On the second floor of an orange building on Allston’s Harvard Avenue, the muted conversations of parents and the loud chatter of young children can be heard, among suitcases and toys. In this pocket of the city that is the Brazilian Worker Center, Haitian families seek temporary refuge before continuing their long journeys to hotels or medical centers and pursuing the place where they hope to reside: a safer and more permanent home.
They compose some of the 20,000 individuals, including 5,600 families, living in state shelters in Massachusetts. This is an 80 percent increase from 3,100 families last year, which has left a sustained strain on the state’s housing resources.
Of the 20,000, many are Haitian and South American refugees, fleeing gang violence and political instability in their homelands — and the sexual assault, the daily sense of living in fear, and the lack of human rights protections that too often accompany these issues.
As a result of this surge in the number of unhoused people within the state, Massachusetts governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency on August 8, calling the US federal government to do two things: provide funding to expand services and shelter, and expedite work authorizations for migrants.
Multiple factors led to this influx in Massachusetts.
The Biden administration and Department of Homeland Security launched a program in January for up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) to arrive in the US monthly on a legal basis.
Additionally on the federal level, the Trump-era Title 42 provision, which turned away immigrants immediately at the US-Mexican border, ended in late May. Immigrants can now cross the border, seek asylum and wait out their immigration cases in the US. Many of the immigrants from the US-Mexican border are sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s administration to Boston.
“Every day today in Massachusetts we will see between […] ten and thirty families arriving here in Massachusetts. Oftentimes they will have flown here, landed at Logan Airport. Many of them are having plane tickets bought for them by organizations and entities in Texas churches,” says Healey in an interview with GBH News.
Perhaps the most important factor is that Massachusetts is a right-to-shelter state — the only one in the US. By law, the state must provide shelter to any unhoused family with a child under the age of 21. As a result, the state is obligated to seek as much open housing capacity as possible.
For the past few months, Massachusetts has found a solution in shelter organizations and hotels. The current effort can only be described as reactive and scaffolded: whenever the need arises, an organization has been there to address it.
The Brazilian Worker Center, which has been christened as the Allston Family Welcome Center, is one of two organizations that has turned into a safe holding center for refugees before they receive a more permanent living situation, such as a hotel or shelter.
Executive Director of Brazilian Worker Center Lenita Reason explains, “Initially, what we thought that we’d be seeing is 10 families a day. And each family has an average of four individuals. Well, that was the day that we saw 45 families. […] They’re supposed to be in a hotel for a week or a few days, go to the GTA, get processed and find a shelter, but then there are so many families. There’s no space.”
The state is calling for social service organizations and hotels to become emergency shelters and for landlords to offer empty units to refugees.
However, while expanded housing remains a short term solution, the Healey administration finds expediting work authorizations to be the ultimate answer for the shelter shortage.
“These migrants who have come, they are so anxious to work. […] Instead, they are seeing for not just weeks and months, but upwards of a year or more in our hotels, motels, shelters and other housing emergency places waiting to work,” says Healey.
Putting refugees in the Massachusetts workforce forms a pathway not only for them to afford their own housing and exit state shelters, but also to address the current labor shortage in Massachusetts.
This has previously occurred. The federal government gives refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan the right to work under their parole programs. Currently, however, getting legal authorization to work under the CHNV parole program takes several months and access to an attorney.
The increase in refugees arriving in Massachusetts and Healey’s declaration of the state of emergency has been met with mixed reactions.
“Sometimes [hotel managers] are not used to that many guests — especially migrants, especially people of color. We have had to deal with general managers of hotels discriminating against them,” says Reason.
It is not only Massachusetts residents and hotel managers, but also local officials.
Western Springfield Mayor William Reichelt told Western Mass News: “Enough is enough, we can’t take anymore. We’ve done our part. I think it’s time for the state to put a cap on it but especially for larger communities throughout the region or across the state to step up and do their part.”
Reichelt is not alone; multiple politicians have spoken out negatively about Massachusetts being a right-to-shelter state.
In response, Springfield resident and Lawyers for Civil Rights Litigation Fellow Tasheena Davis says, “’I’ve lived in America my whole life. I have no idea what it would be like to flee somewhere where I’m not safe, and get to somewhere where I think I’m safe. And I’m viewed as a political issue. I’m viewed as a problem for people. That’s absurd.”
To help, Massachusetts residents may volunteer at and donate to local relief funds, welcome centers and partner organizations that can be found at https://www.mass.gov/sheltercrisis.
Healey concludes: “Think about the journey they did. Something that any one of us would do. You leave an incredibly dangerous situation, you’re bringing your kids. Sometimes you’re fleeing when you’re pregnant. […] Why? Because they are only looking for safety and an opportunity.”
