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Baker Calls Homeless Sheltering in Hotel and Motels "Human Tragedy," Sets

Goal of Eliminating Stays in First Year in Office
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Baker Calls Homeless Sheltering in Hotels "Human Tragedy,"
Sets Goal of Eliminating Stays in First Year in Office

Savings to Be Invested in Programs Proven to Help Homeless Families

Brighton- Massachusetts Republican Candtdate for Governor Charlie Baker
announced today that he would work to elimtnate the pohcy of sheltering hometess
families in hotets and motets in his first year in office. The ambmous goat is a
centerpiece of his plan to help homeless famihes tn the Commonwealth.

"While the failure to properly address the issue of homelessness tn our state has
become a financial problem, it is first and foremost a human tragedy. It is
heartbreaktng to think that the average age of a person experiencing homelessness in
Massachusetts is 8 years otd." said Charlie Baker. "We can and must do a betterjob
of helping these struggling fammes get back on thetr feet and rebutld their lives. The
status quo is simply unacceptable."

“The first step in this process is to immediately end the current practice of placing
struggling families in hotel and motels where they are far from their support network,
and where they languish without services or the help of their family and community.  It
is a failed policy that does more harm than good for those that are dealing with the
tragedy of being homeless.”  

Short­term Strategies: 
Baker’s short­term strategy will include deploying multi­disciplinary assessment teams
to work with each family living in motels, providing both short­term support and
developing a long­term housing and stabilization plan for the family.  The state will also
move away from ‘one size fits all’ strategies and give regional networks greater
flexibility to craft appropriate plans for the families they serve.  As the state works to
transition families out of hotels and motels, Baker will require state agencies to work
more closely with the local officials of communities hosting these homeless families.
 Baker will also work with the legislature to ensure that towns are fully reimbursed for
costs incurred to transport homeless children to their school districts.

Long­term Solutions:
Baker will pursue several long­term strategies to both help families out of
homelessness and prevent family homelessness.  These strategies will include: better
communication and coordination between state agencies so that families on the brink of
homelessness receive necessary assistance, greater flexibility for regional networks of
public and private agencies to assist their homeless families in the most effective way,
sensible changes to laws and regulations that prevent low­income families from staying
in housing situations that work and move them into homelessness, and the pursuit of
more affordable housing options for homeless families.

Charlie’s Proven Record Of Success Reducing Hotel Population To Zero: 
Reducing the number of homeless families in welfare hotels to zero is something Baker
has helped accomplish before.  As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Charlie
developed and implemented many of the strategies that eliminated the need to place
homeless families in hotels. For that work, Charlie was awarded the Massachusetts
Housing and Shelter Alliance’s Public Servant Award in 1997.  He was the first
Republican to win the award.  In 1998, Massachusetts was awarded the Public
Sector Achievement Award by the National Alliance to End Homelessness ­­ an

 award Charlie accepted on behalf of the administration.
In fiscal years 1991 to 1996, the Weld/Cellucci Administration eliminated hotel and
motel stays and created 265 units of family housing under the Department of
Transitional Assistance's Scattered Site Emergency Shelter Program and created 400
emergency shelter beds for domestic violence victims.  It also funded a DSS program
that provided on­site social services to over 500 homeless families, and created the
Homeless Intercept Program to prevent duplication of efforts between EOCD and DTA
regarding housing search and placement of homeless families.

The Growing Homeless Family Crisis: 
The number of homeless families in Massachusetts is at the highest level in the history
of the family sheltering program begun 30 years ago.  There were approximately 4,200
families with children and pregnant women in Massachusetts’ Emergency Assistance
(EA) shelter program as of December 13, 2013.  A record 2,147 of these families with
children were being temporarily sheltered in hotels and motels across Massachusetts
because emergency shelters are full according to the Massachusetts Coalition for the
Homeless.
These families are frequently placed in hotels and motels far away from where they
have been living, which means they are separated from their communities and family
support networks, and their kids miss days or weeks of school and/or have to be
transported back to their home communities to attend school.
The average motel stay is seven months, at a cost to the state of $82/night. State
spending on hotels and motels for homeless families is almost $50 million, compared
with $1 million five years ago.
While spending on family homelessness increases dramatically in Massachusetts, the
number of homeless families continues to rise.  Meanwhile, the number of homeless
families is declining nationally. 
(Click here for Charlie’s full plan) 
 
 
 
###
 

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