THE BOSTON NURSING HOME placed into receivership and closely watched by state officials could be facing a $5 million deficit by the end of the year, according to a judge overseeing a case involving the facility. 

Reviewing financial documents in court, Superior Court Judge Christopher Belezos said the future viability of the Benjamin Healthcare Center, a nonprofit long-term care facility located in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, must be determined soon. A year ago, another judge placed it into “temporary” receivership as a way to avoid closure of the historic facility. The Benjamin, established in 1927, primarily serves the Black community and has about 80 residents. 

Massachusetts health officials have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars towards the facility with the aim of keeping it afloat, while making clear the Benjamin will eventually have to pay some of the money back. Additionally, the Benjamin has racked up $339,000 in accounting costs and more than $300,000 in legal fees since it went into receivership, and it has unpaid bills left over from the previous administration, according to the judge and attorneys for the parties involved in the case. 

A Department of Public Health official, in an affidavit filed in court, said the Benjamin is licensed to have up to 164 beds, but has only 80 residents. Filling a significant portion of those beds would bring in more revenue, the judge said. Even filling 30 beds at $8,000 to $10,000 a month, “do the math” and that closes the deficit, Belezos said a hearing on the receivership. 

Attorneys for the nursing home have filed a civil lawsuit against its previous administrator, alleging that more than $3 million was “siphoned” from the facility. The lawsuit, filed in March, is in its early stages. Tony Francis, the former administrator, did not return a request for comment. 

The receivership is time-limited, set to end in June, and Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, representing state health agencies, has pressed for more detailed financial information from the receiver. 

Joseph Feaster, an attorney, has served as the court-appointed receiver, and in his most recent report, he laid out several options for the future of the facility, whether it’s an “angel donor” swooping in to save it, or finding a new owner. 

During a court appearance Wednesday, Feaster said there are discussions underway among for-profit companies and nonprofit entities as part of an effort to bring in a new owner. He said there is broad support for the Benjamin keeping its doors open. 

“Myself included,” Judge Belezos added. 

But Belezos noted despite a year of receivership, it’s still unclear whether the property has a mortgage and whether a previously existing corporation has a hold on the property, two “absolutely vital” questions, he said. “The presence or absence of that could determine” the Benjamin’s future viability, since it sits on a prime piece of land in the city of Boston, he said. “We need to get to the bottom of this.” 

Belezos also set an April 16 meeting in court to go over allegations of mismanagement under the receiver, made in letters sent to the court from anonymous staffers and the current administrator under Feaster, Delicia Mark. 

Mark alleged a hostile work environment and a retaliatory suspension from Feaster, while the anonymous staffers alleged former state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who is working as Feaster’s assistant at the Benjamin, hired her relatives to work there, while another relative received a contract for snow plowing. 

In an affidavit filed in court, Feaster said Mark is misstating and omitting facts in her allegation of a hostile work environment, as well as the snow plowing contract. Feaster said he suspended Mark not out of retaliation for pushing back against his and Wilkerson’s decisions, but because he viewed it as the culmination of eight months of “lack of productivity, and overall ineffectiveness.” He said he wanted to have her replaced last fall, but decided against it because he was concerned about the “destabilizing effect” it could have on the Benjamin. 

Feaster said her letter alleging mismanagement by Feaster and Wilkerson amounted to “retaliation from a disgruntled, underperforming employee,” who he had “determined shortly after hiring her that she was incapable of doing the job.” 

He included a list of his own set of allegations, saying she allowed overtime spending to become “too high,” and he had to turn to Wilkerson to gather documents and files from the last several years, when the facility was run by a different administration. 

“Wilkerson’s painstaking diligence resulted in The Benjamin’s ability to turn over documentation to the Attorney General’s office, the FBI, and just last month allowed the Benjamin to file a $3 million lawsuit against Tony Francis and other co-conspirators,” Feaster wrote, referring to the pre-receivership administrator. 

