Protect the Right to Shelter

On July 23rd, Governor Healey announced changes to the Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter system that will force children and their families out with no safe place to sleep at night. Now, many children and pregnant people have slept outside or in train stations, not knowing where they will be night to night. We are working with our Housing and Immigration Justice partners to take action to restore the Right to Shelter, and to support those who are most impacted.

Below are the ways you can support, and news articles with more information.

Ways you can take action (last updated Dec 19, 2024):

• Contact city council: Kyle Davis, who is a member of the Salem City Council, is gathering sign ons from local city officials to urge Gov Healey to protect the write to shelter. We are inviting you to contact your own city officials to invite them to sign on. Growing our list of signees from local leaders will show the Healey administration that there is a large amount of support for humane shelter policies. Learn more and invite your local officials to sign on here. 

• Call our leaders:

  • Use this guide from to call our leaders and urge them to reverse the new shelter policies and Protect the Right to Shelter!

  • OR if it’s easier, use this easy click through link to automatically send an email!

• Thursday Dec 19, 12-1pm: Sign up for our UU Action Hour this week! This will include actions to support the Right to Shelter, as well as several other UU Mass Actions campaigns.

• Stay updated: If you would like to added to our new Google Group to learn about upcoming actions, please follow this link and click the "ask to join" box: https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/ea-actions

• Sign up for upcoming actions here! (link is updated as more actions are scheduled)

• Sign petitions:

  • Are you a faith leader? Sign this Clergy petition!

  • Are you 25 years old or younger? Sign this Youth petition!

• Can you offer home hospitality? Any amount of time is welcome. Check out the FAQ prepared by the Brazilian Workers Center that may answer some questions. When you are ready to host just fill out this form https://bit.ly/HostHomesMA. Contact Kathleen McTigue <kathleenmctigue@gmail.com> if you want to talk to someone who has hosted many families or if you have questions. Crowdsourced resources for support services for hosts here.

• Direct Support: As a community, active witnessing is a tactic we're engaging in that asks us to observe what is happening to families leaving shelter, respond with courage, and intervene with compassion.  Learn more and sign up to witness and accompany here.

• We are inviting congregations to host families to sleep at their congregation for people with literally no where to go at night. This can be valuable for either short term, ~1-6 nights urgent responses, or longer term hosting.

  • Watch the recording from the Info Session last here, Passcode: Pw?dH69i, and/or email  tsmookler@uumassaction.org if you want to get involved

  • You can learn more by reading FAQs for Congregation’s Exploring Hosting Families.

  • There will be a meeting from 5:00 - 6:00 pm every second and fourth Monday for congregations who are seriously considering hosting, or who are already hosting to support each other. If you want to join, please email Tali at tsmookler@uumassaction.org.

•  Donate:

  • You can donate via the business Venmo account called TBF/BIJAN @Welcomegrant to help with food, water, blankets etc. All funds will be used to help recently arrived immigrants. We are not able to use funds for hotels at this point because running a hotel based pop up shelter is beyond the abilities and finances of this group of volunteers. Checks can be made out to: Beyond Bond & Legal Defense Fund, Inc Bijan Grant Account and mailed to: 3 Church St. Cambridge MA 02138.

• Opportunities to House & Support Asylum-Seeking Families in MA from Massachusetts Interfaith New Neighbor Coalition

Media:

• Press Release Re: Gov Healey Nov 22 Policy Changes

• How Massachusetts can limit ICE enforcement

• Gov Press Release Nov 22 about new changes

• Protect right to shelter, Healey urged at First Parish (featuring UU Mass Action)

• Migrant families return to Logan, raising questions about state shelter restrictions

• What happened when the nation’s immigration crisis came to a small town in Massachusetts

• Homeless Families in Cambridge Temporary Shelter Report Worsening Conditions

• Demonstrators denounce Mass. five-day limit for migrant families in overflow shelters

• Migrant families still sleeping at T stations. They have nowhere to go, volunteers say

• Locals show some love to Haitian immigrants staying outside Quincy MBTA station

• Dozens of migrants, including kids, sleep outside Quincy's Wollaston Station

• Dozens of Haitian migrants sleep outside Wollaston T station

• ‘Somebody needs to do something': Migrant families sleep outside MBTA station in Quincy

• About 50 migrants staying outside Wollaston MBTA stop in Quincy

• The scarce-resources excuse for shift in shelter policy is immoral

• Video: Migrant families sleep outside MBTA station in Quincy

• Shelter restrictions in Mass. force migrant families into impossible decisions

• Why so many Haitian migrants at the border are still Massachusetts bound, despite the state’s ‘we’re full’ message 

• Families Who Slept Outside of T Evicted from Church's Garden 

• Activists mobilize to find migrants shelter as state restrictions begin

• Quincy shuts down church's makeshift shelter for migrants

• Video: Advocate says homeless families left at Quincy MBTA station

• A timeline of the Massachusetts shelter crisis — and Healey's changes to the system

• Video: Families say they are "afraid" of new 5-day limit for Massachusetts shelter system

• On immigration, Healey feels the heat of putting children on the street

• Advocates urge Gov. Healey to reverse course on shelter limits 

• Mass. advocates push back on 5-day limit for overflow migrant shelters

• GBH Families sleep at Quincy subway station during shelter limitations