Building for All: What Massachusetts is Doing Today

With roughly 43,000 units, Massachusetts has the largest inventory of state-funded public housing in the nation, surpassing even more populous states like New York in both gross and per-capita terms.²² In addition to these state-funded units, Local Housing Authorities (LHAs) also manage approximately 27,000 units of federally funded public housing units. Together, these two types of public housing provide an unmatched 70,000 units of public housing to Massachusetts residents. These units are among the most efficient ways for Massachusetts to provide desperately needed homes which are affordable for households with ELIs. 

Rental units on the private market may be bound by affordability restrictions, with these restrictions often requiring renewal with additional investment after a specified term, most frequently 30 years. Unlike privately-owned subsidized units, both state and federally funded public housing units have rents based on household income, ensuring they remain affordable permanently by virtue of their government ownership. Guaranteeing the 17 availability and affordability of state and federally funded units requires the state and federal government, respectively, to provide operating subsidies to ensure appropriate staffing and support other day-to-day operational needs, and capital subsidies to ensure necessary upgrades are made to keep units safe, healthy, and comfortable for residents. 

Historically, capital funding for maintenance and upgrades in state-funded units has been insufficient, leading to significant maintenance backlogs in state-funded public housing. In some cases, these backlogs have been so severe that units become uninhabitable and must sit empty until sufficient investment is made to make them safe for prospective residents. Recognizing this longstanding challenge, the FY26–30 CIP invests $656.9 million of the Governor’s historic Affordable Homes Act authorizations in public housing in Public Housing General, the primary state-funded capital support for 229 LHAs, in addition to two new initiatives: a vacant unit turnover effort to accelerate the return of offline units and the Comprehensive Modernization (Comp Mod) program to fund substantial modernization projects. This funding will help to ensure that the Commonwealth maximally leverages these state-funded public housing units so that each of these units will provide affordable, stable housing to Massachusetts residents for decades to come. 

In addition to Massachusetts’ nation-leading public housing portfolio, the Commonwealth also stands out nationally through the provision of ongoing project-based and tenant-based rental vouchers, as well as capital supports and one-time emergency rental assistance programs.²³ While 33 states provide some form of rental assistance program, Massachusetts is one of only eight states which provides project- and tenant-based rental assistance in addition to capital resources for the development of affordable rental housing. Massachusetts’ premier statewide programs providing rental assistance resources are the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) and Alternative Housing Voucher Program (AHVP), which provide ongoing rental subsidies, and the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) Program, which provides emergency assistance for families at risk of displacement. MRVP provides permanent rental subsidies through two distinct voucher types: project-based vouchers and mobile vouchers. Project-based vouchers support a specific unit or units within a development and the subsidy they provide is attached to that unit. Mobile vouchers provide subsidies to a specific program participant, subsidizing the housing costs of that participant and their household for any unit that meets the standards of the state sanitary code and other program requirements.