency through the types of documentation on Attachment C or by showing physical presence in Massachusetts for a period of three months, tracked from the first day of documentable presence in the state.'
Mostly Republican lawmakers last year made unsuccessful efforts to impose a six-month Massachusetts residency requirement for shelter applicants and some have indicated they will seek similar requirements this session. Democrat Sen. Michael Rodrigues said this month that he thought a proposed residency requirement 'raises constitutional issues,' but did not foreclose considering it.The secretaries said the law distinguishes between 'bona fide residence' and 'durational residence' requirements, with 'bona fide residence' requirements generally conditioning eligibility for a benefit on simple proof of state residency while 'durational residence' requirements unconditionally predicate eligibility on proof of a certain period of continuous physical presence in the state. The latter, they said, 'often trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny and, in some cases, have been struck down as unconstitutional.'
All family members looking to stay in a state shelter would also have to prove their lawful U.S. residency under the governor's proposal, unless a child in the family already has lawful residence. Currently, only one member of the family unit must show citizenship or lawful presence.'For purposes of this proposal, a 'family' would be defined in accordance with 760 CMR 67.02, which treats a 'family' as a household with parents, stepparents or caretaker relatives and a child younger than 21 years of age, or a household with a pregnant woman without any children. Under our proposal, the entirety of a family with a child with lawful status would be eligible for benefits,' the secretaries wrote. 'In all other cases, a person's lack of lawful status would make only that particular person ineligible for shelter benefits.'
The administration also wrote in its letter to Michlewitz that it does 'not anticipate that any of our proposed changes would result in a meaningful displacement of children currently enrolled in school districts this school year' and said it intends to continue funding school aid at the $104-per-student rate in the fiscal 2025 budget, including for districts taking on children in the EA system. The impact of President Donald Trump's recent immigration-focused executive orders on the EA system are still being assessed along with the attorney general's office, the administration said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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