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All hotel shelters to close ‘ahead of schedule,’ Healey says

Thousands of families, including many migrants, have stayed in hotel shelters in recent years. They will be phased out by the end of the summer.

A Best Western hotel in Concord was used as a shelter. Jonathan Wiggs/Boston Globe

May 20, 2025

3 minutes to read

Gov. Maura Healey announced Monday that all remaining hotel shelters throughout Massachusetts would close by the end of the summer.

Much of Healey’s term so far has been spent dealing with the effects of a migration surge that overwhelmed the state’s emergency shelter system. Former Gov. Charlie Baker promised to completely stop the practice of using hotels to provide shelter to homeless people. He made significant progress, but late in his tenure migration to Massachusetts started to spike and the state began relying on hotels again.

Healey continued the practice. At many points over the past few years, the shelter system was maxed out at around 7,500 families and around half of those were staying in hotels. Recent state data shows that some 4,400 families are enrolled in the shelter system, and just over 1,000 are living in hotels.

As of April 30, only 32 hotels statewide were being used as shelters. Healey had previously announced her intent to close all hotel shelters, and officials say the data now shows them to be ahead of schedule. The initial plan was to close all hotel shelters by the end of 2025.

The shelter system cost the state around $1 billion in recent years, but with the decreasing caseload lawmakers are calling for only around $275 million to fund the system in fiscal year 2026. Hotels are the most expensive type of shelter in the system, and officials expect to see around $410 million in annualized savings once hotels are no longer used as shelters, according to a recent report from the administration.

Healey, who declared a state of emergency in 2023 to respond to the shelter crisis, has repeatedly cast the blame on the federal government for not passing comprehensive immigration reform. She focused on implementing shelter stay limits and offering workforce training and job placement to decrease the number of people relying on the system.

The governor also pushed to change the state’s unique right-to-shelter law, arguing that it was not meant to handle the “waves and waves of people,” including migrants, that became reliant on the shelter system.

Last month, the number of families staying in the shelter system dropped below 5,000 for the first time since July 2023, according to the administration. About 2,500 families have exited the system since the beginning of 2025, more than double the amount who have entered, according to state officials. About 85-90% of families in the system are now longtime Massachusetts residents, a stark contrast to much of the last couple years when new arrivals made up about half of the shelter population.

While Healey’s actions have undoubtedly had an impact on decreasing the burden on the shelter system, President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown appears to also have played a role.

Mike Kennealy, a former official in the Baker administration who is one of two prominent Republicans running against Healey next year, blasted the governor in a statement Monday. He also took an apparent swipe at HomeBASE, the state program that helps families that qualify for shelter stays pay for their own apartments.

“Maura Healey’s migrant shelters have showcased her failed policies and poor judgment, and today’s announcement is no different. Maura Healey routinely breaks her promises, so we’ll have to see if she keeps this one and actually closes the remaining hotels this summer. But even if she does, this crisis will persist—because Maura Healey’s solution is to transition migrants into taxpayer-subsidized apartments,” Kennealy said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Brian Shortsleeve, the other Republican running for governor, did not respond to a request for comment.