(WesternMass News- 1/10/2025) The Healey-Driscoll Administration is now ordering CORI background checks for all emergency assistance applicants after the governor ordered inspections of all Massachusetts emergency shelters, following the arrest of an undocumented immigrant, who was allegedly found with an assault rifle and ten pounds of fentanyl at a Revere shelter.
As of Friday, Healey is now calling for CORI checks to be done on all emergency assistance applicants. That new information came as a shock to many local leaders, including State Senator John Velis.
“Human lives are at stake, not to mention the financial wellbeing of the Commonwealth,” Velis emphasized.
Following the recent reports that limited background vetting was being done on the individuals staying at the state’s emergency family program, Velis told Western Mass News that it’s a moral outrage that even these basic background checks weren’t already being done on those entering the program.
“At the most fundamental level, dealing with a very difficult circumstance, at a minimal, the state needs to be ensuring that bad actors are not at these shelters. Is a CORI check, is a background check perfect? Absolutely not, especially when you’re dealing with folks from other countries, where there’s no such thing as a CORI background check, but to not do the most basic vetting, it’s reprehensible,” he explained.
“For most jobs, there is a basic background check so now translate that into a hotel or some other shelter where you are in close proximity to strangers, many with young kids and there’s no background check? It defies logic, reason, defies everything,” he added.
Senator Velis also told Western Mass News he has a lot of concerns regarding the EA Family Shelter System, and until those concerns are taken care of, he doesn’t think the state should continue funding these emergency shelters.
“It’s indefensible, absolutely indefensible. There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered but from my standpoint as lawmakers is say until these problems are addressed we should not spend another dime on this,” he elaborated. “I voted against this last time for a different reason, the fiscal impact those concerns are greater now than before, but now with this different element of safety and well being and crimes committed again some of the most serious crimes rapes, vicious assaults.”
Velis also told us the emergency shelter program has become financially draining for the state, costing the Commonwealth over $1 billion a year.
“It’s impacting so many other programs. Schools, roads, special educations, substance use disorders and then to have this on top of it where folks aren’t even being vetted, very difficult pill to swallow.”
According to recent reports by The Boston Globe, between January 2023 and August 2024, records showed more than 1,000 serious incidents reportedly have occurred at state shelters, including at least 170 incidents of domestic violence and nearly a dozen allegations of rape or sexual assault.
Velis said he intends to file an amendment to the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s supplemental spending bill to require the results of a clean background check as a condition of eligibility for the state’s emergency shelter program, among other items to promote fiscal responsibility.