Massachusetts
Grant program funding two overnight shelters opening in North Central Massachusetts
![Grant program funding two overnight shelters opening in North Central Massachusetts](https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/healeynl007.jpg?w=1024&h=683)
United Way of Massachusetts Bay awarded a grant Wednesday to open two overnight shelters in North Central Massachusetts as the Healey administration continues to contemplate how to use $50 million for an overflow site.
Opportunities for Hope will provide 23 bedrooms across the two sites as well as facilities management and maintenance while the Spanish American Center will offer “multilingual, culturally competent resource coordination and connections to local supports.”
This is the second grant the nonprofit organization has handed out to a community group to stand up overnight shelters after Gov. Maura Healey shuttled them $5 million in federal cash. The sites come online as the emergency shelter system in Massachusetts is still at the 7,500-family limit the governor put in place earlier this year.
United Way of Massachusetts Bay President and CEO Bob Giannino said United Way of North Central Massachusetts, Opportunities for Hope and the Spanish American Center thought “creatively about the community assets they can leverage to provide increased capacity, services and resources in the region.”
“As the commonwealth continues to address the emergency shelter crisis on multiple fronts, it is heartening to see new partnerships coming together to help ensure eligible families have a safe place to stay,” Giannino said in a statement.
More than 7,500 homeless families and pregnant people, including locals and newly-arrived migrants, were living in emergency shelters, according to state data last updated Tuesday. There were 3,826 families living in hotels and motels, 3,648 in traditional sites, and 57 in temporary shelters, according to the data.
An influx of migrants arriving in Massachusetts and high housing costs have left the state’s emergency shelters struggling to keep up with demand and led state officials to pump hundreds of millions into the system.
Beacon Hill lawmakers this month approved an additional $250 million for the Healey administration to respond to “the ongoing humanitarian crisis and influx of families seeking shelter.”
The funds cannot be used in their entirety until the Healey administration uses $50 million to set up one or multiple overflow sites for families who have been waitlisted for emergency shelter placement. The overflow location must be up and running by Dec. 31, according to the law.
At an unrelated event Tuesday, Healey said officials “continue to find ways to house people.”
“I’m grateful to the number of providers who step forward, the number of communities that have stepped forward. It’s been really heartwarming to see. We continue to be very focused on work authorizations,” she said.
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Massachusetts
United Way of Massachusetts Bay Honors Payano and Vargas at State House Ceremony
![United Way of Massachusetts Bay Honors Payano and Vargas at State House Ceremony](https://whav.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pavel_payano_united_way.jpg)
Massachusetts
Massachusetts teacher charged after police sting operation, accused of trying to meet girl for ‘sex acts’
![Massachusetts teacher charged after police sting operation, accused of trying to meet girl for ‘sex acts’](https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-813644562-1-1.jpg?w=1024&h=776)
A Salem teacher has been charged following a police sting operation after he allegedly tried to meet up with an underage girl for “sex acts.”
Gym and health teacher Darren Benedick, 42, was apparently unaware that the person he was communicating with online was not a 14-year-old girl, but rather an undercover Newbury cop who had been monitoring a “teens-only” chat room.
The teacher at Salem Academy Charter School was arrested by Newbury Police, with help from Salem Police. He was charged with one count of child enticement and one count of dissemination of matter harmful to minors.
“At this time, authorities have no allegations that any students at the school were subject to the defendant’s alleged misconduct,” the Essex DA’s Office said in a statement.
Benedick was arraigned in Newburyport District Court on Wednesday following the sting operation.
“The defendant is alleged to have engaged in online conversations with the undercover officer expressing a desire to meet in person and engage in sexual activities, to have sent an obscene image to the officer, and to have described the sex acts that he wished to perform,” the Essex DA’s Office said.
Benedick made plans to meet the person on Wednesday, and he was taken into custody when he arrived for the intended encounter.