He also alleged in February 2025, a Benjamin resident left the premises without supervision, and he was not notified of the incident, which is formally called an “elopement.” Mark, in a previous interview with CommonWealth Beacon, said Feaster blew the incident out of proportion, and said a staff member got to the resident before the resident fully left the premises. Mark, who was in court Wednesday, declined to comment and did not respond to a separate email seeking comment. 

Regarding the snow plowing contract, Feaster said it was “legitimately secured” and given to the lowest bidder. Wilkerson, in her own affidavit, said the snow plowing contract was the only one the Benjamin sought bids for, and accused Mark of not soliciting bids for other contracts. “I covered for her, and did everything I could to avoid damage, clean up messes and avoid further disaster,” Wilkerson wrote, aligning with Feaster’s affidavit. 

While Feaster’s affidavit was discussed in court, Belezos said the matter can be handled during the April 16 hearing. Feaster said he wants the allegations quickly dealt with because they are “destabilizing my ability to do the job the court has directed me to do.” 

Oren Sellstrom, an attorney representing families of Benjamin residents who petitioned the court for the receivership, told CommonWealth Beacon he still has confidence in Feaster as the receiver. 

As they discussed the allegations in the letters, Belezos noted that the focus overall should be on the future viability of the Benjamin as a long-term care facility. “Let’s not lose sight of the big picture,“ Belezos said. “The big picture is, is this viable going forward?”

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“WE WILL NOT tolerate a kangaroo court…” 

That was state Auditor Diana DiZoglio declining, by way of a tweet, to take part in a Senate-sponsored hearing scheduled for Wednesday on the constitutionality of the law passed by the voters in November allowing her office to audit the Legislature.  

The “kangaroo court” she’s referring to is a four-member Senate subcommittee created to guide the Senate in developing its position on the constitutional issues the new law has raised (a picture of four kangaroos wearing English barrister wigs appears below the tweet). The “we” who will not tolerate the kangaroo court are the auditor and her supporters.  

You might ask why the law’s constitutionality is being raised now rather than before the election. Are laws that might be unconstitutional allowed to appear on the ballot anyway?  

Yes, they are.  

A proposed law may be excluded from the ballot only for one (or more) of a narrow set of reasons, and the possible unconstitutionality of the law is not among them, as the decision of Attorney General Andrea Campbell (who has the responsibility to determine which proposed laws may advance to the ballot) approving this question demonstrated.  

If last year’s ballot campaign had failed, of course, there would have been no need for the subcommittee’s work. But it succeeded, in part because lawmakers brought a long-simmering resentment about the Legislature’s secrecy and perceived arrogance to a boil.  

A series of unforced errors, like failing to finish its work on many of the most important bills of the session by its own self-imposed deadline, prompted voters to ratify the ballot question overwhelmingly, by a 72-28 margin. 

The Senate subcommittee will convene on April 2, seeking testimony from invited guests and members of the public on several questions, including whether the new law violates the separation of powers clause of the Massachusetts Constitution, which prohibits the three branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — from infringing on one another.  

The purpose of the separation of powers doctrine is to “diffuse power the better to secure liberty,” and our state Constitution goes to syntactic extremes to leave no doubt about that objective:   

“In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.” 

The resolution of separation of powers issues can be difficult, presenting the courts with challenges not unlike those the early Church fathers encountered when trying to illuminate the mystery of the Trinity: one God in three persons? One government in three branches?  

A proper analysis requires a “scrupulous” inquiry, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled. In three recent cases, the court found no separation of powers violation in two (Gov. Baker’s Covid-era orders shutting down the economy for a time did not improperly encroach on the Legislature’s powers; the Legislature did not improperly abdicate its authority when it delegated the power to formulate the details of the MBTA Communities law to the executive branch), but a statute allowing the Department of Correction to decide where a mentally-ill prisoner should be incarcerated did improperly usurp the power of the judicial branch to make that determination.

The separation of powers clause is also the reason why the attorney general may not rely on the possible unconstitutionality of a proposed law to exclude it from the ballot: The authority to determine the constitutionality of a law is reserved for the judicial branch to exercise. 

