Top Beacon Hill Democrats offered few indications on whether they would support a package of reforms proposed by Gov. Maura Healey that would largely prevent arriving migrants from entering the state-run shelter system.
Only a day after Healey called on House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka to drastically rewrite a $425 million shelter spending bill to include new restrictions, the two legislators said they wanted more information before greenlighting the money and changes.
Mariano said there were “a lot of things” he agreed with in a letter outlining Healey’s proposals, which included a call to implement a version of a three-month residency requirement that would allow people shelter access if they showed an “intent to remain” in the state.
But the Quincy Democrat did not give his outright approval to all of Healey's ideas nor offer a timeline for when the House would push forward the recommendations.
“We'll evaluate all the things that she wants to put in that bill,” Mariano told reporters shortly after Healey finished her second State of the Commonwealth address Thursday night. “We've had questions about the survivability of this thing from the very, very beginning.”
Spilka said she looks forward to meeting with officials in the Healey administration to discuss the measures and learn “more about how all of that would be implemented.”
“I think it's important that we remain fiscally responsible and yet balance our moral obligation to make sure that our families, particularly with children, young children aren't out in the cold,” the Ashland Democrat said. “We’re a New England state. Look at how cold it's been. I couldn't imagine a family sleeping out on a park bench in the last few weeks.”
The spending bill Healey wants to tie the shelter restrictions to is time-sensitive and is working its way through Beacon Hill as safety and security in shelters have turned into a major early-year headache for the first-term Democrat.
Budget writers for the governor have said cash to run the taxpayer-funded emergency shelter system is expected to run out by the end of January without another infusion. The administration has already spent $411 million on shelters this fiscal year, according to state data.
The legislation Healey filed last week attempts to fund shelters through the end of fiscal year 2025 by using a majority of what remains in an account filled with one-time surplus dollars leftover from the pandemic era. Lawmakers have previously tapped the money for shelter financing.
House budget chief Rep. Aaron Michlewitz did not say when the House — which has the first shot at reviewing the legislation — would release its own version of the spending bill.
The North End Democrat told the Herald Tuesday that he wanted more information about crimes committed in state-run shelters before advancing the cash to pay for the system for the rest of the fiscal year.
He said Thursday that he still had unanswered questions even after Healey put forward her proposal to largely block off the system from arriving migrants.
“We want to kind of get to the bottom of some of those answers before we move any money forward, and exactly what amount that will be, we don't know yet,” he said. “So we're working through that.”
Republicans and progressives slammed Healey this week for the proposed restrictions on the shelter system — which she did not file as legislation but included in a letter to top lawmakers on Beacon Hill.
Healey mostly pitched ideas that would curtail access for non-Massachusetts residents, including a measure requiring all individuals in a family seeking shelter to demonstrate they are United States citizens, lawful permanent residents, or are here under the color of the law.
That rule could be bypassed by households that include children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, an exception that conservatives immediately labeled a fatal loophole along with the “intent to remain” language in Healey’s residency requirement.
Sen. Peter Durant, a Spencer Republican, said Healey’s pitch falls short of solving the “costly and dangerous problem” of state-run shelters.
“When it comes to her so-called residency requirement, the loophole is so big you could drive a truck through it. Asking for a commitment to remain in Massachusetts is not residency requirement nor is three month stay. Our taxpayer-funded benefits should be limited to our legal residents,” he said in a statement.
Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director Jonathan Cohn said Healey sounds “Trumpian in her approach to emergency shelter.”
“Her proposed restrictions on shelter, especially a ban on undocumented residents from access, are straight out of the playbook of the soon-to-be-president and the right-wing Republicans in Congress,” he said in a statement. “Beacon Hill rejected some of the most extreme limits on emergency shelter last year when Republicans in the House and Senate pushed for them last year. We urge them to do so again.”