ELIGIBLE MASSHEALTH members and Health Safety Net patients will have access to prenatal vitamins and over-the-counter birth control at no cost, under two standing orders that the Healey administration announced Thursday.

The orders, which essentially enable the state to write a prescription for a large group of people, will allow about half a million patients to access the reproductive health medications.

The medications will be available at all MassHealth-enrolled pharmacies, and available for eligible MassHealth members and those who use the Health Safety Net, a fund used to pay care costs for certain low-income and uninsured individuals.

MassHealth currently covers 40 percent of all births in Massachusetts, according to the Healey administration.

“Removing barriers like this is one of the simplest ways we can work toward better health outcomes for mothers and infants in our state,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said.

The standing order covers a 90-day supply of over-the-counter prenatal vitamins or multivitamins containing at least 400 mcg of folic acid, a B vitamin that helps bodies create new cells. Doctors recommend that people considering getting pregnant, pregnant, or nursing, take these vitamins.

Pharmacists will be required to counsel patients on the use of prenatal vitamins, including when to start and stop taking them, and encourage follow-up with a primary care provider and obstetrician/gynecologist.

The second standing order covers oral hormonal contraceptives. It allows pharmacists to give out a 365-day supply of over-the-counter birth control pills — specifically norgestrel 0.075 mg tablets — to eligible MassHealth members and HSN patients.

It specifies that birth control is “accessible to individuals of reproductive potential and age,” according to Healey’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS).

“As part of this initiative, pharmacists will be required to counsel patients on contraindications, side effects, and the proper use of the birth control pill, emphasizing the importance of daily adherence and informing patients that the pill does not protect against sexually transmitted infections,” information from EOHHS says.

“We know that prenatal vitamins and birth control play an essential role in women’s health. No one should be prevented from getting the care they need because of cost or because they are waiting for a prescription,” Healey said in a statement. “These standing orders will make it easier and more affordable for people to make the best health care decisions for themselves, will improve health outcomes for women and babies, and will reduce health disparities.”

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GOV. MAURA HEALEY intends to run for reelection in 2026, she said Friday.

“When Kim and I started, we laid out in our inaugural address things that we wanted to do. We wanted to get after housing, and we wanted to get after transportation, we wanted to cut taxes, we wanted to make investments in education,” Healey said on GBH Radio on Friday. “And I feel like we’ve done all those things, and there’s a heck of a lot more to do. And so I plan to run for reelection, because there’s a lot more to do.”

The Democrat was the first woman and first openly gay candidate elected governor of Massachusetts, and is halfway through her term in office. In her first two years, she has signed major laws related to incentivizing housing development, expanding clean energy, further regulating hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry, and making tax cuts.

Her administration has also been burdened with the handling of a number of crises, among them: the growing number of homeless families putting logistical and financial strains on the state’s emergency shelters, and a for-profit hospital system that collapsed last year, shuttering two hospitals. 

“I’m really proud of the record so far,” Healey said Friday. 

She later added, “I love my job, I feel incredibly privileged to be in this position, and I’d love to have the opportunity to continue to work for the great people of this state.” 

Healey has shown a keen interest in national politics, but there are no seats opening on the federal level in the near future. Democrat US Sen. Ed Markey said he plans to run for reelection in 2026. President Donald Trump’s election also closed a door for any Democrat in state office in Massachusetts who may have looked to join a Kamala Harris administration. 

Several Republicans are reportedly eyeing runs for the corner office as well. 

Former housing and economic development secretary Mike Kennealy is “seriously considering” a gubernatorial campaign, the Boston Herald reported last month, and Sen. Peter Durant told WBUR that he’ll decide this spring whether he’ll also make a bid. 

Kennealy was a cabinet secretary under former Gov. Charlie Baker, and now serves as senior advisor and chief strategy officer at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. Durant won a recent special election to the Senate after spending years in the House, and has become one of the most vocal opponents among electeds of the administrations’ family shelter policy.

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SENATE PRESIDENT Karen Spilka won another term leading the chamber with no speedbumps Wednesday and quickly set her sights on a combination of new and old priorities.

During her inaugural speech, a newly reelected Spilka previewed some of her legislative priorities for the 2025-2026 session: reexamining the state’s education funding formula, pressing for primary health care delivery reform, and pushing again to expand juvenile court jurisdiction to include young adults aged 18.

Also on her agenda, after a session that she called “historically productive” but was criticized in the press and public for missing deadlines and leaving important work until the last minute, Spilka proposed a number of rules changes to make the flow of legislative work more efficient and “transparent.”

Following the swearing-in of members — including three new senators — Spilka gave a speech that backed rules changes to allow lawmakers to continue work on unfinished, controversial bills during election season. Existing legislative rules for decades have called for formal sessions to end July 31 in election years.

After receiving criticism for leaving nine major bills related to health care, climate change, substance use, economic development and more on the table after July 31, lawmakers swore to continue working — and circumvented their own rules to do so — into the fall and winter. Spilka proposed Wednesday to make the change permanent to allow votes on conference committee reports to continue through the full two-year session, including during and after election season.

Spilka said that practice last year “allowed us to complete vital work.”

“The bills that emerge from conference committees contain provisions that have been vetted by one or both branches and have been reported upon  — sometimes extensively,” Spilka said during her inaugural speech from the Senate podium on New Year’s Day, after senators were sworn in for the 194th legislative session.

She suggested other rules changes as well, including bringing forward the date on which legislative committees have to give their final recommendations on bills.

The biennial legislative deadline known around Beacon Hill as Joint Rule 10 day currently comes around on the first Wednesday in February of the second year of the legislative session. That means lobbyists and activists have 13 months to make their cases to committees as to why certain bills should advance to the floors of the House and Senate.

Spilka on Wednesday proposed bringing the deadline into the first year of the legislative session.

“The reasoning behind some of the rules changes is to move things along faster, such as changing the day of reporting bills out of committee,” Spilka said in an interview with the News Service. “What can we do to move bills along faster? Get them out of committee… If we can move that along a little bit faster to report them out sooner in the first [year], say, the fall of the first year of the session, then the second year can be held for sooner deliberation, debate and vetting if needed.”

Asked why she felt now was the right time to make these rules changes, Spilka said she wants to “get the word out” about the work happening in the Senate.

“Trying to get people the information of what we’re accomplishing as a Senate, as a Legislature — that is not getting out as well as we all want it to in the Senate. So we’re trying to think of ways to get things done a little bit sooner, to get the word out,” Spilka told the News Service.

