BOSTON — The Massachusetts emergency shelter system will start enforcing sweeping new changes Thursday, including a five-day stay limit on migrants with overflow shelters at capacity.
Although this five-day rule takes effect today, there will be some flexibility for migrant families.
The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities fact sheet indicates it will be up to providers of the overflow shelters to grant extensions to families.
These would be considered administrative extensions and could help keep a migrant family in the shelter for 5 to 30 days.
Those administrative extensions could be granted at any time by the providers but would be for families working on rehousing plans, delays in transportation, and health-related events.
The new five-day stay limit will include migrants being transitioned to temporary respite sites and the state offering to pay for plane tickets and other travel expenses for those who want to leave.
Governor Maura Healey said the state can’t continue to take the number of people they’ve been taking from outside Massachusetts.
“Half of the families in an emergency shelter are actually Massachusetts families. But I said for a long time, we need Congress to act, we need more funding, we need more help. But in the meantime, we’re trying to manage the situation, and I’ve prioritized high, vulnerable families,” Healey said.
Healey added that she wants to protect the current law that Massachusetts residents have a place to go should they need the shelter system.
“If you’re a woman fleeing domestic violence and you’ve got kids, you’ve got a place to go. If you’re a veteran, you’ve got a place to go, you know. If you’ve fallen on hard times and you’ve had a medical catastrophe in your family and you can’t afford a house or an apartment, you’ve got a place to go. And I’m really, you know, that’s the law here. And I want to make sure that we’re protecting that.”
There are advocacy groups like the International Institute of New England who say the five-day stay policy is not enough time for migrants to apply for authorization documents to get jobs or make a plan for where to go next.
Governor Healey sent a migrant crisis team to the border to emphasize that Massachusetts shelters are at capacity.
Hundreds of migrant families are staying in four state-run overflow shelters in Chelsea, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lexington.
No new overflow shelters will be opened.
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