BOSTON – Advocates for the homeless brought their message straight to the office of Gov. Maura Healey Thursday, delivering a petition, as they implored her to rescind a new policy that allows some families only five days to stay in the state’s four emergency overflow shelters in Lexington, Chelsea, Norfolk and Cambridge.
Families have nowhere to go
“We’re very concerned that families who have no place else to go will be left on the streets, in transit stations , in cars,” said Kelly Turley with Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. Advocates said migrant and homeless families are already in these shelters because they have no other options.
WBZ-TV spoke to a mother of two who has been living for a month at an overflow shelter at the Cambridge Registry of Deeds. She said she has no other family and after Friday, does not know where she’ll go. Tim Scalona, whose own family was forced into the shelter system for years when he was a child knows all too well the insecurity especially felt by children. He attended the State House rally Thursday.