City Council - Ways & Means Committee Hearing on Docket #0201

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Sorry, thank you. Okay, again, my name is Ben Weber. I'm the District 6 City Councillor and the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Ways and Means. Today is March 5th, 2026, and it is now 2.07 p.m. Right on time. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82. Fios, Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.wm at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify

If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance to the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, Please email our central staff liaison, Ryan Pratt. This is his first hearing. Great. So, Ryan, welcome. You can email Ryan at ryan, R-Y-A-N, dot Pratt, that's P-R-A-T-T, at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is generally speaking on docket number 201, which is an order for a hearing to discuss Boston's FY27 operating budget. This was sponsored by myself and the Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, John Fitzgerald. and was referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026.

We had discussed with the administration having hearings before the budget, Starting this process early. And we heard last week from Chief Groffenberger and Lou Mandarini, Alex Lawrence about increased in healthcare costs. For this hearing, it was originally we were expecting the CFO and a couple areas that I wanted to highlight for us to discuss. The CFO is not here today. The CFO, Chief Groffenberg, will be here March 23rd. To discuss just general data on what we should be expecting for the budget that's coming out in April. But we do have some folks here. We've got, sorry, Sheila Dillon, who's the Chief of the Mayor's Office of Housing.

Rick Wilson, the Director of Administration and Housing for the Mayor's Office of Housing, and Monique Wynne, Director of of the Mayor's Office of Immigration Advancement. Because two of the main issues I think we'll be looking at in the budget are housing and immigration. So we have them here to just have a general discussion. Now we'll have hearings with them during the budget process. And we do have a chance maybe on the 23rd if there's questions that we can't answer today that we can have that information by the 23rd when we'll speak to Chief Groffenberger. So I've been joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. Flynn, Murphy, Culpepper, Louijeune. Let's see here.

I'm trying to think if, because this is sort of an open-ended thing, Opening? No? Yeah, okay. I don't know if any of the panelists have a presentation or would like to speak in general about what we're here for.

Weber, that If there are things that you or the council want to hear more about or get more information before the actual budget season starts, you will let us know and we will take copious notes and then return or get you that information. What we did today was we just put together how productive the last four years have been. And I think it's a good reminder to us all how hard we have been working collectively with the council, The Wu administration working with the council and what we've accomplished together. And, you know, having done this for a while, it's nothing short of... Amazing how much has been accomplished. Now, is it enough for all the people in Boston, and is it enough for everyone who needs

Safe, stable housing that they can afford? No. And the work obviously continues every single day. But I think it is good just to recap that, and we'll do it very, very briefly. And then Rick Wilson, the A&F director for MOH, will kind of go over in some detail some of the headwinds that we are facing as we enter the mayor's new term and next fiscal year. So if we could just go through very quickly what we've accomplished together So if you can move forward those slides. Yeah, we don't need to go through this. I think the group here knows all too well how we are organized, but we always include that in case there are new members. Next slide.

Yeah, so just with housing development, and this is the creation of new affordable housing, over the last two years we've completed or having construction 6,200 new income-restricted units. We've permitted 11,800 units of all types of housing and 4,000 of those, which is a very high percentage of the new permitted units, are income restricted. and working with many of you here, we have been able to help non-profits and some for-profits acquire market rate housing and convert it into affordable housing and the number in the last four years is 800 units. Next slide. We've also been working very hard to house our homeless populations, and Rick will talk about some of the headwinds that we're facing with our federal funding. Over the last four years, we have Placed in permanent housing, 7,800 homeless households.

That includes families, veterans, young adults. and individuals. We've created, which is extremely exciting, almost 400 new permanent supportive housing units that will be a resource Boston has forever. And then since 2024, we have housed over 200 unsheltered individuals that are currently living on the street. Boston, as you know, has a very low unsheltered number. So this is a significant amount of work and very important work for Boston. We don't want anyone living on the street. Regarding home ownership, we have helped over 1,100 residents buy homes through the One Plus Boston Home Buyer Program or the Financial Assistance Program, either giving them larger down payments Finding a home that they can afford or letting them access a very low-cost mortgage product.

As I've mentioned, we've been building new affordable homeownership units, over 1,000, which is a record for the city of Austin. And we've helped over 2,000 homeowners stay in their homes with homeowner repair, which is mostly targeted to our seniors, or through foreclosure prevention. Housing stability which all of your offices take advantage of and I'm very happy about that when you have residents or tenants that are facing The last four years we have helped stabilize over 6400 families through legal and financial assistance, mediation, and housing search. and Councilor Weber, I had to put this bullet on. We launched the Access to Counselor pilot, helping families with school-aged children facing eviction get the legal assistance that they need. And that program is new, but we're already seeing Very significant results.

And then I just want to mention Grow Boston. I would be amiss if I didn't. We believe that open space and good food go hand in hand with our housing production work. and the Grow Boston team led by Shawnee Fletcher has had a very, very productive four years. You see it here, completing over 600 garden beds, five new community gardens, two food forests, two urban farms, and it goes on. So we really are trying to expand The number of farms and community gardens where people can grow their food, create community and put land back into productive use. So that very small team is producing great results for the city of Boston. So some of our new things that we're looking at next year.

So the interesting thing when we start thinking about term two, we start thinking about the next fiscal year and what we will accomplish, the challenges are... We're looking at ways that we can continue the good housing work that we've all started, but also being mindful that there's not as many resources as there have been. Some of the things we're working on, we're helping homeowners get ready to access the $150 million that Mass Saves is making available for Boston families. to make much more energy efficient their homes. We are working on an eviction prevention action plan, understanding the data, who is getting evicted, where they're getting evicted, and becoming much more intentional with our resources and actions to make sure that The eviction numbers continue to go down.

We are continuing to get rid of or sell our surplus property, but once again, thinking of ways that we can do this that don't require very very large amounts of subsidy. We're making it easier for people to build affordable housing by just streamlining the way that people get approvals and get permits They're housing, cutting down costs. So that is something we can control and will not cost large sums of money. We do though, we'll continue to use our money to fund New Affordable Housing Projects. We are just about to award the 2026 awards and we will, I think we're awarding about 900 units of housing and we'll be working with those developers to advance those projects and we all want to continue the acquisition program, the Acquisition Opportunity Program, but you'll notice the number is lower because the resources available are going to be lower.

So we're going to have to be very wise on the projects that we pick. So the work will continue. We're looking at what we can do differently, what we can do better, what's new, but once again with With keeping in mind that we're going to have less resources. So with that, I don't want to be depressing, I want to be upbeat, but with that I'm going to hand it over to Rick and Rick can talk some about some of our concerns and headwinds going into the new fiscal year.

Thanks, Sheila. Councilors, I'm sure many of you have been following what's been going on in the federal funding front, and that has taken up a lot of our time over the past year under the Trump administration. and we continue to have a great deal of uncertainty about our federal funds. We receive about $75 million annually in HUD grants. We were happy to see that Congress did reject the President's proposals to cut or eliminate much of our HUD funding. In fact, the budget that Congress just passed for HUD included level funding for most of our programs and even small increases for others. We're waiting for our exact allocations for our HUD grants that should be coming out within the next month. However, while we're heartened to see that, the administration continues to target and threaten our funding. We are involved in multiple lawsuits against HUD.

We have injunctions in place that are allowing us to access our funding. But the administration continues to push conditions around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and gender ideology, and threaten so-called sanctuary cities, and threaten to pull our funding. So we're worried about that. In particular, we're worried about our continuum of care funding. That's the one that we're most concerned about. That's the biggest funding source we have for our homelessness work. We use it primarily for permanent supportive housing. What HUD is proposing and what they put out in their notice of funding opportunity last year would have resulted in the loss of hundreds of permanent supportive housing units in our city. Again, we filed a lawsuit against that, and we were successful in getting an injunction in place. And that's allowing us to continue to receive our funding Right now, but I think HUD has already signaled that they're going to continue to push forward with their agenda to move away from Housing First, move towards treatment and services.

Not that those things are not important, but I think we've seen here in Boston that Housing First has really helped to stabilize folks in housing and give them the security they need to then proceed and get their treatment and services to maintain their stable housing. So that's federal funding, continued uncertainty there. I think it's also, we've been a benefit over the past four years of a large amount of one-time COVID funding we received in the Mayor's Office of Housing alone. received, I think nearly half of the city's ARPA allocation, $240 million, and we're spending that down. We have to spend that by the end of this calendar year, and we will do that. We also received funding from the CARES Act. So, you know, that's all winding down, and that means, you know, as we anticipated all along, that means a big decline in the funding that we have available specifically for housing development and home buyer assistance.

We're also concerned about weakening revenue from the Inclusionary Development Program and the Linkage Program, Neighborhood Housing Trust. And that's, again, no surprise that the real estate conditions out there, particularly and the downtown market is having an impact on those funding sources. Those sources have become a very important source for us for housing development in recent years. High development costs are making everything we do more expensive. Interest rates have come down, but they're still not at the level that they were at five years ago. Tariffs are making materials more expensive labor costs are high and you know related to that we have a number of large preservation projects that are coming to us for support and those those are very expensive projects Really putting pressure on the resources that we have available. Finally, maybe moving away from housing development, we are still in a housing crisis. Eviction rates are higher than we would like.

