Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is responsible for migrant shelter problems, Kennealy says in new ad

Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald on May 12, 2025

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BOSTON — Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Kennealy is out with what his campaign calls a “scathing” new ad accusing Gov. Maura Healey of allowing the state’s shelter crisis to grow out of control under her watch.

In the ad titled “Failure” Kenneally says governor’s handling of an influx of migrants to Massachusetts represents a “state-funded humanitarian disaster.”

“Maura Healey is responsible for keeping our communities safe, but there have been more than 1,000 instances of violence, drug use, and rape at her migrant shelters,” Kennealy says in the ad.

“When Maura’s migrant shelters turned violent, she turned her back on us,” he adds.

In the summer of 2023, Gov. Healey declared a sudden influx of migrants had grown to a point that it constituted a state of emergency.

When making the declaration, and several times after, she called on Congress to act swiftly to intervene with immigration legislation to solve the problem. Congress did not pass any new immigration legislation.

Healey would go on to cap the state’s shelter system at 7,500 families. After reaching capacity in late 2023, the governor established limits on the amount of time that a person could be provided shelter and the number of housed families began to decline.

The most recent data provided by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities shows there are currently 4,485 families housed in a state provided Emergency Assistance shelter.

In addition to costing the Bay State in a big way, the growing migrant population has strained local resources and services.

In January, the Herald reported on a massive batch of “Serious Incident” reports from the migrant-family shelter program, which exposed incidents of child rape, domestic violence, brawls, drunkenness, drugs and more in the emergency housing shelter system.

According to Kennealy, what residents are seeing in the shelter system is “morally reprehensible.”

“These failures are symptomatic of the way Maura Healey has governed—reactive, disengaged, opaque, and without accountability. The ‘things that are happening’ on her watch are travesties, national embarrassments, and moral failures. They’re emblematic of her lack of leadership. And for the victims of the crimes in these shelters, they will never get back the innocence they’ve lost,” he wrote when releasing his new ad.

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