Massachusetts’ migrant family shelter program has received more than 300 reports of ‘serious incidents’ this year: ‘Deeply disturbing’

The Herald has learned that more than 300 reports of “serious incidents” have been logged at migrant family shelters in the Bay State so far this year.

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities has recorded a total of 316 reports of serious incidents at hotels, congregate settings, dispersed locations and co-shelters under the Family Shelter Emergency Assistance program.

The Herald obtained the Bay State’s “Serious Incident Reports Tracker Data” through a public records request after it was previously revealed how many people had been removed from the migrant family shelter program for “inappropriate actions.”

The “Serious Incident Report Tracker Data” is broken down by shelter type, month, and the agency that requested the various incidents.

Hotels had the most reported serious incidents with 125, followed by congregate settings with 78, dispersed settings with 72 and co-shelters with 22. There were 19 other incidents, but officials said they could not determine what type of shelter or agency was 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 colossal failure, and it’s happening with huge amounts of taxpayer money,” Vaughan added. “The state is clearly failing to provide a safe environment for these migrants.”

Massachusetts’ migrant family shelter program has been in the spotlight in recent months as state officials have struggled to figure out where to house migrants and locals. As of this week, nearly 7,400 families were enrolled in Emergency Assistance’s family shelter program — 3,714 in hotels/motels and 3,667 in traditional shelters.

The Herald filed the public records request after it previously reported that more than 20 people had been excluded from the state’s migrant family shelter program for “inappropriate behavior.” These individuals were expelled while the state referred them to individual homeless shelters.

This also follows the Herald reporting that a 29-year-old man was reportedly thrown out of a Marlboro hotel housing migrant families, while a restraining order was taken out against a 16-year-old girl at the hotel.

For this public records request, the Herald had requested all 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 “creates an exception to the disclosure of personnel and medical information, as well as data that, if made public, would constitute an ‘unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,’ and allows for the withholding of certain data that, if released, would likely ‘endanger public safety,’” the state agency said in its response.

“The SIRs (Serious Incident Reports) contain a wide variety of information about the individuals involved, the locations involved and other highly sensitive information about the residents of the shelters,” the state agency said.

According to Vaughan, the public deserves more information about what is happening in these shelters.

“There needs to be some accountability,” Vaughan added. “The Healey administration seems to have given the contractors a blank check and has failed to take responsibility for what’s happening in these shelters, and that’s unconscionable.”

The Herald contacted the Executive Office of Housing and Livingable Communities about the data from the serious incident report and asked questions about the safety and security of the shelter program.

“The safety and well-being of families in the emergency response program is a priority for the government,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

“If an incident occurs at an EA shelter, HLC staff and service providers work with families to ensure their safety, security and wellbeing, including working with relevant authorities to address concerns,” the spokesperson added.

As defined by the Emergency Assistance Program Scope of Services, serious incidents include “serious misconduct, threatening behavior, or actual harm related to or affecting an EA program, or EA family members. Serious incidents may involve perpetrators who are EA family members, program staff, external community members, or anyone else.”

Serious incidents do not necessarily indicate misconduct or violations of shelter rules by shelter residents. They can be any incident that occurs at the shelter location.

Examples of incidents include fire alarms, natural disasters, COVID infections, unauthorized access to shelters by non-EA residents, and other incidents that result in a major disruption to the EA program.