Over 300 “serious” incidents were reported this year alone in a shelter program housing migrants in Massachusetts.
Although the state’s Emergency Assistance family shelter program is not a migrant-only program, migrant families are eligible and figures from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities are raising concerns.
Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, Jessica Vaughan, found the total of 316 Serious Incident reports at “hotels, congregate sites, scattered sites, and co-shelters” in the program “very disturbing.”
“This is a huge number of incidents,” she told the Boston Herald.”This is a huge failure, and it’s happening with massive amounts of taxpayer money.”
“The state is clearly failing to provide a safe environment for these migrants,” Vaughan added.
A serious incident, according to the Emergency Assistance program, is described as “serious misconduct, threatening behaviors, or actual harm involving or affecting an EA program, or any EA family members. Serious incidents can involve perpetrators that are EA family members, program staff, external community members, or anyone else.”
The Bay State’s “Serious Incidents Reports Tracker Data” was obtained by the Herald through a public records request. The most incidents were at hotels which reported 125 serious incidents. Congregant sites had 78, scattered sites had 72 and co-shelters had 22. As of the date of the Herald report, there were reportedly 7,400 families that were part of the Emergency Assistance family shelter program.
The “safety and wellbeing of families in the Emergency Assistance program is a priority for the Administration,” a spokesperson for the agency told Fox News Digital.
“If an incident occurs in an EA shelter, HLC staff and service providers work with families to ensure their safety, security, and well-being, including working with relevant authorities to address concerns,” the spokesperson said. “To be clear: serious incidents do not necessarily reflect misconduct or violations of shelter rules by shelter residents and can include any incident that occurs at a shelter site. Examples can include fire alarms or natural disasters, COVID-19 infections, unauthorized entry into shelter by non-EA residents, and other incidents which result in a major disruption of the EA program.”
“It’s concerning for the communities where these people have been placed, and it’s concerning for the other migrants who are in these shelters,” Vaughan told the Herald. “When you have an open door policy at the border and a welcome mat in Massachusetts, you’re asking for problems.”
“They cannot be confident they’re identifying people who will cause problems when they get to their destinations,” Vaughan said of federal authorities along the border, adding that the state is “kicking the can down to somebody else” in dealing with referrals to homeless shelters.
“They should be reported to ICE, and ICE should be removing them,” Vaughan said.
Gov. Maura Healey announced new restrictions and caps this week.
(Video Credit WCVB 5)
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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