Whether the auditor, who in this case is the representative of the executive branch, can demand to examine the records of the Legislature over its objection certainly presents a separation of powers issue, which the auditor’s own statements have complicated further.  

At one time, she claimed the authority to obtain not only the usual raw material of an audit (receipts, balance sheets, procurement records) but also information on internal House and Senate rules, which are expressly protected by other constitutional provisions and do not even invoke the separation of powers clause. A more recent statement announced that her audit would “start” with “all relevant financial receipts and information,” a formulation that left open the possibility that more problematic demands would follow.  

She has seemed to wave away any constitutional concerns by citing the approval of 72 percent of voters, but an electoral supermajority has no bearing on their proper resolution. She has claimed that lawmakers have “intentionally misled voters regarding the constitutionality of an audit,” and she has accused the Senate subcommittee itself of violating the separation of powers doctrine by exercising the power of the judiciary (hence the “kangaroo court”), but without further elaboration.  

The attorney general, in responding to the auditor’s request that she respond to the Legislature’s intransigence by filing a lawsuit, commiserated that “the consideration of separation of powers principles may be vexing, frustrating, or insufficiently responsive to the politics of the moment,” a sentiment that the auditor and her supporters would enthusiastically agree with.  

But especially in these precarious times, when the federal government is offering up daily illustrations of the dangers of consolidating power in one branch, it’s unwise to discount the wisdom of diffusing governmental power.

The Senate subcommittee hearing offers the auditor the opportunity to make the case that her demand of the Legislature is consistent with constitutional principles, but it seems that she has declined to take it.   

Margaret Monsell, a former assistant attorney general and former general counsel to the state Senate Committee on Ways and Means, is an attorney practicing in the Boston area. 

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A BOSTON NURSING HOME established in 1927 is again in danger of shutting its doors, one year after a Superior Court judge placed the nonprofit into receivership to avoid closure. 

The court-appointed receiver, Joseph Feaster, who was tasked with finding a financial path forward for the Benjamin Healthcare Center in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, wrote in a court filing this week that the options include finding a buyer for the facility, or closing up the nursing home and selling off the building and the land it sits on. 

More than $3 million in funds was allegedly “siphoned” from the facility by its prior administrator, Feaster said in the filing. He pointed to a civil lawsuit filed earlier this month by attorneys for the nursing home, alleging a “pattern of theft and embezzlement” against Tony Francis, the former administrator, and other former employees. Attempts to directly reach Francis were unsuccessful. 

Feaster wrote in the March 24 filing that due the Benjamin’s current debt load and state-imposed limits on the number of beds it can have, it’s “impossible for me to present to the Court that The Benjamin can continue without a significant infusion of funds,” possibly from state health officials, or more money from the state’s Medicaid program. He also suggested the possibility of an “angel donor” stepping in to save the facility, or the Benjamin mortgaging its real estate. 

In an effort to keep the Benjamin open as a long-term care facility, Feaster has started discussions with Evans Senior Investments, a Chicago-based brokerage firm that is helping sell 22 Massachusetts nursing homes to five different buyers. “My discussions with them have been stalled because I am waiting to receive reliable financial reports for 2024 to the present,” Feaster wrote in his court filing.  

The other option is to close the Benjamin and sell its real estate, he continued. Feaster, who called the facility “iconic” due to its history of serving Black residents, said he has reason to believe the Benjamin does not have a mortgage, but added “I hesitate to confirm such absolutely because there is some discrepancy regarding the previous ownership.” The facility would be shut down – which the receivership was meant to avoid – and the residents would be transferred to other facilities. 

Feaster noted that the Benjamin, which opened 98 years ago, is the only nursing home in the northeast US serving predominantly Black residents. There are about 80 residents in the nursing home. “The closure of this facility, and the relocation of its elderly residents, would displace them from the neighborhoods where the majority have lived their entire lives,” Feaster wrote. “Equally as important, it would impose travel/commuting challenges for their family and loved ones, who now have a local nursing home where they can visit their loved ones. All of these factors affect the quality of life of nursing home residents.” 

