SAUGUS — The number of migrants living in hotels and motels along Route 1 has dramatically dwindled over the last month, Public Health Director John Fralick told the Board of Health Monday night.
Fralick told board members the majority — roughly 250 people, or “north of” 50 families staying at the Red Roof Inn — of the migrants living in town were moved to Plymouth by state officials. Now, the town has roughly nine families, about 45 people, split across the Colonial Traveler Inn and the James Motel. Fralick said it is unclear whether or not the Red Roof Inn will be accepting additional migrants in the future.
Though the sheer population has decreased, Fralick said the public health concerns remain present, explaining that a number of the families had stashed cooking equipment and food inside the rooms — at one point setting off a minor fire when a hot plate was tossed into a backpack.
“There’s a specific set of rules as far as what the families are allowed to use in the rooms, what types of equipment they’re allowed to have,” he said. “The owners of the establishments are tasked with doing … what amounts to contraband checks.”
Public health officials will be scheduling further in-depth sanitary inspections of the rooms being used to house the migrants, in part to ward off the potential for rodent infestations, with the town seeing increased rodent populations during the winter months.
In September, Fralick told the board at least 400-500 migrants were living within town limits as the state experienced a surge in the number of migrants seeking shelter within its borders. Under the state’s 1983 Right to Shelter Law, Massachusetts is required to provide “temporary shelter as necessary to alleviate homelessness when such family has no feasible alternative housing available.”
Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency due to the strain the influx was causing on the state’s emergency shelter system and activated the National Guard to aid in the response. Healey eventually moved to cap the shelter system at 7,500 families, pushing families needing shelter to a waitlist for spots. The system hit capacity last month.
On Monday, though, in a supplemental budget signed by Healey, the state legislature allocated $250 million to the system. In doing so, legislators required Healey to open overflow shelters by the end of the calendar year, using $50 million of the allocated funds, and keep them operational until the close of the fiscal year on June 30.
Fralick said Saugus officials were hoping for more notice from the state if migrants were going to return to its borders.
“We are going to be waiting and seeing,” he said.
