Massachusetts
Massachusetts hotel shelters for migrants, homeless families set to close, questions arise
A majority of hotel shelters for migrants and local homeless families in Massachusetts will be closed by the end of Monday — a move state officials credit to declining caseloads, one that a watchdog called a “gimmick.”
The Healey administration is expected to shutter 28 sites at the beginning of the week, while the remaining four are slated to stay open through the end of July, officials have confirmed. That will put pressure on advocacy groups working to relocate families who are without housing, the Boston Globe first reported.
Gov. Maura Healey has spent nearly $830 million on the emergency shelter system this fiscal year. Some critics fear that the state’s plan, which they say lacks important details, will prompt costs to skyrocket even more for taxpayers.
The emergency assistance program, exceeding $1.3 billion since the start of fiscal year 2024, has caused a heavy strain on taxpayers since 2022, when then-Gov. Charlie Baker converted some hotels into shelters to accommodate the growing need amid the influx of migrants.
Fiscal year 2025 also ends on Monday.
At the peak of the crisis, nearly 130 hotels operated as shelters, serving 7,500 families and more than 23,000 people in total. The Healey administration projected the caseload to drop below 4,000 families this summer, prompting the closure of all remaining 32 shelters six months ahead of schedule.
“Providers and on-site case managers have been working closely with all impacted families to help them identify secure housing before the closing date,” the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities told the Herald on Sunday.
Some Bay Staters are calling for more concrete details on the closures and the steps ahead.
“This move does not solve the crisis,” Jon Fetherston, a former emergency shelter director, told the Herald. “It will only drive up costs for taxpayers, worsen the housing market for working families by pushing up rents, and still offers zero transparency on who is being moved into our neighborhoods.”
Healey credits the declining hotel shelter caseload to a series of reforms her administration has made to the system. A couple of updates included requiring proof of Massachusetts residency and that all family members have lawful immigration status.
“A hotel is no place to raise a family,” Healey said in a statement in May, “and they are the least cost-effective.”
The Healey administration has said that because of the reforms, roughly 85 to 90% of families seeking temporary housing are “now longtime Massachusetts families.”
As hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on emergency assistance, Healey has also dumped nearly $100 million toward HomeBase, a program that provides eligible families in the state-run shelter system with $30,000 over two years, and the possibility of a third year.
Housing Secretary Ed Augustus has said the administration will be pausing all approvals for the third year of HomeBase support starting Tuesday, allowing his office to focus on the most families relative to limited resources, the Herald reported last week.
The pause comes as the program’s total caseload increased dramatically between 2023 and 2025, surging from 1,473 families in January 2023, when Healey took office, to 9,059 families as of the end of June, according to state data. Some 5,154 are receiving rental assistance.
Paul Diego Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said he expects HomeBase will absorb the families moving out of the hotel shelters.
“The governor is still expecting Massachusetts taxpayers to fund the bill for their housing,” he said. “It’s just a new gimmick.”
Augustus says officials also plan to implement “more consistent annual income checks” to ensure families remain eligible for HomeBase and “modernize” data collection to gain a better understanding of how people are leaving the program and target services that better help families.
Though most hotel shelters will be closing on Monday, Fetherston is still calling for the Department of Justice to conduct a federal probe into the system he describes as “dangerous and corrupt.”
Fetherston sprang into the national spotlight after blowing the whistle on the system when he highlighted incident reports alleging domestic abuse and child sexual assault inside the Marlboro shelter he managed.
Fetherston is not buying an argument from the Healey administration that it included criminal background checks on all shelter residents in its series of reforms earlier this year.
“None of the migrants have been properly vetted,” Fetherston said. “Communities across Massachusetts have been kept in the dark while Healey continues to gaslight the public, refusing to give honest answers about the scope, cost, and consequences of her policies.”
Massachusetts
New Bedford MS-13 Member, Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Role in Brutal Murders In Massachusetts, Virginia
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Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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