FOXBORO, MASS. (WHDH) - Some football fans as well as veterans are being told their hotel reservations were canceled ahead of the Army-Navy game at Gillette Stadium, as the state continues to try and find emergency housing for migrants.
The game will kick off on Dec. 9, but more than two months ahead of time, football fans and a travel agent who spoke with 7NEWS described seeing reservations get axed as the state looks to find shelter for migrants arriving in Massachusetts.
It’s part of a situation that previously led Governor Maura Healey to activate some 250 National Guard members, and was also the topic of a virtual meeting held between state officials and the state’s Washington, D.C. delegation on Thursday.
“We stressed to them that we need help,” said Massachusetts State House Speaker Ron Mariano.
The plea came after Gov. Healey responded to questions last week on how veterans from across the country coming for the Army-Navy football game at Gillette were being kicked out of hotel rooms to make room for migrants who were placed there.
“I was very concerned and troubled to hear that any veteran may have had their rooms canceled,” Healey said at the time.
As of late August, some 6,000 families were said to be in emergency shelters. The recent influx led to the governor declaring a state of emergency as the number of arriving families were causing the state’s emergency shelter to “expand in an unsustainable manner,” according to her administration.
Meanwhile, a hotel chain that canceled reservations, Giri Hotel Management, said in a statement that it was proud to help the migrants, and that it will “seamlessly relocate guests who had initially booked with us to our sister hotels, to ensure their comfort and satisfaction.”
But a travel agent handling more than a dozen impacted clients told 7NEWS the chain told him they couldn’t help.
As the situation continues, Dale Kurtz, a West Point vet from Franklin, says he has been trying to get the Army-Navy game here for years and is voicing his frustration over how so many of his fellow veterans have been treated.
“These people are from Iowa, they’re from California, Seattle – they don’t know who to reach out to here,” Kurtz said.
Kurtz said hotel privacy policies have kept him from reaching out to help all the affected veterans. State officials admit they may have trouble finding them, too.
It’s a situation that’s one more example of why frustrated state leaders are demanding more help from Washington.
“Anything that they can provide us to relieve the pressures that we are beginning to feel,” Mariano said.
Meanwhile, for some hoping to head to Foxboro this year, any assistance might be too late.
According to the travel agent 7NEWS spoke with, about half of their clients have been re-booked while the other half is now either driving or skipping the game altogether.
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