BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey’s administration estimates the final tally for how much the state spent on emergency shelters over the last 12 months will come in slightly less than originally anticipated, but costs for the fiscal year that ended Monday are still on track to approach $1 billion.

In a report released Monday, housing and finance officials said the state is projected to spend $970 million in fiscal year 2025 on the emergency assistance program and related services for families with children and pregnant women, including a declining number of migrants.

Separately, the budget Beacon Hill legislators handed Healey this week also includes slightly more than $5 million for an “immigration legal services program” to increase access to legal representation for immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said the projected fiscal year 2025 shelter costs were reduced from just over $1 billion “as a result of Gov. Healey’s reforms to the EA system.”

“We expect these costs to be hundreds of millions of dollars less in fiscal year 2026 as Gov. Healey’s reforms take full effect,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

State spending on the emergency assistance program and connected services totaled $865.8 million as of June 26, according to the report. That is an increase of roughly $38.5 million since June 12, when the Healey administration released the last set of shelter-related data.

The spending details were made public the same day the Healey administration said it closed 24 costly hotels and motels serving as shelters. The spokesperson for the state’s housing department said closing hotel and motel shelters will save an estimated $410 million each year.

Healey announced in May that she planned to shutter all hotel shelters this summer. A handful of remaining sites will close by July 31.

Nightly rates to house homeless families in hotels and motels can run hundreds of dollars, with providers often baking in the cost of food and support services into the bill they hand the state. At the peak in 2023, the Healey administration was relying on 100 hotels and motels.

Spending on direct shelter services remains elevated even as the total number of families in the system has steadily declined since the start of the year. There were 3,740 families in emergency shelters as of June 26, according to state data.

Housing and finance officials said the state has so far spent $728 million in fiscal year 2025 on short and long-term shelters, payments to the National Guard to serve those sites, overflow locations, and clinical assessment sites, according to the latest spending report.

The Healey administration has spent another $98 million on HomeBase, which provides eligible families exiting the emergency assistance shelter program with $30,000 over two years. Total HomeBase caseloads have increased by more than fivefold since Healey took office in 2023.

State officials have also shuttled $38 million to education supports, work programs, and other services for families in the emergency assistance shelter program, the report said.

A spokesperson for Mike Kennealy, a Republican running for governor, said the numbers included in the report “prove that Maura Healey’s so-called reforms have done nothing to fix this crisis.”

“A vote for Maura Healey is a vote to continue wasting nearly $1 billion a year, making the problem worse. A vote for Mike Kennealy is a vote for immediate, common-sense solutions,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Herald.

Spokespeople for the Healey administration did not immediately provide a response to Kennealy’s statement.

Healey’s finance and housing secretaries said they expect final tallies for fiscal year 2025 to land at $822 million for direct shelter services, another $100 million for “exit costs” like HomeBase, and $48 million for “other services,” according to the report.

The Healey administration has not outlined how much cash they expect to dump into the emergency assistance program in fiscal year 2026.

But officials contend that the total cost for the program will be significantly lower over the next 12 months because of restrictions Beacon Hill Democrats put in place to curtail access to state-run shelters.

Lawmakers sent Healey a fiscal year 2026 budget Monday that includes just over $276 million for the shelter program and another $57 million for HomeBase.

Brian Shortsleeve, another Republican running for governor of Massachusetts, criticized Healey for shelter-related spending.

“Shifting them from one shelter program to another is not an exit ramp off of public assistance, it’s an annual subscription to free housing for years on end. When I am governor, we are going to respect hardworking taxpayers and preserve these programs for the most vulnerable, legal Massachusetts residents,” Shortsleeve said in a statement.

Spokespeople for the Healey administration did not immediately provide a response to Shortsleeve’s statement.

The Healey administration has said 90% of eligible applicants to the emergency assistance shelter program are “Massachusetts residents.” Democrats approved reforms over the past year that block anyone from shelter services who is not legally in the United States.

In a separate spending initiative also related to immigration, the budget Beacon Hill legislators handed Healey this week also includes slightly more than $5 million for an “immigration legal services program” to increase access to legal representation for immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts.

Legislative Democrats have said the cash will head to nonprofit groups to help immigrants and refugees “who are facing enhanced legal threats from the federal government.”

In the months since President Donald Trump took office, federal immigration agents have conducted an increasing number of raids all across the country, including in Boston and surrounding communities.

In a post to social media Monday, Kennealy blasted Democrats for the legal defense fund.

“The Democratic supermajority snuck $5M of your tax dollars into a legal defense fund for migrants. Healey must veto this reckless spending,” he said. “It fuels the migrant crisis and tells migrants nationwide that Massachusetts will shield them from the law at the expense of the taxpayer.”

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