The myth of right to shelter in Massachusetts – The Boston Globe

In early 2013, I left what was a normal high school day to sit in a Department of Transitional Assistance office with my parents and six siblings. The day before, we had lost our home to an eviction, and we had nowhere to go. There, we sought help from the Emergency Assistance program, the state system that guarantees shelter to families with children.

After consulting with a caseworker, we received devastating news: While we would be provided a hotel to live in, it was located 108 miles from our home community. With our schools, jobs, and doctors all within proximity of our hometown, this move threatened to destabilize our lives beyond the havoc wrought by homelessness.

If we did not accept the placement, however, state policy would prevent us from applying for emergency shelter for nearly a year. We had no choice but to accept. In a state without sufficient affordable housing or safety nets, our right to shelter came with an asterisk: accept shelter in a faraway location or accept the risk of homelessness.

Earlier this month, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency to address a shortage of available emergency assistance shelter, due in part to the influx of migrants to the state, an end to housing and food security policies enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lack of affordable housing. There has been an 80 percent increase from last year in families seeking shelter. But the shelter system, by design, was unprepared to meet the urgency of this crisis, as a product of decades-long failed policies.

Massachusetts often claims to be a right-to-shelter state because, on the books, it provides homeless families access to emergency shelter, free of cost. This was the purpose for which the right-to-shelter law was crafted. The language of the law, however, could not be further from the truth.

Calling Massachusetts a right-to-shelter state ignores the barriers inherent in accessing and maintaining emergency shelter. The state places vulnerable families into three categories of accommodations: scattered site units, congregate units, and hotels. In order to be eligible, families must have an income at or below 115 percent of the federal poverty line while meeting one of four eligibility conditions, such as a risk of domestic violence. Historically, the eligibility requirements forced some families to live in uninhabitable living conditions — such as in the case of the eight-month pregnant mother and her young son who were forced to sleep overnight on a Quincy beach in 2012 — or take refuge in hospitals in order to qualify before this was modified by the Legislature in 2019.

While the emergency assistance line item requires the Department of Housing and Community Development, the agency tasked with managing the program, to place families in shelter within 20 miles of their home communities “at the earliest possible date unless the household requests otherwise,” in practice, many families report placement 50 miles — and more than 100 miles for some — outside their community of origin. But they have no remedy when offered distant shelter. If a family rejects their placement, they are unable to apply for shelter for another year. In Massachusetts, the supposed right to shelter comes with terms and conditions.

Further, homeless individuals do not have a right to shelter in Massachusetts. The law explicitly does not apply to them. As a result, they are forced to seek out often underfunded and overcrowded shelters, without a guarantee that they will have a place to sleep.

Amid increasingly unaffordable housing costs and a shortage of adequate shelter for both homeless families and individuals, the right-to-shelter myth is evident. While Massachusetts provides far more support to homeless communities than other states, and is better for it, there is no universal shelter access, which is implied by a “right” to shelter.

But there is a path forward. Contrary to the misguided proposal by state Representative Peter Durant to repeal the right-to-shelter law, policy makers should work to improve existing services by improving funding and support for the shelter program.

In order to help transition the homeless from shelters to housing, the Legislature should increase funding for services like HomeBASE and the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition program that provide meaningful pathways to housing stabilization.

A right to shelter, however, does not truly exist without a right to housing. Policy makers should adopt policies that make permanent housing affordable, universally accessible, and, eventually, free. State Representative Mike Connolly introduced legislation that would create a Social Housing program — mixed-income housing financed by the state and owned by local agencies. The program would drastically increase the availability of accessible housing stock, especially for low-income populations.

I know the urgency of this moment. Nearly 10 years later, my family continues to sit on the precipice of eviction and homelessness, never having truly recovered. By building a universal and humane shelter system and making large investments in affordable and social housing, Massachusetts can ensure that no other children, families, or individuals suffer the same fate. In working to make shelter and housing available to all, Massachusetts can make right to shelter a reality.

Timothy Scalona is a Suffolk University law student.