Massachusetts has a housing crisis, and voters across the state are calling for bold action. If only the Massachusetts Senate Leadership would care to listen.
While we are happy to see the bill preserve vital pieces of Healey’s bill like eviction sealing and accessory dwelling units, it in no way meets the urgency of our housing crisis.
Rather than strengthening and building on Governor Healey’s housing bond bill, Senate Leadership has decided to cave to the real estate lobby, nixing the local option real estate transfer fee and relegating it to a commission that will likely never even meet.
Let us be clear: the public wants to see robust action on the housing crisis. MA voters support a local option real estate transfer fee by 3 to 1 and routinely show strong support for a wide range of necessary policy solutions.
Every day, more and more people are being displaced as they can no longer afford the crushing rents and sky-high housing prices. We need every tool in the toolbox, at every level. We can only tackle the housing crisis with investments from the federal level, the state level, and municipal level. Our State Legislature needs to stop preventing cities from playing their part.
Around the country, right-wing Republican elected officials have been trying to prevent progressive cities from passing their own laws. Massachusetts Democrats, however, beat them to that by a century and—whether out of indifference, elitism, or plain-old corruption—uphold that system today. Our Commonwealth deserves better policy making than this.
