DHCD is required to provide shelter to eligible families within seven days, or sooner "when there is serious and imminent risk to the health or safety of the recipient.17 If you have no place to stay or you need to leave your current housing for medical reasons, mistreatment, or certified Sanitary Code violations, DHCD must find shelter for you immediately, even if that is the same day you apply for shelter.
If your family does have a "currently available" living arrangement, but claims that it is a threat to your health or safety, DHCD can take up to the full seven days to determine your family's eligibility, but DHCD must shelter your family by the seventh day unless it can determine that there is no threat to your family's health or safety.18 DHCD uses workers from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to verify threats to health and safety.
While DHCD must verify your family's eligibility for EA shelter, it may not do so in a way that prevents it from providing shelter in a timely way. Indeed, a family who appears eligible based on the available information and who needs shelter right away must be placed in shelter for up to 30 days and allowed to use those 30 days to provide any needed verifications.19
Endnotes
17 106 C.M.R. §309.050. These time periods were mandated by the consent decree in Cornelius v. Minter, 395 F. Supp. 616 (D. Mass. 1974).
18 Muniz v. McIntire, Suffolk Superior Court, 93-1793-B (King, J., April 6, 1998).
19 106 C.M.R. §309.040(A)(3).
Produced by Ruth Bourquin and Faye B. Rachlin Last updated March 2010