Local News

3 takeaways from the Globe’s investigation into registered sex offenders being housed with migrant families

The Globe discovered that six registered sex offenders lived or worked at emergency shelter sites. None of them were migrants.

The Comfort Inn at 850 Hingham Street in Rockland where a Haitian migrant allegedly raped a child. A Boston Globe investigation found that a registered sex offender also lived and worked for years.

By Molly Farrar

May 19, 2024

3 minutes to read

A new investigation from The Boston Globe found that multiple sex offenders convicted of crimes against children were either housed or employed through the state’s emergency family shelter system, which supports vulnerable migrants and homeless families from Massachusetts.

For more than a year now, the state’s Emergency Assistance shelter system has been overwhelmed by an unprecedented surge of migrants entering Massachusetts. In August of 2023, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency as strain on the shelter system continued to grow.

The state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, which oversees the sheltering of homeless families, and Healey’s office have added numerous overflow sites at hotels, churches and dormitories across the state.

Out of the total 7,500 families in the system, half are migrants who entered the country legally, seeking asylum.

The state has kept many of the addresses of the shelters private, citing safety concerns, but the Globe looked for sex offenders living or working at 67 shelters through the public sex offender registry.

At least six offenders were living or working at state shelters

The Globe’s investigation found that sex offenders were living or working at five hotels and one dormitory that the state has been using as homeless shelters. They had convictions including child rape, indecent assault and battery on children, and child pornography.

Sex offenders were found to be associated with shelters in Rockland, Saugus, Revere, Kingston, and Northborough. Another sex offender convicted of rape and abuse of a child was found to have been living at a dormitory at Salem State University. The state told the Globe he was removed as of Friday.

In Revere, a sex offender who pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography and had apparently arranged to meet for sex with a 12-year-old boy was working at the avid hotel. The hotel was partially used as a shelter until earlier this year, and the hotel was listed as the sex offender’s workplace on the public registry. Police confirmed that he is no longer employed at the hotel.

A man living at the Baymont Hotel in Kingston was convicted in 2014 of repeatedly assaulting a girl under 14, the Globe reported. A man convicted of a child rape in Houston in 1990 was present at the Northborough Econo Lodge.

A Level 3 sex offender convicted of indecent assault and batter of a child under 14 and rape and abuse of a child was living in at the Colonial Traveler Inn in Saugus.

Two more sex offenders were members of families in the system, the Globe found.

None of the sex offenders identified are migrants

After the Globe identified six individuals as sex offenders to the EOHLC, a spokesperson said they’re in the process of removing the individuals. None of them are migrants, the investigation found.

In March, a 26-year-old Haitian migrant was charged with raping a child, who was also a Haitian migrant, at the Comfort Inn in Rockland. At the time, Healey said the alleged rapist was vetted, but the incident received national attention when Republican lawmakers launched an inquiry in response.

The alleged rapist was not counted in the Globe investigation, which focused on convicted and registered sex offenders either working or living in the system. But, the Globe found that a separate, convicted sex offender was living at the same Comfort Inn in Rockland for more than two years and was working at the front desk until January.

Unclear if state did due diligence

EOHLC said they check the shelter addresses against the Sex Offender Registry Board every six months, most recently in March, the Globe reported. But, an state audit from 2019 reported that the agency didn’t do those checks routinely.

According to the Globe, it was unclear if families were informed about the presence of sex offenders in their shelters.

“The safety and wellbeing of the 7,500 families in Emergency Assistance shelter is a priority for our administration,” said Kevin Connor, a spokesman for the housing agency. “We will continue to take all possible steps to ensure the safety of EA residents and carefully review any situation that comes before us to act quickly to protect families.”

Many of the shelters are staffed by nonprofits or the National Guard. Plymouth Area Coalition, which provides services at the Kingston shelter, told the Globe their organization is only responsible for homeless families, not rooms rented out to other residents or staff of the hotel.

“We have done everything we can as a shelter provider to ensure that all of our families are safe,” Chief Executive Officer Suzanne Giovanetti said.

Globe reporters also went to the shelters, where they were turned away, and found no evidence of posters or fliers alerting families to the presence of sex offenders, or how to search the registry.

“These posters of sex offenders are hanging out at the police station, they should be here,” one resident living at the Rockland shelter said. “There are a lot of kids here.”

Read the full investigation here.