familIES experiencing homelessness

family homelessness

  • On January 31, 2018, there were 3,624 families with children and pregnant women in Massachusetts’ Emergency Assistance (EA) shelter program. 55 of these families with children were being sheltered in motels. (The number has since decreased to 46 families in motels as of March 22, 2018.) This number does not count those families who are doubled up, living in unsafe conditions, or sleeping in their cars.

  • Click here for nightly data on the EA program from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, and here for monthly EA-related data, including on the reasons families needed to enter the shelter system. Quarterly data from DHCD, from FY’13 to the present, also is available through this link.

  • During state fiscal year 2017, 4,860 families were assisted with emergency shelter and/or HomeBASE diversion assistance, out of the 9,124 families that completed applications for assistance. For fiscal year 2016, 5,609 families were approved for EA and HomeBASE diversion benefits and 3,314 families were denied assistance. More data on the EA and HomeBASE programs can be found here, as well as in this February 2017 report from the Boston Foundation.

  • For additional data, follow this link to the Department of Housing and Community Development’s EA page and see our Basic Facts page.