We have high demand for our housing stability services, for eviction prevention, mediation, legal assistance, our tenant stabilization fund. We have over a million dollars allocated to that program, and the demand is exceeding our available resources. and we also continue to see high demand for emergency housing in our hotel program from fires, condemnations, things like that. So, as Sheila said, you know, the work certainly continues. I think we've had a very successful and productive past year and past, you know, four years. But, yeah, the task ahead is large and looming.

Okay, thank you very much. Monique, do you have a presentation or anything you'd like to?

Yes, I have a slide deck. Did you receive that?

Yes.

So good afternoon, Chair and honorable members of the City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about Moya and our work. As an immigrant leading this office, I see every day how our work isn't just about services, it's about the very fabric of Boston's future. Our mission is simple but vital to ensure every immigrant can fully participate in the economic and civic life of our society. In FY25, that mission translated into tangible scale. We handled nearly 4,000 inquiries and provided 1,000 legal immigration consultations through our volunteer services. and help hundreds of residents step towards the ballot box through citizenship applications. But Moya doesn't work in a vacuum. We are an anchor for a citywide ecosystem that serves over 200,000 foreign-born residents in the city. This past year we moved $2.1 million into the hands of community partners who provide the boots on the ground support from mental health to legal defense. These aren't just transactions, they are interventions.

They are the reason a resident knows how not to sign away their rights when detained and why nearly 900 youth in our programs see a future for themselves in Boston. We are also looking ahead. We're engaging over 800 residents and leaders this year as we are finalizing our four-year strategic plan to ensure our growth matches the city's needs. The reality is that demand is outstripping our current reach. Every week, 50 more people call us for legal help. We can't always immediately provide. Our partners are asking for more support because the need is rising. As you look through our slides, I ask you to see these numbers as investments in a stronger, more resilient Boston. When our immigrant neighbors thrive, our city prospers. and thank you for your partnership and I look forward to your questions. And we can move to the first slide please. Thank you so much.

Our mission, our office, is striving to strengthen the ability of immigrants to fully participate in economic, civic, social, and cultural life in Boston. Moya promotes the recognition and public understanding of the contributions of immigrants in our city. If you look here, these are our major takeaways from our impacts of the work. In FY25, we provided over 1,000 free immigration consultations through our volunteers. And we also provided over 800 Thank you. Thank you. over 3,900 constituents inquiries through calls, walk-ins, or email, and over $2.1 million in total grant funding. In our current fiscal year right now,

Through this quarter, we have provided 631 free immigration consultations, 467 youth served through our Immigrant Youth Advancement Program, and we look forward to serving more over the summer, and over 1,900 constituent inquiries so far. and we have provided $1.6 million in total grant funding to the field. And here are some success stories from our grant programs. As I mentioned before, I would say two-thirds of our budget is for grant making because our office is small. We have a small and mighty team that provide consistent services and direct programming, but most of the heart of our work is through our ecosystem, through our grant partners. So here's a quote from one of them through a Weaving Wellbeing program. During the pandemic, Weaving Wellbeing was a program that was set up, a grant-making program was set up, because immigrants during that time

Struggling with mental health because of all the isolation and fear and anxiety through the pandemic and that persists through today is one of our most High demand grant programs because immigrant mental health is a struggle as you can imagine right now with all the anti-immigrant sentiment. Our immigrant communities are feeling the weight more than now than ever. And this is a quote from a legal access program. I want to read this one specifically because I think knowledge is so important during this time. Another story is that one of our constituents named Raul He was unfortunately detained for 15 days. While in Burlington ICE office, he was forced to sign documents. He shares that he refused to sign the documents because he remembered he heard that one of Agencia Alpha's, which is one of our grantees,

That decision was a pivotal moment whether or not he stayed in this country to be with his family and his community or went back home. and through our Immigrants Lead Boston program. Immigrants oftentimes face many barriers to develop their leadership in the city. Even though we are one-fourth of our city, we are underrepresented in leadership spaces. So Immigrants Lead Boston's ensure that immigrants know about civic engagement and civic organizing to ensure that they are able to advocate for themselves and their community. and we grew this program but also made sure that it became language accessible so that immigrants are able to organize and work together multilingually. And here's a quote for our Immigrant Youth Advancement Program.

Youth right now more than ever are feeling the despair, especially as they're seeing that their families are being torn apart. So Immigrant Youth Advancement Program is so important for them to see the future that they still have opportunity to access. The youth program became a space where I could finally be myself without hesitation. As an immigrant, I often felt like I had to hide parts of my story. But here, I found a community that not only accepted me, but also celebrated my journey. It reminded me that my experiences are my strength and that I belong no matter where I come from. This is one of the participants over the summer of last year. And you can see here, this is our wide ecosystem of organizations that we work together to partner to serve the immigrants in our city. In FY25, we had 71 organizations we worked with closely. as grantee partners. And in FY26, we had 82.

Now I want to name the gaps. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Staffing Tube, we will provide services. Through our Immigrant Legal Access Grant in FY25, we have 41 applications requesting over $3.2 million, but MOYA can only fund 700,000 of that need. In FY26, 31 applications came in requesting $2.3 million and Moy could only fund $900,000, meaning only 39% of that need. and most recently we launched the Mutual Aid Diverse Neighborhoods Grant in FY26, which is like a key program right now.

We received 47 applications requesting $735,000 and we can only fund 164, meeting 22% of the need. As I mentioned before, Weeeman Wellbeing Grant is one of our highest demand We received 94 applications requesting $1.4 million and we could only fund 16% of that need. In FY26, we had six to eight Applications requesting $885,000 and we have funded only 30% of that. And for immigration consultations, we receive requests, 50 constituents request this every week. And through our ESOL grant the other year, we have received

49 applications requesting $3.9 million, and we only were able to provide 14% of that demonstrated need. In FY26, we received eight applications requesting $1.4 million, and we were only able to fund 18% of that. And Immigrant Youth Advancement Program, we were only able to fund 54 of that need in FY25 and 79% of the need for FY26. And for this year, FY27, we look forward to working with you all to, and OBM, the Office of Budget Management, and the Cabinet, and the broader finance team. They're working very hard to finalize our budget. as we're making a lot of difficult decisions to meet the needs of our constituents this year. I look forward to your partnership.

Okay, thank you very much. We've been joined by Councillor Durkan, Vice Chair Fitzgerald, Councillor Pepén, and Councillor Santana. We're gonna, oh, and Madam President. Williams, Breadon. So I'm going to set it at five minutes, except for Councilor Flynn. You get one. So five minutes, and then I know Chief Dillon has a hard stop at 3.55, so as we get close to that, maybe we can do a lightning round for Chief Dillon. Councilor Flynn, five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the administration team that is here for being here, but even more importantly for the work that you are doing on behalf of the residents of the city. I had the opportunity to work with all three. for many years and outstanding dedicated city employees. In light of our housing crisis, the urgent need to increase supply and address affordability in our city I've recommended recently that the City of Boston temporarily roll back the inclusionary development policy in income-restricted affordable unit percentages for new development back down where it was previously at 13% for the next five years, depending on economic conditions. Let me be clear. For the last eight years, I have been a strong supporter of affordable housing in District 2 and throughout the City of Boston.

District 2 has absorbed as much or more housing, and I have supported as much or more housing in affordable housing as any District Councillor during that time. I supported increasing our affordable housing requirements. I still believe this is the right thing to do. But we have to acknowledge the economy we're in. and the data showing we're not building enough housing and affordable housing. The reason being several years now of post-pandemic inflation, a high interest rate environment, rising construction costs and tariffs. but I believe it is long past time for elected officials and leaders to acknowledge reality. While we do not control many of these big picture economic conditions, we should do what we can within our power to make any adjustments that will help to spur economic development in housing and including affordable housing.

These factors are central to this issue, but a 20% affordable housing rate is certainly not helping while facing such strong economic headwinds. During this time of great economic uncertainty, we must use all tools available to build housing in Boston. All options should now be on the table. to increase supply and meet that demand. We must also prioritize Boston's future with a temporary rollback of IDP to potentially be reviewed for sunset in five years. A higher percentage of affordable units has been the best of intentions. from all of us to address our affordable housing crisis for working families. But in these conditions if we're producing less housing, we're also getting less affordable units for working people who qualify. Some housing is better than no housing. I understand we're in politics.

I'm sincerely asking us to have the courage to put politics aside and make this temporary adjustment with the best interest of the city of Boston in Boston's long-term economic interest in mind. This is a housing crisis. I had the opportunity to work with Sheila and Rick for many years on these issues. Is this something that we might consider, Sheila?

So if I could respond, and I certainly thank you for the question, and there is no doubt in my mind that you've been very supportive of affordable housing, income restricted housing both in Chinatown and South Boston. So I'm not ever questioning your commitment to Building more affordable housing for our residents. So I just want to say a couple of things, and may or may not answer your question, but let me try at least to give some observations. So over the last four years, and I think my slide, although I went pretty quickly, indicated we have been building more affordable housing, income-restricted housing, than ever before. In certainly my tenure, but even when we look back on the records, 25, 30 years, We have been building more income restricted housing, which is very good for our residents because the vast majority of people that have lived here for generations cannot afford what is being built. although I am not.

