Forty-one years ago, Massachusetts enacted the first-in-the-nation “right-to-shelter” law, guaranteeing all homeless families with children and pregnant women access to temporary housing and other emergency services.

However, over the past year, Governor Maura Healey and our State Legislature have been chipping away at this critical guarantee. Just last month, the MA Governor’s Office announced policy changes that further dismantle the state’s emergency shelter system for all families by creating a two-track system, with some families being sent to barracks-style respite centers capped at 30 days and other families being capped at six months.

Let’s be clear: with our rapidly growing rents, weak tenant protections, and exclusionary zoning policies across the state, affordable housing opportunities do not magically appear after six monthsjust because the state wants to wash its hands of any responsibility to care for our residents. Kicking families out of shelter during the coldest months of the year is especially obscene.

Write to Governor Healey and your state legislators about why we need to end these cruel new shelter policies and uphold our status as a right to shelter state.

Recently, a group of local elected officials from across the Commonwealth sent a sign-on letter to Governor Healey urging her to end these harmful restrictions. Can you also ask any local elected officials you know (your City Councilor, your Select Board Member, your School Committee Members, etc.) to join them? In solidarity,