Massachusetts taxpayers are being asked to foot a $139 million bill that would “expand emergency shelter capacity” for border crossers and illegal aliens arriving in the state.
Just as Massachusetts residents are starting to see housing prices cool off, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is asking for $139 million to hugely increase shelter space for border crossers and illegal aliens increasingly arriving in the state with little-to-no means.
“Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system provides support for thousands of families each year, but a recent uptick in new migrant arrivals, coupled with a strained housing market have led to a need for greater capacity across the system,” Baker said in a statement:
These expanded resources will help us quickly and effectively address this humanitarian crisis, especially as we enter the winter months. We look forward to working with our partners in the legislature, the nonprofit community and local government as we all address this unprecedented challenge, which is unfortunately driven by the federal government’s inability to address our country’s immigration challenges. [Emphasis added]
The millions in new taxpayer funds would go to expand the capacity of the state’s shelter system, where many border crossers and illegal aliens are ending up, by adding 1,300 additional units and an initial intake center.
Nearly $40 million of the total amount would fund resources needed to place newly arrived foreign students in Massachusetts public schools.
For months, officials in a number of Massachusetts towns said they have been blindsided by the arrival of hundreds of border crossers and illegal aliens who have been subsequently placed in hotel rooms.
The arrivals come as President Joe Biden’s administration has overseen an estimated 5.5 million migrant encounters at the United States-Mexico border since February 2021 while nearly 1.5 million border crossers and illegal aliens have been directly released into the U.S. interior.
Massachusetts residents have only recently started to see their housing market cool off as the median price of a single-family home dropped. At the same time, though, the median price, at nearly $550,000, remains too high for many would-be homebuyers because supply is so low and gets lower as hundreds arrive every month needing housing.
Real estate investors are some of the biggest beneficiaries of mass immigration to the United States. Immigration-driven population growth, set to bring the United States population to more than 400 million by 2060, is likely to send housing prices even higher.
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Housing Economics found that “increases in immigration into a metropolitan statistical area are linked with rising rents and home prices in that metropolitan statistical area and neighboring metropolitan statistical areas.”
