BOSTON (WWLP) – The housing crisis continues in Massachusetts with astronomical home prices and unaffordable rents.
The Healey Administration announced a $4 billion plan to generate home production and make housing more affordable across the Commonwealth. The bill will be the largest investment in housing in the state’s history.
In Healey’s inaugural address, she called out the high costs of living in the state, saying that we have some of the lowest homeownership rates in the country. The $4 billion will go to supporting the production, preservation, and rehabilitation of more than 65,000 homes Healey said.
Along with housing production, $1.6 billion will go to repairing, rehabilitating, and modernizing the state’s 43,000 public housing units.
“For the average family in Massachusetts, we want people to know that this law, that this bill, we want it to become law, we want this authorization for you. We need more housing, we need cheaper housing, I’ve said from the outset – that I don’t want people leaving Massachusetts, it’s an awesome place. There’s so much that’s great about our state, but one thing that isn’t great, and I’m being honest with the public about this, is our housing costs,” Governor Healey said.
With this bill, local communities would have the option of adopting a real estate transaction fee on the portion of property sales over $1 million. Close to $1.83 billion would be set aside for housing production and preservation through programs like the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the HousingWorks Infrastructure Program.
This plan still needs approval from the legislature although the governor did sign three executive orders related to this legislation.
Ellen Fleming is a reporter at the Boston State House who has been a part of the 22News team since 2022. Follow Ellen on X @EllenFlem and view her bio to see more of her work.
