Every time someone wants to take a vote on extending human rights, I'm incensed. Human rights aren't things you vote on; they are inalienable, guaranteed because we are human beings.
Or at least they should be.
For decades, Massachusetts stood proud as a state that guaranteed a right to shelter. That was why, even as the homeless population exploded in Boston, you almost never saw families living on the streets. There were reasons, many legitimate, that people wouldn't go into a shelter and felt safer exposed to the elements, but if they wanted to, they had a legal right to, even if shelters were inconvenient to their former lives (this is not a small thing if you have, for instance, school aged children).
I've been saying for years that Massachusetts is more conservative than other people want to admit, or than many others in Massachusetts want to talk about. Well, Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida took our measure, called our bluff, and won. They showed us what we're really made of, and it makes me ill.
Our governor, Maura Healey, after months of an escalating crisis of homelessness, abetted by Abbott and DeSantis busing migrants from their borders to Massachusetts, as well as other "blue" states, is now asking for, essentially, the right to shelter to effectively rescinded. This is after months of putting limits on how long people could stay in shelters (and that includes families).
There are so many things about this that repulse me, but I'm particularly nauseated by the requirement that people need to prove their identity and residency status, as well as go through a CORI check, in order to secure shelter. As a reminder, Massachusetts does not have voter ID laws, in part because someone somewhere understands how difficult it is to secure those forms of ID when you live in poverty. But, somehow, those will be easier to obtain when you've been evicted from your home? Of course they won't be. Wait, maybe that's part of the point.
Oh, and if you were evicted in New Hampshire or Rhode Island, sorry, you can't shelter here; MA for MA! (Why did I think we were in a federal system?)
This is not a surprise, and I am not disappointed with Maura Healey (dear reader, there's a difference between being disgusted and surprised). This is the same governor who enacted tax cuts for the wealthy, which led to an inevitable budget shortfall, shortly after the "Millionaire's Tax" passed here after years of lobbying. Among other things, this led to a freezing of benefits for children and families living in deep poverty.
I knew who Healey worked for, but that doesn't make it easier to stomach--or look at.
Deb in the City
