The government of Massachusetts is looking for anyone in the state who would be prepared to provide temporary housing for recently arriving families. Until more permanent housing arrangements can be made, guests typically stay with locals who offer them a place to sleep for a few nights.
As the number of homeless families in the state continues to rise, officials have implemented a new plan that relies on host families to help house them. The new Family Welcome Center in Allston is responsible for identifying families in need and recruiting, screening, and enrolling host families.
Most host families are found through referrals from other volunteers or local community members.
The Brazilian Worker Center, which oversees the Allston welcome center, may be reached by anybody interested in hosting.
Refugees housed through State Department programs and unaccompanied adolescents in need of shelter have traditionally been supported through the host family model. Advocates for the homeless, however, claim that it has not before been used widely for family homelessness.
Administration officials stress that this is only a temporary fix and not a permanent one.
Volunteers are not paid for their time but receive supplies like gift cards, food, and infant formula, according to advocates who have been informed about the initiative.
Since illegal immigration keeps increasing the state’s homeless population, officials are pleading with locals to take in border crossers and illegal aliens.
Governor Maura Healey (D) is appealing to Massachusetts people with spare beds in their houses or flats to consider providing shelter to border crossers and illegal aliens.
Even though the state already spends money subsidizing roughly 40 hotels and motels around the state to host new immigrants, Healey wants to move them into private homes.
Oddly, but maybe not, Healey has not sent illegal aliens to any of Massachusetts’s “elite” areas, such as Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, or Cambridge.
About 316,000 undocumented immigrants are now living in the Bay State.
