Please use the form below to sign your organization on to a joint letter to Governor Healey, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, Senate President Spilka, and Speaker of the House Ron Mariano, sharing recommendations to address the Emergency Assistance shelter capacity crisis while protecting the dignity and safety of families experiencing homelessness. These recommendations were crafted with input from a number of organizations, and guided by two principles: to preserve and protect our family shelter system, and to provide safe and affordable housing for every family in Emergency Assistance shelter.
We hope to partner with the Administration in implementing these and other solutions, and ask the Legislature to pass a supplemental budget to adequately fund the EA shelter system so longer term solutions can be put into place. The recommendations are sorted into three categories:
- Expanding available services for newly arrived immigrant families and improve service coordination for all families experiencing homelessness
- Helping families swiftly move out of Emergency Assistance and other temporary shelter programs into permanent affordable housing
- Strengthening homelessness prevention resources to ensure that more families and individuals can maintain housing stability.
This effort is being coordinated by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, and Citizens' Housing and Planning Association.
The text of the statement can be found here:
https://mahomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Moving-Beyond-the-Emergency-recommendations-for-sign-ons-10-30-23.pdf and the organizational sign-on form is included below.
Please sign on by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 1st. Signers after that time will be added to an online version of the statement. We also encourage you to share this link with other organizations in your network:
https://tinyurl.com/moving-beyond If you have questions, please send them to
kelly@mahomeless.org and
apark@mlri.org. Thank you for your collaboration!
