A worker walks through the over 300 Army cots on the gym floor as State and local officials toured the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex. The facility will be housing over 300 migrants.
A new emergency shelter is opening in Lexington, Massachusetts, to house migrant and other homeless families as the state continues to grapple with a strained and over-capacity shelter system.
The Lexington town manager said the town was informed of the plan about a week ago. The shelter will be at the state-owned Lexington Armory building on Bedford Street.
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“The State has also informed our School Superintendent of any expected impacts. As this is a transitional site while the state locates more permanent housing for these families, we expect the only real impact to be our Health Department to make sure all their needs are met and the challenge with the schools in having students that may only be with our system for a short, temporary period," Town Manager James Malloy told NBC10 Boston in a statement.
At full capacity, the building should be able to house 55 families, according to the state, while officials look for more permanent solutions.
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Massachusetts is the only state in the country that guarantees emergency shelter services to some families and pregnant women under a right-to-shelter law. Last fall, Gov. Maura Healey imposed a capacity limit of 7,500 families as the state saw a record number of people in need, spurred forward by an influx of migrant families arriving in the state. The system had remained at capacity for months, with some families on wait lists or living in transitional "safety net" sites.
State lawmakers have been looking at ways to address the crisis, including coming up with a budget that dedicates millions of dollars to keep the family shelter program functional. There is also a proposal to limit the length of a stay at a shelter site to nine months, which worries advocates who say the average stay is significantly longer.
State leaders, including Gov. Healey, have also called on the federal government for more aid and to control the situation at the border.