The Benjamin has been in receivership since April 2024. State health officials have allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the Benjamin as part of an effort to stabilize the facility, but they have balked at helping to pay for forensic accounting, legal expenses in the civil lawsuit against Francis, and Feaster’s receivership fees. Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office is representing state officials in court, and has asked Feaster for more detailed financial records. 

At a March 19 hearing, attorneys from Campbell’s office and Feaster appeared before Judge Christopher Belezos, who said he received two letters that made new mismanagement claims even as the facility tried to climb out of receivership. He said both raised concerns that he wants addressed at the next hearing on April 2. 

One letter came from Delicia Mark, who was hired as an administrator by Feaster, and the second from people claiming to be anonymous staffers. Rather than providing any names, the letter’s last page said, “Please HELP!” CommonWealth Beacon obtained and reviewed both letters. Mark alleged a hostile work environment created by Feaster and his assistant, former state senator Dianne Wilkerson, while the second letter alleged that Wilkerson’s relatives received jobs and money for work at the facility.  

Feaster said in an email to CommonWealth Beacon on Wednesday that he would reply to the allegations in court via an affidavit. Wilkerson has previously declined comment and referred questions to Feaster. Mark did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. 

While speaking with reporters outside the courtroom after the March 19 hearing, Feaster blamed Mark for the Benjamin nearly missing payroll and said he had to dip into his own pocket to help bridge a potential $50,000 gap. Mark, in an earlier interview with CommonWealth Beacon, said Feaster’s move was unnecessary and the facility would make payroll without it. 

Campbell’s office declined to comment on the latest mismanagement allegations, and said it could not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation into the Benjamin. 

“Ensuring that residents have continued access to high-quality care remains a top priority for the AG’s office,” a Campbell spokesperson said Wednesday. “To that end, we continue to monitor the ongoing receivership of the facility while also seeking information from the receiver about progress toward a plan for emergence from temporary receivership.”

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A FEDERAL JUDGE in Massachusetts has ordered roughly $30 million in grants that were stripped midstream from fair housing organizations reinstated, after organizations including a Holyoke-based center sued the Trump administration demanding the return of their grant funding. 

On February 27, organizations received notifications that 78 Fair Housing Initiatives Program grants were being cut off. The rationale at the time was simply that each grant “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”  

Four nonprofits, tasked with the day-to-day work of upholding the 1968 Fair Housing Act prohibiting discrimination in home sales and rentals, argued that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development illegally slashed tens of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funding. The cuts, they said, struck a devastating blow at their efforts to investigate housing discrimination and educate members of the public about their rights, which depends on federal and state funding supporting those efforts. 

US District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns ruled on Wednesday that HUD must reinstate any fair housing funding that was cut and barred the department from terminating the grants. The decision, he wrote, rests in part on a recent First Circuit Appeals Court rejection of every objection raised by the government in a similar case regarding Department of Education funding. 

As these HUD funds are congressionally allocated – and have been appropriated by lawmakers for decades since the Reagan administration – the department is limited to only terminating HUD grants if Congress approves or if cuts are done in a way that’s consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act, relevant regulations, grant terms and conditions, and the judge’s order. 

Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance, applauded the ruling in a statement. 

“Fair housing organizations are on the front lines of efforts to combat housing discrimination through enforcement of the Fair Housing Act,” she wrote. “Without their efforts, survivors of sexual harassment in housing; veterans with disabilities requiring accessible housing; and people of color seeking to buy a home free of racial harassment, and families with children would have no protection or anywhere to turn to uphold the law. The Trump Administration’s abrupt elimination of funding threatens drastic consequences for more than 75 fair housing groups around the country and creates fear, chaos, insecurity, and dysfunction in an already fragile housing market.” 

Initial explanations in the termination letter offered few clues to the underlying reason for cutting these 78 grants. The Holyoke-based Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, which is one of four Bay State organizations that works to enforce the state’s expansive fair housing laws along with federal laws, was the only local group to have a contract targeted midstream.  

