Dgeneva Alcidonice held the hand of her 5-year-old son by the State House, two of many migrants in shelters that watched legislators and advocates decrying Gov. Maura Healey’s policy change that will limit the amount of time they can stay in overflow shelters to only five days.
Alcidonice is terrified. She’s been living at the overflow shelter in Chelsea, and has been told she will need to leave on Aug. 5.
“I don’t know anyone here. I am without a job and would be without place to live — we are mothers — to be a mother and know your child could live on the street, be cold, what are we to do? Please help us, because we don’t know where to go and what to do. We know nothing,” Alcidonice said in Spanish, sobbing. Multiple people rubbed her back, and someone gave her a water bottle.
“I feel safe there, because we have English classes, we have food, after spending time without food in the past. They are good people there,” she said. Alcidonice said she submitted her work authorization application but doesn’t know when it will come.
Alcidonice, originally from Haiti, arrived in Boston in May. She and her son slept at Logan Airport for weeks after waiting in Mexico for five months to enter the United States legally through the Customs and Border Patrol app program “ CBP one,” which allows eligible immigrants who wait south of the border for assessment the ability to come to the U.S. through humanitarian parole states.
“I don’t know anyone here. ... To be a mother and know your child could live on the street, be cold, what are we to do?”Dgeneva Alcidonice, a mother currently staying in an overflow shelter
The Healey administration announced last week that it will significantly cut back assistance to those in temporary shelters on Aug. 1.
Under the new policy, people will not be allowed to stay more than five days in the state’s four overflow shelter sites, which will be renamed “temporary respite centers.” Additionally, people will have wait at least six months before they can qualify for placement in a longer-term emergency assistance facility.
The state said the goal of temporary respite centers is to divert families from long-term emergency assistance shelters.
“The key reason for transitioning safety-net sites to temporary respite centers and limiting stays to five days is to free up space and provide short term respite to newly arriving families in need,” Karissa Hand, spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey’s office. “There are approximately 8,000 families in shelter in Massachusetts at present, including both longtime Massachusetts residents and newly arriving immigrant families, and unfortunately we do not have additional capacity at this time.”
Kelly Turley, of the Massachusetts Coalition for Homeless Families, told the crowd there need to be “better solutions, to make sure that children and families aren’t staying in hospital emergency rooms, bus stations, train stations, cars.”
“They will not magically find housing just because the state imposes new limits. The people who are pushed out will become homeless,” said Craig Andrade, associate dean of practice at Boston University’s School of Public Health, calling the policy “inhumane.”
Providers told GBH News they weren’t consulted about the new limitations on shelter stays, despite being contracted with the state. Instead, they said they were blindsided with a policy that will be implemented quickly, with the possibility that families will be left on the streets.
“They will have no time to come up with a plan — and then they cannot go to a shelter for six months,” said Dr. Geralde Gabeau, executive director of Immigrant Family Services Institute, which helps migrants with social services.
Providers said they’re already seeing families sleeping in parks, and staying outside a Family Welcome Center.
“The five-day thing sends a message that you’re not welcome in Massachusetts,” said Jeff Thielman, executive director of International Institute of New England, a refugee agency that is contracted to assist in shelters. “And that’s not a good message, given the fact that we need people in our state right now to work, live, and grow the economy.”
He said he’s not opposed to time limits, but five days is extreme. Legal providers echoed that.
“We were frankly very shocked to hear about such a dramatic change in the policy, especially on such short notice,” said Andrea Park, an advocacy director at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, one of the organizations that held the rally. “And it’s one that we’re extremely concerned about. It’s going to put the most vulnerable children and families in the worst possible situation.”
The changes are a stark departure from the current system, which allows families in overflow shelters to stay for 30 days, and be re-evaluated.
Democratic state Sen. Jamie Eldridge of Acton said Monday that Healey’s policy also “took many legislators by surprise,” and that he’s asking for it to be rescinded.
State Sen. Liz Miranda of Boston said she’s heard there’s “some movement to reconsider this policy change.” Miranda said she knows of situations where up to three families have slept in two-bedroom apartments.
“There are people in South Bay walking around all day, and there are people sleeping at bus stops because they have nowhere to go in Mattapan Square and all over our communities. Five days is not enough to find housing and alternative temporary options,” she said.
The policy change also affects those able to access long-term shelters. The move will prioritize needy Massachusetts families who are residents over immigrants for long-term shelter placement. The state said it will prioritize families with a veteran, and those who lose their homes from natural disasters. They join families with medical issues, newborns, and victims of domestic violence.
During a press conference on Thursday, Republicans in the Legislature noted they pitched they idea of prioritizing veterans for emergency shelter earlier this year.
The state’s 1986 right-to-shelter-law mandates shelter be provided to homeless families with children and pregnant people. Healey’s office projects it will cost $915 million to run the emergency shelter system for FY2025.
The first two weeks of July, 467 families applied for shelter, while 128 families exited the system, according to state data. There were around 330 families in overflow shelters and 728 on a waitlist.
Adam Hoole, lead paralegal at Greater Boston Legal Services’ housing unit, said Friday the organization is thinking about how to advise families, and whether there could be “potential legal actions around this.”
Advocates said that because they weren’t included in the decision-making, there will be financial repercussions, especially under a federal law known as McKinney-Vento.
“They’re only going to be there for five days. They’re now enrolled in a school district and under McKinney-Vento wherever they go in the state — that district is now responsible for them,” said Thielman. “So there’s a cost to that district. We all know that, those of us who do this work and we could have articulated that.”
Under that law, school districts must enroll unhoused children in school immediately upon entering a shelter. That means Norfolk, which has an overflow site, will have to pay to bus children to and from school should they be moved to another town under Healey’s new policy.
But the chaos has already arrived. Gabeau said that families on the overflow list, and those who have just arrived come to her office, and they call landlords and acquaintances to see if they have any room available. “We call, and ask, can you help?”
