Pilot program to move illegals from shelters to apartments costs $112K per family, hit only 23% goal in 2024

None of the state's resettlement contractors hit goal

Governor Maura Healey

Raising significant concerns for Governor Maura Healey’s promise to phase out hotel shelters this year, a pilot program to relocate homeless families into apartments and out of Healey Hotels has fallen far short of its goal to “resettle” 400 families in 2024.

The Healey administration spent $10.5 million ($8 million in program funds, $2.5 million in administration funding) in 2024 resettling 93 families for an average cost of $112,903 per successfully resettled family. The program claims that 131 additional families “have signed leases and appear poised to move.” But in November, the program reported 117 families “poised to move” but actually only resettled 11 families in December.

Resettlement Report, January 2025.

In the governor’s state of the state address just last week, Healey promised to “phase out hotel shelters this year.” The average stay at a Healey Hotel stands at 376 days, according to a report issued this month.

The pilot program was designed to forge a path for the Governor’s state of the state goal by increasing the HomeBASE program for migrants: “making families eligible for up to $25,000 of rental aid annually for two years. Families can currently receive up to $30,000 over two years or $45,000 over three years,” according to Fox25.

But the EA Housing program is expected to cost over $1B in FY25 and FY26 without significant program revisions.

Cristina Aguilera, Executive Director of the Office of Refugees and Immigrants wrote in the year end report: “none [of the state resettlement contractors] met those targets. This slow start reflected the difficulty of ramping up a new set of services during a state emergency, under pressure of time, and in a tight housing market.”

Healey’s plan, which will make Massachusetts even more expensive for working class families by adding demand to rental housing market, has been in motion for sometime as detailed by a December 2023 CommonwealthBeacon opinion piece “A better way to deal with the state’s shelter crisis” authored by Alexandra Weber and Jeff Thielman both of the International Institute of New England.

Thielman is a frequently quoted advocate of on the “resettlement strategy” Healey now plans employ to shift migrants from hotels to the rental market. Thielman he told Fox25 in March: “Our goal is to move 400 families from hotels and shelters into apartments and more permanent housing by the end of the calendar year.”

The International Institute of New England received a $1.3 million contract for the program in 2024.

In speaking with Fox25 Thielman acknowledged the housing shortage.

“So, we are going to have to be creative in terms of casting a very broad geographic net. We are going to have to go to parts of the state and parts of the regions we haven’t looked at before. I’m sure,” he said.