PM Joins Coalition of 100+ Groups Calling on Legislature to Fund Emergency Assistance Family Shelter

Progressive Mass signed onto the following letter organized by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. You can see the full list of signers here.

October 30, 2023

The Honorable Senate President Karen Spilka
Office of the Senate President  
State House, Room 332
Boston, MA 02133

The Honorable Speaker Ronald Mariano
Office of the Speaker of the House
State House, Room 356
Boston, MA 02133

Re: Please Fund Emergency Assistance Family Shelter; Don’t Leave Kids Out in the Cold

Dear Senate President Spilka, Speaker Mariano, and members of the Legislature:

Thank you for your longstanding strong support of children and families in the Commonwealth. We are grateful for your commitment to meeting residents’ basic needs, and especially the needs of the most vulnerable members of our communities.

We write to ask you to urgently provide enough supplemental funding for the Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter program to enable it to continue to serve all eligible families who are experiencing homelessness at least through January. This would give state leaders time to carefully consider policy solutions to the surge in demand for family shelter. It would also be consistent with the 90-days advance notice that the line item, 7004-0101, requires before eligibility changes are made. Such notice has not yet been provided by the Administration to the Legislature.  

There is no greater basic need than shelter from the elements, which is why we are so proud to live in a state that guarantees a right to shelter to eligible children in need. We are keenly aware that the EA system is under great strain at the moment, and you and the Administration are working to develop solutions. In the meantime, however, we are deeply, deeply troubled by the notion that the state may shut shelter doors to new applicants and place eligible families on a waiting list starting this week, on November 1st.

We have seen what happens when families cannot access shelter. Toddlers huddle with their parents on the street. Children are forced to sleep in cars in the bitter cold. Parents and guardians attempt to protect themselves and their small loved ones from inclement weather and physical danger in places not meant for human habitation.  

Please appropriate the necessary funds to sustain our shelter system through January, at a minimum, as an interim measure while working to develop a more comprehensive, family-focused response that could be enacted when the Legislature returns from its winter recess.

Sincerely,

Why We Need a Zero-Carbon Renovation Fund

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Chair Roy: and Members of the House Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy:  

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to An Act establishing a zero carbon renovation fund (H.3232), filed by Rep. Andy Vargas.

I think it is fitting that today’s hearing is held on Halloween because the present and future of climate change contains a litany of frights. This past summer, when this hearing had been originally scheduled, provided an ongoing series of warning signs of the need to take bold and comprehensive action on climate change. We experienced several of the hottest days on record globally. We saw extreme flooding hit neighboring states, and the same for the dystopian impacts of raging wildfires in Canada.

Fortunately, we know what we need to do to mitigate climate change. According to the recent Massachusetts Clean Heat Commission Final Report, achieving our state’s climate goals will require retrofitting an additional 500,000 residential homes and roughly 300 million square feet of commercial buildings to utilize energy-efficient electric heating by 2030, with a pace of 20,000-25,000 home installations a year ahead of 2025, ramping up to 80,000 a year in the latter half of the decade, and over 100,000 residential homes per year thereafter. If we want to meet our goals, we need to start accelerating and scaling our actions.

This bill would allocate $300 million for a Zero Carbon Renovation Fund (ZCRF), administered by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, to jumpstart the market for zero carbon renovations. Such renovations would include (1) maximizing energy efficiency through building envelope upgrades, (2) electrification of building systems, (3) maximizing usage of on-site renewable energy, wherever possible, and (4) use of building retrofit materials that are low embodied carbon.

Importantly, this bill understands that our sustainability transition must be an equitable one, and that some of the oldest housing stock is that where low-income communities and communities of color live. Accordingly, the ZCRF would prioritize affordable housing, public housing, low- and moderate-income homes, schools, BIPOC- and women-owned businesses, and buildings located in Environmental Justice communities.

We’ve seen positive steps from Gov. Healey about investing in green retrofits, but we must scale up that work.

The Legislature has made an ongoing commitment to passing climate legislation. Last session, you took important steps to expand the wind energy industry and to decarbonize transportation, among other steps. Decarbonizing buildings must be at the center of new climate legislation, as buildings make up a large share of our carbon emissions.

To go back to Halloween, perhaps the only thing more frightening than the scenarios of a much warmer world is the knowledge that we have the ability to act today and might not.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts