BOSTON – Today the Healey-Driscoll Administration filed a $282 million gross / $154 million net Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) supplemental budget to address urgent needs across the state’s family emergency shelter system, which is at capacity and facing significantly elevated levels of demand by families facing homelessness.

 

The bill proposes $85 million to support the Emergency Assistance program and other necessary services for eligible families in need of emergency shelter in the Commonwealth.

 

With the shelter system currently at capacity, $64.9 million of this funding would support the Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) efforts to expand the number of units available to provide safe, temporary shelter to vulnerable families facing homelessness.

 

This includes investments in housing infrastructure and the shelter provider workforce that helps to stabilize and rehouse families. Based on current caseload projections, more than 1,100 shelter units over baseline capacity are needed, and the funds in this bill are critically needed to keep pace with this demand. 

The bill also proposes $21.9 million to support schools through the end of the 2023-2024 school year. The funding is targeted toward the communities experiencing a large influx of families with school-aged children due to state shelter placements – in particular, by providing financial support to schools and school districts for the costs associated with placing new students in local schools.

 

This bill also includes funding to maintain a temporary central intake center where families can receive timely case management services and health assessments during their first few days in shelter and for costs associated with other necessary health assessments and immigration-focused case management.  

The funding to support emergency shelters and related services would be authorized for DHCD as well as other agencies that play a role in responding to this crisis, and would work in combination with a $20 million appropriation in the economic development bill enacted in November 2022.  

tend two food security programs that will soon run out of funding.