Housing czar starts fresh today
The former city manager of Worcester starts as the state’s brand new secretary of housing and livable communities today, and advocates are pitching everything from universal housing to zoning reforms as early priorities.
Gov. Maura Healey tapped Ed Augustus, a former state senator and city administrator, to work as the head of a cabinet-level secretariat dedicated to housing, building homes, and lowering associated costs. The administration hailed the position as a one solution to the housing crisis plaguing Massachusetts.
Augustus should focus on setting metrics for housing production that include affordable and “deeply affordable” units, file a housing bond bill, and create an Office of Fair Housing within the secretariat, said Rachel Heller, CEO of Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association.
“Massachusetts has the fifth largest racial homeownership gap in the nation. And this needs to be a focus of the administration as well [as] the focus of Secretary Augustus’ work,” Heller said. “And in addition to homeownership, we also have racial wealth disparities, and so ensuring there are pathways for economic mobility and for people who are renting.”
Healey pitched the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities as the go-to source for struggling homeowners and renters in the state. The administration said the high-level official dedicated to finding answers to the high cost of housing will work with people from across the state.
State Rep. Mike Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat who has focused much of his legislative work on housing, said Augustus should be a key player in creating a “universal housing” program in Massachusetts, or the idea that everyone in the state is guaranteed a place to live.
“I think that could look similar to what it looked like when Massachusetts decided we were going to pursue that goal of having universal health insurance coverage,” Connolly told the Herald on Wednesday.
When Healey announced Augustus as the new secretary, she pointed to his work distributing or committing tens of millions to develop or preserve more than 2,000 affordable housing units in Worcester.
In a statement to the Herald, Augustus said he is “honored” to assume the role and looks forward to building a “comprehensive housing and stabilization strategy while centering fairness and equity with every opportunity.”