June 20, 2023

Greetings!

Three more of our priority bills are coming up for a hearing at the State House, and we hope you will be able to join us in person or online next week.

Join Us for an Important Bill Hearing Next Week

As we noted in our June 6th action alert, the Joint Committee on Housing will hold a hearing next Monday, June 26th, 10 a.m.–1p.m., focused on public housing, homelessness, and home rule petitions. Several priority bills will be heard that day, including the upstream RAFT bill, the HomeBASE bill, legislation to eliminate the asset limit for families applying for/participating in the Emergency Assistance (EA) program, and more. Please keep reading below for more details.

Don't Forget to Sign Our One-Minute Online Action on the FY24 Conference Committee Budget

Please sign and share our one-minute online action to legislators in support of key FY24 budget priorities!

The six budget conferees named earlier this month (House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz, House Ways and Means Vice Chair Ann-Margaret Ferrante, House Ways and Means Ranking Minority Member Todd Smola, Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, Senate Ways and Means Vice Chair Cindy Friedman, and Senate Ways and Means Ranking Minority Member Patrick O'Connor) continue to meet to iron out the differences between the House and Senate budget proposals for the new state fiscal year that will begin on July 1st.


Thank you for your partnership and collective advocacy!

In solidarity,
Kelly and Julia

Kelly Turley
Associate Director

Julia Garvey
Community Organizer/Legislative Advocate


P.S. Stay up to date with the Coalition’s advocacy initiatives by following us on social media: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. (Links also included at the top of this message.)
June 26th Joint Committee on Housing Hearing Details

  • Date: Monday, June 26th
  • Time: 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
  • Locations: In-person at the Massachusetts State House, Room B-2 and online
  • Committee: Joint Committee on Housing; committee members
  • Hearing topics and link to list of bills to be covered: Public housing, homelessness, and home rule petitions
  • Key bills to be heard:
  • House Bill 1312, An Act providing upstream homelessness prevention assistance to families, youth, and adults, filed by Representative Marjorie Decker: As of today, the companion bill filed by Senator Brendan Crighton, Senate Bill 856, is not scheduled to be heard that day by the Joint Committee on Housing. It likely will be added to the list to be heard that day. This bill would put the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) homelessness prevention program into state statute and ensure that benefits are available to families and individuals earlier in a housing or utility crisis ("upstream"). The bill also seeks to streamline access, improve cross-agency collaboration, and allow households to access up to twelve months of assistance, without arbitrary dollar caps. In addition, the bill would require the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (HLC, formerly the Department of Housing and Community Development) to publicly post reports on RAFT to provide increased transparency on how the program is operating and greater understanding of who the program is serving and not serving.
  • House Bill 1297/Senate Bill 890, An Act promoting housing stability for families by strengthening the HomeBASE program, filed by Representative Christine Barber and Senator Liz Miranda: This bill would put the HomeBASE program into state statute, direct the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (HLC, formerly the Department of Housing and Community Development) to provide renewals of HomeBASE rental assistance to families and children who otherwise would be facing a return to homelessness, and increase the maximum benefit levels.
  • House Bill 1301/Senate Bill 868, An Act to eliminate asset limits for homeless shelters, filed by Representative Simon Cataldo and Senator Jamie Eldridge: This bill seeks to amend the Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter program statute to remove the asset limit for families applying for and/or participating in EA. While we believe that language included in an outside section of the FY22 budget already directed the previous Department of Housing and Community Development (now the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities) to remove the EA asset limit, this change has not been implemented to date.
  • Testimony registration form: Sign up with the committee if you would like to testify in-person or virtually on any or all of these bills and let us know, too! The deadline to sign up to testify is this Thursday, June 22nd at 5 p.m.
  • How to submit written testimony to the Committee: Email Luke O'Roark at luke.oroark@mahouse.gov and Christianna Golden at christianna.golden@masenate.gov, and then share a copy with us, too!
  • Additional resources:
  • 2023-2024 bill priority overview fact sheet
  • 2023-2024 bill priority chart
  • RAFT bill fact sheet
  • RAFT bill details and organizational endorsement form
  • HomeBASE bill fact sheet
  • HomeBASE bill details and organizational endorsement form
  • Emergency Assistance asset bill details: House version and Senate version