Over that one February night, executive director Maureen St. Cyr said, they lost half of their annual budget when the remainder of a $1.3 million HUD grant was terminated. 

The suit initially sought an injunction against HUD and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with identifying areas of “wasteful” spending, to stop the cuts.  

But after the government’s response, in which HUD Deputy Secretary Matthew Ammon said DOGE had no power to make the cuts but agreed with its assessment and “adopted their reasoning as my own” in slashing the funds, the housing groups adjusted their strategy to seek an injunction only against HUD. They are planning to pursue a separate suit against DOGE acting beyond its legal authority to interfere with the grants. 

The grants were targeted, according to a filing from Massachusetts US Attorney Leah Foley, after DOGE determined they were “incompatible” with recent executive orders because they “include language that specifically imposes subjects such as ‘DEI.’” Foley also charged that the grants authorized funds for “training, enforcement, and other related activities in a manner for activities beyond the scope of the statutorily enumerated protections of the Fair Housing Act and other Civil Rights laws.”  

 The January executive order Foley cited refers to “illegal DEI and DEIA policies,” which it defines as “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.” 

But the Fair Housing Act itself prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and sex, including giving preferences on those bases, the housing group filing argued. “It is thus unclear,” the group wrote, “and the declaration does not explain, how the grants, which were made to further the non-discrimination purposes of the FHA, in fact promoted illegal race- and sex-based preferences.” 

In objecting to the lawsuit, the government argued that the Massachusetts federal court had no jurisdiction to force HUD to pay out money due under a contract, based on previous court rulings. The government also argued that awarding the grants is up to the agency’s discretion and that instating a temporary restraining order would be inappropriate in part because it could not recoup the funds if it ends up winning in the end. 

In a brief hearing on Tuesday afternoon, Judge Stearns quickly dispensed with the issue. At this stage, he said, every objection to the injunction was already raised and dealt with in a recent First Circuit Court of Appeals decision involving the state of California. 

That case concerned a lawsuit brought to halt over $600 million in federal cuts to the US Department of Education on an anti-DEI basis. The termination letters sent to over 109 programs canceled grants midstream because they were no longer “consistent with” or no longer “effectuate department priorities,” but do not specify why. 

The appeals court rejected a motion to halt a lower court’s temporary restraining order on the grant fund cuts while the government appealed. The essence of the issue was not contractual, the court said, but rather that the government violated federal administrative procedure law. The housing groups similarly argued that the HUD cuts were arbitrary in a way that violated administrative procedure. 

The states that sued over education cuts were not seeking compensation, the First Circuit court wrote, but the release of already appropriated funds. Agencies also aren’t able to operate in an entirely discretionary way, the appeals court concluded, because there are regulations limiting grant terminations. Because the Massachusetts district court is bound by the First Circuit ruling, and Stearns said he saw “no meaningful way to distinguish this case” from the education case, he allowed the housing groups’ injunction. 

 With a 14-day temporary restraining order in place, and while the federal government mulls next steps, HUD has been ordered to reinstate the grants and notify all of the affected organizations.

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NEARLY A YEAR AGO, the Benjamin Healthcare Center, the nursing home located in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, was placed under a court-appointed receiver in an emergency bid to avoid closure of the facility and allow it to begin a turnaround.  

But as the one-year anniversary approaches, the receiver and his administrator are trading new allegations of mismanagement at the nursing home and rehab facility. Established in 1927 to serve the Black community, the Benjamin has more than 80 patients and residents, the vast majority of them people of color, according to records filed in court.  

The administrator, Delicia Mark, said in an interview she feels she has a “target on my back” and alleged she was the subject of harassment and intimidation from the receiver, Joseph Feaster, and his assistant, former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, because Mark questioned some of their decisions. Mark wrote a letter to a Superior Court judge outlining her concerns and allegations, which came up during a court hearing last week and included her pushback on several hiring decisions and a contract she said were made by Wilkerson and Feaster. (Feaster and Wilkerson didn’t respond to requests for comment on these allegations.) 

