Gov. Maura Healey is scheduled to announce Tuesday action related to the state’s emergency shelter system, which has felt tremendous strain over the past year because of a high number of migrants arriving in Massachusetts and surging housing costs.
Healey planned to speak at the State House at 10:30 a.m. alongside Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, other administration officials, advocates, and providers, according to a schedule provided by her office.
A steady stream of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts over the past year has put a strain on the state’s emergency shelter system. As spaces dwindled, the Healey administration has turned to everything from hotels and motels to college dorms and military bases to house people.
More than 1,300 displaced families were staying at motels or hotels, according to state data last updated Monday. Eighteen families eligible for emergency assistance entered the system Monday, eight went directly to shelters, and 13 were placed “presumptively,” according to a state-maintained dashboard.
Healey would not be alone in taking emergency action over immigration woes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order in May that allowed for the mobilization of the National Guard as the state prepared for an increase in newly-arrived migrants.
In a bid to help manage the steady stream of new arrivals in Massachusetts, officials opened two welcome centers in Allston and Quincy this summer to help families find temporary and longer-term shelter as well as basic necessities.
The Executive Office of Health and Human Services announced last week that a dorm room at Eastern Nazarene College would house up 58 families experiencing homelessness, including newly-arrived migrants.
The Quincy-area college is not the only institution of higher education housing migrants.
The Baker administration announced in November 2022 that Lynn nonprofit Centerboard would use a vacant former residential unit on Salem State University’s South Campus as transitional housing for families experiencing homelessness, including newly-arrived migrants.
There were 105 families staying at the Salem State University shelter as of Aug. 2, according to the Executive office of Housing and Livable Communities. Massachusetts is a right to shelter state, which means eligible families have immediate access under a 1983 law to housing options.
Healey announced in June that because of the rise in shelter demand, the state would direct some new arrivals to Joint Base Cape Cod, where the National Guard was prepared to house up to 60 families.
A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said in early July that 38 hotels in 28 different municipalities were contracted with the state to house displaced families. That number has risen since but the cost of state-funded shelter is unclear.
Local nonprofits have also sought to recruit private residents to temporarily house migrant families in their homes or apartments.
This is a developing story.