Marlborough Hotel To Shelter Homeless, Migrant Families: Officials

MARLBOROUGH, MA — City and school leaders in Marlborough have expressed outrage about a possible state plan to shelter as many as 170 homeless families at a local hotel, although only a fraction of that number are here today.

Marlborough Superintendent Mary Murphy at a June 27 school committee meeting said the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education notified her that 140 families — a mixture of local homeless families and migrants — would soon be housed at a local hotel.

Marlborough Mayor Arthur Vigeant, a member of the school committee, added that the state notified him in December that 40 families would shelter in a hotel here. State officials then told Murphy another 130 would be housed at the Holiday Inn, Vigeant said.

But in an update Thursday, the city said only 33 families that are either homeless or recent arrivals are staying at two city hotels.

"We know that there are 22 Haitian school age children at the Holiday Inn housed with their parents or guardians and anticipate the Holiday Inn filling [its] 170 rooms with Haitian families who speak [Haitian] Creole," Vigeant said in the update.

City officials are upset that the new residents will mean reduced local hotel tax revenues, fewer hotel rooms for local events — and primarily the possibility of hundreds of new students coming into the district.

A 1983 state law mandates that the state provide shelter for homeless families with children and pregnant women. Marlborough is just one of about 38 communities in the state where homeless people are living in hotels. Shrewsbury took in about 40 families recently, and Westborough's extended stay hotels have been used for much longer to house local homeless people. Westborough's former state hospital campus is also being opened as an emergency shelter.

Vigeant blamed the state and federal governments for not doing more to fix the problem of homelessness.

"We have an open faucet and we're putting sandbags around the sink — and we're going to run out of sandbags," Vigeant said.

On Wednesday alone, 20 new families entered the state's emergency shelter system, according to the state Division of Housing Stabilization. In total, there were 1,226 families living in hotels across the state on July 12.

The state's emergency shelter program is not available to homeless individuals or couples without children.

Vigeant told the Boston Globe in May that he informed local hotel owners that the city wouldn't provide help if they participated in the state's shelter program. Vigeant told the paper the state hasn't communicated well with communities where people are being housed in hotels.

In June, Gov. Maura Healey announced the opening of an intake center in Allston for homeless families, including immigrant families. Healey also activated 50 National Guard members to help house families at a new shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod, with plans to house about 60 families there. That shelter opened after one at Fort Devens opened by former governor Charlie Baker closed in March.

A supplemental state budget passed in March is providing $85 million in funding for the emergency shelter system. There's an additional $324 million in Healey's fiscal 2024 state budget for the program, although lawmakers have not approved the budget yet.

"It is clear that our housing crisis is pushing our most vulnerable families into precarious housing situations and increasing demand for emergency shelter. We have engaged in a cross-cabinet effort to recognize and address the needs of new arrivals and longtime residents who are unable to find affordable, safe housing," Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus Jr. said in a news release in June. "The new Family Welcome Center and additional shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod will help us relieve pressure on our emergency family shelter system with an inter-agency response to meet the needs of residents and families."

At the June school committee meeting, Marlborough officials discussed ways to handle the influx of new families, including a census to figure out how many students might enter the school system this fall, and offering Haitian Creole translators.

Two local social services agencies are also stepping in to help in Marlborough. The Framingham-based South Middlesex Opportunity Council is helping the homeless families and Eliot Community Human Services is helping the Haitian families.

Haitians are fleeing their home country due to a combination of political turmoil and natural disasters. The 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse has left the country on the verge of collapse due to street violence and a tumbling economy. The assassination followed a devastating earthquake in 2021 that left nearly 2,300 people dead.