BOSTON — After years of grappling with a migrant crisis, Massachusetts has closed the remaining emergency state shelters in hotels and motels, Gov. Maura Healey said Friday.
Healey has also ended an emergency declaration issued in August 2023 as Massachusetts saw an “unprecedented” surge of families from other countries seeking emergency shelter.
All hotel shelters closed as of Thursday, months ahead of schedule, “saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and putting families on a path to self-sustainability,” the governor said in a statement.
The Norfolk Rapid Shelter located at the former Bay State Correctional Center and the Chelsea Rapid Shelter site have also closed.
MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale on Friday reacted to Healey ending a state of emergency declaration for the state’s shelter system, “which was overwhelmed in 2023 and 2024 by a historic influx of migrants under the Biden administration.“
“The end of Massachusetts’ emergency shelter crisis is the result of strong border policies, enacted by the Trump administration, which stemmed the tide of unchecked immigration that took place in the Biden administration,” Carnevale said in a statement.
“A crisis continues, however, in the Commonwealth’s HomeBASE program, where illegal immigrants ineligible for legal employment are receiving taxpayer subsidies to pay their rent,” Carnevale said. “Governor Healey should work with federal authorities to return these individuals to their home countries, opening up apartments for citizens in Massachusetts’ strained housing market.”
Healey’s announcement on Friday comes nearly two years after she declared a state of emergency and imposed a cap on the system at 7,500 families in 2023.
“When we took office, families were being placed in hotels all across the state, and families were staying in shelter for months – sometimes years – at a time,“ Healey said.
”There was no plan in place to reform the shelter system to handle the surge in demand, protect taxpayer dollars or help families leave shelter,“ Healey said. “We can all agree that a hotel is no place to raise a family. So we took action.”
Healey said the decreases are a result of a number of reforms she made to reduce caseloads and the cost of the state’s Emergency Assistance family shelter system.
These include a six-month length of stay requirement, workforce training and job placement for residents, and increased case management to help families find stable housing.
In January, Healey announced that families staying in Massachusetts emergency shelters must be in the U.S. legally and must also undergo a criminal background check before staying at shelters.
Those were among the “significant changes” that Healey proposed to the state’s Right to Shelter law in January amid a migrant crisis in Massachusetts.
The proposed changes were announced in January after a Dominican national living at a state-run emergency family shelter in Revere was arrested in December for allegedly having an assault rifle and five kilograms of suspected fentanyl at the shelter.
Healey ordered the inspection of all state-run emergency family shelters on Jan. 6 following his arrest.
In May 2024, a migrant was indicted for raping a 15-year-old girl at a Rockland hotel being used an emergency shelter in March 2024.
For the past three years, thousands of families have been arriving in Massachusetts in droves from other states and other countries seeking shelter, officials have said.
The state turned to hotels and motels to shelter the large numbers of migrants and homeless families.
Shelters sites that opened up across Massachusetts in 2023 included a migrant shelter and resource center on the campus of Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy and a Cape Cod military base that opened as a shelter site.
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In 2014, 1,500 families were being sheltered in hotels across the state, officials said.
Then, in 2022, the number of families seeking shelter “began to dramatically increase due to the housing crisis, failed federal immigration policy, and a lack of safeguards to control the expansion of the shelter system,” Healey said in her statement.
“The Healey-Driscoll Administration inherited two dual challenges when it arrived in office in 2023: an unprecedented surge of families seeking emergency shelter and a flawed shelter system that was ill-equipped to handle such a surge,” Healey said in her statement.
To meet this “unprecedented challenge,” Healey said she initiated a number of reforms to lower the caseload, reduce taxpayer costs and improve safety.
Last June, state officials announced that notices to families reaching length-of-stay limits in the state’s emergency shelter system would be going out amid the migrant crisis in Massachusetts.
In March 2024, state officials announced new requirements for migrants.
The state’s Emergency Assistance family shelter system operated at capacity for months amid a large influx of migrants to the Bay State. Dozens of migrants were often seen sleeping overnight inside Logan International Airport.
“We are deeply grateful to the frontline teams whose extraordinary work make all the difference for families,” Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said in a statement on Friday.
“The dedication of our shelter providers ensured that thousands of families had access to safe shelter and support when they needed it most,” Augustus said. “We also thank the communities and partners across the state who stepped up to help families in need.”
The Emergency Assistance program is for families with children or pregnant women who are experiencing homelessness, state officials said. Approximately half of families in the state’s Emergency Assistance system are new arrivals to Massachusetts.
Last fall, state officials said that the system could no longer safely or responsibly expand and the state established a waiting list.
In November, Healey announced that her administration would phase out the use of hotels and motels as shelters by the end of 2025.
In May, the number of families in shelter dropped below 5,000 for the first time since July 2023, officials said.
Since the start of 2025, triple the number of families have exited shelter (approximately 4,500) than have entered shelter (approximately 1,500), officials said.
On Friday, officials said approximately 85 to 90 percent of families seeking shelter are now longtime Massachusetts families.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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