State will start next month notifying families in shelter their 9 months is up

The state said it will begin sending out notices in early July to inform families in emergency shelters they need to leave as soon as Sept. 29, enforcing a previously announced nine-month limit.

Not all families will be affected immediately. Notices will go out on a rolling basis, the Healey administration announced Wednesday, starting with a maximum of 150 families next month.

About 4,000 families of the 7,500 in the system have been living in shelters for more than nine months, according to the state's Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

Families in shelter for nine months or more will receive one of three notices in July: either that they need to leave soon but are eligible for a 90-day extension; that they are not eligible for an extension and must leave by a certain date; or that they may be selected soon.

Families can also qualify for a maximum of two 90-day extensions. Criteria for the extensions include: employment, training program participation, veteran status, disability status, school enrollment, imminent risk of harm due to domestic violence, imminent placement in housing and other factors.

Families that must leave can reapply to return to shelters, though it can take months for new spaces to open up.

Officials said the notices won't go out strictly on the basis of which families have been in shelter the longest, but will also factor in the location of families leaving shelters, so departures aren't overly concentrated.

Legislation approved by lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey this spring put a limit on how long families can stay in shelter, and it also said no more than 150 families should be removed by the state per week, not counting families that leave on their own.

“This policy is a responsible measure to address the capacity and fiscal constraints of our state’s emergency assistance system,” Healey said in a statement. “As Congress has repeatedly failed to act on this federal problem, Massachusetts has been going above and beyond — helping thousands of immigrants get work authorizations, jobs and ESOL classes."

Material from the State House News Service is included in this report.