A group of ten Haitian families sweated in the heat outside of Wollaston MBTA station on Saturday. A few of the children were running about while the babies and toddlers lay on their parents’ shoulders, often crying. A woman, who is over five months pregnant, sat nearby.
They are among the hundreds of people currently homeless while waiting on the state’s emergency assistance shelter waitlist. Even before Massachusetts’ new policy went into effect limiting the amount of time migrants can stay in respite shelters, the difficulty of getting into one meant many people were forced to find other solutions.
Some of the Haitian families had slept among the trees at the edge of the station’s parking lot for almost a week, relying on occasional shade and the kindness of strangers for reprieve from the heat wave.
Mateo, 35, was with his 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Originally from Haiti, he fled because of gang violence and made his way to Chile to stay with a cousin.
“They burned our home, and they were killing people,” he said.
With limited work visas available in Chile, he began the long trek north, mostly by foot. They waited on the Mexican side of the border for 11 months for a coveted appointment with U.S. immigration authorities using the CBP One app, and were eventually granted parole status for two years in the United States.
“Everyone looks for possibilities. I heard in Boston there are many jobs, and that’s what I’m looking for, thats what I want,” Mateo said about why he came to Massachusetts specifically. “The jobs are better here, and I’d like to get my working papers and get to work.”
Mateo and his daughter arrived in Boston by plane on Aug. 1, expecting to stay with a friend, but that fell through. An airport security officer brought them a meal, found a place for them to stay for a night, and the directed them to the Wollaston train station. He’s also been to the Family Welcome Center at Eastern Nazarene College, where his information was taken down, and the family put on a waitlist for shelter. Mateo was told it would be at least six to eight months.
The Immigrant Family Services Institute, which operates out of Mattapan, sent two shuttle vans to the train stop on Saturday to pick up families. An organizer said they could stay in an undisclosed location in Brockton for a day or two to be out of the rain, but they would return to the train stop after.
“We’ve been on a mission to see what we can do to rescue them so that they don’t have to stay in the street,” said Dr. Geralde Gabeau, executive director of the organization. “So it’s basically our new reality right now, to knock at all doors and to make sure that we can find a place to put families.”
Families were at Eastern Nazarene’s Family Welcome Center on Monday, once again trying to find a place to sleep. But as of the afternoon, there were no good options.
Dr. Aura Obando, medical director for the family team at Boston Health Care for the Homeless, said the conditions these families are experiencing can be dangerous. Obando was one of the signatories to an open letter to Gov. Maura Healey last week, calling for humane housing policies.
“There is data that links exposure to extreme temperatures to poor health outcomes in a pregnancy — just the stress of the experience can lead to poor maternal and child outcomes as well, including depression during the pregnancy, which is linked to a lot of postpartum depression and other impacts on the developing fetus,” she said.
Volunteers with Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network, an activist and faith coalition, went out on Friday night to help, and brought water families resting under trees in the parking lot.
“Just gallons of water and ice and cups, then we took them to CVS and bought diapers and formula, and one of the volunteers went to Wendy’s and got a bunch of sandwiches and coffee,” said Judy Wolberg, a volunteer and retired midwife.
They also bought black trash bags to lay on the ground for people to sleep. There were about 20 adults and many children, including a 1-year-old.
“Some of them had been already sleeping there for a few nights. Some of them were new,” she said. “They take each other under their wing and try and share what they have — which is nothing.”
The Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network found a Quincy church willing to share their back garden. By Monday night, advocates had set up six tents there for the migrants to sleep in. But because of the rain, Immigrant Family Services Institute instead took the families back to Brockton where they would be better protected from the weather.
“I put out a plea to a lot of groups, to see if there’s some folks who can start pressuring some of their churches to let in people during a rainy day,” Wolberg said. “I just don’t know how to solve this.”