Referencing to the large omnibus bills the Legislature has taken to passing in recent years when standalone policy bills have become increasingly rare, Spilka said, “If we have the bills let out a little bit earlier, there could be more work on them and get them done, so they’re not lumped in as much together.”

During her speech from the rostrum, the Senate president criticized the “fractured and distorted” media landscape, saying that the Legislature’s “accomplishments are consistently overshadowed by a persistent negative media narrative.”

She pledged a number of “transparency”-minded reforms, including posting all summaries of bills that come out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee online, and saying she’d “ask negotiators” on conference committees “to work towards more openness in committee meetings, starting with working to ensure the first meeting is open.”

The Legislature is not subject to the public records law and the top Democrats in the House and Senate have not been able to agree on transparency-minded rules changes since 2019, with conference committees failing to produce accords in each of the last two sessions.

The first meetings of conference committees are typically open to the press and public for a few short minutes, but Spilka told the News Service that practice is up to the discretion of the committee. Negotiators usually hold the meeting open for fewer than five minutes, sometimes making introductory remarks, before voting to close the meeting to the public and asking the press to leave.

“It would be good to have at least the first meeting, to work towards being more open to the public and start — we’ll work towards being more [transparent], and letting the conference committee decide for itself — but at least the first need[s] to be fully open to the public,” Spilka said.

As for policy, Spilka highlighted a few topics she plans to bring before the Senate over the next two years.

She plans to reboot attempts to “Raise the Age,” which would gradually expand juvenile jurisdiction to include young adults ages up to age 18, meaning people ages 19 and older would be subject to the adult criminal justice system. The Senate has pushed for this reform in the past but met resistance in the House.

Spilka also the Senate would again try to shift the burden of broker’s fees from renters onto the party who contracted with the real estate broker, typically a building’s landlord.

“It’s an important consumer protection and making housing more affordable for our residents here,” Spilka told the News Service about the policy.

Asked if she would pursue that as a standalone policy bill or part of a larger omnibus housing package — after the Legislature passed a large housing bill last year — Spilka said, “It could be, or it could be a bill onto itself.”

She would not commit to whether Senate Democrats would again support transfer fees on high-dollar property transactions to raise money for affordable housing — a controversial policy that got support in that chamber last year, but never made it to conference committee.

“It will probably come up in one form or another,” she said, when asked about it. Pressed on whether Senate Democrats would support the policy, Spilka said, “I don’t know, we’ll have to see what the session brings.

Spilka said the Senate would look at primary health care delivery reform; investing $100 million into career and technical education; and closely examining K-12 funding and policy, as the so-called Student Opportunity Act enters its final year of scheduled aid increases.

The hospital oversight bill (H 5159) currently on Gov. Maura Healey’s desk would create a 23-member task force focused on improving primary care access, delivery and financial stability. The group is charged with recommending ways to develop standardized data reporting requirements, establish primary care spending targets, propose payment models to increase primary care reimbursement, and create workforce development plans, among other objectives.

Spilka said there is more to do, however.

“I do feel that we are at a really important inflection point in health care in the commonwealth,” Spilka told the News Service. “I think that providers are having trouble and concerns insurance companies, formerly known as the carriers, are having trouble. Patients, clearly, are having concerns and trouble getting the care that they need.”

As for education funding, Spilka said she’s heard from a lot of senators that their districts are having issues with education funding, even as the Student Opportunity Act has ramped up investments.

“So I think every 10 years or so, it should be re-evaluated and looked at… Things are changing so rapidly in schools and in education, so it’s time to take a look at at the formula,” she said.

Spilka was re-elected to lead the Senate on a 34-5-1 vote during Wednesday’s inaugural session of the 194th General Court. All five Republicans voted for Sen. Bruce Tarr, and Sen. John Keenan voted present.

The Senate president turns 72 on Jan. 11 and has served in the chamber’s leadership role since July 26, 2018.

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THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION Center Authority Board voted Monday to appoint Marcel Vernon Sr. to lead the quasi-public agency into its next chapter, choosing the chief financial officer of a Boston-based social services organization with experience in state government over a leader from Washington D.C’s convention center authority.

The board voted 12-0 to tap Vernon on Monday afternoon, after holding final interviews of the two finalists in an open public meeting.

The search for a new leader to take over the agency has taken close to a year, after former executive director David Gibbons stepped down last November.

Vernon is the CFO and senior vice president of finance at Bay Cove Human Services, based in Boston. During the deliberations over who should lead the agency, a number of board members listed Vernon’s established connections in the Boston area and relationship to the local community as among his strengths.

He also worked as the CFO at the state’s Department of Revenue, and starting in 2018 led the finances at the Trial Courts and Office of Court Management.

The board voted for Vernon over the other finalist, Hootan Kaboli. Kaboli is the senior vice president of operations at Events DC, the authority that runs conventions, entertainment, sporting, and cultural events in the nation’s capital. He’s been with the organization for eight years, according to his LinkedIn, serving in several positions.

“One thing that stands out for me in particular about Marcel is the local connection, right? He has experience here in Massachusetts, and has connections to folks and some experience working in the state in a couple of different roles. So for me, I think that in particular stands out as we’re bringing someone into this, into this role that is so deeply embedded in the community, and sort of a person that we know needs to rebuild trust in a lot of ways,” board member Ashley Groffenberger.

The quasi-public agency responsible for an $845 million economic impact in the Boston and Springfield areas has been struggling with its public image over the last few years as issues have come to light related to racial discrimination, an allegedly opaque process of handling of state-owned land, and a new state audit that claims it “cherry-picked when it was convenient or not convenient” to follow state law and internal policies related to public records, procurement, and settlement agreements.

The search for a new executive director has been framed as an opportunity to turn a new leaf for the organization, with a greater emphasis on prioritizing inclusivity and equity within the 400-plus employee organization.

Between 2010 and 2013, Vernon was CFO of Elite Prototype Athletics, a sports and recreation complex in Brooklyn, New York. Vernon moved to Massachusetts in 2013 with his wife and children, he said. In his interview, he highlighted his involvement with Men Organizing for Support and Strength in Dorchester, which he said helps create business opportunities in underrepresented communities.

“Transformation” was a repeated theme that Vernon brought up during his final, in-person interview with the 12-person board on Monday afternoon in Boston.

