TEXAS: HOLD 'EM — Gov. Maura Healey has dispatched state officials to the southern border to spread the word she’s been hammering at home for months: Massachusetts’ shelter system is at capacity. Five officials touched down in Texas Sunday, with plans to meet with border patrol officials and non-governmental organizations. The group, led by the state's emergency assistance director, L. Scott Rice, is stopping in San Antonio, McAllen, Hidalgo and Brownsville — the most common points of entry for families who eventually land in Massachusetts, according to Healey’s office. The trip, Rice said in a statement, “is an important opportunity to meet with families arriving in the U.S. and the organizations that work with them at the border to make sure they have accurate information about the lack of shelter space in Massachusetts.” “It is essential that we get the word out that our shelters are full so that families can plan accordingly to make sure they have a safe place to go,” he added. In addition to Rice, the crew includes: Adit Basheer, emergency assistance incident command deputy director; Allison Bovell-Ammon, pre-shelter policy lead for incident command; Cristina Aguilera, executive director of the state's office for refugees and immigrants; and Cassandra Pierre-Louis, strategy manager at the division of housing stabilization. It’s the latest effort Healey’s administration has made to address the state’s migrant crisis — but this time officials are targeting the source of the crisis. Healey began publicly warning that the state was out of room in October, when she capped emergency shelter system capacity at 7,500 families. Since then, she's added a new 30-day limit for stays in overflow sites, requiring homeless and migrants families to reapply each month with proof they've been seeking jobs, training or new shelter. And earlier this month the administration rolled out new guidelines that would allow the state to begin enforcing the nine-month shelter limits the Legislature mandated to help curb costs of services that are expected to approach $1 billion in the next fiscal year. Under the rules, the state will begin sending 90-day notices to 150 families a month on a rolling basis starting in July. That's gotten pushback from advocates and some legislators, who sent a letter to Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus asking the state to start the shelter-limit count down on June 1, instead of account of accounting for time families have already banked in the shelter system before the length of stay limits were signed into law. In a letter sent to Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus last week, 16 lawmakers from both chambers implore the administration to reconsider its plan to begin removing families from the shelter system in late September. “Families need time to prepare for transition, and we want to ensure that they receive the full range of benefits they are entitled to and for the entirety of the 9 months they are allotted under the supplemental budget,” the 16 lawmakers wrote. The administration is working to set up a meeting with the legislators who signed on to the letter, and is "looking forward to meeting with the legislators, listening to their concerns, and talking through the significant shelter capacity and fiscal challenges facing the EA program — challenges that the administration has been calling attention to for much of the past year," a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said in a statement, though they didn't elaborate on whether the state is opening to making the tweaks to the shelter limit guidelines that lawmakers requested. This week's border expedition comes as the number of arrivals into the shelter system — about half of them migrant families — is trending downward. Forty families a day were seeking shelter late last summer, compared to 17 a day in recent weeks, according to Healey's office. But more than 700 are still on the waitlist. Healey and legislative leaders have both begged and berated Congress over immigration, urging federal officials to pass a border bill that would limit the number of migrants into the U.S. while sending money to states like Massachusetts that have been hit the hardest by the crisis. Healey welcomed President Joe Biden's move to shut much of the southern border and suspend asylum claims. But ultimately she still wants to see congressional action on the issue. In the meantime, she's making it clear: Massachusetts is out of room. GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. The Senate released its version of Healey’s housing legislation Monday, teeing the $5.2 billion bond bill up for debate Thursday. A closely watched policy that would’ve allowed communities to choose to implement taxes on certain high-dollar real estate sales didn’t make it into the bill, nor did the House proposal to expand Massachusetts Water Resource Authority's reach to the South Shore — but plenty of other policies did in including ones that would: — Allow accessory dwelling units to be built by right in all neighborhoods zoned for single-family development
— Require landlords to cover broker's fees instead of passing the cost on to tenants.
— Let cities and towns pass inclusionary zoning ordinances by a simple majority instead of a two-thirds majority vote
— Seal past evictions from potential landlords, who could use a renter’s history to deny them a lease. Dive deeper with GBH News and The Boston Globe. TODAY — Healey attends the SelectUSA 2024 Investment Summit in Maryland. She’s part of a workforce development panel at 10:05 a.m. and joins at roundtable hosted by Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves at 11 a.m. Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll speaks at the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education’s annual meeting at 12:30 p.m. at the UMass Club in Boston. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu speaks at the opening of the Frog Pond spray pool at 11:45 a.m. and participates in a Boston Globe panel on the history of busing in Boston at 6 p.m. in Roxbury.
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