What? New Bedford State Reps Oppose Housing Preference For Homeless Veterans In Massachusetts
DEBARYLIFE – The five state representatives from New Bedford, Tony Cabral, Christopher Hendricks, Christopher Markey, Paul Schmid, and William Straus, all voted against an amendment that would have given homeless veterans housing precedence over non-citizen immigrants. You paid taxes and served your country?
You have nothing in common with someone who entered Massachusetts by breaching immigration regulations and traveling through five nations and numerous states without paying any taxes.
Democrats in Massachusetts defeated multiple Republican amendments on Friday that would have given preference to state residents over recently arrived immigrants. The majority of Democrats voted against it, while all Republicans supported it, in a party-line vote.
Four state representatives from the New Bedford region have been blocking proposals that would have given veterans preference when it comes to housing for more than ten years. “Requiring veterans be given priority over illegal immigrants for public housing” was the amendment that Representative Diehl proposed in 2013.
William Straus, Paul Schmid, Christopher Markey, Tony Cabral, and Christopher Hendricks all voted against the amendment, even before it was put to a vote on the floor. In 2013, Chris Hendricks was not employed.
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Although I haven’t had a chance to look over every vote they took between 2013 and 2024, we have at least two instances in which they opposed amendments similar to this one.
When we polled our Fall River group of 52,000 members, 99% of them agreed that veterans should be given preference when it comes to housing. 1,205 persons cast ballots; 1,185 said “yes,” and 20 said “no.”
The amendment that would have given homeless veterans preference for housing was rejected by all four state representatives from Somerset and Fall River, Paul Schmid, Carole Fiala, Patricia Haddad, and Alan Silvia.