Feaster, appointed as the receiver in order for the Benjamin to avoid bankruptcy and closure, said Mark was in danger of missing payroll earlier this month, and he had to dip into his personal funds to help cover the $50,000 shortfall. Feaster credited Wilkerson with flagging the issue, and faulted Mark for not planning ahead to deal with the shortfall. Mark said she hasn’t done anything wrong and claimed it wasn’t necessary for Feaster to use his own funds since the facility was set to receive money from other sources.  

Originally set to expire in June 2024, the Benjamin’s receivership status has been extended twice and is currently set to last until June 2025. State officials have advanced hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Benjamin to help Feaster stabilize the facility and its finances, according to court records.  

At a Superior Court hearing on March 19, the status of spending within the facility touched on the allegations of mismanagement, which troubled the judge, Christopher Belezos. The judge acknowledged he had received the letter from Mark, as well as a second letter claiming to be from anonymous staffers and leveling allegations that Wilkerson’s relatives received jobs and money for their work at the facility.  

Both letters raise concerns, Belezos said, adding that he wants to see the facility’s financial information at the next court hearing on April 2. “Sounds like we’re back in an emergency situation,” Belezos said.  

Both Feaster and Wilkerson did not respond to email requests for comment on Mark’s claims of harassment and the allegations that Wilkerson’s family received employment. At the hearing, Wilkerson directed questions from CommonWealth Beacon to Feaster when asked if any of her relatives had been hired at the Benjamin.  

Feaster told CommonWealth Beacon on Wednesday after the hearing that the Benjamin hires the lowest bidder on proposals when it comes to contracts. He reiterated that he hadn’t had a chance to delve into the allegations in the letters. “I’m too good a lawyer to respond to a document that I haven’t read,” he said.  

“When I give the court the response, you will get it,” Feaster added. “I’ve dealt with some of those issues and that’s just some comments by whomever made them, because I haven’t seen the document. But in any event I’ll respond to it, to the court.”  

Lawyers with Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, which represents state agencies like the Department of Public Health, a regulator of nursing homes, have previously pressed for more detailed financial information from Feaster while supporting the extension of the receivership, according to court records.  

In a December legal filing, Campbell’s office said Feaster made “significant efforts to address fiscal irregularities and record-keeping deficiencies that occurred prior to his appointment.” The previous failures to make payroll, under the former administration, meant employees risked not getting paid to care for the nursing home’s residents, which in turn created a serious risk to health and safety of the residents, the office said.  

As part of an effort to claw back funds for the Benjamin, Feaster is pursuing a civil lawsuit against the facility’s previous director, Tony Francis, who ran the Benjamin before Feaster’s appointment as receiver. Feaster has also retained an accounting firm, which has spent $200,000 as part of a forensic financial audit. “We’re trying to see if we can salvage this institution,” Feaster told the judge. (An attempt to reach Francis through his attorney was unsuccessful by press time.)  

But Judge Belezos ordered a pause on spending on the litigation and the audit, saying he has some potential issues with the state funds sent to the Benjamin being used to pursue litigation against the previous director.  “I think there are problems with that,” he said.  

When Belezos brought up the letter from Mark, the current administrator, and the second letter purportedly from an anonymous group of Benjamin staffers, Feaster said he had only a chance to skim what was in the documents after a court clerk distributed them.  

Mary Freeley, an attorney in Campbell’s office, said she also hasn’t had a chance to look into the allegations but suggested the second letter could be categorized as a whistleblower complaint.  

“I don’t know who they are,” Judge Belezos responded, noting they did not leave any names or initials in the letter, and he didn’t know if he is able to grant them whistleblower status.   

A CommonWealth Beacon attempt to reach the anonymous group of staffers last week through an email address provided with the letter was unsuccessful. The letter alleged that some of Wilkerson’s relatives were put on the Benjamin’s payroll, and a snow removal company with ties to her family received a contract without a bidding process.  

