IN A LITTLE-noticed move late last Friday afternoon, Governor Mitt Romney issued a series of policy changes that eased proposed regulations by the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) geared toward tightening up eligibility requirements for emergency shelter for the homeless. That action, which was coupled with Romney’s request that the Massachusetts legislature grant him more discretion in cutting the state’s $23 billion budget — a request that was honored last week, and that will allow the new governor to slash local aid and education funding to the Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns — goes a long way toward identifying what the Romney administration considers "essential services."

In November 2002, DTA commissioner John Wagner announced that the emergency-shelter program for homeless families is fast running out of money. He projected an $8.8 million shortfall for the $70 million family-shelter program for fiscal year (FY) 2003, which ends in June. To make up for this gap — and to save $3.5 million over the next five months — DTA officials proposed about a dozen regulatory changes that would have, in effect, limited the number of homeless families that can get into emergency shelter in the first place. Reaction from advocates for the homeless was swift: Leslie Lawrence, the public-policy director at the Boston-based Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless (MCH), described them as "unconscionable."

The proposed rule that had raised the most alarm was what advocates called a "one strike and you’re out" punitive policy. This would have seen homeless families who had violated only one shelter or motel rule instantly evicted from their temporary housing. When you consider that some of the infractions include leaving your bed unmade, the policy’s unreasonableness becomes all too clear.

Under the new guidelines issued by Romney last Friday, which will take effect on February 3, there will be no "one strike and you’re out" policy. Instead, homeless families who violate a shelter or motel rule will first receive a warning before losing their shelter benefits for a year. Romney also softened a proposal that would have allowed DTA officials to split up homeless families seeking a roof over their heads. Under the proposed regulation, teens age 18 and older could have been sent to adult shelters away from their parents and younger siblings; Romney raised that age cutoff to 21. The DTA also suggested limiting shelter applications to immediate family members — parents and children, for example. Extended family, such as grandparents, would have had to apply for shelter separately. Romney’s revised rules stipulate that extended families may be kept together under "extraordinary circumstances," although the governor has left defining that term to the discretion of DTA employees.

Finally, the DTA had proposed disqualifying applicants for shelter if they were evicted from their homes "because of criminal activity" — regardless of whether the applicants had actually broken the law. Romney’s changes make an important exception for victims of what’s been called a "domestic-violence batterer who is no longer part of the assistance unit." All told, the governor’s revisions to the DTA’s proposed regulations will spare about 168 homeless families from immediate eviction over the next five months. That said, as many as 50 families — parents and children who have no place else to go — will lose assistance from the state under the new guidelines and thus find themselves out on the street.

SINCE WINNING election last November, much has been made of Romney’s promise to deal with the state’s ever-escalating fiscal crisis without raising taxes or cutting state services. Two weeks ago, the governor acknowledged that the state’s financial picture was far worse than he’d anticipated. As a result, he said he was going to have to break one-half of that heralded campaign pledge: given the projected size of the FY ’04 budget deficit — now $3 billion and counting — services would have to be slashed. Still, the question remained: what services did Romney regard as essential?

To be sure, the governor said in the recent past that he considers programs for the homeless to be critical, as opposed to other government-funded health-and-human services. In a November 6, 2002, State House News Service article, Romney responded to a reporter’s inquiry about which areas would be held "sacred" in this looming fiscal crisis by mentioning only one: aid for the homeless. One month later, in a December 6, 2002, Boston Globe article, he repeated that vow, outlining public safety, education, and "services for the homeless" as "core" responsibilities of state government. Dramatizing the point, last Friday, after Romney signed the piece of legislation allowing him to reduce local aid to Massachusetts communities by $200 million in FY ’03, he announced his move to soften the proposed DTA regulations — a move that his press aides billed as demonstrating "his commitment to protecting essential services." At the time, Romney declared, "We’re not going to abandon the homeless," explaining that many of the DTA proposals "were too severe and will not go into effect." He then reiterated that "essential services" like the state’s homeless programs "should not be gutted."

Advocates have reacted to Romney’s move with delight. "We were pleased that even in these tough fiscal times he took note and then action," says Ruth Bourquin, of the Boston-based Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, which had written a lengthy, 21-page critique of the original DTA proposals. Bourquin heard about the governor’s rollback last Friday from the new secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, Ronald Preston. The fact that "the regulations got attention at the highest levels of the administration is reassuring," she adds. "It’s a very good thing for homeless families."

Lawrence, of the MCH, agrees. "We’re ecstatic that he’s stepped in to prevent the worst of these regulations from going forward," she says. "To me, it feels like he’s trying to make good on his promise to protect the state’s most vulnerable."

Elizabeth Toulan, who heads the poverty-advocacy group known as the Family Economic Initiative, in Boston, admits that she was surprised that Romney had responded to advocates’ concerns as quickly as he did. "I’m very grateful to the governor for what he’s done," Toulan says. "He’s sending a strong message that he recognizes that there are people who need help from the government and that we cannot turn our back on them, even during a fiscal crisis."