After saying he brings “results-oriented experiences and transformation… to the table,” he added, “I’m not saying that a transformation is needed here. But, you know, certainly I think I can be an agent of change to really help propel the authority to the next level of success.”

Though he does not directly have convention authority experience, the board members said they believed his work experience was transferable.

Vernon worked as a casino finance and operations executive for seven years for Harrah’s Entertainment, Isle of Capri, and Mohegan Sun, according to his LinkedIn.

“Early on, we had no idea how deep the experience was that Marcel had in the industry. And quite honestly, it was a big issue for me, being in the industry,” said Cindy Brown, who is the CEO of Boston’s Duck Tours. “But once we talked to him extensively about the hands-on work he’s done at casinos and hotels, which essentially can serve as convention centers, I was blown away by the experience he has.”

During his interview, Kaboli made a point of highlighting his “directly” and “immediately transferable” skills, working currently as the senior vice president of operations at one of the MCCA’s competitors for conventions.

He said he directly negotiates with unions, built a staff culture at Events DC, manages $30 million of internal sales and attracts external sales to the convention center, and works with local government for funding and approval when necessary — pointing out that many of these responsibilities would be transferable to the job in Massachusetts.

However, Sheena Collier, who led the board’s search efforts, said while industry knowledge was “a plus… this is a broader role than that.”

“Marcel, to me, is going to bring unity back to this Convention Center,” said Aisha Miller, who co-chaired the search committee with Collier.

The executive director job comes with a $250,000 to $320,000 salary, per a job post by contracted search firm Koya Partners.

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NEW MASSACHUSETTS STATE Police Superintendent Col. Geoffrey Noble said he will do a complete review of the agency’s academy training model following the recent death of recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia, but he stopped short of promising to completely overhaul the troubled agency’s leadership.

Gov. Maura Healey administered Noble’s oath at the State House on Friday morning, concluding 18 months of interim leadership at the State Police after Col. Christopher Mason retired in February 2023.

“The Massachusetts State Police will deliver excellent police services, build and maintain public trust, and enforce the law with fairness, compassion, equity, transparency and accountability,” Noble said. “Trust between our department and the community must be strong and unwavering. That accountability and that trust starts with me. I must first earn your trust, and I’m committed to have the resolve to do whatever it takes to earn and maintain that trust.”

The department that Noble is now in charge of has been thrust into a glaring spotlight a number of times in recent years. Over the past few months, the State Police was in both local and national headlines when a trooper’s crude text messages were read aloud on the stand during the widely-watched Karen Read murder trial. A Karen Read supporter was outside the State House on Friday with a “Free Karen Read” sign as Noble and other State Police walked in for the ceremony.

Most recently, the agency has been in the news because of the death of Delgado-Garcia, and subsequent allegations of hazing and intense conditions at the training academy.

Noble said Friday he had not been officially briefed on the investigation into the recruit’s death yet, but that he is aware of the situation and a deeper briefing is shortly forthcoming.

“We absolutely are going to do a complete review,” he said, when asked about his first action in respect to the academy, “and work together with the staff of the Massachusetts State Police, with [the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security], with the governor’s office. And what that review looks like, we will be transparent.”

A reporter asked Noble if he planned to replace any of the existing command staff. Noble is the first superintendent chosen to lead the State Police without having been an existing member of the force. Healey was the first governor able to take advantage of that allowance from a 2020 policing reform law.

“I do want to be clear, I come into this from an extraordinarily high level of respect to the women and men of the Massachusetts State Police,” Noble said. He added, “That said, I do look forward to working with the command staff and all the staff over the next several weeks and months.”

In his first few months, Noble said he feels his most important job will be to “talk to stakeholders,” including those who don’t have positive opinions of the State Police.

A reporter asked Healey about the 18-month search for a new superintendent, and why she landed on Noble — who spent 27 years with the New Jersey State Police, most recently as its lieutenant colonel — in light of a recent probe into the New Jersey agency that found decades-long patterns of discrimination.

Probes from New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin found women and minority troopers were passed up for promotions to top positions, as well as reports of racist comments and ignored requests for equitable treatment, the New Jersey Monitor reported. 

Platkin said the findings “revealed deeply troubling conduct and systemic problems,” the Monitor said.

“Well, this was the subject of an extensive search process that included a renowned panel on our search committee. Everything was reviewed, and we have the opportunity to review, personally, everything, and the lieutenant governor and I are quite confident in Colonel Nobel and the job that he will do. He has a terrific record of proven leadership, including at the New Jersey State Police, and I know that that will carry through here in Massachusetts,” Healey said.

Noble, also responding to a question about the recent reports out of New Jersey, said he will “work tirelessly” to build a culture at the Massachusetts State Police “that is built on equity, inclusion, and respect for all, and an opportunity for all.”

“A healthy organization is one whose men and women who serve in that department feel that they belong, feel that they are supported, feel that they can come work at an agency, regardless of their background or their experience, but once they become, in this case, a Massachusetts state trooper, they’ve earned that right,” he said.

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ONE PHRASE WAS uttered over and over again Tuesday morning by the movers and shakers of Beacon Hill and D.C.: Who knew concrete was so exciting?

The ceremonial opening for a new office building at 1 Boston Wharf Road in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood was unusually well-attended for a local ribbon-cutting, with attendees from high federal, state and local offices, including Gov. Maura Healey, Congressman Richard Neal, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Cabinet secretaries Rebecca Tepper and Monica Tibbits-Nutt, and a number of White House representatives: President Joe Biden’s chief sustainability officer Andrew Mayock, special assistant to the president for climate policy Ben Beachy, and Robin Carnahan, administrator of the General Services Administration.

The event celebrated the first commercial application of a new type of low-carbon cement, made entirely in Massachusetts, and its use to build Boston’s largest net zero office building. The 707,000 square foot, 17-story mixed-use building features 630,000 square feet of office space leased to Amazon and a new performing arts center comprising two live performance venues with a total of 700 seats.

Somerville-based Sublime Systems was born out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as more attention has been paid in recent years to how the built environment is contributing to climate change.

About 40 percent of emissions comes from the built environment, and in 2023, the production of cement accounted for 7 to 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Sublime. Concrete is the most-used engineering material on the planet.

The company’s website boasts of a greener ready-mix and says Sublime’s process forgoes using a kiln, “which is the most energy and fossil fuel-intensive part of the cement manufacturing process.”

