By Rick Sobey
Boston Herald Massachusetts Emergency Assistance program bulletin news
(Boston Herald) — More than 300 “Serious Incident” reports have been recorded at Bay State migrant-family shelter program sites so far this year, The Boston Herald has learned.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities has listed a total of 316 Serious Incident reports at hotels, congregate sites, scattered sites, and co-shelters in the Emergency Assistance family shelter program.
The Herald obtained the Bay State’s “Serious Incident Reports Tracker Data” through a public records request after previously revealing how many people had been kicked out of the migrant-family shelter program for “inappropriate actions.”
The “Serious Incident Report Tracker Data” is broken down by the type of shelter, month, and the agency called for the different episodes.
Hotels had the most reported serious incidents with 125 — followed by congregate sites with 78, scattered sites with 72, and co-shelters with 22. There were 19 other incidents, but officials said they couldn’t determine the type of shelter or agency called.
“This is very disturbing,” Jessica Vaughan, of the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Herald. “This is a huge number of incidents.
“This is a huge failure, and it’s happening with massive amounts of taxpayer money,” Vaughan added. “The state is clearly failing to provide a safe environment for these migrants.”
Massachusetts Emergency Assistance program bulletin news
The Massachusetts migrant-family shelter program has been at the center of attention over the last several months, as state officials grapple with figuring out where to house migrants and local residents. As of this week, nearly 7,400 families were enrolled in the Emergency Assistance family shelter program — 3,714 families in hotels/motels, and 3,667 in traditional shelters.
The Herald filed this public records request after previously reporting that more than 20 people had been banned from the migrant-family shelter program for “inappropriate actions.” Those individuals had been expelled while the state referred them to individual adult homeless shelters.
This also comes on the heels of the Herald finding out that a 29-year-old man was reportedly booted from a hotel housing migrant families in Marlboro, as a 16-year-old girl staying at the hotel got a restraining order against him.
For this public records request, the Herald had sought all of the details from the serious incident reports. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities withheld the detailed records under the Privacy Exemption and Public Safety Exemption.
That “exempts the disclosure of personnel and medical information, as well as data, that if disclosed, would constitute an ‘unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’ and allows for the withholding of certain records which, if released, will likely ‘jeopardize public safety,’ ” the state agency said in its response.
“The SIRs (Serious Incident Reports) contain a wide variety of information relating to the individuals involved, the locations involved as well as other highly sensitive information about shelter residents,” the state agency added.
The public deserves to get more details on what’s happening at these shelters, Vaughan said.
Massachusetts Emergency Assistance program bulletin news
“There needs to be some accountability,” Vaughan added. “The Healey administration appears to be giving the contractors a blank check, and have failed to take responsibility for what’s happening in these shelters, and that’s unconscionable.”
The Herald reached out to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities about the serious incident report data, asking about the safety and security of the shelter program.
“The safety and well-being of families in the Emergency Assistance program is a priority for the Administration,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement.
“If an incident occurs in an EA shelter, HLC staff and service providers work with families to ensure their safety, security, and well-being, including working with relevant authorities to address concerns,” the spokesperson added.
As defined by the Emergency Assistance program’s scope of services, serious incidents involve “serious misconduct, threatening behaviors, or actual harm involving or affecting an EA program, or any EA family members. Serious incidents can involve perpetrators that are EA family members, program staff, external community members or anyone else.”
Serious incidents do not necessarily reflect misconduct or violations of shelter rules by shelter residents, and can include any incident that occurs at a shelter site.
Massachusetts Emergency Assistance program bulletin news
For example, the incidents could include fire alarms or natural disasters, COVID-19 infections, unauthorized entry into shelter by non-EA residents, and other incidents that result in a major disruption of the EA program.
The shelter system has been under the microscope over the last several months. Earlier this year, a migrant was accused of raping a disabled girl at a local shelter. The migrant child rape case involving 26-year-old Cory Alvarez sparked a congressional inquiry and led to more Republican-fueled criticism of the emergency shelter system in Massachusetts.
Alvarez, a national from Haiti, is accused of raping a 15-year-old disabled girl at a state-run shelter in Rockland. He has been indicted by a Plymouth County grand jury for the alleged child rape.
Alvarez reportedly entered the U.S. lawfully through a federal program and underwent two state sex offender checks. He was screened and vetted against national security and public safety databases when he entered the U.S., and the Department of Homeland Security said no “derogatory information” was found.
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Massachusetts Emergency Assistance program bulletin news
