Senate Republicans are gearing up to make another push this week to put in place a residency requirement for the emergency shelter system, a policy change that has so far found scant support among ruling Democrats on Beacon Hill.
Top Republican leaders have argued for months that restricting access to state-run shelters is necessary to lessen the overwhelming demand on the system in Massachusetts, which is housing both migrants fleeing unstable home countries and locals reeling from high costs of living.
But Democrats, who control much of what moves forward in the Legislature, have signaled they are not interested in the idea, with some questioning the constitutionality of a rule requiring someone to have lived in Massachusetts for a certain amount of time before gaining access to emergency shelters.
The debate could flare up again Thursday, when the Senate is scheduled to take up a bill that would guarantee shelter residents only nine consecutive months of housing with the possibility of 90-day extensions if they meet goals laid out in individualized “rehousing plans” or other criteria.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Sutton Republican, filed separate amendments instituting a six month residency requirement.
“There’s been a proclamation that it is unconstitutional. There is a fair legal argument that it is, in fact, constitutional and we should continue to pursue that,” Tarr said. “We should … think about, as we are now in the realm of modifying the right to shelter law, fundamentally changing it, how we want to change it, and what are the contours of constitutionality.”
Top Senate Democrats have not spoken publicly about their proposal since it was released earlier this week. But House Democrats shot down a similar Republican-led attempt to impose a residency requirement during a debate on their own bill earlier this month.
Legislation advanced Monday by the Senate’s budget writing committee is a shift away from a House-approved plan that also capped time in shelter at nine months but offered automatic three-month extensions to veterans, pregnant women, people with disabilities, those with a job, or people in workforce training.
Both chambers largely leave the process to kick people out of shelter to the Healey administration, though they do require 90-day notices before shelter services end and in different forms, limit the number of families who can be asked to leave shelter in a given week.
The two bills also diverge in the way each branch proposes funding the financially-strained shelter system for the rest of the fiscal year, with the Senate handing the Healey administration more latitude over a pot of one-time pandemic-era dollars during fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
Senators will comb through 66 amendments to their bill when they gavel into session Thursday morning, including one from Sen. Becca Rausch that calls on the Office of Inspector General to conduct a “review and analysis” of emergency shelter contracts and expenditures.
Rausch, a Needham Democrat, said the state has spent “buckets and buckets of money” on the shelter system.
“All I can really know as a lawmaker is that we’re putting a bunch of money in here and we are being asked for more money,” she said. “And we should have some independent oversight and review and analysis of all that money.”
An amendment from Sen. Michael Moore, a Millbury Democrat, would require Gov. Maura Healey’s administration to hold a community meeting one month before an overflow shelter site opens in a city or town.
Moore said he is pursuing the change after watching the Healey administration hold a meeting in Fort Point after a shelter had already opened in the neighborhood.
“I think it should be the other way around,” the Millbury Democrat told the Herald. “I think there should be a community meeting first to discuss the opening, or potential opening, of a shelter, and then try to possibly flush out what the issues are. And maybe there’ll be greater community collaboration in it rather than initial resistance from the community.”