“Everybody here recognizes that the polluting way of making cement today is not sustainable. At Sublime we invented a new way to make the cement avoiding the CO-2 emissions, without the added cost and without the added complexity of carbon capture,” said Leah Ellis, CEO and co-founder of the company.

Healey, who singled out the company in her state of the commonwealth address earlier this year, took the opportunity in front of an audience from the nation’s capital to tout the Bay State’s innovation economy.

“Low-carbon cement is going to help us decarbonize our global economy, and today, as we have so many times, the transformation is beginning right here in Massachusetts,” Healey said.

The governor also singled out Wu, praising her as “the nation’s climate mayor and a policy innovator in America’s innovation capitol.”

Sublime received $87 million in federal funding earlier this year through the Inflation Reduction Act. The grant came from the Industrial Demonstrations Program, which received $6.3 billion in the IRA, meant to “accelerate decarbonization projects in energy-intensive industries and provide American manufacturers a competitive advantage in the race to lead the world in low- and net-zero carbon manufacturing,” according to the Department of Energy.

Neal was one of the lead architects of the IRA, at the time serving as the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, where much of the bill was reportedly written.

“It is singularly the most important piece of climate change legislation in the history of the world,” Neal said of the law during Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “The significance of it cannot be understated.”

He turned his comments touting the IRA and other climate change and infrastructure investment legislation, like the CHIPS and Science Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, towards reelecting someone into the White House that will “actually sign this legislation.”

Additionally, Neal highlighted that Sublime has plans to expand within Massachusetts.

The company is using some of the federal investment to create a manufacturing plant in Holyoke, and it recently announced an agreement with Vineyard Wind to reserve 2,000 tons of its low-carbon cement for use on the planned wind farm.

“In the city of Holyoke is an old building that nobody ever would have touched for decades, but for Sublime,” Neal said. “So, Holyoke, Massachusetts, a Somerville company, and Cape Cod wind. This is what we mean by the Massachusetts principle. This is a very important investment across our entire state.”

In her remarks, Administrator Carnahan said the federal government plans to use its purchasing power to incentivize and reward clean energy companies.

“We have the biggest real estate portfolio in the country and the biggest fleet of vehicles. So we also have money and momentum at the same time,” Carnahan said. “Our intention is to leverage our buying power as the government to help move the market in the right direction.”

The administrator said the GSA would give bidding preference to companies that are actively looking to drive down emissions.

“What that does is it sends a powerful signal to the rest of the marketplace, and we at GSA intend to put these products in our buildings,” she said. “It’s something where we test out these materials and products in federal spaces to show what’s possible. And if we can de-risk these new products, then they can take off throughout the market.”

New York last year became the first U.S. state to limit concrete in state-funded building and transportation projects — an example that Sen. Cindy Creem, chair of the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, encouraged Massachusetts to follow. Parts of legislation to develop uniform standards to reduce embodied carbon are tied up in ongoing House-Senate clean energy bill talks.

A Rep. Michelle Ciccolo and Sen. Jo Comerford bill (H 764 / S 2090), introduced for the first time last year, would establish a state advisory board to address embodied carbon, require the Department of Energy Resources to put forward recommendations and best practices for measuring and reducing the emissions, require a report outlining effective regulation strategies, and require the measurement and reduction of embodied carbon to be incorporated into the state’s building energy code.

The Senate bill received a favorable report from the Committee on Telecommunications, Utility and Energy, and got wrapped into the Senate version of a clean energy bill mainly focused on reforming the siting and permitting of renewable energy.

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FEDERAL LAWMAKERS are threatening to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in contempt of Congress over his refusal to appear at a Senate committee hearing next week, as the health care crisis caused by the company’s bankruptcy continues to unravel.

Sen. Ed Markey, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Primary Health, and Retirement Security with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, subpoenaed de la Torre to testify before the committee at the Capitol building on Sept. 12 about the system’s bankruptcy.

The committee voted on a bipartisan basis to hold the hearing, Markey said at a press conference in Boston on Thursday, where he said they would take another vote next week to hold the Steward CEO in contempt of Congress if he fails to attend despite the subpoena.

“When I voted on July 25 to issue the first subpoena from the Senate Health Committee since 1981, it was not a request for Ralph de la Torre to answer for what he’s done, it was a demand that he answer for what he has done. It was a demand that 15 of my bipartisan colleagues joined,” Markey said.

A letter to Sanders from de la Torre’s lawyers on Wednesday said it would have been inappropriate for de la Torre to attend.

“Dr. de la Torre declined the Committee’s invitation to participate at this hearing because it would be inappropriate for him to testify on matters related to Steward’s bankruptcy while those proceedings remain live and ongoing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court,”  the letter signed by Alexander Merton of Quinn Emanuel Trial Lawyers said. “Rather than afford the time necessary to administer Steward’s reorganization case, however, on July 24, 2024, the Committee issued the Subpoena now seeking to compel Dr. de la Torre’s testimony.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was also at Thursday’s briefing, said that de la Torre could be arrested by federal marshals for refusing to comply with a federal subpoena to testify.

“A congressional subpoena is exceedingly rare. But it is a legal order. Not an invitation — an order,” Warren said. “Yesterday we learned through his lawyer that Ralph de la Torre is saying he will refuse to obey a lawfully issued subpoena. Ralph de la Torre is one more rich guy who thinks the rules don’t apply to him.”

De la Torre’s lawyers laid out additional reasons why the CEO does not plan to speak before the congressional panel: On Aug. 28, Steward prohibited de la Torre from speaking on its behalf regarding bankruptcy-related issues; the “unfettered administration of Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings” is the best way to ensure continuous care for communities who rely on their hospitals; and that the Senate committee continues to “cast aspersions” on de la Torre.

“Unfortunately, while Dr. de la Torre has continued to fight for Steward hospitals and the patients and communities they serve, members of this Committee continue to cast aspersions on Dr. de la Torre and appear determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion,” Merton wrote.

Though the Sept. 12 committee hearing is not a criminal case, Markey and Warren did not shy away from bold language about what they called de la Torre’s “criminally exploitative” operations of Steward Health Care.

“Contempt means that if he continues to refuse to appear before the committee, we will not stop until he answers for what he has done or is put behind bars,” Markey said.

Warren referenced a Boston Globe Spotlight piece published earlier this week about the CEO’s “secret financial dealings.”

The article alleges that de la Torre dipped into Steward’s bank accounts — as hospitals were struggling and medical equipment was being repossessed due to outstanding debts to vendors — to finance his luxurious lifestyle.

