The Massachusetts House of Representatives today passed a supplemental budget that includes $425 million to fund the Emergency Assistance (EA) program through the end of Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) and includes a set of reforms to ensure that the program can endure financially in the long term. The bill includes temporary reforms to verify eligibility requirements for families that are entering the EA program, and to increase security measures to ensure that family shelters are safe.

“From the beginning of the shelter system crisis, the House has worked to reform the emergency assistance program to ensure that it remains financially viable. That’s why the House led the effort to cap the maximum length of stay, and to require job training programs for folks in the shelter system, reforms that this supplemental budget builds on. By creating stricter eligibility requirements, along with increased security measures, this supplemental budget is the latest iteration of the House’s continued commitment to protecting vulnerable children and families in Massachusetts in a fiscally sustainable manner,” said House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano (D-Quincy). “I’d like to thank Chairman Michlewitz and all of our House colleagues for their work on this bill.”

“Over the past several years, as the population of the emergency shelter system has grown, the House has attempted to uphold the Commonwealth’s right to shelter law while also being mindful of the long-term fiscal sustainability of the program. The reforms contained in this bill will ensure that right to shelter is maintained by further capping the length of stay and verifying eligibility, while also enacting stricter background checks on those who enter the shelter system to better protect the families who need these services the most,” said Representative Aaron Michlewitz (D-Boston), Chair of the House Committee on Ways & Means. “I want to thank the Speaker Mariano, and all my colleagues in the House for their feedback and hard work on this issue.”

Temporary eligibility reforms

Currently, applicants are presumed to be eligible under the law, and the Healey-Driscoll Administration waits 30 days after benefits have started to verify each applicant’s eligibility. Following the Administration’s recommendations, this bill would allow them to verify eligibility during the application process by requiring applicants to prove Massachusetts residency and an intent to stay in Massachusetts by providing certain documentation. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (HLC) may offer a case-specific waiver for exigent circumstances and must put out regulations or guidance for doing so, which must require waivers for families with a child under the age of 6, a person with a disability, a qualified veteran, or someone experiencing an imminent threat of domestic violence.

The bill gives the HLC the authority to require benefits to be provided only to families who are residents of Massachusetts and who are United States citizens; persons lawfully admitted for permanent residence; or otherwise permanently residing under the color of law in the U.S. The bill authorizes HLC to allow an exception in cases where a child in the family is a citizen of the U.S., a person lawfully admitted, or a person permanently residing under color of law. To ensure that no families are left unhoused because of this change in the intake process, the bill also requires temporary respite sites to be made available to non-eligible families upon arrival in the Commonwealth for up to 30 days.

The bill gives HLC the authority to require families whose income exceeds 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for three consecutive months to be deemed no longer eligible for the EA program. The bill also reduces the maximum length in an EA shelter from nine to six consecutive months and removes the availability of two 90-day extensions for individuals meeting certain criteria. The bill does maintain the availability of extensions if there is a hardship that is certified by the Secretary of HLC.

The bill removes the 150 families cap on the number of families that HLC may terminate from the emergency housing assistance program in any week due to durational limits, but it does maintain the requirement that HLC must limit the number of families terminated from the EA program in any week. The bill also caps the total capacity of the EA system at 4,000 families between December 31, 2025 and December 31, 2026. As of Thursday, February 6, there were 5,894 families currently enrolled in the EA program, according to the Healey-Driscoll Administration.

Permanent measures

The bill requires each individual adult applicant or beneficiary for emergency housing assistance benefits to disclose all prior criminal convictions in Massachusetts and any other jurisdiction, while exempting from disclosure prior convictions that have been sealed or expunged. It also requires CORI checks for each individual adult applicant or beneficiary prior to placement in the emergency housing assistance program.

The bill requires HLC to permanently require each adult applicant or beneficiary that joins the family to provide notice, and HLC must review all information necessary to verify the individual’s eligibility for the program. If there’s a failure to report the necessary information for complete verification, the applicant or beneficiary will no longer be eligible for benefits and existing benefits will be terminated.

The bill passed today requires funds used for the Emergency Assistance program to be subject to a competitive bidding process.

The bill passed the House of Representatives 126-26. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

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