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Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency Tuesday morning over “rapidly rising numbers” of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts and threatening to overwhelm the state’s shelter system.

Because Massachusetts is a so-called “right to shelter” state, officials are obligated to house migrants and others without homes. The administration says around 5,600 families – translating to over 20,000 people – are currently in the state’s shelter system, including around 1,800 the state has put up in hotels and motels and others housed in emergency housing at the Massachusetts National Guard’s Joint Base Cape Cod. The state’s shelter system only housed around 3,100 one year ago, Healey’s office said.

In a letter to federal Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Healey said 100 families were showing up in Massachusetts every day seeking shelter, up from 68 per day in March of this year and 25 per day in March 2022. The state, she said, is spending $45 million per month on its shelter system, and needs federal financial help.

But, she wrote, it also needs the federal government to smooth the process for migrants to get work permits so they can find housing on the private rental market.

“State employees and our partners have been miracle workers throughout this crisis – going above and beyond to support families and using every tool at their disposal to expand shelter capacity by nearly 80 percent in the last year. But in recent months, demand has increased to levels that our emergency shelter system cannot keep up with, especially as the number of families leaving shelter has dwindled due to a lack of affordable housing options and barriers to securing work,”Healey said in a statement.

The state of emergency, Healey wrote to Mayorkas, will let her administration further expedite the use of state resources, facilitate delivery of federal aid and speed procurement for work related to housing migrants.

“Our Emergency Assistance system is designed to be a temporary, emergency safety-net program. It is not equipped to handle the demand that we have seen in recent months. While we have made herculean efforts to expand capacity as much as possible, we’ve reached a point where the expansion is unsustainable,” Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll said in a statement issued by Healey’s office. “We know what it will take to truly address the root causes of this emergency – rapidly increasing housing production across the state and implementing comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level, including work authorizations. We invite our partners in the federal government and across the Commonwealth to join us in advancing these solutions and supporting all families in Massachusetts.”