Report of the Special Commission on
Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
November 19, 2024
Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Table of Contents
Executive Summary .................................................................................................... 1
Commission Overview ................................................................................................ 3
Commission Members ............................................................................................ 3
History of the EA Program and Current Status .............................................................. 5
Timeline and Key Milestones .................................................................................... 8
Present Status of EA System ...................................................................................17
Fiscal Overview .........................................................................................................19
Stakeholder Feedback ...............................................................................................22
Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................23
EA Program Findings and Recommendations ..............................................................26
1. Ensure the EA Shelter System is Fiscally Sustainable ........................................26
2. Ensure the EA Shelter System is Operationally Sustainable ...............................27
3. Emphasize Prevention, Diversion, and Exit Tools ...............................................28
4. Limit Reliance on Hotels and Motels as EA Shelter ............................................29
5. Maintain Policies that Set Clear Expectations and Outcomes ............................30
6. Move Toward a Needs-Based Model, Away From a One-Size-Fits-All Approach...31
7. Continue and Improve Regional EA Shelter System Management ......................32
8. Strengthen Affordable Housing Access Across Massachusetts ..........................32
9. Improve Data Collection, Collaboration, and Analysis.......................................33
10. Convene and Consult with Experts and Stakeholders ....................................33
Conclusion................................................................................................................34
Appendix A: Families in the EA System ........................................................................35
Appendix B: List of Written Testimony Received from Organizations .............................37
Appendix C: Additional Recommendations from Individual Commission Members .......38
Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Executive Summary
The Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs (Commission),
established by Section 23 of Ch. 88 of the Acts 2024 and chaired by Lt. Governor Driscoll,
studied and made recommendations on “(i) the sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness
of the emergency housing assistance program; (ii) how to best support and ensure the long-
term sufficiency of those seeking shelter; and (iii) creating a regional based response to
support families in need of shelter.”
The Commission has convened five meetings to better understand the surge in emergency
assistance (“EA”) family shelter caseload, the fiscal and operational constraints on the EA
shelter program, and how to improve the EA shelter program to better serve families. The
Commission analyzed how shelter caseload and system costs have increased to
unsustainable levels since 2022, and what challenges the emergency shelter system faced
prior to the surge in caseload. It also discussed how families use the EA shelter system,
including how long families have historically stayed in shelter, and the services they have
access to while in shelter.
The Commission reviewed the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s response to an extraordinary
increase in demand for EA shelter, and the new policies that have been put in place to
respond to increased demand and move toward a system that provides services adjusted for
family needs and risks. The Commission discussed the tools that exist for families to exit or
divert from shelter into sustainable housing and access employment resources.
The Commission has aligned on high-level principles to shape the future of this program.
• Family homelessness should be rare, brief, and nonrecurring.
• The pathways for families in the EA shelter system should not be one-size-fits-all.
• The EA shelter system should be operationally and fiscally sustainable.
The Commission offers recommendations to shift toward these principles:
1. Ensure the EA Shelter System is Fiscally Sustainable
2. Ensure the EA Shelter System is Operationally Sustainable
3. Focus on Prevention, Diversion, and Exit Tools
4. Limit Reliance on Hotels and Motels as EA Shelter
5. Maintain Policies that Set Clear Expectations and Outcomes
6. Move Toward a Needs-Based Model, Away From a One-Size-Fits-All Approach
7. Continue and Improve Regional EA Shelter System Management
8. Strengthen Affordable Housing Access Across Massachusetts
Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
9. Improve Data Collection, Collaboration, and Analysis
10. Convene and Consult with Experts and Stakeholders
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Commission Overview
In response to the surge in Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter system caseload,
Section 23 of Chapter 88 of the Acts 2024 established the Special Commission on
Emergency Housing Assistance Programs (the Commission), mandated to “study and make
recommendations on: (i) the sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness of the emergency
housing assistance program; (ii) how to best support and ensure the long-term sufficiency
of those seeking shelter; and (iii) creating a regional based response to support families in
need of shelter.” 1
In Commission meetings, members sought to understand the current fiscal and operational
state of the EA family shelter program and how families are navigating this system. Meetings
covered topics ranging from the tools families use to exit shelter to what kinds of shelter sites
serve families best. The Commission has agreed on a new vision for the EA family shelter
program focused on making family homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring, designed to
be operationally and fiscally sustainable, and moving away from a one-size-fits-all model for
families.
