THE COMMONWEALTH NEEDS many more new, affordable homes built to address our housing crisis. We must also consider the condition of existing homes. With the second oldest housing stock in the country, timely repairs are critical to protect residents’ health and reduce loss of homes to disrepair. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of homes in Massachusetts are essentially “out of circulation” for families with young children due to lead-based paint that is still present, despite having been banned in 1978.
Too many of our neighbors live in substandard homes, and their health is suffering. A recent report by the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative documented housing quality problems in Massachusetts with a focus on lead-based paint and poor indoor air quality—problems that disproportionately impact BIPOC and low-income people.
Children in both populations experience higher rates of elevated blood lead levels than the state as a whole, with Black children nearly 2.5 times more likely to have lead poisoning than White children. Emergency department visits due to asthma are 2.5 and 3.5 times higher for Hispanic and Black non-Hispanic children, respectively, as compared to White children. Furthermore, people living in Gateway Cities experience higher rates of asthma, with Springfield and Worcester being on the list of 100 cities with the worst asthma rates in the US.
GHHI also noted that Massachusetts has approximately one million homes with significantly deteriorated lead paint, but each year, only a few hundred are remediated. Why is that? Beyond the urgent need for additional funding, we also need: increased public awareness; technical assistance; more workforce availability; and restructured funding programs to provide grants, whenever possible, to ease the burden on families of modest means.
In its recently released Affordable Homes Act, the Massachusetts House included language and a $50 million bonding authorization for a Massachusetts Healthy Homes Program, modeled on legislation sponsored by Sen. John Keenan and Reps. Manny Cruz and Shirley Arriaga (S.881/H.1307). Inspired by Pennsylvania’s successful Whole Home Repairs Program, the Massachusetts version would create a new fund—without creating a new office or department—to complement existing programs and offer a “whole homes” approach to repairs.
The Massachusetts Healthy Homes Program would offer grants, forgivable loans, and loans with below-market interest rates, in most cases payable at the time of sale or refinancing. With an eye to equity, the grants are designated for owners/occupants with lower incomes while the loans are for those with with higher incomes plus landlords with multiple properties. The funding can be used to address health hazards and habitability concerns, including mold, pests, asbestos, and lead. Additionally, the program can help remove barriers to energy and water efficiency improvements and renewable energy installations.
The program would bundle and leverage funding from existing home repair programs, establishing a more comprehensive approach. To ensure that a significant share of the funding goes to the communities most disproportionately impacted, at least 50 percent of the Massachusetts Healthy Homes Program funds must go to properties in Gateway Cities. Program funds could be used to provide technical assistance and outreach efforts in multiple languages.
This coordinated approach to improving both housing quality and resident health is already working on the local level in Western Massachusetts. Since 2009, the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition has led efforts to tackle housing conditions that can cause or exacerbate asthma.
In 2017, the coalition and Revitalize Community Development Corporation created a “healthy homes model” to reduce asthma triggers in homes. This “Doorway to an Accessible, Safe, and Healthy Home” program, known as “DASHH,” was developed with support from the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative and health care entities in Springfield and Holyoke.
We can “save” an older home in less time and at a much lower cost compared to building a new one. Failing to do so while we work to build new units would be akin to filling a bath tub with the drain open.
A statewide coalition of more than 40 organizations is advocating to enact the Massachusetts Healthy Homes Program and scale up the “whole homes” approach as Maryland and Pennsylvania have done.
As the Massachusetts Senate now considers the more than $6 billion Affordable Homes Act, we urge senators to seize the opportunity to establish the Massachusetts Healthy Homes Program as a statewide resource and authorize $50 million in bonding to begin capitalizing it over the next five years, to improve an additional 1,000 homes.
By this modest investment, the program will be an essential tool in remediating long-standing, racial, and class-based health inequities, and help make more homes in the Commonwealth truly healthy for all.
Jessica Collins is the executive director of the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts. Emily Haber is the chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations.
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