I do believe in supply. I really do believe in supply and I think we are very, very interested as you are in unlocking many of the approved projects. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but you've probably heard it. About 30,000 units have been approved that are stalled right now because of economic conditions. Interest rates, high construction costs. It's just very, very hard to make the numbers work. The equity providers in these projects want higher and higher returns. and many of these 30,000 are at 13%, 14%, 15% requirements. So they are under older IDP requirements. So what we have been doing with these many, many developments is We've been working with the developers to see if there's things we can do to unlock their construction. Do they need help with permitting? Do they need to look at their IDP requirements?

And we were allowing some of them with a lot of conversations with you in the room to buy out some of their obligation. So we've been really trying to get creative, and we're starting to see some results. We're starting to see a lot of projects in Alston Brighton move forward. Thank you, Councilor Breadon. We're starting to see smaller projects in the outer ring start construction. In fact, we're very encouraged. So these conversations are yielding production. So I guess in summary right now, I think we want to really unlock the 30,000 units that are stuck. and recognize that it really is not just IDP but it's so many other factors that are stalling some of the very high-end downtown projects. But I'm taking your comments to heart, certainly, and I think all ideas are worthy right now as we continue to battle our housing crisis.

Thank you, Sheila. Thank you for the... Answer, thank you for your commitment to building more affordable housing. Mr. Chair, in the interest of being respectful to my other colleagues,

I'll wait to the next round. Okay, thank you very much. Just a brief comment, and thank you for highlighting that issue, Councilor Flynn. Pepén, and I do have a hearing order on what is happening with the building of affordable housing in Boston, and we will be having a hearing. We're working on getting the panels straight in the schedule. Just for my other colleagues, this is a budget hearing and we're looking about the ideas to help us focus on issues related to our review of the budget. Flynn, and what these departments are working on. Again, perfectly fine question, Councilor Flynn. Murphy, you're up.

Thank you. Thank you for being here, Sheila, Rick, Monique. To the chair, this is an overall discussion about the operating budget, how did these departments get chosen to be in front of us and I'm happy you're here but want to focus on your expertise because you're in front of us because I did hear that Like budget was supposed to be, but how did we decide? There's just so many departments.

Yeah, the original idea was to have overview with the CFO over spending and then I thought in addition to that, we're going to have two hearings. With some issues that I know have come up a lot, and I wanted health insurance. And then I thought housing and immigration. I think we had also reached out to youth jobs. I mean, I just, and so, because CFO isn't gonna be here till a couple weeks from now, I still did think that, and based on the presentations, We will still have our normal Thank you.

Thank you. One of the things that came up at the hearing last week with budget and it's been said that the administration has told all departments to take a look and make some percentage cut. obviously I would want to every year increase your budgets and the work you do but if you could all just kind of speak to how you're going to handle that and what you're thinking of how you know the least painful impact Thank you. Eric, do you want to take that?

Yeah. You know, Council, I'm not going to, as the process is still unfolding, I won't kind of identify any particular reductions. I don't want to take that, you know, and many more. We have the least impact on the citizens of Boston and the ones that have. So for example, We have programs that are funded with both city funding and with federal funding. So if we have a program that has other funding solutions available to it, we will look at a program like that to potentially Thank you. Thank you. Housing Stability is an area where we know we have more demand.

So just as a preview, we did not propose reducing that because we know that the funding is already too little.

Okay.

Monique? Yeah, we'll be doing the same. We'll be looking at our programs and trying to think about how we will run lean and also do additional external fundraising with the field of philanthropy as well. So we look forward to

Sorting that out with the OBM and finance. And you have a small but mighty department there. What is your total budget? Right now, it's 3.5, I believe. 3.5 million. Yeah. And do a lot of the supports you give come through grants?

Two-thirds of our budget is going to be granted through the field, yes. And are they federal grants or state or mix? No, it's mostly operating funds and also some external donors as well. Could you share a few of the external donors that Support. In the past, right now, for this fiscal year, we have one of our major ones is the Mayor's Migration Council. You might have saw that they invested in an innovation that we're working on to thinking about workforce development Home care providers to provide direct care to constituents who are aging and who need direct care. So that's one of our major ones right now. Yeah.

Thank you. I don't have any other questions, Chair. Thank you.

OK. Thank you very much. Thank you. I believe in the last couple years when we've made amendments these are two areas which have received a lot of our attention in that process so just wanted to

In the positive column, yes.

Yes, exactly.

Some departments get on the other side.

We've joined together to support these two departments, and as we're getting into the budget and looking at things... Culpepper, you're up. Five minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief Taylor, Rick Wilson, and Director Nugent for attending today's hearing. It's important that we understand the impact that funding restrictions will have on our current operations as well as exploring opportunities for expanding programs and really programs that strengthen and improve the quality of life for the residents. Including housing stability and access to services for immigrant communities. And Chief Dillon, I had a couple of questions. I know we worked. We've been together for many, many years while I was at HUD. And I know Rick didn't want to talk about specifics in terms of the 2% that you've been asked to reduce the budget.

But in terms of overall, with the reduction, can you just talk about the impact that it would have on affordable housing in the city of Boston?

Yeah, you know, honestly, I think, like I said, I mean, we really tried to, and I shouldn't even speak as if the decisions have been made because they haven't. We're still in discussions with OBM right now, and I couldn't tell you what. One, if anything, they're actually going to reduce that of our budget. I hope they don't reduce anything, but I think we understand the situation that the city is in. But, you know, I actually think that What we are discussing with the budget office You know, I think it would be reasonable. I'm actually much more concerned about what's going on with our federal funds than I am with what the city is having to do because of what's going on with the city. If HUD funds make up about half, or I think it's approaching half of our budget, that's $75 million, if they were to Say you're a sanctuary city, you're no longer eligible for HUD funding.

I mean, that would be a huge impact. Obviously, as I think both Sheila and I said, the need for all of our programs and services far Outstrips, the resources that we have available to us. And we certainly use additional funding for housing development, for acquisitions, for We would love more funding for all of those areas. I don't know, Sheila, if you have anything to add.

I agree. I think the city council and this administration certainly understands and celebrates the need for I have short term relief on some of the line items. But continuing just day in, day out to fight with them to maintain housing for our most vulnerable is, one, it's exhausting. And I also just want to make the council aware The toll it's taking on staff. A lot of our HUD funding funds programs which is first and foremost, but it also funds a lot of our staff. And so they live not knowing whether or not they're going to lose their, not only programs they're really invested in, but also their jobs. It's been a very, very difficult year. So I think collectively our concern is more with the federal government than with this body.

Sheila, have you thought about the continuum of care If you do lose funding and you just may, what other options have you thought about in case, I mean, and it may be real, the continuum of care, what options have you thought about

And for folks that are listening, the council is referring to the continuum of care, which funds permanent supportive housing for really our homeless and our most vulnerable. And there's been... There's been concern that they would reduce the amount, but also concern that they no longer want to fund housing. They want to fund more work programs and time-limited programs. which a lot of our residents wouldn't be able to survive. So we've done some contingency planning. The lawsuits and some of the actions that we've worked really hard on, it looks like they're gonna postpone that pain for a while. but Rick and Katie Cahill who oversees the program have been working on What happens if we have to, can we place some of the most vulnerable in other housing programs, other housing developments? Can we put them in temporary housing while we work on more permanent solutions? But it's how many households, Rick, continue of care?

Over 1,000.

So over 1,000 very vulnerable households. But we are doing contingency planning right now.

How much...

You're over. You're over as of now. How much time did I have? You had five minutes. Is that quick? Everyone else.

Can I just close out with one question?

No, go ahead.

And it's a concern, but if we know many of the supportive housing, they pay 30% of their income. If Congress decided to that they would even have to pay 35%. Have you thought about ways that you would kind of supplement that?

I would give you a very honest answer. Unless Rick knows more, no, we have not. I think our focus has been on how do we keep people housed. But your right to raise, you know, Raising rents by 5% when your income is $12,000 a year is a much larger hit than the same percentage when you're making $100,000. It's something to keep in the back of our minds. We're so focused on keeping people housed. That's been our priority right now.

And this is not a question. I just wanted to put it out there. One of the things that we talked about During the campaign was REITs. You know REITs? The investment usually into multi-million dollar property to get and then they receive their return on that. Have you ever thought about maybe Reeds for affordable housing in the event that we do see that kind of increase in terms of the income?

That is a question.

Can I finish it?

Yes.

You don't have to answer this, Chief Dillon, but the REIT would invest in affordable housing, not get the same kind of return that they would have, but they would be low and moderate affordable housing REITs and not the kind of REITs that we're traditionally accustomed to. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And thank you. And again, Councilor Culpepper, especially on housing, I mean, your level of expertise You know, I'm highly respected by the chair of this committee, and anytime you want to weigh in, but I'm still going to hold you to the time limit and say all of our colleagues have equal access to the panel. Okay, thank you very much. Councilor Louijeune, sorry, I almost said Culpepper again.

