Homeless families to be barred from sleeping overnight at Logan International Airport
BOSTON — Homeless families and individuals will not be allowed to stay overnight at Boston’s Logan International Airport starting July 9, state officials said Friday.
The state has made efforts to open more overflow shelter beds for homeless families, including many recently arrived migrants who have used the airport as a last resort, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said. are coveredand now that more families have found stable housing, the state is able to end the practice of people staying overnight at the airport, said Scott Rice, director of emergency management.
“This is in the best interests of Logan families, travelers and staff as the airport is not an appropriate place for people to seek shelter,” Rice said in a statement.
Families staying overnight in Logan who are on the state’s emergency shelter waiting list will be offered transfers to the state’s safety net system, including a site in Norfolk that opened this week to accommodate up to 140 families at full capacity.
The number of families leaving shelters has steadily increased in recent months, with more than 300 families leaving in May – the highest number in years, Rice said. But Massachusetts still has no shelter in place, he said.
“If families are traveling to Massachusetts, they need to be prepared with a housing plan that does not include Logan Airport or our emergency shelters,” he said.
Advocates for the homeless have raised concerns about the airport ban. Given limits on the number of families who can access emergency shelter, Logan Airport has been an “insufficient but critical lifeline” for hundreds of children and parents waiting for long-term housing this year, said Kelly Turley, deputy director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.
Advocates called on the state to better address the underlying causes of the state’s broader housing affordability and homelessness crisis.
Earlier this week, Healey sent a team of officials, led by Rice, to the southern border. They met with organizations that help families at the border, including Catholic Charities and the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, to ensure they had what the government described as “accurate, updated information to share about the lack of shelter space in Massachusetts.”
The government will continue to spread the message through flyers in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.
In addition to stating that the state’s shelters are full, the flyers also list some sobering facts about the state, including that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is between $2,800 and $3,500 and that Massachusetts is “very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer.”
Also Friday, the Supreme Court allowed cities to impose bans on… homeless people sleep outside in public places, for ideological reasons, stipulating that such laws do not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, even in areas of the West Coast where there is a shortage of shelters.