Massachusetts spending on shelters housing migrants, locals tops $700M in FY25, data shows

Gov Maura Healey s administration has spent more than million this fiscal year on taxpayer-funded shelters housing immigrants and local families even as the number of households in shelter dropped below last week according to general facts The total amount the Healey administration has spent on the exigency assistance activity through last week is still short of the billion projection for the fiscal year that ends July But the cash shuttled to shelters through mid-April is still far above historical norms In a comment last week after the shelter caseload fell below households Healey noted her administration has taken decisive action to reduce the number of families in shelter and lower the cost of the system We re getting results she disclosed We have already reduced the use of costly hotels by more than half A majority of the money spent this fiscal year or million has been used for direct shelter payments to house homeless families with children and pregnant women under the state s decades-old right-to-shelter law according to the figures last updated April The Healey administration has spent another million in fiscal year on HomeBASE a scheme that helps people in shelters find stable housing by subsidising their first and last month s rent defense deposit broker s fee and monthly rent payments for up to two years State leaders have also shelled out million on overflow shelter operations and clinical and safety vulnerability screening sites the state material presented Other top expenditures so far this year include million on educational aid million to pay National Guard members serving the shelter system and million for shelter sponsorship services according to the statistics Healey s budget writers have not yet issued a spending projection for fiscal year Fiscal year spending is currently being evaluated given the of late signed supplemental budget This number will be updated pending conclusion of that evaluation personnel revealed in a review circulated Tuesday referring to a bill that imposed new rules on shelter access But even as Healey has not yet declared how much she expects to spend next fiscal year House Democrats proposed shuttling million to the system in their fiscal year state budget proposal or million less than the governor pitched in January House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz did not say last week whether that figure would cover all shelter expenses next fiscal year If we have to come back and reevaluate we will he noted The number of families in the crisis assistance shelter venture peaked at households or tens of thousands of people at the end of July according to state information Caseloads have since fallen by more than to families as of April state details shows Several families have left the shelter system for other housing options including the state-funded HomeBASE project The decline of the shelter population comes after Healey and the Legislature approved new restrictions on the system That includes barring anyone from the activity who is not lawfully present in the United States with specific exceptions cutting down the maximum length of stay to six months and requiring the Healey administration to reduce the number of families in shelters to starting in December