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
Police to address Princeton death during child sexual abuse material investigation
Authorities will speak Friday after a death occurred while police were serving a search warrant for child sexual abuse material in Princeton, Massachusetts.
The subject of the search warrant “was a person of trust in communities in Worcester and Middlesex Counties,” Massachusetts State Police said.
Authorities said little about the case ahead of the press conference, which will begin at 6 p.m. and be streamed in the player above.
State police will be hosting the conference, which will include Princeton Police Chief Paul Patricia, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. and Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan.
Check back for more as this story develops.
Massachusetts
Mass. unveils $250 million in subsidies to protect residents from premium hikes – The Boston Globe
Audrey Morse Gasteier, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, said the financial bulwark that benefited 270,000 residents is “part of the reason that we’re hanging in there in terms of enrollment and keeping people covered.”
But Thursday’s announcement won’t translate into any additional help.
Healey’s news conference coincided with the beginning of an election year in which three Republicans are vying for her job and voters are expected to be particularly focused on the state’s high cost of living. One survey last year found Massachusetts had the second highest cost of living in the country. People who saw their insurance premiums increase this year said it was one pricey bill amid an onslaught of growing expenses.
“I can’t believe how much it is when we go to the grocery store. Our electricity has gone up,“ said Judith O’Gara, whose family was hit with a $400 increase a month in insurance premiums for their ACA plan in January. ”We were just bracing ourselves to try to stretch the paycheck further.”
O’Gara, of Millis, is a part-time editor at community newspapers, and her husband is a self-employed computer animator and mural artist. She has added hours at work, she said, but it still wasn’t enough to qualify for health coverage through her employer, leaving the couple to buy insurance through the connector.
Healey also used the news conference to weigh in on a high-profile effort in Congress to revive the federal subsidies. Also on Thursday, the US House, with help from 17 Republican defectors facing competitive reelection races, passed a bill that would extend the subsidies for another three years. A small group of senators is considering proposing their own extension of the subsidies.
“We need to see people in Congress step up and take action and fight the president on this and get him to focus on the domestic agenda and how to make life more affordable for people,” Healey said.
The governor said she didn’t announce the influx of funds earlier because she had hoped Congress would act before the end of 2025.
“We gave up until the deadline to see if they take action,” she said.
ACA open enrollment extends through Jan. 23.
The infusion of funds from the Commonwealth Care Trust Fund brings the state’s total commitment to the insurance marketplace to $600 million, which Healey said is the largest support from any state in the country.
Federally subsidized insurance policies were first made available to people making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $128,600 for a family of four, in 2009 under President Barack Obama’s ACA, also known as Obamacare. In 2021, Congress made those subsidies more generous for many recipients and extended them to people earning up to 500 percent of the federal poverty level. The expanded tax credits doubled participation in the ACA exchanges over the past four years, and by last year 337,000 people in Massachusetts received subsidized insurance through ConnectorCare.
The increases were slated to expire after four years, and without congressional action to preserve them, premiums reverted to pre-2021 levels for this year. People earning more than 400 percent of the poverty level became ineligible to receive subsidized insurance. State officials have estimated roughly 300,000 people could become uninsured statewide over the next decade, in part due to the expiration of the tax credits.
Democrats staged a 43-day shutdown last fall, the longest in US history, in an unsuccessful effort to preserve the expanded subsidies.
The Commonwealth Care Trust Fund predates the 2021 coverage expansion, said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit budget watchdog, and was established to support ConnectorCare programs. Massachusetts has long had a robust public insurance program, and the 2021 expansion essentially allowed the state to shift the cost of subsidies it had been paying to the federal government. Tapping the trust fund now essentially returns Massachusetts to the support levels it provided prior to 2021, Howgate said.
Regardless of the timing of Healey’s announcement, it is a reality that Massachusetts has a uniquely robust commitment to health insurance access, Howgate said.
“I do think that the idea that the state is able to offset some of those impacts is an important message to get out there,” he said. “This is real money.”
According to Healey’s office, a 45-year-old couple with two kids making $75,000 in Fall River previously paid $166 per month for the lowest-cost coverage. Without state action, their premium would have more than doubled. But with the infusion from the trust fund, they will pay $206 per month.
There’s only so much the state can do to mitigate the impacts of the expired subsidies, though. Because Congress didn’t extend them, people between 400 and 500 percent of the federal poverty level simply are ineligible to sign up for subsidized policies through the ACA marketplace. There are roughly 27,000 people statewide who cannot benefit from the state’s effort to compensate for the lost federal money, and those people are among those facing the biggest new insurance expenses.
Christa, 56, a hair dresser, and her husband, Gary, 69, a truck driver, earn less than $105,750 annually combined, just shy of 500 percent of the poverty level. The couple, who asked not to be named to protect their privacy, went from paying $282-a-month for Christa’s insurance with no deductible, to a private plan costing $725 a month with a $2000 deductible.
Gary, who is enrolled in Medicare, is still counting on Congress for a reprieve.
“I believe the Senate will be forced to do something, and we’re hoping,” he said.
Jason Laughlin can be reached at jason.laughlin@globe.com. Follow him @jasmlaughlin.
Massachusetts
Healey shares plan to limit health insurance cost increases for Massachusetts residents
Gov. Maura Healey said Thursday that the state is spending an additional $250 million to limit premium increases for residents who have insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector.
After Congress let Affordable Care Act tax credits expire at the end of last year, more than 300,000 people in Massachusetts have been facing a potentially steep increase in their health care bills.
The governor’s office said those enrolled in ConnectorCare who make below 400% of the of the federal poverty level, which is $62,600 for an individual or $128,600 for a family of four, will see “little to no premium increases.”
Under the plan, Healey’s office said a 45-year-old couple with two kids in Fall River will see their monthly health insurance costs rise from $166 to $206. Without the new funding, the governor says they would be paying $452 a month.
“While President Trump continues to increase health care costs, we are taking the strongest action in the nation to address them and keep costs as low as possible for families,” Healey said in a statement. “Despite this increased state investment, far too many people will still see their premiums increase because of the White House.”
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to approve a three-year extension of the health care tax credits. While it appears unlikely to pass the Senate, senators have talked about a compromise plan that could include a two-year extension with added reforms. President Trump hasn’t offered a specific health care plan, but said subsidies going to insurance companies should “go to the people” instead.
The $250 million is coming from the Commonwealth Care Trust Fund, which gets its money from employer medical assistance contributions and financial penalties from residents who violate the state’s health care insurance mandate.
Massachusetts residents can sign up for health insurance coverage or switch their Health Connector plans until Jan. 23 if they want to be covered by Feb. 1.
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