Take Action to Restore Home & Healthy for Good Funding 

Earlier this month, Governor Healey vetoed $2.5 million that the Legislature had appropriated in the FY24 Budget for the Home & Healthy for Good line item (7004-0104).

We are grateful to all those who have made calls to the Governor and the Legislature. We expect that the Legislature may consider overrides after Labor Day. Please continue to call the Governor's office to express your disappointment and call your legislators to ask for their support for an override. Please update us at cgolden@mhsa.net about your outreach. Thank you for your support!

The impact of the veto:

• Cuts significant funding for new permanent supportive housing opportunities for people experiencing chronic or long-term homelessness. Home & Healthy for Good (HHG) provides critical flexible, “gap-filler” funding that makes permanent supportive housing possible. Read the July 2023 HHG Progress Report.

• Cuts funding and language that is critical to MHSA’s systems change work to advance solutions to homelessness. 

This veto comes at a time when the Commonwealth is in the midst of a housing crisis that most heavily impacts the most vulnerable among us – people with no housing, particularly those with complex medical and behavioral health conditions. Unsheltered homelessness is on the rise in communities across Massachusetts, and encampments have been growing from Pittsfield to Cape Cod. 

MHSA supports the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s state of emergency declaration announced earlier this month, which focuses on the desperate humanitarian crisis as surging numbers of migrants seek shelter in Massachusetts and the family shelter system is overwhelmed with families both new to and already residing in Massachusetts. But in the midst of that response we cannot ignore the crisis of individuals who are living on the streets, in the woods, and in mass shelters every day in communities across Massachusetts. We need a housing response for all populations.

We ask you to join us in contacting Governor Healey to express your disappointment and in advocating for the Legislature to override Governor Healey’s veto. 

Take Action 

• Call Governor Healey’s office to express your disappointment in her veto of the funding and language for Home & Healthy for Good (7004-0104). Governor’s Office: 617-725-4005 or 888-870-7770

• Contact your local state representative and state senator to ask them to support an override of the Governor’s veto of funding and language for Home & Healthy for Good (7004-0104). To find out who your local legislators are, please visit www.wheredoivotema.com

• Please email Caitlin Golden, MHSA Director of Public Policy, at cgolden@mhsa.net to let us know who you reached out to and any feedback you received.  

About Home & Healthy for Good – Line Item 7004-0104 

Home & Healthy for Good (HHG) funds are flexible, which means they can be used for housing, operations, supportive services, and even the development of new housing units. HHG is often used as gap-filler funding that leverages other government and private resources to fully fund permanent supportive housing.  

Tenants receive case management services through one of 20+ providers across Massachusetts. Providers help participants to sustain housing and connect with behavioral health services, medical care, job training, and other resources.  

HHG funds also support planning and technical assistance to advance the creation of supportive housing in communities across Massachusetts. 

Read the July 2023 Home & Healthy for Good Progress Report.