Gov. Maura Healey proposes changes to Right to Shelter Law

With the state’s family shelter system under pressure from mounting costs and violent on-site incidents, Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday recommended statutory changes to the decades-old Right to Shelter Law, asking House and Senate leadership to fold the reforms into a pending supplemental budget.

In a new letter, Healey called for “strengthening” criminal background checks for shelter applicants by requiring the Executive Office of Housing to conduct CORI checks before families are placed in the emergency shelters. She had previously told the press that comprehensive background checks were conducted on all shelter residents, before her administration last week said that had not actually been done.

All family members looking to stay in a state shelter would have to prove their lawful U.S. residency under the governor’s recommendation, unless a child in the family already has lawful residence. Currently, only one member of the family unit must show citizenship or lawful presence.

The governor is also seeking to crack down by requiring families to show proof of eligibility up front before they are given a shelter spot, and removing the option of someone showing their eligibility through “self attestation.”

A massive number of families have arrived in Massachusetts in recent years looking to access the shelter system, competing with a large component of Bay State families already seeking shelter access. Around 48,000 people have lived in the state-run sites over the past three years, Healey said last week.

“The Administration proposes requiring in the line item that all members of the household must be residents of Massachusetts, and that anyone receiving EA show an intent to remain in Massachusetts, which may be shown either through independent documentary verification of an intent to remain in Massachusetts, or through three months of physical presence in the state,” Healey wrote in her letter to House Speaker Ronald Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, and the two branches’ Ways and Means chairs.

Healey last week filed her mini-budget with another $425 million for the costly shelter system (H 51) and some major shelter policy changes. The bill is pending before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Just nine days later, Healey sent over a four-page outline of reforms she is now asking the Legislature to tack onto the spending bill. The reforms were not presented as legislation, but rather as bullet-point ideas.

House Republican Leader Bradley Jones Jr. said the “hasty” followup from Healey — particularly on the heels of a Republican press conference Tuesday which demanded similar sorts of reforms — “seems a lot more like damage control, full retreat.”

The North Reading Republican told the News Service that he interpreted the letter as saying, “‘We’re taking on water badly, we gotta do something, and we’ll send a letter to the Legislature saying please save us from ourselves.'”

“Which the Legislature’s happy to do,” he added.

Mariano pointed to previous House efforts to rein in program costs and said the House is open to making additional changes.

“As the House continues to work on the supplemental budget proposal that was filed by Governor Healey earlier this month, we will remain focused on instituting further reforms centered around fiscal responsibility and safety, policies that will be informed by conversations with House members, through continued collaboration with the Healey-Driscoll Administration, and by actions taken at the federal level,” Mariano said.

Spilka’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The upper branch’s budget chief, Sen. Michael Rodrigues, said last week that he thought a proposed residency requirement “raises Constitutional issues” but did not foreclose considering it.

“I have evaluated the Right to Shelter Law and regulations as well as the operational burdens on the system,” Healey said in her letter to the top legislative Democrats. “Based on that review, and in the face of continued inaction by Congress and no assistance from the federal government, I believe these changes are appropriate and needed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the state shelter system in a way that aligns with the original intent of the law.”