Shelters Overwhelmed, and Not Enough Hotel Rooms Left for Conventions

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center says it has a hotel room shortage.

Over the last two weeks, Massachusetts has spent about $30 million on its emergency shelter system, which continues to strain under an upsurge of homeless families in the state.

The number of families in need of shelter has exploded in the past year, largely driven by an influx of immigrants coming into the country legally by claiming asylum status but unable to work under federal immigration laws.

Gov. Maura Healey's administration in mid-December estimated that emergency shelter costs, largely involving leased hotel rooms, would approach $1 billion this fiscal year and $915 million in fiscal 2025, far more than the amounts traditionally set aside for shelter. At the same time, The Boston Business Journal reported this week that the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center  believes the hotel rooms available near the convention center is only about half of what is needed to support a major event -- and similar room shortages have impacted the Patriot Place area and the Sturbridge tourist trade.

The administration's newest shelter report shows that so far this fiscal year the state has spent $277 million on the emergency housing program, up $30 million from the last biweekly report, when the administration said they had spent $247 million as of Dec. 28.

The costs are within the administration's projected estimates, but come at a time when state tax revenue growth is slowing and budget writers are having to rethink their spending priorities.

Healey last week made the first mid-year spending cuts by a governor in seven years, and Beacon Hill Democrats will have just $100 million more to work with to craft the fiscal 2025 budget than they estimated for fiscal 2024 when they crafted a $56 billion budget.

The Legislature and Healey in July appropriated just $325 million for emergency shelters in the fiscal 2024 budget, and supplemented that last month with an additional $250 million appropriation.

The number of families awaiting a spot in the shelter system has climbed to 542 -- a jump in the two weeks since the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities reported there were 433 families waiting as of Jan. 4.

As of Dec. 13, the administration had reported 242 families were on the list that Healey created this fall when she set a limit on the number of families the system could house.

Families on the waitlist are on standby for a call or email about possible shelter options. In the meantime, some overflow beds have been made available and Emergency Assistance Director Scott Rice has said about three-quarters of the families waiting for a more permanent bed are staying in overflow sites.

An EOHLC spokesperson did not reply to a question Wednesday about whether the administration is keeping track of the last quarter of families on the waitlist who are without accommodations.

The spokesperson said 100 families have been enrolled into the emergency assistance program since Jan. 1.

In the same stretch of time, 74 families have exited the system. In total, between Sept. 1, 2023 and Jan. 16, 770 families have left the emergency assistance program for more permanent housing.

Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz and Housing Secretary Ed Augustus, who author the biweekly reports, have written that most families are living in the shelter system for over a year.

Healey has pointed to the lack of work authorizations as one of the reasons why people stay in the emergency accommodations for so long, unable to work and therefore make their own money to provide for their families.

The administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hosted clinics in November to help immigrants work through the authorization process. As of Dec. 12, 813 migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the EA system were authorized to work in the U.S.; by Dec. 28, that number had grown to 2,713.

There were no further increases in the number of people in the shelter program with work authorizations as of the most recent report, staying at 2,713.