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.

The local prison guard who was knocked unconscious and ended up in the hospital has shared his “scary” story, stressing that the state needs to stop drugs from flowing into correctional facilities.

Officer John Connelly is still recovering from the traumatic incident at MCI-Shirley last month when he was exposed to a toxic substance and rushed to the hospital.

This latest ordeal involving an injured correction officer comes as the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union continues to fight for safer conditions inside Bay State prisons.

On July 20, Connelly had been attending to an unresponsive inmate in their cell.

“It was pretty bad,” Connelly recalled about the inmate episode in a union video. “He wasn’t even responding to anything that we were saying to him.”

The prison guard then looked down at the inmate’s sock and saw a package: A piece of paper was wrapped up in a square. Connelly opened it up, and believed it was the synthetic drug K2. He saw some white residue, and quickly closed it up.

Connelly then remembers telling his partner that he was feeling weak.

” ‘I don’t have my legs. I don’t really feel that strong,’ ” he recalled saying.

As the correction officer was checked out, he got really hot and sweaty.

“I fell out of it,” Connelly said. “I don’t really remember anything after that… I could just feel my heart going crazy and then my mind started going crazy, and I don’t remember anything after that.”

He then woke up in the hospital, and was very confused. The doctor told him that he was going to be OK, but that it would take some time to recover.

“I was in pretty bad shape,” Connelly said, noting that he had multiple seizures.

This is the second time that the prison guard has been exposed to toxic substances while on duty, the previous time happening in 2018. This recent incident was definitely worse, he said.

“It’s scary because it’s really affecting me pretty bad,” Connelly said, adding that he was soon heading to see his neurologist to schedule an MRI for his head. “I just break out in uncontrollable shakes sometimes.”

“It’s hard to deal with my mental health right now,” he said, noting that he was given Narcan four times during the incident.

Connelly has a baby girl who he wants to pick up “but at the same time, I don’t want to drop her.”

In the union video, he was asked whether he feels safe at work.

“That’s a tough question, man, after what just happened,” Connelly said. “Sometimes yeah, but we work in a very dangerous environment, and I know sometimes we can be subject to this. But I just wish there was more precaution because I don’t want this happening to anyone else, because it’s not alright, it’s really not.

“I just wish we were more proactive on the drugs that are inside,” he said, later adding, “We go to serve and protect every day. We put our lives on the line because it’s not only about our safety, it’s about the people, the inmates that live in the institutions around the state. Their families are trusting us to make sure that they do their time and they get out.”

Following Connelly’s hospitalization and a reported string of similar incidents, the public safety union is urging the Massachusetts Department of Correction to implement an “exposure policy” for when officers are exposed to synthetic drugs and chemicals, including fentanyl and K2.

“Let’s try to get all hands on deck to kind of combat this,” Connelly said. “And let’s keep fighting, and let’s just keep climbing until we find something that works for both sides.”

The state agency should launch weekly or regularly rotating institutional shake downs, cell and block searches and deploy its canine department, the union president said previously.

“I will not let one of our members become a fatal statistic before the DOC leadership decides to act and work with this union to address these major safety issues,” said Dennis Martin, president of the union. “Leadership is expected to make decisions.

“Currently, there’s a void at the DOC,” he added. “Neither our members nor inmates are safe inside Massachusetts prisons. As your president, I am asking the DOC leadership to implement a policy that will protect the courageous men and women of this union.”

Originally Published: August 2, 2024 at 5:20 p.m.