Migrant families are placed with sex offenders

A new study by The Boston Globe found that several sex offenders convicted of crimes against children were either housed or employed through the state’s emergency family shelter system, which supports vulnerable migrant and homeless families from Massachusetts.

For more than a year, the state’s shelter system has been overwhelmed with an unprecedented surge of migrants entering Massachusetts. In August 2023, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency as the strain on the shelter system continued to increase.

The state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, which oversees housing for homeless families, and Healey’s office have set up numerous emergency shelters in hotels, churches and group homes across the state.

Of the total 7,500 families in the system, half are migrants who entered the country legally and are applying for asylum.

The state has kept many of the shelter addresses secret, citing security concerns, but the globe searched for sex offenders living or working in 67 shelters through the public sex offender registry.

At least six offenders lived or worked in government housing

The globeThe investigation found that sex offenders lived or worked in five hotels and one group home that the state used as homeless shelters. They were convicted of, among other things, child rape, indecent assault and child pornography.

Sex offenders were found to be associated with shelters in Rockland, Saugus, Revere, Kingston and Northborough. Another sex offender convicted of rape and abuse of a child was found to be living in a Salem State University residence hall. The state said so globe it was removed on Friday.

In Revere, a sex offender working at the Avid Hotel pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography and apparently arranging a meeting for sex with a 12-year-old boy. The hotel was partly used as accommodation until the beginning of the year and was listed on the public register as the sex offender’s place of work. Police confirmed he is no longer employed at the hotel.

A man living at the Baymont Hotel in Kingston was convicted in 2014 of repeatedly assaulting a girl under the age of 14 globe reported. A man convicted of child rape in Houston in 1990 was present at the Northborough Econo Lodge.

The Colonial Traveler Inn in Saugus was home to a Level 3 sex offender who was convicted of indecent assault and abuse of a child under 14 and rape and abuse of a child.

Two other sex offenders were members of families in the system, the Globe found.

None of the sex offenders identified are migrants

After globe After the EOHLC identified six people as sex offenders, a spokesman said they were in the process of deporting the people. The investigation revealed that none of them were migrants.

In March, a 26-year-old Haitian immigrant was charged with raping a child, also a Haitian immigrant, at the Comfort Inn in Rockland. At the time, Healey said the alleged rapist had been investigated, but the incident drew national attention when Republican lawmakers subsequently launched an investigation.

The alleged rapist was not counted globe The investigation focused on convicted and registered sex offenders who either worked or lived in the system. But the globe found that another convicted sex offender lived at the same Comfort Inn in Rockland for more than two years and worked at the front desk until January.

It is unclear whether the state performed due diligence

EOHLC said it compares shelter addresses with the Sex Offender Registry Board every six months, most recently in March globe reported. However, a 2019 state audit found that the agency did not routinely conduct these checks.

According to the globeIt was unclear whether the families were aware of the presence of sex offenders in their shelters.

“The safety and well-being of the 7,500 families in the shelters is our administration’s priority,” said Kevin Connor, a spokesman for the housing agency. “We will continue to take every step possible to ensure the safety of EA residents and carefully review each situation that comes before us to act quickly to protect families.”

Many of the shelters are run by nonprofit organizations or the National Guard. The Plymouth Area Coalition, which provides services at the Kingston shelter, said globe Your organization only serves homeless families, not rooms rented to other residents or employees of the hotel.

“We have done everything we can as a shelter provider to ensure the safety of all of our families,” said Executive Director Suzanne Giovanetti.

globe Reporters also went to the shelters where they were turned away and found no evidence of posters or fliers alerting families to the presence of sex offenders or how to search the registry.

“These sex offender posters are hanging at the police station, they should be here,” said a Rockland shelter resident. “There are a lot of children here.”

Read the full investigation here.

Is loading…