In a children's playroom, inside a family shelter, in an undisclosed neighborhood in Boston, a young mother comforts her nearly 1-year-old child.
Through a translator, Gelenane Nocelant said she fled instability in Haiti over a year ago. After facing challenges securing housing, she went to emergency shelter organization, Heading Home.
"Right now in the shelter system, we are really pushed past the brink of what we typically do," Danielle Ferrier, CEO of Heading Home.
She said many shelter providers have expanded into hotels and other sites in order to keep up with demand.
"The other piece of the pressure becomes being able to staff the sites with staff who can support the families most of us hit the max capacity of having staff or being able to hire staff and keep up with the pace of the volume of families coming into the shelter system," she said.
Ferrier is calling on Gov. Maura Healey to declare a state of emergency in order to make more resources available.
"Really we're dealing with a humanitarian crisis, in terms of just the number of folks needing shelter, and so I think in many ways it feels more like disaster relief," she said. "We just need more troops out here with us."
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According to data provided by the governor's office, there are more than 5,500 families in state shelters, including hotels and motels, compared to approximately 3,100 families last year.
"I think we are all scrambling to respond the best we can. I know the state is. I know we are," said Diego Low, director of the MetroWest Worker Center.
Medical triage is part of the intake process, and Low says many people have spent months in migrant camps and arrive with severe medical issues.
"A young man who fell when he was crossing the jungle in Colombia, his clavicle, it's obvious that it's broken, he's in pain," said Low. "There are pregnant women who haven't received medical attention five months into their pregnancy."
In addition to shelter and housing, Gladys Vega, executive director of La Colaborativa, an organization that provides support to Latinx immigrants, says employment is another major challenge.
"Where do we find them a job? And also do they have the proper documentation to work? If they don't have it, how do we make sure that we figure out a way that they can get employed if there is an immigration clause or anything that we can help?" said Vega. "The reality at times is that there is nothing so it's very hard for us to make sure economically we help them unless we call an emergency crisis where the federal government intervenes."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she and Sen. Ed Markey are working to address access to work permits.
"Many of the people who are coming here want to work want to get settled in housing and support themselves and their families, but right now, the federal government isn't issuing work permits fast enough, so something that we are working on at the federal level is trying to speed up those work permits," said Warren.
Healey's office has declined to comment on a possible emergency declaration.
"Our administration does everything in our power to ensure families have a safe place to stay each night and utilizes all resources and options at our disposal," a Healey spokesperson provided a statement. "We've added thousands of new units of emergency assistance housing, launched new shelter sites, including at Joint Base Cape Cod, created two Family Welcome Centers, and launched an unprecedented legal services program to provide support on work authorizations and asylum cases. We continue to work closely with our local, state and federal partners, as well as social service providers and community organizations, to expand shelter and intake capacity and advance long-term solutions to this crisis."
Healey will make an announcement about the state's emergency shelter system Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.
"If she declares an emergency and that helps unlock more federal funding, we're glad to support that," said Warren. "But this really is about a federal state partnership. We need to make resources available at the federal level so that the places, like in Massachusetts, that are welcoming new people, will actually have the resources to be able to do that."
"We need workers in our economy and also working on the housing issue to ensure that the resources are there to provide housing, as well," said Markey. "We have to step up, we have to have a response which is humane and consistent with Massachusetts’ long standing values."
"We also need to keep pushing the conversation on immigration reform in the U.S. Congress because we have an obligation congress to act on this very issue," said Rep. Lori Trahan.
"It's really important to remember in the midst of the details of this crisis that really the long term solution has to do with addressing the problems that people are fleeing," said Low. "I think the people who are arriving here are in desperate circumstances and they deserve us to open our hearts to them."
