Local News

Eviction notices given to more than 50 families staying in overflow shelter sites

The Healey administration recently limited stays at overflow shelter sites to 5 days for many people.

Gov. Maura Healey speaks at the State House in March. Steve LeBlanc/AP

By Ross Cristantiello

The Healey administration recently began notifying families staying at overflow shelter sites that they will have to leave by the end of this week. 

Officials distributed exit notices to 57 families across the four state-run overflow shelters. Those facilities are located in Chelsea, Lexington, Cambridge, and Norfolk. The families were told that they will have to leave by Friday, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey. 

The move comes after officials announced major changes to the policies governing Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system in late July. The state’s shelters have been at or near capacity since last fall, and multiple overflow sites were set up to accommodate the families seeking a warm bed who could not secure spots in the shelter system proper. 

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Officials announced new guidelines that prioritized those who became homeless due to no-fault evictions, sudden circumstances in Massachusetts beyond their control like fires or floods, veterans, people with serious medical needs, and those at risk of domestic violence. 

Under the new rules, the overflow sites were rechristened as “temporary respite shelters.” Families not being prioritized are now only able to stay at the respite shelters for up to five days unless they are granted an extension. Families with “imminent access to housing” are being granted extensions of more than five business days, while others are only eligible for a one-time five-day extension.

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Various service providers are working with the families facing eviction to help identify their next steps. This could include being “reticketed,” a process through which the state covers the costs of travel expenses if families have a safe place to stay elsewhere. Some families, including those who received exit notices, have taken up the state on this offer, but officials are not saying how many so far.     

“This new policy will help open up space at temporary respite centers so that families have a place to stay temporarily while they work with case managers to identify alternative housing. Massachusetts is out of shelter space and cannot continue to afford the size of this system,” a spokesperson for Healey said in a statement Monday.  

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A surge in migration, combined with the state’s ongoing housing affordability crisis, led to to a dramatic increase in the number of families seeking shelter in Massachusetts last year. After declaring a state of emergency about a year ago, Healey capped the shelter system at 7,500 families last fall, implemented a waitlist, and set up multiple overflow sites. There were more than 7,300 families enrolled in the shelter system across Massachusetts as of Aug. 1, according to state data. Officials have said about half of these families are migrants. 

The administration expects that the shelter system will cost more than $1 billion to keep operational through the end of fiscal year 2025. That estimate includes almost $776 million for the shelters themselves, with about $76 million needed for the overflow sites. 

Advocates gathered at the State House last week to protest the new changes, saying that they will harm children and families.

With the eviction notices, some migrants are worried that they will have no safe place to go. Eribens Gracien, a Haitian migrant staying at the Veterans Home in Chelsea with his wife and their 2-year-old son, recently told The Boston Globe that his wife is pregnant with another child and that he is stressed about their next steps. Gracien said that returning to Haiti is not an option amid the ongoing violence there. 

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“If I return, I die,” he told the paper.