“Now, Ralph de la Torre’s lawyer says that Mr. de la Torre can’t talk because the hearing will be turned into a ‘pseudo-criminal proceeding.’ Based on the facts gathered in yesterday’s spotlight report in The Boston Globe, it is entirely possible that Mr. de la Torre’s looting of Steward may have involved significant criminal activity, but that is not an excuse for ignoring a subpoena,” Warren said.

She argued that if de la Torre worried that his answers could put him at risk of going to jail, he could plead the Fifth Amendment, “right out in the public for everyone to see.”

The story of Steward Health Care’s financial crisis has been unfolding for months, coming to somewhat of a turning point this week when a bankruptcy judge authorized the sale of six of the system’s eight Massachusetts hospitals to new buyers.

For those hospitals, which have spent years under Steward and the last several months with hovering uncertainty of whether the hospitals would close altogether, their attention is now turning to rebuilding trust among health care staff and patients, said the Massachusetts Nurses Association’s Ellen MacInnis.

The News Service reported earlier Thursday that the state has committed at least $417 million to aid those six hospitals over three years as they transition to new owners — in addition to $72 million the state already paid to keep them open this summer.

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services said Thursday morning that the $417 million package will support the Holy Family Hospital facilities in Haverhill and Methuen (being bought by Lawrence General Hospital), Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River and Morton Hospital in Taunton (being bought by Lifespan) and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton (being bought by Boston Medical Center).

BMC is also buying the operations of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton and the state plans to seize that property by eminent domain. HHS said information on financial aid for St. Elizabeth’s will be made available at a later time, meaning the aid package’s bottom line is nearly certain to grow.

And there was another milestone this week for the communities whose Steward hospitals were not bought. Patients in Dorchester, Ayer, and the other cities and towns surrounding Nashoba Valley Medical Center and Carney Hospital are looking for new places to receive care, and employees at those facilities are job searching, after both hospitals shuttered their doors last weekend.

Congresswoman Lori Trahan, who represents the Middlesex area that Nashoba Valley serves, said she is worried about it now becoming a “health care desert.”

Asked if she believed the state could do more for Nashoba Valley, like take the land by eminent domain as they did for St. Elizabeth’s in Brighton, Trahan said she is working with state officials to find ways to reopen the hospital.

“There wasn’t a qualified bid during the bankruptcy proceedings to keep Nashoba Valley, so eminent domain was not an option,” she said. “I can tell you, I am on daily phone calls with the governor, the secretary, and our state and local leaders as well as providers and nurses, physicians groups. And we are exhausting all options in terms of trying to get those proposals, certainly, but things change between when bankruptcy proceedings end and kind of going forward. We need to make sure as we reopen services that they are services that can be sustained. So, that is what we’re exploring now. But I’m quite optimistic.”

With the sale of six community hospitals, those at Thursday’s briefing said it was time to begin thinking about accountability.

“As we start to see the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings come to a conclusion, with good news yesterday that six hospitals were in fact sold, or authorized to be sold to new operators, our time and attention now focuses on accountability,” said Tim Foley, executive vice president of health care union 1199 SEIU, who then called for “justice for these communities, for these workers, for these patients.”

The post Markey threatens Steward’s de la Torre with contempt appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

IN A STATE that prides itself on having some of the best health care in the world, two communities are bracing for the closure this weekend of community hospitals that serve hundreds of thousands of people — though activists said they’re not giving up on getting them to reopen their doors.

“I’m telling everybody to chew more carefully,” Eleanor Guvazzi of West Groton said Wednesday. “It’s a very, very frightening situation to look at your babies across the dining room table and know that if they choke on something, you can’t get them anywhere to help in time.”

Guvazzi, wearing a tricorn hat and carrying an American flag, joined protestors outside the State House under the beating sun Wednesday afternoon to protest the closing of Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, her local hospital.

Nashoba Valley saved her son’s and mother’s lives, she said, and if the hospital closes the next closest emergency room is 40 minutes away, when there’s no traffic.

“We are in danger. We are at risk,” she said, declaring that access to health care is a human and American right, pointing to her patriotic attire.

Sonia Lipson, a nurse practitioner at Daniel Driscoll – Neponset Health Center, half a mile from the Carney in Dorchester, said she only got instructions Tuesday about where to redirect her patients who go to the hospital for specialized care like radiology, cardiology, and orthopedics.

“We’ve been calling for weeks and weeks asking. No one seems to have any idea what’s going on. The neighborhood is really in turmoil at this point,” Lipson said.

As the crisis at Steward Health Care hospitals has been unfolding over the past several months, officials and providers have been critical of the system’s CEO, Ralph de la Torre, and other hospital administrators. But protestors at Wednesday’s rally also pointed fingers at the state, and specifically, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration.

“Governor Healey, where are you?” they chanted.

Elected officials at the event called on the administration to use a similar playbook to the plan they’ve laid out for St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton.

Healey, Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh, and DPH Commissioner Robbie Goldstein have repeatedly said they have no ability to keep the pair of facilities open — though they announced earlier this month that the state would move to seize St. Elizabeth’s by eminent domain to help transfer it to Boston Medical Center.

“The Healey-Driscoll administration shares the frustration of communities and staff regarding Steward’s planned closures of Carney and Nashoba Valley Hospitals. Unfortunately, these hospitals did not receive qualified bids to continue operating,” a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

Though the state did not receive any “qualified” bids, South Boston Sen. Nick Collins said there are still interested parties who want to buy the Carney and Nashoba Valley — and pointed out that the administration found money to support the transition of five other Steward hospitals.

“There are interested parties, and they just want the same deal the others have had,” Collins told the News Service, declining to say who those interested parties are. “State health officials should do exactly what they did with St. Elizabeth’s, taking the property with eminent domain, offering bridge funding and capital resources up front to get the facilities up to snuff.”

Healey’s plan to rescue the five bankrupt Steward Health Care hospitals could cost $700 million by 2027, according to the Boston Globe. Though they haven’t released the details of the financial plan of the bailout, Walsh, the state health and human services secretary, said the state would advance some of the funds the hospitals would receive in the future by caring for MassHealth patients to the hospitals in advance.

Collins said that when the Carney’s closure was first announced due to the lack of qualified bids, “at that point in the conversation, there were no state resources offered to transition.”

Sen. Ed Kennedy, who represents Pepperell and Dunstable near Nashoba Valley Hospital, similarly said Tuesday that he felt there were opportunities for the state to find money to save the two community hospitals.

