NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - MCLA President James Birge said the college will not be moving forward with plans to turn their vacant Berkshire Towers dormitory into homeless housing. The announcement came this week in response to the state's ask of temporarily hosting up to 50 families.

“I admire and respect the governor's perspective and approach to dealing with this complicated matter; we want to be helpful with that," Birge said. "I've spoken with a number of administration secretaries over the last day or so, and we want to be helpful, as helpful as we can be. Just right now, that can’t include housing individuals here.”

Conversations between MCLA and the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development had been ongoing for months.

Spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey, Karissa Hand, said in an email, "We are disappointed in this outcome. With our shelter system at capacity due to increasing arrivals to the state and increasing housing costs, we need all communities to play a role in helping to meet our state’s housing needs. Our administration will continue to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to this crisis to ensure we can connect families with shelter and meet our obligations under state law.”

State Rep. John Barrett, who is on the MCLA board of trustees, said there were still questions about the costs of the project and its impact on North Adams. He also said using university buildings should not be the answer to the state’s housing issue.

Birge said the unanswered operational questions and the possible 18-month length of the proposed lease factored into the decision.

“I was thinking we need to get moving forward here," he said. "We've got to get some more answers, and they just weren't coming as quickly. And more importantly, however, we've noticed that our enrollment picture looks a little bit better than we had anticipated. Right now, we're projecting about a 17% increase in new student enrollment for this coming fall. Last fall, it was up about 13%. So, you know, we're thinking we may need to use that space sooner than later.”

Birge credits the increase in enrollment to new academic and athletic programs at MCLA.