Last Friday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed its $58 billion Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget. The budget overall provides mostly level funding for housing and homelessness programs. See a detailed breakdown provided by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless and a summary of individual homelessness program funding here by the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance.
We will continue our advocacy through the Senate budget process, which will begin with the release of the Senate Ways and Means Committee budget next week.
For now, we want to provide thanks to Representative Lindsay Sabadosa for successfully leading the amendment for $50,000 in funding for the Network itself, and we want to thank our many western MA Representatives who co-sponsored this amendment. We are grateful for your support and partnership!
And a BIG win: Access to Counsel in evictions was included in the House budget! This is an exciting step forward for housing justice and we are grateful to our Western MA legislators who are out front on this issue. We will keep pushing in the Senate.
We also want to flag the significant win in public transportation investment, specifically record funding for regional transit authorities at $94 million. Thanks to Representative Natalie Blais for her long-standing leadership on this issue and all of our western MA legislators for their support.