Thank you. Just on the question of financing, I remember the Trump administration came in, and I thought that should have given us even more of a of a mandate to look at alternative sources of funding. So to me, the transfer fee became even more important after the Trump administration because alternative sources of funding are so important when the federal government is failing us. So I want to thank Councilor Santana for putting forward the resolution of support. I think it's a hearing in support of the transfer fee of looking at how we can, state and local level, be thinking about how we generate our own revenue. So just wanted to put that out there, especially for our state colleagues. We have to be, with the continuum of care, whatever it is, we need to be filling in those gaps. I have a few questions, and I want to thank Councilor Weber for this hearing. We're always lifting up housing and immigration, especially now during the budget process. I'm always an advocate for putting more money for our city-based vouchers.

So, Chief Dillon, if you could speak a little bit to how those are going and how we're using them I'm going to just say it again, that it is an area that I think we should be investing more in. The rest of my questions for you are about the Neighborhood Housing Trust and about how we're streamlining affordable housing approaches. You talked about it a bit. We want a little bit more of a conversation about that. And then for Director Nguyen, I do have one question for you, but Chief Dillon first about the city-based factors.

Okay, so, well, first and foremost, I do want to thank you for bringing up the transfer fee. You know, depending on the percentage, depending on the cutoffs, all of the rest, it would, by most accounts, double what we have to to produce affordable housing in the city at very little cost to those that have so much. I am totally in agreement. The money for the city's voucher program passes through us but is run by the very capable team at the BHA. Rick, I will ask you though if you don't mind to just give an overview on

I'm frantically trying to find the last update we received from the BHA on this. I've not found it yet.

It's a question that I'll ask it again during budget.

Very good. We can get back to you before the budget hearing just so you have it in front of you.

An important component is the flexibility that they allow, especially in these times. So I just think it's an important investment that this council makes, and hopefully we'll be able to make that again. We're seeing a shrinking of acquisition opportunity program funding. Filed a hearing on AOP again. Filed a hearing on anti-displacement. It is the best tool that we have as a city to keep people in their home easier to keep someone in their home than it is to build a home. Why are we seeing less funding?

It's just because we are in... The last four years we've put ARPA, we've put other federal funds that we no longer have. So now we're having to just cut back on everything. So, yes, unfortunately we're anticipating having less money because of that reason. We are using some linkage for AOP, which we're thrilled about. And the Neighborhood Housing Trust also loves the program. So anytime we have a little extra money in the budget that we can repurpose that, oh, this project is delayed or this project is costing us less, we're throwing it into AOP. So we're in total agreement. It saves tenancies, it's a great, inexpensive way to create affordable housing. We absolutely love this program.

What about the corollary to the program that was created this past year That brings in more partnerships, I believe. Yeah. Is there funding there as well? Or was that short-lived?

And Dan Lesser is here in the audience. He's been working very hard with Adam Goldstein to raise funding. What really AOP development really only has two sources. They've got a loan. and they've got subsidy from the city. That's really it. And we'd like the state to get more involved in these projects as well. So what we've been doing is raising a lot of low-cost capital so that the developer can get a loan and borrow more money so they need less subsidy from us. So that the hospitals and the foundations are in that loan pool.

Right, which is what helps save like Farallon, which is an incredible model. Yes, that's correct. Linkage fees you mentioned, which go to the Neighborhood Housing Trust and the Jobs Trust. The Jobs Trust is not really, is that with Wynn's department?

That's, exactly. I have some questions.

Yes. for her about that. We can talk more at a later time about the streamlining affordable housing approaches, because I do want to learn more about that. From what I'm seeing in practice from nonprofit developers, it doesn't seem as though I could think of a project that I'm going to forget the name. It didn't seem like, they had a lot of difficulties.

They're not feeling it yet.

What was it? Urbanica? I'm forgetting. Urbanica? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then if I can squeeze in one question to Director Nguyen regarding, there was a Dreamers Fund, and I don't know if we still have the Dreamers Fund, that we would then work in partnership with schools we're able to employ I was at in the Casa Santana today we were at BINCA and we talked about this we were able to um I don't know if we're funding it at the same level. I love, especially in these challenging times of Authorizations and so on and so forth that we continue to fund the Dreamers Fund and that we do so even more than we've done in the past because of the hardships that people and their families are facing. If you could talk a little bit about the Dreamers Fund. in addition to saying thank you for all of the incredible work that you were doing in under unimaginable times.

Thank you so much for bringing that up. The Dreamers Fund has evolved the rebranding to the Immigrant Youth Advancement Program. Not only invested in the summer youth jobs program and partnering with YEO about making sure that immigrant youth regardless of their status can access summer jobs. We have steadily grown that little by little partnering with them every year, but we're also implementing for the first time this fiscal year and Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. applications for the summer and we're sad to have to turn away some seats as well. So if you can keep that program in mind because it's in high demand and youth are still learning about that opportunity and that access and We've been really proud to work with

YEO Youth Employment Opportunity to even work with other sites across the city to be inclusive of immigrant youth as well.

Thank you.

Yeah, beyond just our network. We also expanded the network as well.

Just want to uplift it, not just for summer jobs, but today there was inquiries too about year-round jobs, and I think those are valid. Their families are struggling themselves. No, definitely.

It's become such a... A foundation for a family to have that income, even for a little bit. So youth have been stretching the money that they get through their summer jobs to help with paying with electricity, rent sometimes, even Wi-Fi access.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for indulging my additional question.

Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I've neglected to acknowledge Councilor Coletta Zapata, who's been here for a while. Okay. I think, let me just check my order. Councilor Durkan just said that. Fitzgerald, you're up, and then Councillor Pepén, then Councillor Santana, then Councillor Breadon, then Councillor Coletta Zapata.

Thank you, Chair. And thank you, panel, for being here today. I guess I'd set off. I actually had a question about the streamlining the affordable housing approvals. What is it that's being done, but I guess a follow-up question to it is, is there anything we can duplicate for not just affordable housing, but seeing that development across the board is in general? I know it's very like Affordable is a different tool, but is there anything that we're learning from what we're doing there that we can duplicate to general development across the board?

So there's, yes, and I just want to respond to Councilor Louijeune. Some affordable housing developers are coming up to me saying, it's night and day. I've never been so happy. This is great. And others are coming up saying, I don't feel it. So I think it depends on the project. If it's okay with you, I mean this will take two seconds, Dan Lester's been leading, and I mean leading in this space, not only trying to advance affordable housing, and I think we've reduced The approval times by a significant amount. I think it's up by around 30%, but also looking at permitting for all projects. So, Dan, can you give a quick update? Quick.

Sure. It's great to be here. Dan Lesser, Chief of Staff, Mayor's Office of Housing. So the mayor put out the executive order to streamline affordable housing several years ago. We've been working really hard to implement it. around 25 to 30% improvement in how fast the projects go. Mostly the two main things we've done is have much better coordination of the departments working together to problem solve Thank you. Thank you. I think our goal originally was 50% reduction, and I think we realized that without broader structural form to how we do permitting, it's really hard to get to that additional time savings. There's just so many different steps. from different departments. So the mayor also launched last year the Permanent Transformation Initiative.

which is a broader initiative to try to think about all permitting that the city is doing, not just affordable housing, to make it much better, reliable, consistent, good experience. And so we are working really hard on that right now. We're actively working on Restructuring, how we think about permitting for housing to get there. So in the works, we're hoping to go live in July with our first set of changes.

Thanks, Dan. Would it be fair to say then that under the affordable, it's the funding that has helped the increase, that percentage increase of sort of, or is it more process-oriented? Process. It's much more process.

And sometimes the funding holds the projects up, which is unfortunate. Like, they'll get money from us, they'll get through the permitting process and approval process, and then they'll sit at the state.

Yeah, gotcha, understood. Thank you very much. This next question is for the entire panel, both Sheila, Rick, and Monique. In prioritizing your respective departments, what would you put at the top of your list if you're looking to advocate to add dollars? All the concern and headwinds, and you've got plenty of initiatives that are going. But knowing that money may be limited in the upcoming budget and potential future years, if you had to give a ballpark of top two If we're looking to help you, essentially that's what I'm asking. If you had to give your wish list and we could only do the top one or two, what do you think is at the top there?

I don't know exactly which two, but I would right now in this time, especially with this federal administration, prioritize our most vulnerable populations. However, I mean, I know how to define it, but I think it probably requires a broader discussion, but I think that would be my priority.

Understood. Yeah, you're going to go with the boss, I get it.

I would say to legal access, basic right people knowing their rights and access to organizations to... and many more. We also provide service provision around applications for immigration also adjusting their status to make sure they can also stay here as well and also the Those keeping making sure that we can keep our residents here who are beloved and also ensuring that the youth have they feel they have a future despite all the despair that's happening right now.

Great. Thank you very much.

Jeff, I'm all set. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, I think it's Councillor Pepén.

