State sued over Mass. rental assistance program’s paused third year

AS DEMAND FOR the state’s emergency shelter beds ballooned in early 2025, along with the strain on its homelessness prevention programs, the Healey administration asked lawmakers to provide funding for its rental subsidy program HomeBASE. The funds would continue to cover two years for eligible families, with the possibility of a third year.

The Legislature agreed. Then, a week before the governor signed the annual state budget into law, her housing office announced an indefinite pause on all approvals for the third year of assistance.

Families who had been planning on the additional year got a fierce shock. And two single-mothers facing imminent eviction are now suing the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, which runs the program, to maintain the third year of coverage.

“Without that HomeBASE stabilization,” lawyers for a woman referred to as Jane Doe wrote, “[she] and her young son are at risk of eviction every month.”

HomeBASE, developed in 2011 to stabilize families in the state’s shelter system, provides case workers and financial assistance to low-income families in Massachusetts facing homelessness and determined to be emergency shelter eligible by the state. The program provides up to $30,000 in rental subsidies over two years, and lawmakers in 2023 added language to the budget line item stating that families that completed the two years and remained eligible could receive a third year of coverage of $15,000 or more.

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Catherine Hyo-Kyung Ham on Wednesday heard from lawyers representing HomeBASE recipients Doe and Kinisha James. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction ordering the state to provide a third year of HomeBASE stabilization services, including the $15,000 in funding.

“We’re really trying to keep these two single mothers in their homes so they’re not evicted by Thanksgiving,” said Elizabeth Alfred with Greater Boston Legal Services, which is representing Doe and James.

The state housing office asked the court to dismiss the suits.

The decision to pause the third year, according to a spokesperson for the housing office, was part of a package of Right To Shelter reforms “so we can prioritize helping the greatest number of families with the resources available. HomeBASE remains a critical tool for helping families avoid or exit shelter and secure stable housing.”

The attorney general’s office, which is representing the state, wrote that the program had a years-long funding deficiency and even with supplemental funding “is forced to prioritize how it utilizes the funds available for housing stabilization.”

It simply cannot provide the third year at current budget levels, the state claims. The housing office estimates resuming third year coverage would mean that 1,098 families who would otherwise receive first-year benefits would not be able to access HomeBASE during this fiscal year.

In filings, the state notes the HomeBASE line item specifically states that if there is a funding deficiency, there is no “enforceable right or entitlement to services” beyond the amount that the Legislature appropriated.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys said the pause amounts to a unilateral decision not to fulfill the letter of the law, and these families are hanging in the balance.

Doe and her infant son fled Doe’s abusive partner in 2021, according to court filings, experiencing homelessness for the next two years. Staying with family was largely off the table, as many of her relatives lived in subsidized housing with strict guest policies that could lead to eviction if violated.

She says she was rejected from the state’s emergency shelter program in 2022, because the shelters were too full, and was finally found eligible for the HomeBASE program in 2023.

According to the complaint, HomeBASE covers more than $1,600 of her rent, which has been raised twice and is now $2,049. When she met with a state caseworker in July 2025, Doe said she was shown paperwork that stated she was still eligible for almost $18,000 in rental assistance, but just weeks later was told that that was an error and she would have $3,000 that would expire in that coming January.

Her take-home pay is about $2,700 a month and she is engaged in “active eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent,” the complaint states.

About one year after James and her then two-year-old, chronically ill daughter were forced to leave James’ mother’s house and became homeless, James applied for emergency assistance shelter and entered the HomeBASE diversion program. Her lease began in August 2024, with HomeBASE paying $1,800 of a $2,200 a month lease.

The rent increased and the share covered by HomeBASE decreased over time, with James’ two years of funding exhausted in December 2025. Through a combination of family help and other state rental assistance, James has been able to cobble together about $1,200 a month toward rent since then. James reached out to the housing office in May 2026 requesting an additional year, which she asserts was ignored until an email in August 2026 stating that the office had paused third year approvals for the program.

Her landlord wants to keep her, but if James cannot come up with the rent by November, she will be evicted in December.

Both women say they received no direct notice that the third year was off the table until they were in the process of seeking it.

Information on the state’s website illustrates the messaging whiplash. The dedicated HomeBASE page refers only to a “2-year” period, as does the current administration plan for the program.

But a monthly training presentation from May 2025 for administering HomeBASE, still on the state’s website, notes that “participants shall not access more than $30,000 within a 24-month period, and not more than $15,000.00 within an additional 3rd year.” The state’s housing needs assessment section on emergency housing supports states that there is “the possibility of a third year” for the funding assistance.

The case, attorneys say, is in part about how the Legislature intended the program to be funded. The third-year expansion that went into effect in fiscal year 2024 was the result of years of advocacy from housing stabilization groups.

“Many families in the Commonwealth need that third year to avoid entering homelessness,” said Laura Camara, an attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services representing James. The Legislature “made a decision, and yet it has essentially not been implemented,” said Alfred, who represents Doe.

Healey’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget asked for $57,322,001 for HomeBASE, with the budget item still including language that indicated the funds should cover a third year of assistance for some program participants. Lawmakers funded the item to the dollar, and Healey then signed the budget into law on July 4, 2025 — just days after her administration separately announced it was pausing third year coverage.

The program has been far more expensive than the initial allocation. In filings, the state said HomeBASE expenditures that year exceeded $153 million. The gaps have been filled in recent years through supplemental budgets.

“It is not that the agency has intentionally underfunded this program,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Burke. Rather, the third year was paused because of the surge in shelter demand, which has a trickle-down impact on the HomeBASE program.

Between 2023 and 2025, the number of HomeBASE families surged more than fivefold to about 10,000 cases, he told the court. The housing office asked for additional funding in fiscal years 2025 and 2026, which the Legislature did not fully grant, but just under $100 million of supplemental funds were approved over the two years.

The agency weighed the costs and benefits, Burke said, and understood the HomeBASE program to be a “short-term stabilization program and not a long-term financial assistance program.” The governor has to propose a balanced budget, and lawmakers were well aware of the funding shortfalls for HomeBASE, he said, adding that they could have offered up more funds if they wished.

“This case paints a vivid picture of what’s not working with our programs to keep vulnerable families in their homes,” said state Sen. Julian Cyr, the Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Housing. The devastating housing crisis is keeping costs high all over the state, he noted, meaning even affordable unit costs are spiking — and with them the need for greater state subsidy.

“Several colleagues and I worried about underfunding as it relates to [Emergency Assistance Family Shelter],” Cyr said, “but I’m all ears on what additional resources may be needed here for these programs. I’m also clear-eyed that these programs received tens of millions of dollars in funding, and we still may not be able to meet every bit of the need.”

The fiscal year 2027 budget signed this summer boosted the HomeBASE budget to about $82.3 million, but the housing office expects to spend almost $113 million on the program. Funding a third HomeBase year, according to the state’s filings, would cost as much as an additional $39.5 million.

“They knowingly submitted a budget they knew was not going to fund the program,” Camara said. They cannot now “hide behind it,” she said.

Judge Ham, who said during the hearing that she wasn’t sure how she could order the state to spend money it claims not to have, promised a decision as soon as possible. Winter is drawing nearer and the two women have exhausted their other options for family and state financial support, Camara said — “These families are scared.”

Courtesy of Commonwealth Beacon