The Commission is chaired by Lieutenant Governor Kimberley Driscoll and includes
representatives of relevant state departments, bipartisan representation from both the
Senate and House of Representatives, and representatives from shelter providers and
advocacy groups.
Commission Members
• *Lieutenant Governor Kimberley Driscoll, Commission Chair
• *Secretary Edward Augustus, Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities
• *Secretary Kate Walsh, Secretary of Health and Human Services
• *Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz, Secretary of Administration and Finance
• *Cristina Aguilera Sandoval, Executive Director, Office for Immigrants and Refugees
• *Senator Lydia Edwards, Senate Chair, Joint Committee on Housing
• †Representative James Arciero, House Chair, Joint Committee on Housing
• *Senator Robyn Kennedy, Senate Chair, Joint Committee on Children, Families and
Persons with Disabilities
• †Representative Jay Livingstone, House Chair, Joint Committee on Children,
Families and Persons with Disabilities
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Session Law - Acts of 2024 Chapter 88
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
• *Representative Paul Frost, Second Assistant Minority Leader
• *Senator Ryan Fattman, Assistant Minority Leader
• *Leah Bradley, Chief Executive Officer, Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance
• *Lyndia Downie, President & Executive Director, Pine Street Inn
• *Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint, President & Executive Director, True Alliance Center
* Voted to approve the report at the Commission’s November 19, 2024 meeting. (Sec.
Gorzkowicz was represented at the November 19, 2024 meeting by his designee, Catia
Sharp, Chief of Social Innovation, Executive Office for Administration and Finance.)
† Abstained from voting on the report at the Commission’s November 19, 2024 meeting.
Starting in July 2024, the Commission convened five meetings. The full minutes and slides
from these meetings can be accessed online on the Mass.gov Emergency Housing
Assistance webpage. 2 Individual commissioners also conducted six listening sessions with
external stakeholders to inform the content and recommendations of this report. Overviews
of topics covered in these listening sessions are covered in a later section.
2
Emergency Housing Assistance | Mass.gov
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
History of the EA Program and Current Status
With the 1983 passage of Section 30 of Chapter 23B, Massachusetts created a one-of-a-kind
family shelter system that provides temporary emergency shelter for families with children
and pregnant individuals who are experiencing homelessness. The statute creating the
program has been amended several times, and the modern iteration of this shelter system
is the Emergency Assistance (EA) program which has contributed to one of the lowest rates
of unsheltered family homelessness in the country.
Since establishment, family shelter caseload levels have risen and fallen in response to
external economic and immigration factors and affordable housing availability. Historically,
as caseload has increased, hotels and motels have been used to emergently scale up the
EA shelter system and provide short-term shelter when demand exceeds the supply of
permanent shelter units. Prior to the extraordinary demand in the last two years, the state’s
EA shelter caseload peaked in 2014 at 4,600 families, with 1,500 families in temporary
shelter units at hotels and motels. In response to high EA shelter demand, the state
developed new diversion and exit tools such as the HomeBASE program, which provides
funds and case management to families who find permanent housing as an alternative to EA
shelter. EA shelter caseload reached 2,800 families in 2020 after an effort by the state to
reduce reliance on hotels and motels. In part, the reduced reliance on temporary hotel and
motel shelter units was accomplished by adding scattered shelter sites, which are individual
apartments rented from landlords to be used as shelter. These units look and feel more like
permanent housing than other types of shelter units. During the COVID-19 pandemic,
turnover in the apartment rental market and EA shelter system slowed significantly. While
caseload remained between 3,000 and 3,500 families (see Figure 1), the number of families
exiting shelter declined significantly causing the average length of time families spent in
shelter to increase from an average of 378 days in 2018, to over 450 days in 2021.
Additionally, housing affordability and low vacancy rates exacerbate the challenges families
face to exit shelter.
