Healey urges ‘aggressive’ approach to the housing crisis

Gov. Maura Healey asked local officials Friday to partner with her to tackle the state’s housing crisis, encouraging them to share their ideas and not to fear trying new things.

“We're going to have to do some things that we probably haven't done before in our state in order to get there,” she said during the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s annual conference. “But we're in this together, and with urgency, focus and collaboration, I know we can not only rise to this challenge, we can meet this challenge and really knock it out of the park, but we've got to be aggressive.”

In her talk at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center, Healey told local leaders that housing and economic development will be a major focal point to her administration. She’s previously said she plans to file legislation within her first 100 days to create a dedicated housing secretariat in her cabinet, and on Friday she said she would convene a working group to help her envision how the housing office will be structured.

The group, Healey said, will feature developers, municipal officials, advocates and others, and it will be led by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, the former mayor of Salem. Driscoll also spoke at the conference, giving closed-press remarks at a luncheon for women elected to municipal office.

Healey called housing one of the biggest issues facing the state, and said making progress will require "intense collaboration" across local, state and federal government.

"There aren't enough homes, simply put, at any price point, either to rent or to buy for too many people around our state," Healey said. "There aren't enough homes near our transit hubs. There aren't enough resources for families experiencing housing insecurity and facing homelessness, and we are at serious risk of seeing our residents and our businesses go elsewhere to build their futures if they can't afford to stay here."

The governor’s address to city and town officials comes a day after she filed her first pair of bills: a $987 million bond bill she said will provide immediately needed funds to the state’s housing and economic development programs, and a $400 million bill to finance local road and bridge repairs for two years.

It also comes as Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is readying a local rent control proposal to present to the City Council and ultimately send to the Legislature for approval. Healey would also need to sign off on the plan, if it makes it through councilors and lawmakers.

When she was running for office, Healey said she wanted to empower communities to adopt the local-level housing policies that best solve their individual challenges, including rent stabilization.

Asked after her speech about the role of local rent control, she said she continues "to take the view that it's up to local communities to make those decisions."

"I've also said that we need to think innovatively about how we meet our housing challenges right now, and that really does start with production," Healey said. "It's why I've called for the creation of a secretary of housing and a secretariat just dedicated, focused intentionally, aggressively, on increasing housing stock across the state."

Healey also told the municipal officials that she’ll provide them with early notice of how much local and school aid cities and towns can expect in her first budget proposal, and said she plans to seek money from lawmakers to help schools educate and support children from newly arriving migrant families.