TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2025
Dear Cambridge and Somerville Constituents —
On Thursday, the House convened our first formal legislative session of the new, two-year term.
By all accounts, it was a difficult session.
Normally, the term begins with votes on the House Rules and the Joint Rules. That debate is expected in the coming weeks, and transparency reforms are now “on the table” in both the House and Senate, thanks in large part to the statement made by the voters with Question 1 last November.
However, the state's emergency family shelter program ran out of funding on January 31. This program is based on our nation's-only Right to Shelter Law for unhoused families and pregnant women.
Meanwhile, the program has been marred by nonstop controversy, facing some legitimate questions about costs and safety, and under ferocious attack from the political right, all at the same time. In late 2023, Governor Healey appointed retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general L. Scott Rice to manage the program, but last year, he quietly disappeared.
Over the past four decades, the family shelter program typically reached highs of 3,500 families — but in the past two years, it surged to an unprecedented new high of 7,500+ families, roughly half migrants and half longer term Massachusetts residents, according to the Healey-Driscoll Administration.
At present, some 6,100 unhoused families are sheltered by the program, and service providers are wondering if their next round of invoices will be paid.
On January 6, Governor Healey filed a supplemental budget request for $425 million to keep the program going through June 30, i.e. the remainder of FY25.
Meanwhile, an undocumented immigrant was arrested at a state-run shelter at the Quality Inn in Revere, allegedly in possession of an AR-15 assault rifle and 11 pounds of fentanyl. Then it was revealed criminal background checks were not occurring in the shelter program, despite previous assurances from the Healey Administration that such vetting was happening.
In response to a furor over these and other issues, on January 15, the Governor wrote to the legislature again, calling on us to attach permanent new restrictions on right to shelter in Massachusetts, including the strictest form of residency requirements (i.e. "durational residency"), with few exceptions.
So, what started as a supplemental budget request turned into a major policy debate with a two-week deadline to avert a funding crisis for this emergency program. All this before the new legislature has even formed a committee structure (that gets created through the Rules votes).
Local progressive legislators and anti-homelessness advocates pushed back and had a big impact. I met with the House Ways and Means Chair, communicated with House Leadership, and made the case for not imposing any new regressive restrictions. Myself, Rep. Decker, and Rep. Uyterhoeven all filed a series of amendments to push back on the proposed new restrictions. Advocates rallied and spoke out.
As a result of these and other efforts, the most severe residency requirement (i.e. a 3-month durational requirement) was dropped by the House Ways and Means version of the bill, and other restrictions were made temporary, with the opportunity to revise or reconsider in April’s FY26 budget debate.
Rep. Decker's amendment to maintain presumptive eligibility for families with young children, co-sponsored by myself and others, was adopted on a party-line vote, and a Republican-led effort to reverse the holding in the Lunn decision (i.e. protecting undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts from unlawful arrest) was thankfully brushed aside by Democrats as well.
In addition, the House bill generally gives discretion to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to grant exceptions to any new restrictions on a case-by-case basis, and it also provides for continued "overflow shelters," so any family that fails to gain access to the regular program will have a place to go while they gather paperwork or make arrangements.
Under today's circumstances — with ferocious opposition from the right and mounting pressure on Reps. in the middle to impose some sort of reform on this program — I feel this was a prudent compromise to move a large new influx of family shelter funding through in a timely fashion.
At the end of the day, we don't want lots of families living in shelter indefinitely, we want them living in permanent, dignified housing — so as we continue to consider questions surrounding the family shelter program, including how to meet seemingly unlimited demand for housing with our finite resources — we might also see this as an opportunity to advocate for more downstream and upstream solutions to homelessness.
In sum, the Right To Shelter Law continues to stand in Massachusetts — it's still one of a kind among statewide policies in the U.S. But what we have seen lately is this "right" is not unlimited, and leaders on Beacon Hill are grasping for the appropriate way to put some parameters on it (to avoid the case of nearby, out-of-state families crossing into Massachusetts to take advantage of our law, for example).
The shelter funding bill now moves to the state Senate for further consideration this week. Then, a reconciled House-Senate version will go to the Governor, hopefully soon.
For my part, I will continue doing everything I can to defend and expand the right to shelter and to support housing for all. We need a right to shelter for individuals without children, too. I believe Massachusetts residents continue to support our Right to Shelter Law, with appropriate safeguards and protocols, and in the coming months, we need to push for necessary revisions to these temporary policies and other operational improvements to ensure this law continues to live up to its name.
Thank you, as always, for being an informed and engaged constituent. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns about this or any other matter.
Yours in service,
Rep. Mike Connolly