“If funding was going to be the major roadblock, I think it doesn’t need to be,” Kennedy said.

Boston City Councilor John FitzGerald, who represents Dorchester, got the crowd riled up at Wednesday’s rally.

“All we’re asking is for a fair chance from the governor, from the state, that every other hospital at Steward has gotten that chance, except for us and Nashoba. And we know we have operators willing to come in, and we’ve got a business model that can show the hospital can be profitable again,” FitzGerald said. “So that’s all we’re asking here today. It’s just a fair shot. Give us the opportunity you’ve given the other hospitals.”

He added, to cheers, “We’re giving $700 million to keep them open. What’s $750?”

Sen. Jamie Eldridge asked the Healey administration to “meet us halfway.”

“And I have to say — it shouldn’t have to take elected officials like Councilor Flynn, Councilor Louijeune, Rep. Scarsdale, Rep. Sena, myself — it shouldn’t take us as elected officials, all this effort to get potential hospital operators and the administration to meet halfway and offer the money to keep these hospitals open, and keep them open for both regions. But that’s what it’s taking,” Eldridge said.

Haris Hardaway, a Dorchester resident who is challenging Rep. Russell Holmes for his seat representing the 6th Suffolk District, filed a civil complaint with the attorney general’s office earlier this month against Steward for allegedly violating Black and Latino Boston residents’ civil rights by closing the hospital that serves the city’s most diverse communities.

The complaint also accuses the state of not stepping in to stop the closure, or enforcing its own law requiring 120 days between the announcement and closure of a hospital, according to reporting from the Dorchester Reporter.

“Why do we have a community with more than 150,000 Black and Latino residents, with a hospital that’s about to close? Make it make sense,” Hardaway said. “We are here to tell Steward Health Care and this administration that we deserve equal care.”

Some of the activists called for state officials to save the hospitals by tapping the state’s $8.8 billion rainy day fund. Draws on that fund are permissible for “any event which threatens the health, safety or welfare of the people,” but so far the administration has shown no appetite for tapping into that source to address the Steward crisis.

“These are people’s jobs, and these are families that we are saying $8 billion in a rainy day fund are not good enough for,” Hardaway said.

A Department of Public Health Incident Command center has been planning to support displaced patients and providers, according to the state health and human services office.

The department said this work includes meeting with hospitals, community health centers and others who can offer services to patients following the closure; supporting the relocation of primary care to neighboring medical office buildings; working with emergency medical services, local fire departments and ambulances to address the impact of the closures on the additional time that transport will take to other facilities; and making transportation options available to communities to maintain access to services in other places.

Collins said he spoke with an elderly woman from Dorchester earlier this week whose medical care is now being redirected to the South Shore for some services, though she doesn’t drive, and to other areas of Boston for others.

“This person’s in her 80s, multiple comorbidities, and now — she doesn’t drive — is being asked to go to different counties to go get services. That’s going to be the ripple effect,” he said.

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services also says Incident Command is facilitating the opening of geriatric psychiatry beds at Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton to help offset the loss of these beds at the Carney and Nashoba Valley, and creating and publishing an interactive map showing where urgent care centers and retail clinics are located across state.

They’re also working on publishing an interactive hospital capacity dashboard that tracks patient activity, as other hospitals are already dealing with the effects of overloaded patient capacity following news of the hospital closures.

“At Carney, from the moment a patient comes into the ED to the moment they see the surgeon or specialist they need, to the time they get booked for a surgery, it’s all very fast,” Amy Zhang, an anesthesiologist at the Carney, told the News Service. “And that’s the beauty of a small interconnected community hospital. But now those patients are getting in line in an already overcrowded big hospital. This is going to have a major ripple effect on other hospitals in the area.”

With the two Steward hospitals slated to close on August 31, FitzGerald said he and activists will keep fighting.

“The 31st is approaching fast, the date that the doors may shut for a time, but we’re not going to keep them shut forever,” he said. “We’re going to get them back open.”

The post Dorchester, Ayer region brace for hospital closures appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THINKING SHE MIGHT briefly gain access to the powers of an acting governor on Tuesday, Auditor Diana DiZoglio drafted an executive order to ban state agencies from mandating non-disclosure agreements in settlements with employees. While the order was drafted to be issued by an [acting] governor, DiZoglio said at a press conference that she didn’t plan to issue it.

DiZoglio thought she was going to be serving as acting governor on Tuesday, with other constitutional officers out of state. Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Secretary of State William Galvin, and Attorney General Andrea Campbell are delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and Treasurer Deb Goldberg is traveling for a wedding and away for the week.

DiZoglio’s office early on Tuesday morning, the second day of the convention, called a press conference, and when she appeared before the media at 11 a.m. in her State House office she said she did not plan to sign the order, even if she had been made acting governor, because the Healey administration had said they would work with her on issues of transparency.

“I do not feel that that would have been a way to make meaningful and positive change, positioning the administration to come home to a signed executive order,” she said. “It’s my intention to partner with this administration.”

If the governor and lieutenant governor are absent, the state’s top job gets passed to the secretary of state. When he is absent, the attorney general is the next in line to fill in, followed by the treasurer and auditor.

According to the constitution, the acting governor has “full power and authority to do and execute all and every such acts, matters, and things as the governor or the lieutenant-governor might or could lawfully do or execute, if they, or either of them, were personally present.”

The auditor said she was told by the Healey administration last week that she would be made acting governor for a few hours Tuesday morning between when Driscoll left for the convention in Chicago and when Galvin returned.

The auditor’s office released a media advisory just after 9 a.m. Tuesday morning about the press conference, saying DiZoglio planned to “discuss an opportunity to execute meaningful change across state government, increasing transparency and accountability.”

At the press conference, DiZoglio said that due to “a misunderstanding or error made in another schedule,” Driscoll is leaving for Chicago later than planned, and Galvin will touch back down in Massachusetts before the lieutenant governor leaves.

“I was surprised with the information that I would be acting governor, and I was subsequently, due to that fact, peppered with questions, consistently asked all week long, every day, what my plans were for the moments that I would be able to serve in that role,” DiZoglio told reporters at the press conference. “And it caused me to think about some things that I had never really thought about before from that perspective. And I was informed that I would have the opportunity to potentially highlight some issues where we could make meaningful progress in the state of Massachusetts, and identify ways to help people.”

Before her successful auditor campaign in 2022, DiZoglio served three terms in the House and two terms in the Senate.

