Healey is right — the shelter system is at a breaking point – The Boston Globe

The shelter system in Massachusetts is at a breaking point. As the CEO of Heading Home, a shelter provider that serves Eastern Massachusetts, I see the pressure points on the system from all angles.

Hundreds of families are waiting for placement in an Emergency Assistance shelter and those numbers continue to grow. We see families from Massachusetts and families fleeing violence from their home countries seeking safety and refuge for their children. We see families who want to leave shelters but can’t find a home they can afford on their incomes.

We see families struggling with medical needs. We see children with disabilities whose parents can’t work and care for them. We see a disproportionate number of families with very young children. We see bottlenecks at each and every point in the system right now, despite the work that Governor Maura Healey has done to more than double the shelter capacity in the past year.

With nearly 8,000 families currently staying in emergency shelters and at safety-net sites, and more arriving every day, Massachusetts cannot keep up with the demand. And without the state making hard policy decisions on shelters, families with the highest needs will not have access to short-term shelter stays with intensive care management services as they determine their next steps.

Healey’s policy to limit overflow shelter stays to five days, with extensions for up to a month for some families, is a necessary step to keep families moving along in the housing process and to ensure access for others in need, while making sure that our shelter system can sustain itself for the long-term needs of all people.

The Healey administration has responded to the shelter crisis with a multifaceted team of experts in policy, nonprofit providers, philanthropists, and volunteers — all working to fix the system in real time and through a national housing crisis — so that we don’t lose the right to shelter for families.

There are those who propose getting rid of the law. Some have called the new policy harsh and cruel, claiming the state has turned its back on children. But the administration is working hard to preserve the right to shelter. The governor’s teams have continuously pushed the system to adapt, added capacity and services, and tried to make policies evolve to respond to an ever-changing and continuing crisis, despite fiscal pressures.

We are all working as hard as possible to help families find housing that doesn’t rely on long-term stays in emergency shelters. We have increased staff to work with families on identifying and assessing alternatives to shelter whenever possible, such as relatives, friends, and community members who could provide temporary shelter in Massachusetts and beyond.

This requires the entire shelter and housing ecosystem to be supported with policies and resources dedicated to preserving affordable housing, creating supportive housing, and developing affordable workforce housing — an area where this administration has shown leadership. Systems must have multiple entry points and families must move through the system and have multiple exit strategies to end homelessness. This will create more space in the system to support those most in need and those who are seeking refuge.

What’s important now is to understand that while we continue to house people at unprecedented rates we simply cannot continue operating our current system structure without putting in jeopardy funding for other things such as school spending, health care, local aid, public safety, or first responder services in the Commonwealth.

Policies are good only when they are properly implemented and sustained, and no policy comes without some unintended consequences. In order for our right-to-shelter law to work effectively, the state has no choice but to put some parameters around all aspects of it.

The next few months will be difficult as the shelter system adjusts, but the new policies will help stabilize the flow of those seeking emergency shelter and improve the overall housing system for the future.

Danielle Ferrier is CEO of Heading Home.