Joint Committee on Housing
The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association (MHA), on behalf of our member hospitals, health systems, physician organizations and allied healthcare providers, appreciates the opportunity to offer strong support for HB1265, An Act to protect families experiencing homelessness from having to sleep in unsafe places.
Under current Emergency Assistance regulations, families that are within 24 hours of staying in places not meant for human habitation can be turned away from shelter, even if the Department of Housing & Community Development (DHCD) believes that the family will be forced to stay in cars, transit stations, or hospital emergency department (ED) waiting rooms. According to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, more than 600 families were approved for emergency assistance in FY2018 after first staying in a location not meant for human habitation, and in the first six months of FY2019, almost 300 families slept in such locations before being approved by DHCD for shelter.
HB1265 directs DHCD in statute to provide Emergency Assistance shelter to otherwise eligible families with children, without first requiring families to prove that they have already stayed in a place not meant for human habitation, such as a car, emergency department, or campground. Under the current policy, families often go to hospital clinics and ED waiting areas when they have no other safe place to sleep and need to qualify for emergency shelter services. Hospital EDs are not only inappropriate locations for families with children to sleep, but such activity also redirects resources away from the healthcare services that hospitals provide. Families who otherwise qualify for shelter shouldn’t have to tough it out in an emergency department waiting area to demonstrate their need for assistance from the state.
Thank you for the opportunity to offer comments on this important matter. If you have any questions or require further information, please contact Michael Sroczynski, MHA's Senior Vice President of Government Advocacy at (781) 262-6055 or msroczynski@mhalink.org