Massachusetts is spending more than $45 million a month on programs and emergency shelter for newly-arrived migrant and displaced families, Gov. Maura Healey said in a Tuesday letter to federal officials.
The cost — which adds up to roughly $540 million a year — is the first clear sign of the total toll an influx of migrants has had on taxpayers in Massachusetts. The Healey administration has contracted with hotels and motels around the state and shelter management firms in a bid to open up more beds.
Healey used the cost to emphasize the need for federal assistance in a message to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that also declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts.
“Although Massachusetts is adding shelter units every week, without extraordinary measures, we fear we will be unable to add capacity fast enough to place all eligible families into shelter,” Healey wrote in a letter sent Tuesday. “Even though we are currently spending more than $45 million per month on programs to help these families, our ability to create enough new shelter space and to provide necessary supportive services is falling short.”
Migrants have poured into Massachusetts over the past year as they seek better living conditions than their home countries provide. Local shelters and emergency options have started to burst at the seams, Healey said.
More than 5,500 families were in state shelters as of Monday morning, according to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. Nearly 1,900 were in hotels, 3,546 in permanent shelter, 62 at Joint Base Cape Cod, and 55 in a Quincy college dorm, a spokesperson for the office said.
March saw 68 families per day arriving at state offices seeking assistance compared to only 25 families per day in March 2022, Healey said. The number of families seeking help jumped to over 100 families per day by July, according to the governor.
“To our partners in the federal government, Massachusetts has stepped up to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making,” Healey wrote in the letter. “But we can no longer do this alone. We need federal partnership, federal funding, and urgent action to meet this moment and to continue to serve some of our most vulnerable families.”