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Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that the temporary shelter at the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters has opened.
In January, as a faith-based response to the growing number of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts with nowhere to live, the Unitarian Universalist Association reached out to state officials with a proposal.
The sixth floor of the building owned by the UUA at 24 Farnsworth Street in the upscale Seaport area of Boston was empty.
Meanwhile, a large number of migrant families with children, and pregnant people, were sleeping on the floor at Logan Airport, in emergency rooms, or in other unsuitable or dangerous places. State shelters were at capacity, and the governor had declared a state of emergency.
The UUA wanted to help.
"I knew that the state was looking for potential spaces for these short-term overflow shelters because we had heard some of our congregations were looking into this possibility," says Carey McDonald, the UUA’s Executive Vice President. "With the current vacant commercial space at our headquarters building, we thought it could be a good fit for the need."
UUA leaders connected with the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, and in January had their first conversations with the state to raise that possibility.
"Since then, it’s really been a team effort to evaluate whether the space was appropriate and what it would take to move forward," says McDonald.
The UUA is hosting an overnight shelter on the sixth floor of its building for around twenty-five families with children and pregnant people. Individuals are ineligible.
The UUA is providing the space rent-free, and the agreement is that the shelter will operate through May 31.
It is expected to house about eighty people each night, many from Haiti. The shelter will be managed by the Black Refugee and Immigrant Community Coalition, a partnership of five nonprofits and faith-based organizations led by and serving Bostonians with roots in the Caribbean.
Each morning, the families will be transported to a day shelter at the YMCA of Greater Boston, which will provide community meals, showers, and a range of supportive services, including access to job training and placement and community activities.
The community coalition serves more than 6,000 Afro-Caribbean/Black immigrants and refugees a year in Boston by providing critical resettlement services, including emergency housing, food, medical assistance, and job training and placement. It has placed more than 120 refugees and immigrants from Haiti in safe and culturally connected housing, according to United Way of Massachusetts Bay.
A Growing Need for Temporary Migrant Housing in Massachusetts
A Closer Look at 24 Farnsworth Street
The UUA headquarters at 24 Farnsworth Street is a six-story, 75,000-square-foot, brick-and-beam building.
After purchasing the building and renovating it to serve as a home base for staff, the UUA moved there in May 2014 from its longtime buildings on Boston’s Beacon Hill.
The UUA occupies the first three floors of 24 Farnsworth as its headquarters and rents the other three as commercial space.
The sixth floor, where the shelter will exist, is a 10,000-square-foot commercial space that was vacant.
Massachusetts is the only state in the country with a "right-to-shelter" law, passed in 1983 to mandate that unhoused families and pregnant people be provided with emergency shelter.
Last August, after an 80 percent increase in migrant families arriving in the state compared to the year before, Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency. The state placed a cap on how many people its emergency shelter system could house. As of February 29, there were 761 families (about 2,500 people) on a waitlist for shelter.
Last fall, the governor announced the SafetyNet Shelter Grant Program in partnership with the United Way of Massachusetts Bay to support community organizations and faith-based groups to set up short-term shelters for families and pregnant people with no other sheltering options.
The UUA shelter is supported in part by a SafetyNet grant awarded to the UUA, the Black Refugee & Immigrant Community Coalition, and the Greater Boston YMCA. In addition to the UUA shelter, the program is funding nine other short-term sites across the region for unhoused families and pregnant women to help address the crisis in the state’s emergency shelter system.
During the day, school-age children will attend classes. The families will be transported back to the UUA building in the evenings, where the coalition will have staff on site. The coalition has contracted with a security firm experienced in staffing emergency shelters to also be on site.
In times of emergency, the state code allows buildings to be used as an emergency shelter for a period of 180 days (about six months), which can be extended based on the continued existence of the emergency.
The UUA has met all state and city requirements as an emergency shelter, according to McDonald.
How UUs and Congregations Support the Rights of Immigrants and Refugees
Unitarian Universalists have a long history of supporting migrants and refugees, including refugees from Central America in the 1980s, and were the first denomination to sign on as part of the New Sanctuary movement in 2007.
In recent years, many UU congregations have taken undocumented immigrants facing deportation into sanctuary in their congregational buildings to shield them from arrest by law enforcement.
The UUA General Assembly has passed a number of resolutions supporting the human rights of immigrants and refugees, including, in 2019, an Action of Immediate Witness to Protect the Rights of Immigrants and Asylum Seekers.
"In our faith tradition, Unitarian Universalists commit to uphold the inherent worthiness and dignity of every person, to embrace interconnectedness, and to strive for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations," says McDonald. "Those values are fundamental to our religious practice, and they call us to take action in the face of oppression, injustice, and suffering.
"All children deserve a safe place to sleep," he adds. "As a religious community headquartered in Boston, we consider it an act of faithful witness to use our facilities to do our part to support families in need, including migrant families who are simply seeking safety for their loved ones. We hope other building owners will take seriously whether their space can also be used in this way."
"As a religious community headquartered in Boston, we consider it an act of faithful witness to use our facilities to do our part to support families in need, including migrant families who are simply seeking safety for their loved ones. We hope other building owners will take seriously whether their space can also be used in this way."
—Carey McDonald, UUA Executive Vice President
As noted in the Boston Globe and other news outlets, there has been some objection from Seaport residents and some politicians. But there also is significant support for the shelter, which will provide temporary safe harbor to newcomers in need.
"We are grateful to the Unitarian Universalist Association, who offered their space free of charge as part of their faith mission to help those most in need, and to our service provider partners who will support the activation of this site for the families and children who need emergency housing and compassionate care," said Bob Giannino, president and CEO of United Way Massachusetts Bay, in a statement. "Together, we are creating a model of how people can take care of each other in crisis while building the tools and systems necessary for longer-term solutions."