Mark, the current administrator, said in an interview with CommonWealth Beacon she faced pushback from Feaster and Wilkerson when she asked about several issues, including the snow removal contract. Mark started the job under Feaster in May. She previously worked at the Benjamin more than 15 years ago as a scheduler.  

Feaster hired Wilkerson as his executive assistant, or secretary, upon his appointment as receiver last April. A former state senator, Wilkerson pleaded guilty to failing to pay federal income taxes in the 1990s, and in the 2000s, she went to prison for accepting more than $20,000 in bribes. Since exiting prison, she made an unsuccessful run for her old Senate seat and has maintained a presence in the area as a community activist. 

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WHEN THE NONDESCRIPT email landed in Maureen St. Cyr’s inbox, she didn’t know it would be taking of more than half her housing nonprofit’s funding with it. 

Included was a simple letter attachment, immediately terminating $212,500 left in a congressionally-approved $425,000 federal grant that funded the Holyoke-based Massachusetts Fair Housing Center’s enforcement and outreach activities to address discriminatory housing practices. It also made it clear that the next year’s $425,000 grant was cut. Later in the day, a subcontracted education and outreach grant took another $19,000 off the table. 

It was February 27, and the fair housing nonprofit world was suddenly in triage mode. 

“The amount that we lost overnight was 52 percent of our annual budget,” said St. Cyr, executive director of the Holyoke nonprofit, focused but harried after almost a month of scrambling. “So we’ve had to take some pretty drastic immediate steps to ensure the continuation of service for our current clients, including closing our new intake so that new people who are reaching out to us for legal assistance or advice know we aren’t able to serve them at this time.” 

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, directed its slash-and-burn approach toward the federal Department Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in February, terminating at least 78 grants across 66 institutions in 33 states, amounting to tens of millions of dollars according to court filings. 

A termination notice sent to each program cut the grants off immediately and midstream, at the direction of the president and DOGE – the brainchild of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.  

The groups targeted were nonprofit fair housing organizations, the “backbone” of anti-discrimination Fair Housing Law enforcement within their regions, according to a class action lawsuit brought by groups in Massachusetts, Ohio, Idaho, and Texas. These organizations offer services like eviction defense, housing search assistance, systemic investigations of housing discrimination, and education and outreach about fair housing rights and obligations. 

Pulling grants out from under them, they say, will be devastating.  

“These awards are necessary to keep employees paid and clients served,” the group wrote in its emergency motion. Often, they wrote, the awards “are needed to quite literally keep the lights on.” 

The rationale for the cuts offered in each case? Only that the grant “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” 

In a press release one week before the termination letters arrived, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the agency was reviewing $260 million in contracts and has slashed $4 million in contracts promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. “DEI is dead at HUD,” wrote Turner, the president’s lone Black cabinet pick and executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during the last Trump administration. 

The Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, the Intermountain Fair Housing Council in Idaho, the San Antonio Fair Housing Council in Texas, and the Housing Research & Advocacy Center in Ohio, are all suing HUD and DOGE. They are seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the grant cuts. 

A hearing is scheduled for the afternoon of March 25 in federal court in Massachusetts to hear arguments to certify the class of plaintiffs – the impacted fair housing groups – and the temporary restraining order. The government has until the close of business Friday to submit any opposition, according to the court calendar. 

The Fair Housing Initiatives Program was initially a Reagan-era pilot that has since become a core funding source for the many nonprofits that make sure the 1968 Fair Housing Act’s purposes are fulfilled. 

The program offers an array of funding options, including grants to investigate and enforce the Fair Housing Act, to carry out education and outreach activities, and to develop new fair housing enforcement organizations and develop or expand existing organizations. While the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination enforce state anti-discrimination law, which covers even more protected classes than the federal Fair Housing Act, it is the nonprofit system that bears the day-to-day weight of ensuring fair housing practices. 

Writing in support of the group’s class action and temporary restraining order motion, Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance nonprofit, explained that the funding program, “like the Fair Housing Act itself, represents a congressional response to and remedy for the many years during which the federal government itself engaged in discriminatory practices that denied people fair housing opportunities and contributed to the residential segregation that remains prevalent today.” 