You're up. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the panelists for being here. I'm a big fan of both of your departments and respective work. You've been an immense help to me and my office. Chief Dilling, I know that we've been working very closely in my district at least with ribbon cuttings and announcements of Boston Acquisition Funds and it's just it's been great and I love the fact that we've really been prioritizing the preservation of affordability So that's where I'm gonna lean my first question, where it's like, for programs like the Boston Acquisition Fund, continue to purchase different units to keep it at a market, to keep it affordable, not go to market rate. How is the budget? Is it going to impact those opportunities moving forward? Are we thinking about that? What are you guys doing to preserve that as much as possible?

Like Rick said, the budget isn't finalized, but certainly when we look at our pipeline, Construction is so expensive, although we need to continue to build new units. I'm afraid we will probably see less money going to acquisitions. only because we don't have the federal funding that we used to. But still, I really have to emphasize it's a really important program to us, so we're gonna do everything we can to advance good projects. We have a good pipeline. Some I think are in your district. And so we really do want to continue to fund good projects. Rick, I don't know if you have anything to add.

Yeah, just to highlight for the council that we actually, I don't think, have ever used city general fund dollars for the acquisition opportunity program. I think $110 million has been allocated to the program since it started. Nearly half of that has been from ARPA. And we're, I think, close to spending all of that, $55 million-ish for AOP we've used. IDP funding, CPA funding, now Neighborhood Housing Trust. And we'll continue to look, I think, at those sources going forward.

That's great. I'm such a big fan of it, so when the numbers are available, would it be possible to see how much we may lose from the federal government moving forward?

Of course, we can get that over.

Yes. Thank you so much. Okay, two minutes. For Monique and Moya and the entire team, I was just on the phone with Hannah earlier today. Shout out to you. You guys are doing a lot of work recently, and your office probably has helped a lot of people with what's going on in terms of the federal government and a lot of people with questions. I wanted to know more specifically, does your department, do you guys feel supported in terms of resources of what you guys are experiencing and the volume of intake that you're probably experiencing? Are there resources that would help your work with consultations and staff members? I just want to know, are you guys OK?

Thank you for asking. That's actually one of our top questions that are not in this hearing room. I'm like, are you guys okay? That's something I get all the time. Our team is really resilient, and we've been holding a lot of culture work in our team. I think one of the constraints that we're working through as a whole entire field right now is the limit of how many immigration attorneys there are in the field to serve the immigrants in the city. So that's why immigration legal service is so important because Organizations are also able to train up to be representatives, and we haven't been able to scale that sufficiently over time, so becoming an immigration attorney is a very long and hard journey, and also in this terrain, it's really difficult to be one. So that's our major constraint as an entire field. So if there was a wand that we can flick, Manifest more immigration attorneys and more immigration legal representatives.

Okay. It'll take some time for me to go to law school, but...

There are part-time programs.

Literally. I've thought about it. I want to be like Ruthie and Ben one day. Literally. but I just I say that because I mean literally because of what I was chatting with Hannah about and I know the partnerships that Moya has There's probably going to continue to be more conversation. I just wanted to make sure that your office continues to really be as transparent as possible, letting us know what could be helpful to you during these times. My district very much relies on your services. So I just wanted to make sure that this conversation is fluid so it's not really much of a question but I want to make sure that you and your department is communicating what you guys need.

Yeah, I appreciate that, and we'll make sure that we'll knock on your door whenever we know that we have the opportunity.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Hannah.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Councilor Brayton?

Good afternoon everyone, good to see you all. I'm actually delighted with how efficiently and all the great A couple of things. I know we talked last year in the budget, we had the initiative led by Councillor Weber, was the right to council for BPS families, and I think it was a pilot programme. It certainly seemed to be very effective and I'd just love to hear what you're thinking about that. We were in a meeting this morning with BPS and they also agreed it was a very valuable program. Is there any way we can make it happen again?

This year I'd like to really make that. Because I think tenant stabilisation funds and all of that, we have about 5,000 students in the school, BPS, who who are technically homeless, so it's anything we can do. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, the budget for the Access to Council pilot I believe it was $450,000 in this year's budget. And I know I said I wouldn't talk about what's in the budget for next year, but we did prioritize that program and many more. We have a lot of work to do. I know it's important to Councilor Weber for sure. And I think we're approaching 100 families served so far in the program through this fiscal year. And obviously, we would love to be able to expand that.

I think not only does it help academic success and relieve family stress, but also the BPS. They spent a lot of money transporting kids back into the city. I think we're probably, as a multiplier, I think we probably get a lot more value out of the 450 than we spend. Also, I was thinking about... The Tenant Stabilisation Fund and Emergency Housing. I'm very anxiety producing thinking about all the federal instability and all the unpredictability that we have. and wondering what the knock-on effect is in terms of increased foreclosures. and people being displaced and wondering about, do we anticipate? I don't know. It's always better to be forewarned and ready for things.

Are you anticipating a rise in foreclosures and more evictions than we've seen in the past going forward?

We haven't, we've certainly been working with a lot of families on eviction prevention. We haven't seen the numbers of homeowner foreclosures go up. and I think in part that's because of after the 2008-2009 fiasco where a lot of bad products were given The banks got more conservative, which is frustrating on some level, but I think we are seeing folks in better products. and not borrowing more than they can or should. So that's good. What worries me about the federal government, as you mentioned, is as they change, tighten, examine who can be in a unit, who can't be in a unit, There's lots of rules coming out on immigration status and accessing housing. So we're very worried about the repercussions of that, certainly.

And if they do start becoming, as we talked earlier on the continuum of care, if they do start becoming, really changing the rules and undoing years and years and years of building and and many more. If those rules start changing then the needs for all of those They never have enough money. Putting people up in a hotel because they're being evicted tomorrow or paying their rent while they look for a new unit. All of that will see an increase. So it does cascade. Their bad policies end up being our very real problems. So we're very worried about that.

Thank you. The other question I had was, and it may not be the question to ask here, but in terms of liens that are on properties, property liens, I know that there's, I would love to know how much money we have in liens that is sitting there that They will continue to be a lien on a property until they actually change ownership and they have to pay the liens when they

in order to close on a... Do you mean like code enforcement liens?

Code enforcement liens? I would say there's probably hundreds of millions of dollars there. But, you know, it makes me... When we're really... When you're down to scraping around to find out where the food is and where your crumbs are, I'm thinking there might be some crumbs in that bucket, but it's just a thought.

Interesting question. Not for this panel, but an interesting question. Okay, good.

We should look into it. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Okay, thank you very much. Councillor Coletta Zapata?

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you all again for being here and your work. It's a pleasure working with all of you. I apologize I was late. I think I'm going to start with Monique. Thank you, Monique. I've known you for forever. I'm just so proud of you. Love what you've been doing in that office. It's truly remarkable, especially with all of the With everything that you've been given happening at the federal government. So the past two years, we've been very proud to sponsor the ESOL amendment here through this city council's budget process. I'm seeing here that last year with the $500,000 that we were able to allocate, and I think last year was $250,000 for ESOL. We're still only meeting 14% of the demonstrated need and then for FY26. We are only meeting 18% of the demonstrated need.

Have we level funded that this year, inclusive of the money that the council was able to allocate, or is that something that we're going to have to fight for again this year? I'm still working that out with the budget team. Yes, so I'll get back to you when it's closer to that time period. Okay. How about, and you know Immigrants Lead Boston is a wonderful program near and dear to my heart. Always happy to champion that. I've actually seen the fruits of That program spring up in young leaders in East Boston who have come to my coffee hours and my town hall and have asked really hard questions and have held me accountable. It's clearly working. How is that program going? Are we expanding it? Are we keeping it at the same level with the amount of folks that can have access to it?

We're keeping it at the same level, but we're deepening the commitment For example, through your advocacy a couple years ago, you were able to help us make it multilingual. and so we're deepening the multilingual part but this year we were proud to also invest in mini grants for them to execute campaigns and projects to benefit the communities. So we extended the program where We learned that they can learn in the program, but after, they didn't have anything to actually practice. And how you really, really deeply learn is through activation and through practicing communities. It's called the Community Action Project. And the cohort of this recent year, not only that they're organizing multilingually, they are also executing campaigns and projects that will be going live right now. and they're getting coaching, organizing coaching right now. So I hope the questions become more pointed for you and also partner because I realize too not only is it sufficient for you to know how to work with government, but you also have to know how to partner with them.

And it has translated to that only because a project that's taking place now I think is mapping out retail space in East Boston in particular and they're coming with solutions. Oh great. So it's been wonderful.

Oh I love that. Yeah that's great to hear because I you know as you imagine as city workers we not only that we have So much constraints we work with. We need partnership from our community. So I love to hear that. Thank you.

And I hope to get them what they want. It's going to be difficult. So we're also managing expectations, but also trying to work with them. The immigration legal access, so I don't have to say anything about what's happened in my district in ICE and how terrible it has been. and so on. We have a lot of folks really living in fear. Last year we had, I forget the number and I tried to look for it, but we had allocated additional money for legal help for BPS How that went, where the funds were dispersed. My understanding is that it went through community groups, but it was a specific line item for immigration help. For BPS parents, but I'm not sure if it was lumped into the same category as what it says here in your slide deck for FY26 partners, immigration, legal access, and it has parentheses of 18 different partners.