In 2018, during her push to rein in the use of non-disclosure agreements in the House, DiZoglio said from the chamber floor that she had signed a deal “under duress” when she was a House aide and her boss fired her following discredited rumors of inappropriate behavior.

“This building was utilizing these agreements and your tax dollars to cover up sexual harassment,” she said about the incident at Tuesday’s press conference.

The draft order her office distributed to reporters Tuesday would have banned agencies from imposing non-disclosure agreements on employees in order to come to a settlement agreement, and allowed victims or claimants to make the choice of whether they would like the agreement to be confidential.

Additionally, under the language the auditor is proposing, the financial details of every settlement at state agencies and quasi-public agencies would have to be posted to the Commonwealth’s Financial Records Transparency Platform, or CTHRU, administered by the comptroller’s office.

The draft order lists among its reasons for the policy change: “As discovered in the #MeToo movement, the abuse of non-disclosure agreements has been well-documented to perpetrate abuse, silence victims, and protect powerful perpetrators of abuse such as Roger Ailes, Larry Nassar, and Harvey Weinstein.” The order also said “the use of taxpayer funds to silence victims and protect perpetrators of abuse is unacceptable, unethical, and immoral.”

Though she said she believes the Healey administration is willing to work with her on the issue, she said she would have considered signing the order if she were acting governor during former Gov. Charlie Baker’s tenure.

“Full transparency, since that’s the theme of the conversation today, if this was the previous administration, I likely would have very strongly considered signing this proposal if I would have been acting governor during the previous administration, because the previous administration repeatedly and consistently opposed any and all reforms to the abuse of taxpayer dollars that are used in these non-disclosure agreements,” she said.

DiZoglio said she did not tell Healey in advance that she would be holding a press conference about the NDA executive order she drafted.

Asked in advance what the press conference was about, a DiZoglio staffer responded that the auditor would discuss the findings of a recent audit of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority.

That report revealed the quasi-public agency executed a $1.2 million non-disclosure agreement “concealing allegations of racial discrimination,” DiZoglio said, among other findings.

This $1.2 million settlement wasn’t required to be filed with the comptroller’s office, she said, as current law excludes quasi-public agencies from mandated public reporting of the use of taxpayer funds for settlement agreements.

“What happened at the convention center authority is due to that lack of an accountable process being in place, being required to file [with] the comptroller’s office, not going through board approval,” DiZoglio said. “Those things not being followed, we were able to see that these abuses were able to occur.”

She compared the $1.2 million settlement at the convention center authority with her own settlement while working as an aide in the House.

“Years ago, it was a six-week severance package out of a $30,000 a year salary for a sexual harassment incident. And now it’s $1.2 million of our taxpayer dollars that is going to fund concealing racial discrimination and retaliation,” the auditor said. “It seems we’re going in the opposite direction, and that we need to turn things around quickly.”

She added, “With the stroke of a pen, we can address a lot of the issues that have been raised in recent years… so the convention center authority audit is the reason why this particular issue did come to the forefront of my mind, it’s something that we can address today.”

The auditor said her office is also conducting an audit of all settlement agreements across all state agencies over the past 12 years, and is working with the administration to do so.

She said her office has encountered difficulty obtaining documents from some executive departments, but her counsel declined to share which agencies due to the ongoing audit.

“I have certainly expressed frustration to the governor’s office about some of what I believe to be unnecessary delays in getting access to documents,” DiZoglio said. “Public records law provides for about 10 days to get access. We’ve waited two, three, four, five, even six months, in some cases, to get access to the documents we’ve been requesting. But again, I have recently met with the governor and she has indicated that it is her intention to assist in ensuring that we do get access to our documents in a timely fashion.”

A Healey spokesperson did not respond to a question as to why Driscoll changed her travel plans on Tuesday.

The press conference, which was announced at 9 a.m. and held at 11 a.m., was held during the time DiZoglio seemed to originally believe she would have been serving as acting governor.

“I can’t speak to any of the plans, but Secretary Galvin was, to my understanding, always planning on coming back this afternoon,” she said, when asked by a reporter. “I had a great conversation with him last week in which he did tell me he was planning on being back this afternoon. So I don’t believe that his schedule changed at all. That was always the case. It was the morning period for which there was a misunderstanding or error made with another schedule, I believe.”

She said the order was drafted in a way that Driscoll could have signed it, in Healey’s absence.

“I have a proposed executive order, a draft executive order for this administration, for our elected governor to consider and to sign. I did put ‘[Acting] Governor’ as well, just in case the LG happens to want to also participate in this if she is acting governor, which I believe may be the case right now.”

DiZoglio told POLITICO last week that Healey’s office had been in touch with her team about taking the role as acting governor Tuesday.

NBC10 Boston caught Galvin on his way back to Massachusetts from the DNC to take over the acting governor role.

“I know the lieutenant governor wants to be able to attend the convention and she has the right to do that, so it’s kind of a relay race. I go back, I take the baton, and she comes down,” Galvin said, when asked why he was returning to Massachusetts.

The NBC10 Boston reporter followed up, asking why they didn’t feel comfortable leaving the job in the auditor’s hands.

“I have nothing to do with that,” Galvin replied. “I’ve served as acting governor under seven governors. We don’t get into that. The serious issue is to make sure that somebody’s there who’s responsible, and I’ve held that role, as I’ve said, under seven different governors now. So it’s not about any personalities. It’s about the responsibility you have.”

The secretary returned to Massachusetts around 1 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, according to his office.

It is rare for an acting governor to take drastic policy-changing action while fulfilling that role — though it appears DiZoglio isn’t the only one who thought about taking advantage of the relay between constitutional Democrats handing off the baton this week.

The Massachusetts Republican Party called Tuesday for Galvin to use his powers as acting governor to release financial details about state spending towards the emergency family shelter system that topped $1 billion last fiscal year. Galvin will serve as acting governor until Friday afternoon.

Galvin has stepped in as acting governor many times over his decades serving as secretary of state, but rarely has tried to use that temporary power. In December 1998, while Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci was out of state on vacation, a newly re-elected Galvin filed emergency legislation to force health maintenance organizations to divulge details of their costs for providing prescription drug coverage to senior citizens, according to Commonwealth Beacon.

Among the most dramatic recent examples of an acting governor exerting her power came in September 1990 during former Gov. Michael Dukakis’s administration.

While running for governor, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy famously issued executive orders calling for budget savings as Dukakis traveled out of state.

