The state’s highest court found that Massachusetts housing authorities cannot require families seeking emergency placement in homeless shelters to provide third-party verification of key information, such as identities and relationships, at the time of their initial application, according to a decision released Thursday.
Amid a housing crunch and a migrant crisis, the decision could make it easier for homeless families in the state to secure emergency shelter.
In a 16-page decision, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian said the case hinged on a single question of how to interpret a state statute. Specifically, does a Beacon Hill directive that the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities immediately provide up to 30 days worth of shelter to eligible families allow that agency to require certain information, such as each family member’s identity and relationship to one another, to be verified by an outside authority as a precondition for emergency shelter?
“We conclude that it does not,” wrote the judge. “The plain language of the immediate placement proviso provides that a family must receive immediate temporary placement where it appears that the family meets the eligibility requirements for shelter, and that the appearance of eligibility may be established at the time of initial application by statements from family members and by information already in the agency’s possession.”
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According to court filings, for years state authorities have required third-party verification that at least one adult member of the family applying for emergency shelter is a Massachusetts resident. There were times when families have not been able to produce such verification, and officials have not been able to confirm the information through other avenues, resulting in families being denied emergency shelter, according to Thursday’s decision.
A class action lawsuit challenging the policy was first filed in 2016. Messages left with the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities were not immediately returned Thursday morning. Likewise, attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case did not immediately offer comment.
The decision comes amid ongoing housing and migrant crises in Massachusetts. Earlier this week, Massachusetts officials approved a report with broad suggestions to alleviate the state’s strained emergency shelter system, as the annual price tag for operating the network mounts amid increased need from migrants and Massachusetts residents facing homelessness.
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The report came as the state’s system has grappled with more people seeking support, projected to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion this fiscal year. While Governor Maura Healey added new limits on emergency shelter stays this year, the report found that if current trends continue, the emergency housing system will continue to face funding gaps.
The shelter system, previously designed to accommodate 3,500 families, saw that number more than double in recent years to roughly 7,500 — the limit that Healey imposed on the system last year. The state estimated about 3,600 families in the emergency system last month were migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers.
The report underscored how sharply the system’s costs have grown: In fiscal year 2017, the state spent $155 million on the program, whereas lawmakers this fiscal year have already set aside more than $500 million, according to the report. But that still isn’t enough: The state will need the Legislature to approve $400 million more this fiscal year, officials expect.
In the court case, state authorities had pointed to the safety concerns “of bringing adults and children into close proximity in congregate shelters, and argues that requiring third-party verification of identity and family relationship before providing shelter helps to alleviate those concerns,” according to court filings.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs, meanwhile, had argued that requiring a form of verification “that people in crisis may well not possess when they initially seek short-term, temporary shelter deprives them of the protection the Legislature intended them to receive when they were at their most vulnerable.”
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In Thursday’s SJC decision, Wolohojian wrote that, “Both sets of policy concerns have sound reasons to recommend them.”
“However, it is not our task to choose between them because the plain language of the immediate placement proviso is unambiguous and is accordingly determinative of the Legislature’s intent,” she said in the decision.
Anjali Huynh of Globe staff contributed to this report. This developing story will be updated.
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.