Yes, I'm sorry. I think I'll have to get back to you on that. It's really murky. A lot's been going on. But I do distinctly remember us putting out a grant opportunity for that. So I'll get back to your office around the exact...

Santana has recently put forward the home rule petition, so I look forward to that getting through my committee for a third time. and voting on that soon. Just hearing about continuum of care, I really appreciate Councilor Culpepper's question and just really infuriating to us. Like work requirements, we've already been through this in the 90s, like it does not work. And so to tie that, someone's worth in their right to Stable Housing is just so infuriating. So fingers crossed on that one, but I don't have any other questions. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for your work.

Okay, thank you very much. I just have a couple questions. I know a lot of my questions have been asked. We'll go for a second round. You know, again, Chief Dillon, I just have a hard stop, I guess. Monique, you're on the phone. I'll come back. I'm asking a question. You have two minutes. I guess for... For housing, we've invested significantly. I know the mayor has on city housing vouchers. And in our amendment process, we've added 1.5 million to the mayor's 10, 11, 12 million. I mean, how is that program working? Does that go through the Office of Housing? Am I asking the right people? Okay. Rick.

So, yes. Well, it's in our budget. only because the Boston Housing Authority I think is not a city department. So we get the funding, we have a memorandum of agreement, we give the funding to the BHA. It's over $14 million now allocated, or about $14 million allocated to that program. I'm pretty sure they are now just about all issued, and I think it's about 500 vouchers. I hope I'm right about that. I was trying to get, sitting here, I was trying to get the update from the VHA. and so on. Understandably, it took a few years for them to issue all those vouchers. I think they've been just about all issued now. And where we work with the budget office, Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, that's right, so you'll get it, but we'll get information before that, though.

Okay, and then in terms of home buying, I know you mentioned it, so for... This year going to next year, One Plus Boston or the First Time Home Buyer Program. I guess, you know, have those funds all been used? Do we need... Do we have enough to meet demand or no? Okay.

No. So what we've done very carefully, and Rick, please fill in some of the details here, is that we want to continue to serve as many families as they want to buy a home. We want to help them buy a home. The good news is interest rates have come down slightly, so that's good, but it's still really hard for folks because the prices are so expensive. So we've been working very closely with our home buying team to... designed the programs now in a way that continues to serve the same number of families, hopefully, but is reducing what the city is offering. if possible, right? So the down payment is slightly less. If we can give, instead of a 200 basis point reduction in the interest rate, We're underwriting. We see that that would still work for them. They may have a little less equity going into homeownership than they did before. We're tinkering with the program to continue to help the same number of families.

Rick, I don't know if you, I mean, there's lots of details. We can get you over some of the details, but I don't know if you have anything you want to add.

Well, just to provide some of the numbers, we have We got about $4 million in our annual budget for home buyer assistance, both one plus and down payment. Most of that is city funding, city general fund dollars. We do have some CDBG funding that we use for that as well. And then we apply for every, you know, and many more. And we've been successful in getting CPA funding. But as we said in our presentation, we also did use ARPA funding for the One Plus program and that funding obviously is gone and it's allowed us to help I think it's like something like close to 1,000 over the past just two, three years. And I think in particular, we've leveraged the ARPA funding to support the First Home Program at the BHA. And so we're in conversations with the BHA about what do we do with that program, with the ARPA funding.

They get additional down payment assistance on top of what we provide to our buyers.

Okay, yeah, for anyone watching, I've forgotten to hit the start button on my time. Chair's privilege, I guess. Just one more question, I guess, for Monique about, When people are calling us needing legal services, just walk me through what your office does if somebody in their family has been detained and they reach out to Moya.

Yeah, so oftentimes people reach out to us directly to our phone that's on our website and also our email. And then our team does an intake to assess what they need. And from there, they determine if they can provide them direct information themselves or connect them to give them a warm referral to a partner organization or a field partner. And we make sure that they don't get bounced around a lot and make sure that they actually are able to be connected to someone that supports them.

And then do you keep track of that person? And do you make sure they connect? Just wanted to avoid a situation where we just say, hey, call this, call GBLS, and then that's the last we talk to them.

Yeah, that's the key feature of our department. We want to make sure that they make that connection, and we do do follow-up. And we try to take as minimal personal data as possible to ensure that their data is private so that they're not subject to any FOIA concerns or privacy concerns as well.

Okay, and then I guess just in terms of outside grants for legal services, are we applying for those grants? Are we, like is HNC Alpha or GBLS applying for it? Are we able to pool those?

Yes, so basically our legal access grant money goes to organizations like who apply for our funding and then we partner with them to provide those services.

Does Moya apply for some of those grants?

Do we seek external funding to get money for ourselves?

Correct.

We do, like this past year, Boston Children's Hospital, for example, invested some funding to help us pad up our grant funding, for example. So different partners, over time, Thank you.

Okay, a second round, shorter than the first. I can See Councillor Flynn agreeing to that. I'm going to set it at, just trying to get through, how about three minutes? Okay.

Yeah, thank you. Rick, just want to follow up on a couple questions from Councilor Weber. The federal funds or city funds or state funds that supported first-time homebuyers, Down payment. So that's a grant. Is that right? It's not a loan, it's a grant. Yeah, that's right. So they don't have to pay that back. That's correct. So how do we know the people that receive the grants are The right people to receive them in terms of eligibility. What is the criteria?

All right, you're going to test me here. I don't know if I know the income limits. Sheila, do you know the income limits? I know we have a whole team of people whose job it is to review these applications. We have participating lenders that we work with.

So there's different programs. There's three or four different programs. So we can get that over to you, like what income, what family size, all of that. It's a pretty careful process, Councillor. We're working very closely with the banks that they're going to work with. We know what they need. We know their assets. We know their incomes. Thank you for joining us. It's a competitive market, and if they found a home they really want to buy, we've got to move quickly. So it's a balancing act, of course. But we've got a very, very seasoned team of employees Many of them have been former bankers themselves that really know how to underwrite and do the necessary. you know, the necessary reviews. So I feel very, very good about this team.

So does that money go from the city to community partners and then to the first time Homeowner for a grant orders that go from the city directly to the recipient?

The latter.

Okay. Is there discretionary, is there discretion in terms of the city Giving a grant to someone that may not be eligible to receive it. Maybe if they're over the income.

You know, I'm thinking back and I've been doing this for several years. Have I had a situation in like 10 years where someone was over by $5, $10 or something like that where I've had to You know, waive an eligibility requirement, yes, but we're pretty strict with the rules. Sometimes, you know, Sometimes it's hard to do, too, because everyone is deserving that wants to buy a home and contribute to the city, but very few.

I just want to say on the record, not with the HUD funding. The HUD funding is very strict.

Not with the HUD funding. This would have to be our own funding. You're absolutely right.

Maybe for the record, could I get a list of neighborhoods where the grants were given out where a person bought a house, a breakdown by neighborhood? Sure. I would be interested in knowing that. I say that because in one particular neighborhood of mine, in Chinatown, and I know I'm out of time, You don't necessarily have traditional one-family or two-family homes like other neighborhoods would. So how would that play into, how would that impact, Sheila?

So if I understand your question, I mean, we are underwriting like a bank would the income coming from a total household.

Yeah, but we don't necessarily have the home ownership in Chinatown.

No, there's a very low homeownership rate in Chinatown. But there is some, and there's some affordable, and we're excited, and I'm sure you influence this too, that R1 has a homeownership component, and we actually want to do more.

Okay, Mr. Chair, I want to be respectful to my colleagues.

That's all I have. Okay, thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Culpepper, I'm going to give you three minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Monique, I had a question about the legal access program. What's the total amount of the grants for that legal access program?

So for FY26 this year, we were only able to fund, we were able to fund 900,000.

Pardon me?

900,000 for this fiscal year.

What about last year?

700,000.

Okay.

Yeah, we went up a little bit.

And what are you anticipating for fiscal year 27?

It's hard to say right now. We're going to work with the budget team and finance team to sort that out.

And so with all the Activity around ICE and immigrants. What additional funding do you think you'll need to meet not just the legal increase, but across the board.

Oh, that's hard to say. But if you want to use legal access as a main foundation, for example, like FY26 this year, We had 31 applications and that totaled $2.3 million of... How many applications? 31. I want to note that a lot of the organizations that did that work or who are doing this work lost federal funding as well. So in this year, One of the first things the federal administration did was to cut their funding to provide legal access to a lot of critical things like representation for immigrant youth in their proceedings. so that one of our grantees lost the majority of their funding, had to cut staff. So a lot of the field is relying on our grants for foundational funding.

And do they just do, The different sessions that you have on the calendar in terms of the advice, do they go to when they're detained? Do they go down and talk to them at the detention facilities?

So different partners do different functions. So we have an organization like Pair, for example. They do that function. Or Bijan, they do that function. It's murky right now, the full acronym, but I'll get that to you. But there's different partners who do different things that are preventative to make sure that they know their rights. And also, there's people who do response work. So that's beyond what our immigration consultations provide. Our immigration consultations are volunteer attorneys that set up dedicate specific days of the month to do just phone consultations for 15 minutes, volunteer. Then through our grantee network, we give them grants to provide legal services year-round, and they all have different functions. Whenever they apply to us, they appeal to us about what they provide and whether or not we determine if it's vital enough to fund at this time.