Less than 24 hours after former Dukakis left for a trade mission to Europe, Murphy issued two binding executive orders meant to address a budget deficit.

Murphy’s orders focused primarily on gaining access to accurate spending reports and reducing personnel and spending in the upper echelons of the state’s bureaucracy, and called for the firing of 1,000 state agency managers and for state employees making over $40,000 per year — including Murphy and Dukakis — to face a 5 percent salary cut.

This wielding of executive power made Murphy unpopular in the corner office. Over a month after she issued the orders, the lieutenant governor said the response for the administration was “sharp and nasty,” and that she had not seen Dukakis in over a month.

Shortly after the incident, she dropped out of the gubernatorial race.

DiZoglio declined to answer a reporter’s comment about whether she plans to run for office again in 2026 — and whether she is eyeing any other state or federal offices — during Tuesday’s press conference.

“I believe that that is an inappropriate question in this office, from this podium, with the seal of Massachusetts right here, right now,” she said, gesturing at her State House office and the official auditor’s seal. “I’m happy to discuss all campaign activities outside of this building… I really just want to show that we’re not using this podium and public tax dollars to discuss any campaign.”

Later, when asked over text whether she plans to run again in 2026, DiZoglio responded that her sights are set on nearer elections.

“Today is about getting this job done to the very best of my ability and using every available tool to make the meaningful changes on issues I’ve been discussing over the course of the last several years — that were recently highlighted in our audit,” she wrote. “Separately, in my unofficial capacity, my focus regarding any campaign is on working to elect our Democratic nominee for President and asking folks to vote yes on 1, to bring in the sun.”

The “yes on 1” comment is a reference to her ballot question campaign to authorize the auditor’s office to audit the Legislature.

The post With chance she could be acting governor, DiZoglio drafted order on non-disclosure agreements appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THE DAY BEFORE dozens of families are scheduled to be evicted from Massachusetts shelters, protestors plan to hold a vigil at the State House Thursday over new restrictions Gov. Maura Healey made to the family shelter system.

Healey’s latest shelter policies limit families to spending a maximum of five business days at overflow sites and makes those people ineligible for longer-term emergency family shelter system stays for at least six months.

The new rules took effect August 1 and also create a prioritization system for long-term family shelters that favors Massachusetts residents over recently arrived immigrant families.

Anti-homelessness and immigrant advocacy groups strongly oppose the new regulations. Thursday afternoon’s State House rally comes after a full week of smaller demonstrations in front of the governor’s office; the release of a letter signed by dozens of advocacy groups, medical professionals and social workers; and another well-attended rally last week where protestors called the new guidelines “cruel.”

House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have both said they stand behind Healey’s decision.

The administration has notified 57 families, who arrived prior to August 1, that they will have to leave by Friday. Some of these families have been “reticketed,” a term the administration has used to describe paying for plane tickets out of Massachusetts.

“Because of the circumstances and really our capacity here, we had to make some changes to policy. But, you know, I’ve said from the beginning that we are going to continue to triage this,” Healey told reporters Wednesday.

During their daily standouts in front of Healey’s office, advocates have held signs that said “Gov Healey: Don’t Put Children on the Streets” and “Housing is a Human Right.”

One of the organizers, Carolyn Chou of Homes for All Massachusetts, said it was hypocritical for Healey and lawmakers to be celebrating the signing of a new housing bond authorization earlier at a press conference this week, as families pack up their items to leave shelters.

“I was at Wollaston Station on Friday night and there were a dozen children sleeping on the street. It certainly feels at odds for the state to pat itself on the back, given the situation folks are in,” she said.

Healey held a celebratory bill-signing event on Tuesday with hundreds of attendees, where she, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Housing Committee co-chairs Rep. Jim Arciero and Sen. Lydia Edwards touted the bill as historic, but also a first step in addressing the state’s housing crisis.

“We don’t forget people sleeping outside. We don’t forget about the people at Mass. and Cass,” Edwards said during her remarks at the bill signing. “We don’t forget about the people who are at the airport. We don’t forget about people working two or three jobs and watching their rent go up. We have not forgotten you. And that’s — I don’t want anyone to see this crowd of people celebrating and think the mission is accomplished. Absolutely not.”

Chou said the crisis of high-demand for emergency shelter is caused by the lack of affordable and available housing in Massachusetts, and that putting tighter restrictions on shelter doesn’t create new housing options for families.

“This is a housing crisis, and we know that part of the reason folks are in shelter for so long is because they can’t find an affordable place to rent,” Chou said. “We certainly are disturbed by the news of officials chipping away at the right to shelter. And it’s disappointing for the state to be touting its work over days and nights of working on this bill when more and more children are sleeping on the streets.”

As of Wednesday, there were 7,396 families in the emergency family shelter system and 271 families in overflow shelters, according to a Healey spokesperson. The five-day policy will be implemented on a rolling basis, so not all families at the sites will be asked to leave at once.

Since their announcement of the restrictions, the Healey administration has updated the guidance to allow providers to extend a family’s stay by up to a month. A fact sheet released by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to shelter providers notes that providers will be “able to issue administrative extensions for families who meet designated criteria” for up to 30 business days.

“We’re focused on families that we’ve done case management with, that we can most quickly exit,” Healey said Wednesday. “Working hard to get people work permits, get them English classes.”

While in the overflow sites, which the administration is now calling “temporary respite centers,” families will be able to access a host of services. They can work with attorneys to get authorizations to legally work in the US, access health care services, and get HomeBASE rental assistance. HomeBASE, however, can only be used to help families pay for rent if they are able to find a unit in the first place.

The administration said that housing assistance, work authorization applications, job placements, English classes and reticketing has led to an uptick in the number of families leaving shelter over the past few months, with over 600 families leaving between June and July.

“We need to make space available for families here in Massachusetts who come on hard times, maybe have a medical injury in their family that keeps them from work and keeps them from being able to pay rent, and therefore they become homeless. I think about victims of domestic violence who are fleeing with their kids and need a place to go,” Healey said. “I’m trying to manage this as best I can to make sure that we are dealing with the capacity constraints and also prioritizing the most vulnerable among our families.”

The governor’s press team shared a statement that once again continued the message she has been pushing for the last few months: There’s no more room in Massachusetts.

“This new policy will help open up space at temporary respite centers so that families have a place to stay while they work with case managers to identify alternative housing,” the statement says. “Massachusetts is out of shelter space and cannot continue to afford the size of this system.”

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