Since 2017, the state has substantially increased its investment in the EA shelter program,
which has helped address an increase in the need for shelter due to rising housing costs and,
in more recent years, the influx of new immigrants who qualify for EA. However, increased
investment has historically not been paired with improvements or efficiencies that can help
the system serve more families with less units, and therefore less expense. As a result,
budget appropriations for EA shelter have risen from $155 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 to
$501 million in FY 2025.
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Figure 1. Historical EA Shelter Caseload Typically Remains Below 4,000: 2010-2024
9,000
8,000
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
Jan-10
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Jan-15
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Jan-17
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Jan-19
Jan-20
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Jan-22
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Jan-24
Jul-10
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Jul-24
The state has significantly increased funding for housing stabilization programs like
HomeBASE since the start of the most recent surge in demand, from $32 million in FY 2017
to $57 million in FY 2025, and Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT), from
$13 million in FY 2017 to $197 million in FY 2025. These programs are designed to prevent
families from experiencing homelessness or to exit and divert families from shelter in order
to ensure that families’ stays in shelter are brief, rare, and non-recurring. These programs
were previously under the Department of Housing and Community Development and are
overseen today by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC). 3 For
a full overview of funding levels since 2017, see Figure 2.
3
The Healey-Driscoll Administration elevated housing and homelessness by creating a new Executive Office
of Housing and Livable Communities in June of 2023.
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Figure 2. Increased Investment in EA Shelter, HomeBASE, and RAFT Since FY 2017
700,000,000
600,000,000
500,000,000
400,000,000
300,000,000
200,000,000
100,000,000
0
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
EA General Appropriations EA Supplemental Funding
HomeBASE Funding RAFT Funding
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Timeline and Key Milestones
In 2022, the number of families eligible for and requesting EA shelter began to rapidly
increase due to federal policies on immigration and work authorization, a shortage of
affordable housing related to inadequate production of homes over the last decade in
Massachusetts, and the end of COVID-era food and housing security programs. By March
2023, the EA shelter caseload surpassed the approximately 3,500 families that the EA
shelter program has historically served and was continuing to experience extraordinary
levels of new daily demand (68 families new per day seeking access to EA shelter, up from
25 families per day a year prior) – see Figure 3.
Figure 3. Extraordinary Rise in EA Shelter Caseload: January 2023 – June 2024
Incident Command: An All-of-Government Approach (May 2023)
In May 2023, the Healey-Driscoll Administration implemented an Incident Command
Structure to coordinate services and address the needs of the shelter population among the
Governor’s Office, Executive Office of Administration and Finance (EOAF), the Executive
Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), the Executive Office of Housing and Livable
Communities (EOHLC), the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD),
the Executive Office of Education (EOE), the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security
(EOPSS), the Executive Office of Veterans’ Services (EOVS), the Office for Refugees and
Immigrants (ORI), and many other partner agencies.
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Report of the Special Commission on Emergency Housing Assistance Programs
Family Welcome Centers (summer 2023)
In the summer of 2023, a new Family Welcome Centers (FWC)
Family Welcome Center (FWC) FWCs serve as a central entry point to connect families
program was created, and sites in with services including but not limited to EA shelter intake;
Allston and Quincy opened in basic needs provisions; employment authorization legal
June and July respectively, to assistance; public benefits enrollment; vaccinations and
assist families seeking housing health screenings; reticketing; and referrals to ESOL, legal
assistance and coordinate assistance, mental health and healthcare services.
services through a family-centric approach at the front door. The FWCs provide assistance
with meeting basic needs and making referrals to a wide range of resources and have co-
located services for health assessments and immunizations through the Department of
Public Health (DPH), benefit applications assistance through the Department of Transitional
Assistance (DTA), and legal assistance in applying for work authorizations through the
Lawyer for a Day program among others.
Rapid Expansion: Supplemental Shelter Sites (July 2023)
In July 2023, to continue to meet rapidly expanding EA shelter demand of 68 families per day,
EA shelter expanded into hotels and motels at such a rapid pace that EOHLC was unable to
coordinate and scale EA shelter provider contracts to provide basic needs support and case
management at many new hotel and motel sites as is a standard component of the EA
shelter model. These sites were referred to as “supplemental shelters,” and despite the
Healey-Driscoll Administration’s preference to have EA shelt