So two-thirds of your funds are grants for your program, the other third? City funding. And so you're probably going to need an increase in city funding for fiscal year 27.

I hope you're able to get some additional funding or protect our funding that we do have at least so we can make it work whatever we end up with.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, I just have one question for Chief Dillon. Okay. Thank you. So Sheila, so we amended what we proposed and we put in a resolution to I'm in the IDP, from a quarter mile to two miles. And my question is, how much will that help in terms of additional affordable housing in the neighborhoods if we were able to extend that IDP from a quarter to two miles.

It depends on who you're talking to, right? So the reason that we... If a developer is buying out of their IDP obligation, the reason we always like units on site because it creates integrated communities, it creates strong communities. Absolutely. So when we allow a developer to buy out, and sometimes there's very good reasons, we wanted the affordable housing to stay in close proximity because the The subject neighborhood was getting more people, getting maybe more traffic, but they weren't necessarily seeing the benefit. And oftentimes where we were seeing the developments that had the most IDP obligation were in areas that have less than the city-wide average of affordable housing. So after lots of conversation with lots of groups, that was the compromise.

No policy decision is ever perfect, but we thought we had other resources to meet the pipeline and needs of other communities that weren't necessarily seeing IDP projects being built in their neighborhoods.

And given that things have changed, and that's why I made the change to two miles, because the cost of building in the neighborhoods where the funding... comes from versus in the neighborhood would allow us, and correct me if I'm wrong, to build more housing than we would if it stayed where the original funding came from.

So you're not incorrect. It is going to be less expensive. Land is going to be less expensive in our outer neighborhoods than downtown, certainly. But IDP sometimes is the only way that we're going to get affordable units in those neighborhoods. Just for an example, in Back Bay, I think it's 6% or 7% of the total housing units are income-restricted. Roxbury, 54%. So you can see, if you've got a bird's eye view here, why it really is important to continue to build mixed income communities where there's lower income restricted housing. but I'd be glad to talk about this further. I mean, this one keeps me up at night. There's never a perfect policy but I'd be glad to talk about it more.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And I think that we're going to have a hearing on that proposal. And I think you highlight Certainly in my district, I think people want, in District 6, people want the housing built on-site or close to it. And two miles away could be... I'm, you know, East Boston, you know, almost from JP, so I think Chief Dillon has a point. Okay, well, two miles is Back Bay, I guess, you know.

Most of the developments in your area, they're not opting out. They're not opting out.

Well, we don't want... Some of them try, and we've had lively discussions about where the off-site housing gets built.

We've had some very spirited meetings lately.

Yes. So anyway, I'm sorry. So I look forward to that discussion. Thanks, sir.

So do I, and it would be good to see.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Okay, Councillor Louie-Jim.

As an at-large councillor and as the only at-large councillor here, I just want to let you know that JP to East Boston is not two miles. It's a lot more. But I also did want to say that my understanding is that I remember because we had a whole committee looked at IDP and looked at this whole question of What is the best policy solution in respect to the question that like some of these are tough, right? Like I understand the benefits of a two-mile and I understand like why we want to keep it as close as possible. But I do just want to uplift that I think there was an entire committee that looked at this for a year of people who really tried to push the mayor on this question, tried to push us. And I remember, I mean, I welcome the conversation again.

I just do remember there being a very vibrant affordable housing community conversation on this issue when I was a candidate and then again when I was in office and there's just a lot of It's like, this is not, Chief Dillon, I'm actually surprised that this is one of the things that keeps you up at night, but it is, I think, an interesting policy question, so. I... Chief Nguyen, I thank you, but just want to also, like most of my other colleagues, thank your entire team for all of the work that you've been doing. I think we spoke yesterday about a really unfortunate situation of ICE. taking a man from Boston, Emmanuel Damas, taking him into custody, disappearing him to Arizona. He had a toothache.

Tooth infection and then died because of, I don't know, medical malpractice, racism, combination. I had not heard about this person's arrest by ICE. I had also, and I know the family, right? It's a Haitian American, I know the family. I'm wondering, like what can we do To increase our knowledge from people and families when there is an ICE encounter, what have we been doing to try to get more information and to make sure that we are supporting that family with as many resources as possible.

Yes, something that we are working with the administration on is For figuring out prevention, knowing your rights and your rights and family preparedness is so vital. A lot of times when it comes to immigration, people have a lot of shame and oftentimes have a lot of Thank you. Thank you. It meets all the difference.

That's not real, is it? The time? OK, sorry.

Yeah, so we're working with the federal administration, I mean, with our administration, to ensure that we're thinking through Know Your Rights Knowledge is being spread and right now we have the You Belong Here posters last year that we spread around and we have this website about knowing your rights and you may have seen the mayor's socials around

Yeah.

Training people.

Just because I think that buzzer was real. And I try to be as respectful on time as possible. But I am going to take a little bit of liberty. You're going to ask for permission? Councilor Culpepper is giving us a new tradition here on this council of going over, so I'm going to go over too. No, no.

Yes, you can. Yeah, you can.

Well, it's an ancient tradition. Okay, anyways. I will just say that I think Know Your Rights are great. I think, honestly, you know this. I think those are great, and we are one step beyond. I just want to understand like how And this is just what's on my mind. How do we increase that knowledge of when encounters happen? Of course, we have the Trust Act. Our officers should not be engaging in the work of enforcing civil detainers. But I still think that it is, we are more helpful the more that we know for families. So there's a question for, something for us all to think about, I'm sure. Your office is thinking about this. And then how do we make sure then the right people then know to help them?

Because I have five different numbers I give out when people need legal access and need information So I just want to say that and also just wanted to uplift, you know, we got you during the budget for legal resources and support. I think last year we were very happy to add on to legal resources because we understand the moment and understand the assignment. and I also wanna just reiterate that our job is to make sure that our budget reflects what we value as a city and as a city, that recognizes and values our immigrant community and loves our neighbors and our residents regardless of their immigration status, investing in legal resources like we did last year, like we did the year before, is something that I know that this council is committed to doing. So whatever gap there is and however much we can throw at you, I'm committed to continue doing that.

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

OK. Thank you. Councillor Durkan. You have three minutes.

Could I have four?

I'm going to give you four because you weren't here the first round. And then I'm actually cutting it off at four.

Thank you so much, Chair. I'm so sorry. I've been dodging between constituent calls. But I could not miss the Mayor's Office of Housing. Thank you so much, Chief Dillon, for all that we've worked on together. appreciated your leadership at 2729 Hancock Street where we have some housing and some affordable home ownership that's being built. I did want to ask a question about how much money we receive from the state government for permanent supportive housing. I know that in at least one budget hearing, It was less than we had received in previous years. So I was just curious if you have that number. And I just wanted to mention that I was planning to ask that question. When we ended up getting to the budget.

Yeah. So we'll get you a full breakout. Let me just make sure, though, I understand the question. I think you're looking for what the state's investing in permanent supportive housing, because we've been developing, as you know, a lot of permanent supportive housing under the Wu administration. Do you mean like the value of the tax credits and the soft debt and that type of?

Essentially, I'm just curious sort of how our funding rounds are interacting with each other. Yep.

So, yes, we'll get you that number over the last two or three years. I'll get you a full breakdown. I didn't think to bring it. I will say we've been doing very well. I think that... The Healy administration certainly respects the projects that the Wu administration is bringing them. And like in the last... Like last week, they have what they call a mini round. We put in five projects, we got five funded. So it's so nice. It's a little glimmer of good news in a very bleak landscape. But we'll get you those numbers.

Thank you. And just a point of curiosity, I know that you were at, or potentially a member of your staff was at a, 99 Bedford Street Auction, and I read about it in the BBJ, or I think boston.com. but basically the city bid for $19 million on a building. So I was just curious what program that was a part of and also just curious if I mean, I think the goal was to convert it to housing, but are there any other sites where you're looking to do something similar in the downtown area?

So I won't speak on her behalf, and I know that you speak to Administrator Bock with some frequency, but I attended the auction with Administrator Bock, who was the BHA that was actually making the bid on a very beautiful building. Downtown, it got bid up, the numbers no longer worked. We very smartly stood back. But the BHA is looking at their land, they're looking at their development abilities that they've really and many others. and so on. It's very exciting. They're exploring this with the mayor and us. So I think they're just out there seeing what opportunities are available.

Thank you. And I just was curious what positions were funded by ARPA that no longer exist or will no longer exist? Because I do know there were some members of the Mayor's Office of Housing team that were funded by ARPA funds.

Yeah, there's a handful of positions that were funded by ARPA. A number of them are actually already vacant because people moved into permanent positions or left the city for other positions. We're looking at that right now and trying to figure out which positions are going to still be needed once the ARPA funding expires, and do we have the funding to maintain them.

Obviously, some of those talented people I've worked with, so I hope that you'll keep the best because I think we need the best people working on affordable housing in our city. So, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, Councillor Durkan. Councillor Culpepper. See how that was done. Okay. Councilor Breadon. No, no, no. Do not activate his microphone. He thought he was going to get caught.