Prosecutors at the arraignment requested cash bail of $50,000 with GPS monitoring, home confinement, and no contact with children. The court set bail at $5,000 and granted the non-monetary terms, including the no contact with children order.
The Essex DA and the police chiefs in Salem and Newbury “advise parents and guardians to engage youth in age-appropriate discussions about proper online and social media behavior, and to encourage them to speak up if they encounter inappropriate contact from an adult.”
Massachusetts
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell: A Reproductive Justice Champion
![Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell: A Reproductive Justice Champion](https://msmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/image-6.png)
During her time in office, the AG has helped create an abortion legal hotline for the state, helped implement the state’s abortion provider shield law, and more.
Shortly after taking office last year, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell created a Reproductive Justice Unit that has worked tirelessly to protect and expand reproductive health, rights and justice. This Unit has focused on eliminating disparities in maternal health, combatting anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, working across state lines to respond to national attacks on reproductive health care, and defending and enforcing Massachusetts’ strong legal protections for reproductive rights.
“We are doing this work with a hands-on and expert-led approach,” said AG Campbell, the first Black woman to hold statewide office in Massachusetts. Upon taking office, she pledged to “be a national leader in protecting reproductive rights and gender affirming care.”
On June 18, AG Campbell and her Reproductive Justice Unit (headed by Sapna Khatri) convened more than 120 reproductive justice experts at Western New England Law School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Participants included community organizations, healthcare providers, legal advocates and academics. During a listening session, Campbell heard how her office could better champion reproductive justice on a local, state and national level, particularly with national efforts to roll back these rights.
“As bodily autonomy is under relentless attack nationwide, Massachusetts is doubling down on its efforts to champion, defend and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care,” said AG Campbell.
Before the convening, Campbell toured Seven Sisters Midwifery and Community Birthing Center in Florence, Massachusetts—the state’s only midwife-owned and operated independent birth center.
At the convening, Campbell announced the release of five new “Know Your Rights” guides focused on abortion, gender affirming care, contraception, the state shield law and anti-abortion clinics.
“To help ensure that people in Massachusetts know their rights in the confusing and evolving post-Dobbs world, I am glad to release new resources to help people navigate common issues associated with reproductive care,” said AG Campbell.
As one of her first actions in office, AG Campbell worked with Reproductive Equity Now to create the Abortion Legal Hotline—a free and confidential hotline that assists Massachusetts healthcare providers and patients by providing legal advice related to abortion access and care.
The AG has also led efforts to fully implement and operationalize the state’s abortion provider shield law, including Massachusetts’ first-of-its-kind telehealth provider shield provision, which protects clinicians in the state who serve patients living in states banning abortion. Seven other states have since passed similar telehealth provider shield laws (WA, CO, VT, NY, CA, ME, RI) and four practices—Aid Access, Abuzz, The MAP, and Armadillo Clinic—are now serving over 12,000 women living in ban states each month with telehealth abortion and FDA-approved pills by mail.
AG Campbell has filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court of the United States to protect access to medication abortion and emergency abortion care, fought to defend access to gender affirming care on behalf of trans youth, and leveraged the tools of her office to address the maternal health crisis in Massachusetts. This is evident in her launching and distributing a $1.5 million maternal health equity grant. AG Campbell’s predecessor, now-Governor Maura Healey, issued a consumer advisory on anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in July 2022, and the AG has aggressively pursued complaints filed against these centers.
The reproductive justice convening concluded with a fireside chat between AG Campbell and the nationally renowned reproductive justice activist Loretta J. Ross, now a professor of women’s and gender studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Campbell and Ross discussed the history of the reproductive justice movement, the state of reproductive care access today and the government’s role in sustaining long-term systemic change.
“True reproductive justice is all-encompassing and accounts for liberties such as the right to have or not have a child, along with the opportunity to raise children in environments where they can thrive,” said Ross. “Attorney General Campbell is one of few leaders nationwide to use a truly comprehensive and expert-based approach to championing reproductive justice, and it is my deep honor to support her in this work.”
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