How Massachusetts spent nearly $1 billion sheltering homeless families and migrants

Massachusetts will spend about $932 million — three times what was budgeted — on emergency shelters for homeless families this fiscal year. Lawmakers negotiating next year’s budget — when the cost is again expected to surpass $900 million — are still trying to find the money to pay off this year’s tab.

The Globe reviewed nearly 80 state contracts, as well as recent invoices from individual hotels and providers. State agencies have not yet provided the Globe some contracts whose costs are reflected in those totals. Still missing are agreements with the National Guard, which provides staffing in 21 of the 75 hotels being used as shelters, and for the large overflow shelters in places like the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex in Roxbury and a former Cambridge courthouse, which were established after the state capped the family shelter system at 7,500 families.

State officials have, in fact, been reluctant to provide much transparency at all about the shelter system. They have restricted visits by the media and declined to provide the addresses or even the names of the hotels being used as shelters. They point to the speed with which they had to act and also concerns about protecting families’ privacy; neo-Nazis staged demonstrations at some shelters last summer.

But the lack of transparency also means watchdogs cannot hold the administration accountable for how the money is spent or for the living conditions of the migrants now within their care.

Hotel operators are prohibited by state contracts from speaking to the media about the shelter program, the state’s housing agency, or the families staying in their buildings. And some city officials were upset by the sudden appearance of shelters in their local hotels, with little public notice or transparency.

Taunton Mayor Shaunna O’Connell said she was opposed to turning the entire Clarion Hotel into a shelter and called the hotel management last spring to tell them so. ”But unknown to me they had already been contracting with the state and working out all the details,” she said. “We did not appreciate ... the only hotel in Taunton being shut down.”

In the rush to find shelter quickly, the contracts indicate, the state negotiated deals directly with about a dozen hotel companies, instead of relying, as it usually does, on social services groups to find shelter accommodations. Hotels and nonprofits often began housing families and helping them sign up for health checkups and public benefits before their vendor contracts with the state were fully negotiated and inked.

“Due to federal inaction, our administration has had to move quickly to provide food, shelter, and other services to unprecedented numbers of families in need,” said Kevin Connor, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, which is leading the response to the migrant crisis. That office issued at least four contracts without competitive bids, raising questions about how rigorously the state has managed this nearly $1 billion-a-year taxpayer endeavor.

“I don’t think there’s been much oversight at all here,” said Senator Peter J. Durant, a Spencer Republican who flipped a Senate seat in November after campaigning on the migrant crisis. He questioned why some contracts were handed out without competitive bidding.

“Where’s that transparency so we can understand these costs?” said Durant.

The largest no-bid contract, a $10 million, eight-month deal, went to an East Boston restaurant and catering facility called Spinelli’s, to deliver meals to more than 30 shelter sites. Spinelli’s owner Rita Roberto has been an active political donor, and she and other company executives have given $7,550 to Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll since 2019. Roberto did not respond to calls and emails for comment.

A state official said political considerations were not involved and that the top priority was to feed homeless children.

“This is a longtime state vendor that has been contracted for services over multiple administrations, particularly during COVID when they were called upon to provide emergency services,” said Connor.

Other no-bid contracts went to Mercedes Cab, a Truro-based company that the state is paying $6.8 million through June for transportation services; United Way to provide $5 million in grants to other shelter providers; and Ascentria Community Services, a Worcester-based agency that provided wrap-around shelter services for just over six months for $946,000.

In cities and towns that charge local hotel room occupancy taxes, the state is picking up the tab for stays under 90 days and reimbursing communities whose hotel room excise taxes dropped as a result of lost room rentals. One contract amendment shows the state agreeing to pay the city of Woburn $127,935 in taxes.

State officials did not inspect each hotel before signing contracts or placing families in them, a spokesman confirmed. Cities and towns have authority over licensing the hotels, which are required by contract to comply with all local, state, and federal codes. But local policies were not always followed. One Brighton motel, the Catholic Charities Inn, was never inspected last year, city records show. Its inspection certificate expired just a few weeks after it opened as a shelter last summer. The state was paying $345 a night for each family’s motel room and social services, until recently, when — after complaints from numerous guests — the building was evacuated due to a mold infestation. The state sanitary code calls for all residential buildings to be watertight and free of the appearance of mold.

Additional costs associated with hotel living also drive up expenses, the contracts show. In Everett, in addition to the hotel room and help with signing up for social services, taxpayers are also picking up incidentals: linen service, a meeting room rental, extra trash pickup, and an emergency alarm fix earlier this year came to a total cost of about $25,600 one month.

In Taunton, where city officials have sued the hotel for failing to initially meet occupancy limits and pay the corresponding fines, the state is footing the bill for private security guards and Taunton Police Department details to patrol the site. The tab? About $100,000 a month, according to invoices, on top of the $214 daily rate for shelter, food, and case management services for each homeless family.

Massachusetts has a unique right-to-shelter law that guarantees temporary housing and services to families with children and those who are pregnant, including new arrivals in the country who are lawfully seeking asylum.

Those numbers began to soar last summer. By August, Healey declared an emergency and activated up to 250 National Guard members to staff hotels being repurposed as shelters.

Mark DeJoie, the chief executive officer of Centerboard, a Lynn nonprofit that provides shelter, financial workshops, and youth mentoring, said state and social services agencies had to act quickly to ensure families had somewhere to stay and that children weren’t going hungry.

“There wasn’t a plan for this. Everybody was going as fast as they could,” DeJoie said. “For a while, it was every hand on deck.”

As a sign of how slapdash the effort was, the state pulled in Centerboard as a middleman to receive and pay bills from individual restaurants and caterers that delivered food to other shelter sites but weren’t directly contracted with the state. Centerboard then billed the state and verified “to the extent we could” that the food delivered at other sites matched the bills paid, he said.

“There were mistakes that were going to be made,” DeJoie said. “There is no organization anywhere, the state and other providers, that could have done what we did.”

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at Stephanie.Ebbert@globe.com. Follow her @StephanieEbbert. Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com. Follow her @fernandesglobe.