Councilor Breadon.

Yeah, yeah.

You're sending mixed messages.

I don't have to be consistent.

Oh, that's fine. Let's see. The Commonwealth Builders Fund for building home ownership projects. It was 25 million for the whole state in the last round. It didn't go very far. Is there any indication that the state are going to give us, put more money in the bucket next time, or what's the story there?

What we have heard is, and you're right, I should have mentioned this when Councillor Durkan asked about state funding. I'm thinking of the rental projects we've done very well with, the home ownership, their home ownership funding is really greatly decreased. So you're right, they put out an RFP in January for $25 million statewide. We've got seven projects up there. They're not all going to see funding, I don't think. But they were invited in so we're hopeful. What we're being told is they're going to make announcements in April on that round and then shortly thereafter make another $25 million available. It's not enough money. And so there really has been a lot of concentrated effort from lots of different groups to ask the state to really put more money into home ownership.

The other issue that's always a concern to me is just our ageing population with retirees who are Maybe retired nurses, teachers, middle-income folks who retired, they're now on a fixed income, they're overhoused, they need to downsize, but there's nowhere that they can... You can downsize from your lovely two family and you wouldn't have much change. If you buy a condo somewhere, you wouldn't have much change out of what you get for your home. We've looked at the Opus project in Newton. Is there any possibility that we could maybe swing a few of those? I think we should get a few of them.

Yes, I think we should do one in every single neighborhood. I want to go on the record. Right now, we are working and talking to 2 Life. I toured Opus. Have you been out?

I haven't been, but I do have friends over there.

There should be a city council field trip just to see Opus. It really is wonderful. The community out there is just happy. They're really happy. So we would like to do several of these in Boston. And you're right. It's people that have a lot of equity in their homes but may not have a lot of fat bank accounts, right? So they can't really afford affordable assisted living, and they don't really want to go into assisted living. So they buy into these projects. The monthly costs are very moderate. And then when they leave or pass away, Their families get 80% of what they invested in. So it really is a very good model. There's a wait list now in Opus Newton. So, yeah, we are looking, we're trolling around trying to find sites. And I will say, to life, Amy Sheckman and her team are very interested in doing this in Boston.

Yeah, my time's up, but I'll put that marker down. We'll see what we can do, and we'll have a little field trip to Newton. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, I just have a couple questions. We've got two more minutes, Chief Dillon. So in District 6, B'nai B'rith, JPNDC, Community Builders, We've seen some really good projects. What more can we be doing to support affordable housing development like that?

Let's put pressure and pass the transfer fee. I can't say it enough. Boston has a pipeline right now, an affordable housing pipeline. That goes out several years. They're great projects. A lot of projects for our older adults. But if we really want to keep building and keep... Taking units out of the speculative market, et cetera, we're going to need more resources. And with the city budget and other budgets continuing to be tight, we really do need to pass the transfer fee. It's the game changer.

Okay, and then thank you very much. Just one question for Monique around legal services. I think, so it's just two parts. So you say, I think this fiscal year we're gonna spend 900,000 and it meets about 39% of the need. So assuming the same level need, we should be looking at 2.5%. Three million, or that should be a goal for us in legal, you know, funds for legal services. I don't know, is that, do I have that right? That would be a G from true. Okay. And then, so in fiscal year 25, there were actually more requests than last year. Is that because immigration has largely been cut off? Other organizations, like they can't bring people in because they've lost federal funding. Do you know why that is?

It's a mix of things. We've probably got a lot of smaller applications, or we had bigger organizations apply for more funding. So it's a mix of things. in the context of all the things couldn't do legal access anymore and focused on other aspects, I can look at that number more deeply and get more insight of what that is.

Okay, thank you very much. I want to thank Chief Dillon. Rick and Monique, if you could just stick around for a couple minutes. We have one person for public testimony, Eliza. I don't know if any of my colleagues have one follow-up question or point they would like to make, but after our public testimony, We'll keep the panelists, can you just stay put and... So, Eliza, I think you've done this before, but it's two minutes. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and fire away. Thanks.

Yes, hello. Yep, not my first time. My name is Eliza Parad. I'm a Jamaica Plain resident, but I'm here today as the coordinator of the Better Budget Alliance. which is a citywide coalition of over 30 organizations from all districts who believe that Bostonians have a right to Decision-making power over the city's operating budget made primarily of our taxes. And we also believe that those Bostonians across the city from all demographics are actually the most important people to be giving that input because they're living the impacts of the services and the programs every day. and they can give us so much valuable information about the best way to spend and I understand it's a tight budget year even a restricted budget so

last year we launched a people's budget survey it was 16 questions and we went to food pantries youth job sites music festivals community meetings all sorts of places bus stops everywhere across the city We talked to 681 residents and asked them what they wanted to see in the budget. The respondents were primarily people of color, primarily the three biggest neighborhoods were Roxbury, Dorchester, and East Boston, though we did talk to people in 15 neighborhoods. Aged from 14 years old to over 80, primarily renters, and a very wide range of income. So what we heard was that people want more investments into things that meet their daily needs. They want access to food, affordable housing, support for immigrants, youth jobs and programs, health and mental health services to protect the environment, and supports for elders.

We also heard that 75% of respondents want to decrease funding for the police department and that 78% do not believe that more money for policing makes them safer. I want to just emphasize that because every year we're here making these trade-offs between more money to support immigrants or getting people food on their table. and residents are looking at the budget and saying, actually, there's an area with $477 million that we want to take from. So that's a real place to put on the table this year. Can I just finish?

Yeah, how about 30 seconds?

Great, yeah, that's good. Then we brought together over 120 residents in November to look at the results of the survey, brainstorm solutions and prioritize Thank you. Thank you. Sounds like you're leaning that way. Food wasn't mentioned. That's been a really big issue after the fall, especially in SNAP. And... Also, just the last thing is that when almost 5,000 residents voted just in January on participatory budgeting, the top ideas were number one, the Immigrant Legal Defense Fund, number two, Fresh Food Access, and number three, Assistance for Housing Stability. So again, that's quite a bit of residents that we're hearing from saying these are the priorities for the budget this year. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. I guess just to follow up to that, for the participatory budgeting, is that money, how does that work for the next fiscal year? Grant just get added to the line item like if it's coming through your department.

I can speak to you. So we got some funding through participatory budgeting both in last year's voting and in this year's. We just met with the participatory budgeting team to discuss the $200,000 investment in housing stability funding that Eliza mentioned. So we are already starting to think about how to operationalize that. So yeah, that funding, it'll kind of, I don't know how the accounting exactly works but it essentially flows through our budget the investments that are made in our the projects that are within our under our purview okay yeah anything to add no no that's the same thing

Okay, so I'm just, you know, thanks for everyone who stuck around. I'd like to give you one minute each to, if you have a comment or you want to ask a question, so. Culpepper you're up. I'm going to reserve that minute until the next time that I have questions. Okay. It's a bank, yes. Thanks for your deposit, Councilor Culpepper. You had no interest here.

Let me just say this, that I really appreciate your testimony. When I look at this, I think it's important. I think you hit it right on the nose. With regard to participatory budgeting, Thank you. Thank you Monique.

Thank you, Councilor Culpepper. Councilor Louijeune.

Yes, I'd like to deposit my time into the bank. Just kidding, because I know. I just want to say thank you. Again, Housing and Moya, this is wonderful. I think we've been uplifting your offices through the budget process and we will do so again this year. We want to have a deeper conversation with Chief Dillon to tease out sort of the vulnerable communities. I believe that we do that. with the city-based vouchers that are then used via BHA. I believe that we do that through the program that Councilor Weber championed and uplifted. And so the more that we can do that, I'm down. And I did want to mention participatory budgeting because I think, Eliza, you mentioned this in your testimony. It is reassuring to see that a lot of the amendments and investments that are made via the participatory budgeting process track what this council Right? And in terms of like, are we really doing the work of the people?

I think that, you know, Our investments are aligning with what community members want. Now, how do we get more of it done? How do we invest more? I think that's a political question for this body that is often a really tricky and hard one, especially in a year where we have a lot of Thank you. Thank you. I think our most important mandate and so I just thank you for the work that you do on on those fronts and look forward to the work ahead thank you Mr.

Chair okay um deposit not received in the time bank but uh Brayden.

I want to thank you Monique and your department for all the great work you do. I know I didn't ask direct many questions with you today but I am very well aware of all the great work you do and I thank you for your support around the issue of our Alston car wash folks who were detained. It's reassuring to know that we've got such dedicated folks working in your department and yourself leading them to help these folks in very, very difficult circumstances. and also housing and immigration. It all goes together and I think we'll all continue to work on the housing issues. It's a big challenge Thank you for your continued partnership and leadership.

Thank you. Good guidance from Chief Dillon who told us that we should focus on helping the most vulnerable Thank you. Thank you. Being whisked off the streets and detained for months on end and having their lives put in jeopardy is certainly something that I'll be keeping... Thank you very much. Today's hearing, there's nobody on line. Okay, that was anticlimactic. Okay, today's hearing is adjourned.

Thank you.