BOSTON — As the Senate resumes debate on a $1.4 billion housing bond bill, immigrant rights advocates are calling on lawmakers to reject a proposal that will align state public housing requirements with federal standards, excluding several categories of immigrants from the public benefit.Â
“This is a divisive amendment. It’s going to re-traumatize vulnerable populations, including domestic violence victims, Haitian earthquake survivors, crime victims, torture victims, people who would be eligible for a status if only they could access a safe situation,” Shannon Erwin, state policy director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, told the News Service as about two dozen activists headed into the capitol to lobby lawmakers.
Amendment 28 was filed by Sen. Robert Hedlund, a Weymouth Republican who tabled discussion of the housing bond bill (S 1835) last week over objections to a “special favor” amendment that he said would block an affordable housing development in Norwood.
“I don’t believe that MIRA’s interpretation is accurate,” Hedlund told the News Service, specifically disputing that it would bar Haitian earthquake survivors access to state-funded public housing. Hedlund said the legislation, if adopted, would simplify procedures for local housing authorities. He said, “You have one standard for federally subsidized units. You have another standard for state subsidized units.”
Erwin disputed Hedlund’s interpretation of the federal requirement, saying that some non-citizens are given access under the federal system, “but very few.” Erwin said federal housing law leaves out, among others, “Dreamers,” young people who were brought to the country as children and are out of compliance with federal immigration law but can apply for immigration status under an Obama administration policy.
“Right now we have 100,000 people around the state that are on waiting lists,” said Hedlund, who said in some cases people who broke immigration law receive access to public housing over longtime residents of a community.
The Senate, which did not debate the amendment during debate on the bill last week, is scheduled to meet in formal session Tuesday.
Those opposed to the proposed restrictions gathered on the State House steps Monday morning, and chanted “si se puede,” or “yes, we can,” as one woman wore a cardboard box shaped like a house with a pitched roof.
“If this amendment passed this would mean that the victim would need to return to the abuser’s household,” said Gladys Ortiz, of the Waltham-based REACH Beyond Domestic Violence. Erwin said the amendment would bar many documented immigrants from receiving state public housing, and she said it would not be any more palatable if there was an exemption for domestic violence victims.
