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Healey says she ordered criminal background checks on all shelter residents last spring, but they didn’t happen
“We’re going to get to the bottom of why that wasn’t happening,” Gov. Maura Healey vowed.
Gov. Maura Healey said Friday the state will conduct full criminal background checks on all emergency shelter residents, explaining she requested more thorough vetting months ago but the checks never happened.
Briefing reporters, Healey said she issued an order last spring for Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information checks, or CORI checks, on all residents of the state’s shelter system. However, she said her team recently informed her “that that did not happen at all sites, and that’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Healey added: “We’re going to get to the bottom of why that wasn’t happening.”
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Her administration’s handling of the shelter system has been under scrutiny, particularly following two high-profile incidents in the last year. In March, a man was accused of raping a 15-year-old girl at an emergency shelter housing migrants in Rockland. And last month, an undocumented immigrant was allegedly found with an assault rifle and fentanyl at a shelter in Revere.
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The Boston Globe reported Thursday that the state had not been conducting full criminal background checks on all shelter residents, despite the Healey administration’s assurances of a thorough vetting process. Noah Bombard, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, told Boston.com the state has always done background checks for applicants to its emergency assistance shelter program and has been conducting monthly warrant checks.
Healey clarified Friday the state was performing CORI checks on residents at so-called overflow sites, where many new arrivals to Massachusetts were sent. She also noted that all shelter residents had been subject to sex offender registry information (SORI) checks, in addition to warrant checks.
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Earlier this week, Healey called for a full inspection of all shelter sites following Leonardo Andujar Sanchez’s arrest on drug and gun charges at the shelter in Revere. She said Friday that the state had finished inspecting hotels being used as shelters and expected to wrap up at the remaining sites “very soon.”
Healey said she’s asked former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis to lead an independent outside review of the shelter system and report back on any additional safety and security measures needed.
“I also plan to work with the Legislature to take a look at any changes and to make changes to better ensure that the right-to-shelter law actually aligns with its original intent,” Healey said, referring to the law that requires the state to provide shelter to homeless families and pregnant women.
The right-to-shelter law, she argued, wasn’t meant to cover the “waves and waves of people” who have arrived in Massachusetts in recent years.
“We’re going to keep working at this, and we’re going to get this right,” Healey vowed. “It’s too important to me as governor, and it’s important to the safety and wellbeing of communities across Massachusetts.”
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