No Check-Out for Homeless - Massachusetts Faces Dilemma of Sheltering Growing Numbers in Motels

By JON KAMP

Feb. 2, 2014 7:28 p.m. ET - Wall Street Journal

WALTHAM, Mass.—Since mid-October, Jennifer White has lived in a motel room in this Boston suburb with her four children, one of about 110 homeless families who have ended up in the Home Suites Inn after turning to the state for emergency shelter.

Ms. White, a 36-year-old who said she is separated from her husband, shares two beds with her children at the privately run motel, although her 8-year-old prefers to sleep on the floor. The biggest challenge is at mealtime. "It's hard to get a balanced meal just being able to cook in a microwave," Ms. White said.

Few people believe motels are ideal for long-term living. But a year after Massachusetts set out to stop sheltering homeless families in motels, the population has surged.

State data in late January showed 2,081 families in several dozen motels, near an all-time peak and up about 23% from the start of 2013. The state relies on motels when traditional shelters become overcrowded.

The stubborn problem reflects lingering effects of the recession, high housing costs and the state's unique safety net.

A three-decade-old law requires Massachusetts to provide emergency shelter for all homeless families who meet certain income and other requirements—the only state to have such a comprehensive system.

The problem is particularly acute in expensive regions such as Boston, where rentals are at a premium.

"We certainly have faced additional challenges," said Aaron Gornstein, Massachusetts' undersecretary for housing and community development.

The state—which wants families out of motels by the middle of this year—had some success early last year driving down the numbers. But a jump in homelessness during the summer and fall sent them back up, Mr. Gornstein said.

Communities nationwide often use hotels and motels as intermittent backup shelter, said Nan Roman, president and chief executive at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

New York City, which is under court order to provide shelter and is grappling with record-high numbers of homeless people, uses hotels and apartments for overflow. Hennepin County, Minn., uses a Minneapolis hotel to support its comprehensive shelter goals, and Montgomery County, Md., often uses motels, representatives said.

But Ms. Roman said the kind of widespread, consistent reliance seen in Massachusetts is unusual. When you get into that mode, it's hard to get out of it," she said.

Putting people in emergency shelters cost Massachusetts more than $135 million in the past two fiscal years, according to state data, including about $46 million each year for motels, which cost an average of $82 a night per family. Families typically stay six to seven months.

The cost of using motels, however, isn't the central problem; regular shelters cost more per night.

Rather, say both the state and advocates for the homeless, motels more than traditional shelters can isolate people in suburbs with little public transit, less access to services and in rooms that often lack kitchen access. And families sometimes wind up far from home—Ms. White and her family moved from central Massachusetts, nearly 50 miles away.

The program also can strain communities.

Police in Waltham and the Boston suburb of Danvers, which have five shelter-motels combined, said placing families there has increased calls to those locations, with issues ranging from noise complaints to assaults and theft. These facilities have taken on the profile of high-density apartment complexes, police noted.

"It's almost like a neighborhood up there now," Waltham Police Detective Sgt. Joe Guigno said.

The Home Suites Inn in Waltham started taking in families at the state's request in 2009, when the recession was in full swing and state money for sheltering families seemed like the best path to avoid shutting down, its management said. The motel recently had just one paying guest who wasn't placed there by the state.

Homeless advocates—some of whom criticize Massachusetts for tightening shelter eligibility rules in 2012 and say it should focus more on long-term subsidies—cited many factors behind the recent surge in families seeking shelter, including cuts in federal subsidies and a lack of jobs for low-wage earners.

Also, Boston is the third-most expensive metro area for renters in the U.S. after New York and San Francisco, according to real estate research firm Reis Inc. Boston-area rents averaged about $1,800 in the fourth quarter last year, up nearly 10% over three years, and $725 above the U.S. average, Reis said.

Highlighting the pressure of high rents and static incomes, the city of Boston released data Friday that counted 1,234 homeless families on a recent night, up 5.8% from a year earlier. The city counted more than 2,000 homeless children.

Ms. White has considered moving near family in New Hampshire or Florida, where rent might come cheaper, but she said she has stronger ties in Spencer, Mass., and is eager to return there. It was hardest for her eldest, a 14-year-old, to switch from his Spencer school. She said the motel is hospitable and the staff responsive, but the distance from home has made searching for work and housing tough.

Massachusetts officials said they are working on multiple fronts to stop relying on motels, including a program that offers as much as $4,000 to help families keep homes or move to new ones. The state in the past 18 months also has provided more than 2,000 new vouchers to help cover rental costs, although advocates are pushing for many more.

Gov. Deval Patrick's new budget proposal released in January calls for as many as 1,000 new shelter rooms, in addition to 650 new rooms funded by the current budget.