Who is in the gray area of emergency assistance shelter support?

Editors: Gioselys is correct spelling

BOSTON — The state’s Emergency Assistance law extends the right-to-shelter to “needy families with children and pregnant women with no other children.” But beyond that, the language and requirements of the 41-year-old law are vague on eligibility leaving many gray areas.

As a result, questions regularly arise over family income eligibility, previous shelter placement and even the definition of a pregnant person. The vagueness can lead to questions about safety.

Trans Individuals

Tre’Andre Valentine, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, said the law and other forms of communication need to emphasize consistent inclusion.

“To be more inclusive, it is to expand the language to include trans people,” Valentine said. “It's not just a woman, right? It's cis people and trans people.”

For example, while the authorizing legislation described pregnant individuals as “women,” the state's Emergency Housing Assistance page uses the words “pregnant people.” The difference in wording can lead to completely different treatment and placement of trans people.

Valentine recalled a time when they received a complaint from a trans woman in a shelter who was forced to shower with cisgender men. When Valentine called the shelter, they informed him that the trans woman had identified male in their paperwork.

“Is it that your language is forcing a person to identify in a way that does not align with who they are, just so that they can keep themselves safe or to receive services like that?” Valentine said. “Someone … shouldn't have to do that, when it is just a simple adjustment in language.”

Dreya Catozzi, founder of the Urban Trans Women Center and a member on the MTPC’s steering committee, said the crux of moving forward should be on educating people both running shelters and writing legislation.

“It's not as hard as … they're making it,” Catozzi said. “You have to use common sense. You can't place transgender women with cisgender men, you're putting their lives in danger.”

Valentine said that he found trans people had “myriad” experiences in shelter, frequently calling them “helpful.”“Safety? Comfortable? That’s a different story,” they said.

Valentine heard various complaints such as trans women being forced to change and shower in front of cis men or being misgendered by not only others in the shelter but also staffers.

“They're going to end up getting raped,” Catozzi said.

Beyond the issue of safety for trans people in shelters, Valentine pointed out that most Massachusetts resources for LGBT+ unhoused people are geared toward youth.

“Once you are 25 and older here, good luck to you,” Valentine said.

Families in Gray Areas

Families are eligible for emergency assistance, but are required to meet various guidelines to qualify for housing.

One requirement is that a family’s gross income is 115% or less than federal poverty guidelines — which for a family of four cannot surpass $2,875 monthly.

Families also cannot break the “12-month rule,” a guideline that did not allow families to be placed if they were in EA shelter in the previous 12 months or had been denied shelter placement.

Gioselys Pena, housing team coordinator at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, said the thought behind the 12-month rule stemmed from the idea that people would sign a 12-month lease upon leaving the shelter and could not re-enter until that lease was up.

That intention can leave select families in a gray area.

Laura Rossi, CEO of Housing Families, recalled a woman who had to turn down placement in Greenfield because her newborn child had health issues that required her to take medical appointments in Boston.

Turning down the placement meant breaking the 12-month rule, one that led her down a path of appeals led by Housing Families’ legal team.

Pena encouraged unhoused people with proper documentation and reason to present provisions and issues to the housing authority they are applying to.

“Some places give you priority because you were displaced from the city,” Pena said.

The Waiting Game

Pena also noted the increasing number of applications are further delaying placements.

“Housing is just a slow process at the moment because the applications are just growing,” Pena said.

She said the typical wait time for families to receive shelter ranged between three to five years due to the application volume. The quickest wait time she has seen a family get support is eight months. She noted the family had well-documented domestic violence to receive the support.

Pena said that all forms of housing support are facing slow-moving review, noting 2009 applications for Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers are just now starting to be looked at.

Pena hopes to see more improvements in the efficiency of the review process.

“If we kind of focus on the system that we have in place, and bettering the system, maybe we can go through these applications a little bit quicker and more efficiently and lower the waitlist,” Pena said.

She said families tended to get support quicker since it is more difficult to find a single apartment or single living space for individuals.

Once in the shelter, Pena said she has seen unhoused people stay for as long as two to three years.

“We’re seeing this in Massachusetts and across the country, the housing crisis is just so dire that people are not able to move out of shelters and homelessness fast enough and new people keep entering as that kind of housing crisis continues to get worse,” Joyce Tavon, CEO of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, said.

Instead, the Massachusetts House has proposed tightening how long shelters can be used as the state grapples with an influx of migrants who now comprise about half of shelter residents. That rapid growth prompted Gov. Maura Healey to cap the number of eligible families at 7,500.

The $245 million supplemental appropriation, now awaiting action by the Senate, would fund the EA system until June 30. It also restricts length of stay in shelter to nine consecutive months, with a three month add-on for those in job training programs or employed.

Select families and individuals, such as veterans, victims of domestic violence, pregnant women and disabled people, are given the exception of a 12-month period of stay.

“Ensuring that people exit the shelter system in a timely manner is crucial to the emergency assistance program’s long-term viability,” House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-Quincy, said.

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, said the average stay at a shelter ranged around 13 to 14 months and only grows daily.

“If we don't get our hands wrapped around this from a logistical standpoint, financially, as the speaker said, it'll collapse, it will not be able to be maintained long-term,” Michlewitz said.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Emergency assistance staff swamped with applications