GREENFIELD — As many as 50 rooms in the city are expected to be occupied in the coming days by families, immigrants and refugees who qualify for temporary shelter under the state’s Emergency Housing Assistance Program.

Mayor Roxann Wedegartner said she was notified last week by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities that, due to a “critical shortage of affordable housing in the state,” families with children would be provided emergency shelter in Greenfield.

“[The state has] exhausted all of [its] range of options of congregate housing and hotels in the eastern part of the state,” Wedegartner said. “Now they have places out here and in central Mass. where they’re putting people up.”

As of Monday morning, 61 children and adults had arrived to Greenfield, according to Wedegartner. To her knowledge, these families, many of whom are Haitian immigrants, come from the Boston area.

The Emergency Housing Assistance Program has continued to expand since Gov. Maura Healy’s administration took office in January. With rising housing costs and a steady flow of new arrivals to Massachusetts, the state has struggled to add capacity fast enough to shelter all the families seeking help.

According to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, an estimated one-third of new families entering shelters are recent arrivals to Massachusetts.

“Our administration recently implemented an Incident Command Structure to lead a coordinated approach to addressing this crisis — including the Governor’s Office, Administration and Finance, Health and Human Services, Housing and Livable Communities, Public Safety and Security, Labor and Workforce Development, and Education,” a statement from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities reads. “Together with the new leadership at the Office of Refugees and Immigrants, we are evaluating options to better accommodate [these families’ needs] and meet our obligations as a right-to-shelter state.”

Greenfield officials recently met with local legislators to discuss how the additional families may impact the community, Wedegartner said. Greenfield School Department Superintendent Christine DeBarge is working with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to see what support may be needed for the children who will be living in Greenfield for the rest of the  school year, and Health Director Jennifer Hoffman is in communication with the hotel where the individuals will be staying to assist with the transition. Otherwise, the local involvement is minimal, Wedegartner said.

“We’ve done what we can at the city level,” she said.

Wedegartner emphasized that there remain details to be worked out, particularly with respect to state reimbursement for expenses the city may incur. She also clarified that the contract for the rooms was negotiated between the state and the Days Inn on Colrain Road, and that Greenfield officials were not informed of the decision until early last week.

“The hotel is running a business and the state has offered to pay them,” she said. “We’d like very much to have more access to hotel space and congregate living space [for local people in need], but until that gets built … unfortunately, we don’t have that ability to offer.”

Wedegartner was referring to plans that include expanding capacity at the Wells Street homeless shelter from 30 beds to 40, and construction of a new three-story building that will hold 36 studio apartments. The shelter is managed by Clinical & Support Operations, and the nonprofit hopes to break ground on the new facility this summer.

Typically, the Health Department has three rooms set aside for emergency shelter of local individuals, Wedegartner said. Those rooms are used for short-term stays in cases of inclement weather, serious illness or shelter after childbirth, for example.

According to a city press release, an on-site provider will work with families to help “rapidly place them into stable housing of their own.” There is no minimum or maximum length of stay and the hotel will provide families with three meals per day until a service provider is able to take over those responsibilities.

The Emergency Housing Assistance Program is funded by the state. Earlier this year, Healey signed a supplemental budget that includes $85 million toward the program to meet the demand of a growing number of families, immigrants and refugees facing homelessness.

“These are families, in terms of the Haitian population, who have essentially fled a very terrible situation in their country,” Wedegartner said, referring to the ongoing war in Haiti. “They’ve come to Boston. … We have now accepted them into the community, and I want to make that as welcoming as we possibly can, using as few resources as we possibly can.”

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.

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