Top House budget writers released a $425 million spending bill to fund state-run shelters that seeks to temporarily cap the emergency assistance program at 4,000 families starting next year and allow state officials to block from the system anyone who is not a Massachusetts resident.
The move marks a dramatic policy shift in the Democratic-led House, where chamber leaders have consistently beaten back Republican-driven attempts to put in place residency requirements on the emergency shelter system housing migrant families and local residents.
But House Speaker Ron Mariano said creating stricter eligibility criteria is necessary to continue “protecting vulnerable children and families in Massachusetts in a fiscally sustainable manner.”
“The reforms contained in this proposal will ensure that right to shelter is maintained by further capping the length of stay and verifying eligibility, while also enacting stricter background checks on those who enter the shelter system to better protect the families who need these services the most,” said House budget chief Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat.
The House plans to debate the bill Thursday afternoon, nearly a week after Gov. Maura Healey’s administration said it ran out of cash to pay shelter providers and fulfill contracts. If the bill clears the House, it will still need Senate approval before heading to Healey’s desk.
Beacon Hill’s appetite for reforming Massachusetts’ decades-old right-to-shelter law has quickly changed over the past year after an explosion in demand, high-profile criminal activity in shelters, and the publication of records detailing disturbing offenses in the system.
Democrats proposed briefly granting the Healey administration the authority to require that any family seeking state-run shelter benefits be residents of Massachusetts who are also United States citizens, lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or “otherwise permanently residing under the color of law” in the country.
The bill does not set a durational residency requirement — something Healey had called for in a missive to lawmakers last month — but instead requires shelter applicants to “establish Massachusetts residency.”
Applicants could also be approved for shelter if they show an “intent to remain” in the state by producing different documents like records proving someone receives MassHealth or other public benefits, according to the legislation.
Overflow shelter sites would still accept “non-eligible families” upon arrival for up to 30 days under the language included in the bill.
The residency requirement and intent to remain reforms would last until the end of June because House lawmakers proposed tacking them onto the fiscal year 2025 budget Healey signed into law last summer, according to Mariano’s office.
House lawmakers also pitched restricting the total number of families in the system to 4,000 between Dec. 31, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2026, a move that would require the Healey administration to reduce the population of the system from the roughly 6,000 families as of last week.
Further restricting the capacity of the emergency assistance program would come well after Healey successfully put in place a 7,500-family maximum in 2023 over the objections of a Boston-based legal group.
In response to heightened scrutiny on safety and security at shelters, House lawmakers pitched permanently requiring shelter applicants or beneficiaries to disclose all prior convictions, even if they are in another jurisdiction outside Massachusetts.
“Any adult or beneficiary who fails to disclose prior criminal convictions consistent with this paragraph shall not be eligible for benefits and any existing benefits shall be terminated,” the bill text said.
The Healey administration would be required to obtain criminal offender record information from the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services for each individual adult shelter applicant prior to their placement, according to the bill.
The legislation also temporarily gives the state the ability to verify shelter applicants’ eligibility requirements — like identity, immigration status, and pregnancy status — before they are handed an initial month of housing and services.
State law currently allows applicants to receive presumptive eligibility, a scenario that the Healey administration has previously said requires them to provide families with up to $15,000 in services during the month it takes officials to determine whether they actually belong in the emergency assistance program.
House Democrats also recommended temporarily cutting down the maximum length of stay in the emergency assistance program from nine to six months and giving the Healey administration authority to kick families out if their income exceeds 200% of the federal poverty level for three consecutive months.
This is a developing story…