An inspection of lodges and motels serving as state-run shelters for migrants and locals that Gov. Maura Healey ordered this month didn’t flip up any main points or prison exercise, her workplace stated in an announcement to the Herald Friday.
Healey ordered the evaluate of state-run emergency help shelters after a Dominican man who was unlawfully in the US was arrested at Revere shelter with an AR-15 and an alleged fentanyl stash price $1 million. The incident sparked safety considerations for shelters.
A spokesperson for Healey stated officers accomplished the inspection of all lodges and congregate websites and no “main” points or prison exercise had been recognized. Officers are nonetheless conducting weekly room inspections, in line with Healey’s workplace.
Suppliers are additionally nonetheless performing inspections of scattered shelter websites, which the spokesperson stated are anticipated to be accomplished by the tip of January. No main points or prison exercise has to this point been recognized in these checks, the spokesperson stated.
The inspections got here after police arrested Leonardo Andujar Sanchez of the Dominican Republic for allegedly possessing 5 kilos of fentanyl and an assault rifle. Federal officers have stated he unlawfully entered the nation via an unknown location on an unknown date.
Days after initially ordering the inspection, the Healey administration made public a trove of paperwork that detailed greater than 1,000 critical incidents reported at shelters, together with disturbing particulars about allegations of bodily and sexual assault, rape, and home violence.
Healey then confronted criticism for a scarcity of widespread prison background checks towards the prison offender file data database for all residents within the shelter system, although at the very least one prime Home Democrat has since questioned whether or not CORI checks are helpful to make use of on migrants.
The primary-term Democrat stated she gave a verbal directive in April 2024 to the state’s housing division to conduct CORI checks for all residents in any respect emergency help shelters however was later advised they weren’t occurring.
The governor’s workplace didn’t present any paperwork, emails, written memorandums, or different bodily proof to again up the verbal directive in response to an inquiry from the Herald.
State rules don’t require CORI checks, which have at all times occurred for individuals getting into overflow shelters, however Healey ordered them for all websites after the blowback and has additionally known as on Beacon Hill lawmakers to approve a collection of shelter restrictions that will preserve out migrants.
