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Here’s what we know about the families seeking shelter in Kingston and Plymouth

"It would have been easier to provide support if we had been a part of the planning process."

Jeneeda Lewis’s children (L-R) Legend, 5, Nova, 2, and Ny’Ellie, 9, play together on the grounds of a hotel where they are living. The family is part of a group of people, including Haitian refugees, who were staying in Methuen but have been moved by the state to a new hotel in Kingston. (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)

By Susannah Sudborough

October 27, 2022

4 minutes to read

Kingston and Plymouth town officials are expressing frustration with the state for failing to notify them ahead of time that dozens of people in need would be seeking shelter in their towns.

As of Thursday, these families, which include both migrants and homeless people, are being taken care of and staying at hotels. Still, it’s unclear exactly how long they will be hosted in these towns and where they will go next.

The Boston Globe reported that 107 people, including 64 children, are staying at a hotel on Route 3 in Kingston. Most of them are undocumented immigrants from Haiti who speak little to no English.

Others are homeless people who have resided in Massachusetts for a long time and were already being housed in the state’s overcrowded shelter system, the Globe reported.

In Plymouth, the Globe reported, 27 families, mostly from Haiti and Central America, are being housed in hotel rooms.

How did they get here?

WCVB reported that the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is responsible for placing these families in Kingston and Plymouth.

“The [DHCD] has a process in place to provide emergency shelter and other assistance to eligible homeless families by placing them in scattered site apartments, congregate shelters, and, as a last resort, hotels and motels,” a spokesperson for the department told the news station.

“Due to high demand in the shelter system, some families recently have been temporarily placed in hotels, including in Plymouth and in Kingston, while more permanent shelter or housing is found.”

A 38-year-old Haitian man, who spoke to the Globe anonymously due to his immigration status, said that his family had been staying in Brockton before being moved to a Days Inn in Methuen and then finally to Kingston last Friday.

He told the Globe he crossed the Mexico-Texas border in August with his wife and their three young children. They then flew to Boston from Texas. They left Haiti, he said, because of threats of violence against his family.

Dieufort Fleurissaint, an Immigrant Family Services Institute staffer, told the Globe that several of the Kingston families came to Boston the same way.

Jeneeda Lewis, 37, who is among the Kingston group, told the Globe she also stayed in a Methuen hotel before coming to Kingston.

Lewis told the newspaper she’s been moved through the state’s shelter system with her five children since losing her job and her apartment during the pandemic. She’s said she’s had trouble finding a shelter with room to house them. Before that, she lived in Dorchester.

How were the towns informed?

Kingston Town Administrator Keith Hickey told the Globe he was first notified of the group’s arrival on Friday in a voicemail from a state official. The official, from the DHCD, told him nine people were being relocated to Kingston.

The next day, Hickey told the Globe, he found out the number had risen to 26. Finally, on Monday, he had the full tally of 107 people.

Hickey told WCVB the state assured him no more families will be relocated to Kingston at this time.

Plymouth Town Manager Derek Brindisi told the Globe he was notified about the families arriving in his town on Tuesday after some had already arrived.

Eight families arrived Tuesday night, just hours after Brindisi was told of their arrival, he told GBH. He said he’s aware of 19 more families who will be coming.

“These are people who need help, and Plymouth is a town that has always risen to the occasion to assist those in need,” Brindisi told the Globe. “But it would have been easier to provide support if we had been a part of the planning process.”

Brindisi told GBH that the state is taking care of most of the families’ needs, but that there’s still a lot of uncertainty.

Hickey told WCVB that the families are primarily being taken care of by the state, but that the town of Kingston will be responsible for any missing services and he doesn’t know if the town will be reimbursed by the state.

He said the town’s public health nurse has provided medical care and vaccinations for the families.

How are the families impacting the communities?

Brindisi told GBH he wants a better sense of the state’s plan for these families.

“We do know that this is supposedly temporary housing. So we’re looking for a long-term plan by the state. I’m trying to understand which organization is handling the medical needs,” he said. “…So there are a number of questions that still have gone unanswered.”

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Hickey told the Globe that state officials told him to expect the families to stay in Kingston through the end of the year. It is unclear where they will go after that.

He’s also concerned about the impact the 20 school-aged children that are among the Kingston group will have on the town’s school department, he told the newspaper. The town will be responsible for schooling them until they leave, presumably by Jan. 1.

“I have expressed my disappointment to the representatives of DHCD,” he said. “The Kingston School Department is going to have to educate these children with resources and tools that were not expected, that were not anticipated.”

Brindisi expressed similar frustrations to GBH, saying that the town still doesn’t know how many children need schooling and what their language needs are.

“The schools are going to have an unexpected expense. Our expectation is that the state will come through and will provide the resources necessary for the school department to provide the services that are necessary,” he said.

This is a continuing trend.

This isn’t the first time the state has reportedly failed to notify towns they are relocating people in need. Last week, the state sent 55 migrant families to hotels in Methuen without notifying town officials.

Many of the families brought to Kingston this week were part of the Methuen group originally.

Gov. Ron DeSantis also infamously sent nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard without notifying the state, leaving the small island community scrambling to take care of them.

This influx of migrants to Massachusetts towns continues a trend that’s been going on for months. According to the Globe, these migrants are straining an already-stretched shelter system that was struggling under Massachusetts’s housing crisis.

Here’s what we know about the families seeking shelter in Kingston and Plymouth