The shelter services at the state transportation building in Boston are shuttering Friday after families in need of emergency shelter have been put up in the office building's conference rooms since Nov. 20.
More than a week after Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey's administration began placing shelter-seeking families on a waitlist in November, officials announced that they would use part of the Department of Transportation and MBTA headquarters to temporarily house eligible families for whom no space was available. The building at 10 Park Plaza in downtown Boston was only used as a temporary, overnight facility, retired Lt. Gen. Scott Rice, the administration's emergency assistance director, said at the time.
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"The temporary safety net site at 10 Park Plaza will close on Friday, December 8," Rice said Thursday in a statement responding to an inquiry.
The emergency assistance director said the state is opening a new assessment site for incoming shelter-seekers in Revere, and is looking to open a new safety net site soon.
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"We greatly appreciate the collaboration of MassDOT, MBTA, MEMA and other state agencies who stepped up to make sure families had a safe, warm place to stay," Rice said. "On Friday, we will transition operations to Eastern Nazarene and open a new Clinical and Safety Risk Assessment site in Revere. We will soon be opening an additional safety net site. Catholic Charities continues to operate their safety net site, and United Way hopes to open more soon.”
The state is utilizing the existing site at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy to accommodate up to 57 families, and that shelter will not be limited to overnight stays, according to an Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities official.
Using the Quincy college as temporary shelter for migrant families has caused tensions in the city, the Patriot Ledger reported in September.
According to the Ledger's reporting, ENC was contracted with the state to host the program for one year and as of September, 350 families had passed through the college from July 31, mostly staying between five and seven days.
Denis Rincon is the director of the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts and tells us that the migrants are feeling overwhelmed during this uncertainty.
“They feel unsafe. They don’t have all the information. They don’t understand why they are moving from one place to another.”
She hopes the state can offer more permanent solutions soon, saying,
"The state is already doing what they can do," she said. "It is a problem we are all trying to deal with the best we can.”
