Gov. Maura Healey’s administration mentioned Friday it believed it had fulfilled a requirement to arrange an overflow web site for households with youngsters and pregnant individuals ready for placement in Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system.
Clearing the overflow web site hurdle would enable the administration to entry tens of millions extra in already allotted state funds to answer the “ongoing humanitarian crisis and influx of families seeking shelter,” in line with state regulation.
A Healey spokesperson confirmed the administration felt it had complied with the statutory requirement to arrange one or a number of places because the waitlist for shelter hit 400 households as of Friday.
“Our administration has set up safety net sites for families who need a place to stay, and we will continue to work closely with our local, state and federal partners to support the needs of families in Massachusetts,” Healey spokeswoman Karissa Hand mentioned in an announcement.
Satisfying a element of a invoice the Legislature handed earlier this yr and Healey signed into regulation this month comes as greater than 40 households obtained providers Thursday evening at an in a single day shelter in Cambridge.
The web site, arrange final week inside a former courthouse that additionally homes the Middlesex Registry of Deeds, options the fundamentals like cots for friends to sleep on, the Healey administration mentioned earlier this month when it introduced the situation on Cambridge Street would function a shelter.
Healey confronted a Dec. 31 deadline to create one or a number of overflow websites for households ready for placement in Massachusetts’ bigger emergency shelter system, which is partly propped up by a community of accommodations and motels.
The Legislature handed the administration $50 million for an overflow web site and required officers to set one up earlier than a whole bunch of tens of millions extra in state {dollars} could possibly be accessed. The shelter {dollars} proved to be a flashpoint between Democrats and Republicans this fall.
House Speaker Ron Mariano mentioned he’s “hopeful” that households on the state-run waitlist are being supplied with a protected place to sleep as required by laws Healey signed into regulation in the beginning of December.
“We will continue to monitor the steps taken to address the shelter crisis, including the required reports, to help ensure that there are operational overflow sites through the end of the fiscal year,” Mariano mentioned in an announcement.
The emergency shelter system was serving 7,505 households as of Thursday, in line with state knowledge, simply over the 7,500 household restrict Healey imposed earlier this yr.
State officers contracted AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, an Australian-based firm, to supply providers on the Cambridge shelter. The firm has additionally supplied providers at a shelter web site in Quincy.
Rep. Mike Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat whose district covers the shelter, mentioned earlier this week on his weblog {that a} Christmas tree had been arrange contained in the constructing, youngsters obtained items over the vacation, and a Haitian pastor held a service for households.
“Showers have been set up at MIT and transportation was smooth on Sunday and again this morning,” Connolly wrote.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”