QUINCY, MASS. (WHDH) - A group of about 50 migrants slept outside the Wollaston MBTA stop in Quincy Monday night.
The migrant families — most or all from Haiti — had their belongings stacked outside the T stop Tuesday. They had to leave hotel rooms where they had been staying Monday because emergency relief funds ran out.
“Unfortunately, it did mean that there were about 50 people sleeping outside, is my understanding, and a lot of them children,” said Reverend Annie Gonzalez, of the Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network. “It is heartbreaking.”
Thanks to a grant from the United Way, volunteers from the Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network had been paying for temporary housing, but now the grant money is gone.
“We knew that this day would come where we would no longer be able to fill in this gap,” Gonzalez said.
On July 9, Gov. Maura Healey announced migrants seeking shelter would no longer be allowed to sleep inside terminals at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
“It’s a little depressing because of the kids. The kids just don’t deserve that,” said Wisler Sol, a migrant from Haiti.
The volunteer organization, which has been helping these Haitian migrants, said the governor should greenlight rainy day account funds for emergency shelters to offset this humanitarian crisis.
“I think she does have the power to make a change, so while there’s lots of blame to go around to many systems and levels of government, I hope she will take action because I think she can be the one to get these families off the street,” Gonzalez said.
Healey has said the state’s emergency shelter system must be capped at 7,500 families and is beyond capacity.
“It’s terrible that families slept outside last night. We have asked the nonprofit assisting them to bring them to our Family Welcome Centers today so that they can be referred to a Temporary Respite Center,” Healey’s office said in a statement.
One of those centers is located nearby at Eastern Nazarene College.
However, under the state’s policy, which is partly aimed at controlling costs, a family which takes up to a five-day stay at one of the state’s respite centers is ineligible to apply for a more permanent shelter placement for six months.
“That’s a way to penalize them and to prevent them from getting into the system in the first place,” said Jeff Thielman, president and CEO of the International Institute of New England. “Discouraging people from staying in a respite care center that may have beds open in it is wrong.”
The United Way of Massachusetts said it provided a $75,000 grant along with the Boston Foundation to the community group. The United Way continues to fund up to a dozen safety net shelters around the state.
The T has reported no issues and said it is committed to a clean and safe transit system for its riders.
Becky Smick saw the situation when she got off the T and went home to get her daughter. The two came back to the T stop with bubbles and crayons to dance and play with the children outside.
“I thought about what I had and what I wanted to do and what I would hope I would do and I think about modeling for my daughter,” Smick said.
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