(Yahoo) Residents in a New England town are fuming that they have not been consulted on plans to convert a former state prison into a tax-payer-funded migrant shelter for hundreds of people.
The state is refurbishing Norfolk, Massachusetts’ Bay State Correctional Center, a former minimum-security dorm-like facility, to accommodate migrants and homeless individuals who are currently holed up at Boston’s Logan International Airport and are on the waitlist for an emergency shelter program. The facility is located on the grounds of Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI), a medium-security prison.
Norfolk has a population of about 11,500 and voted heavily in favor of President Joe Biden in 2020.
The governor’s office tells Fox News Digital it expects the shelter to be operational next month as a “temporary safety-net site for families experiencing homelessness.” Families who will stay at the site will be subject to the 30-day engagement requirements and a monthly recertification process to demonstrate they are taking action toward getting work permits, jobs and housing.
But at a tense special Select Board meeting on Wednesday, about 300 residents gathered to raise alarm over the new facility opening in their town and blasted the state for keeping them in the dark about it.
Residents said they want answers about the impact on schools, police and emergency services, pointing out that municipal budgets are already stretched thin.
“Let’s face it, we don’t want it here. We don’t,” resident John Semas said, according to GBH.
“And, it doesn’t make us bad people, it doesn’t make me not compassionate, it doesn’t make me a bad father.” Semas was among a small group of people donning shirts and placards that read “Save Norfolk: No Shelter,” the publication reports.
He blasted Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, who had left for a climate change conference at the Vatican instead of engaging with her electorate.
Healey last summer declared a state of emergency over the surge of migrants into the state and the Bay State has struggled to get a grip on the crisis. The state has previously said that it is obliged to cater to the migrants because of its 1983 sanctuary city law which was passed to deal with the relatively small number of homeless families and pregnant women, although critics have said the law does not apply to migrants who are not U.S. citizens.
In the 2020 presidential election, 4,100 Norfolk residents voted for President Biden compared to 2,570 who voted for former President Trump. Massachusetts is a deep blue state with its nine Congress members and two senators being Democrats.
