After sleeping on the floors of Boston Logan International Airport, unsheltered migrants are set to be relocated to a new temporary shelter Wednesday.
The shelter is located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood.
The complex has a 24,000-square-foot field house that can house up to 400 people.
Gov. Maura Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu toured the complex, where the migrants will call home for the next few months.
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"We really don't have a choice," said Healey. "Families continue to come to this country, continue to come to Massachusetts."
Healey said her administration has opened locations throughout the state over the last several months, including large overflow sites.
"We're also in about 90 communities utilizing our emergency assistance shelter program," she said.
About 7,500 migrant families are housed in Massachusetts through that program, said the governor.
"I announced a couple of months ago that we have really reached capacity in terms of space, and so we have been managing a waitlist," said Healey.
Healey said she continues to call on Congress to act and that President Joe Biden has put forward a plan that would address the border crisis, make changes to the asylum process and provide funding to states like Massachusetts.
"In the meantime, we cannot wait. We've worked very hard to get work authorizations for nearly 3,000 individuals who have come to Massachusetts, and we have a program designed to plug them in with employers who need the workforce," said Healey.
As for Roxbury, Healey said that "we have come because we need to find a place."
Healey reminded residents that the shelter is temporary.
"We will be out before June," she said. "It's important to have this site available to the community for activities come June."
Healey said the Department of Conservation and Recreation will expend additional resources on important upgrades to infrastructure for the building — "something that the community deserves, and we are going to make happen."
"As we do this work, we're going to do so utilizing local vendors and service providers — food, laundry, transportation, case management," she said. "It's very important for the success of this."
Wu said that before flying out to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, she stopped by Terminal E to "understand" and "share in some of the experiences of the families who were there."
"Their stories are the same as ours," she said. "People who want to try to give their kids a chance at a better life."
While this may bring relief for those migrants, for some community members, it's the opposite.
"It's definitely unfair and it's getting to the anger part," said Gregory Baker, a Roxbury resident.
Baker has been living in Roxbury for 70 years.
"I grew up over here. My house was on the corner," he said.
In those years, he's seen the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex turn into a staple for the community, giving young children growing up in not the best environment a place to be kids while also giving seniors the ability to exercise at a low cost.
However, now that very place is being transformed into a temporary shelter for migrants who are currently sleeping on the floor at Boston Logan International Airport — forcing Baker and fellow community members to make their voices heard on the very day those migrants are supposed to be moving in.
Former city council candidate Shawn Nelson said he has no sympathy for the migrants moving in.
"They are taking our resources," he said.
Healey said she has heard the criticism but the migrant challenge has now reached a crisis and this center was the only solution.
"This is probably the eighth or ninth major location that we have opened. We are now coming to Boston, and it's just born out of necessity we are now doing what we have to do at this time," said Healey.
"We voted for her, and this is how you going to do us," said Baker.
"The only time they want us is when they want a vote and as soon as they get that vote they don't need us anymore," said Nelson.
The temporary shelter is expected to serve the migrants with wraparound services until May 31.