HUD has awarded more than $30 million in Fair Housing Initiatives Program grants in each of the last two fiscal years, Rice wrote. The affected groups reported 37 education and outreach grants cut, all for $75,000 or $125,000 annually; seven organization expansion or formation grants cut, all for $260,000; and 34 of the investigation and enforcement grants cut, all for $425,000 annually except for the National Fair Housing Alliance award, which was $400,000. 

If these abrupt terminations are not halted, Rice wrote, it will do “immediate, devastating, and irreparable harm to each and every one of the entities in question.”  

Organizations in Massachusetts are either directly reeling from cuts or fearing future plug-pulling. The Fair Housing Alliance of Massachusetts includes Community Legal Aid, Suffolk University’s Housing Discrimination Testing Project, SouthCoast Fair Housing Center, and the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center.  

The Massachusetts Fair Housing Center has been in its Holyoke building for over 30 years, St. Cyr said, but they will need to move to fully remote work without funding to cover the lease. They immediately reduced new programming, stopped their lead paint testing, and cut off an investigation into potentially discriminatory eviction screening policies in the region. Even after cutting off all expenses that are not “absolutely necessary,” the center will still face a $186,000 deficit, St. Cyr wrote in her filing, requiring half the staff to be slashed. 

They will not be able to keep up with their current caseload of over 50 clients in direct advocacy, which includes taking about five new cases per week, let alone their usual work in community outreach. The Holyoke center’s grants have been pulled entirely, but the Suffolk University center is between grants with two grant applications stalled and their future sustainability in limbo. 

“I think if we, as a state, lose two of the four agencies that provide this important work in the middle of a housing crisis, that will have an impact on our ability to address this housing crisis as a state,” St. Cyr said. She emphasized repeatedly that Massachusetts has been committed to fair housing goals and should step in to fill some of the funding gaps if at all feasible. 

The recent state Affordable Homes Act, passed last year with the possibility of a second Trump administration looming but no specific sign that these cuts were on the table, featured anti-discrimination housing priorities including a new Office of Fair Housing. 

Whitney Demetrius, previously the director of fair housing and municipal engagement at Citizens’ Housing & Planning Association, this month took on the role as head of the new state fair housing office.  

“Our office is keenly aware of what’s happening in terms of the uncertainty, and really trying to think strategically and creatively around prioritizing funding needs, identifying what those key priorities are, and how we support organizations who are doing this great work on the ground,” Demetrius said. 

The office will coordinate with regional fair housing organizations and state agencies to create policies to support fair housing law and combat housing discrimination. It will also oversee a fair housing trust fund, with money directed by the Legislature and other grants or private contributions, to support eliminating housing discrimination. 

“We’re thinking about this as a holistic approach,” Demetrius said. “What do we stand to lose if these organizations can’t continue to do their work? Because residents are affected right now, especially where those organizations are turning folks away. They’re not taking on new intakes, they’re not doing additional trainings. That affects and hurts Massachusetts residents in a tangible way.” 

Just two months into the new Trump administration, Massachusetts is working to chart a sustainable path through an environment now littered with federal funding threats. The fair housing organizations hope their work stays on the state’s priority list. 

“At the end of the day, we can build all the affordable housing that we want to,” St. Cyr said. “We can give out all the housing vouchers that we want to. But if people can’t use that voucher because of discrimination, and if people can’t access an apartment because of discrimination, we haven’t solved the problem. And so we’re hoping that that the important piece that we fill in this puzzle of ensuring access to housing opportunity in Massachusetts does not fall to the wayside in this calculation.” 

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A CUSTOMER WHO was assaulted by an MBTA bus driver with known anger management issues, including a prior assault against a passenger, can sue the transportation authority over the attack, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled. 

In the decision for a unanimous court, Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt wrote that a 1978 law protecting public employers from negligence lawsuits because of the actions of some third party like a contractor or customer does not apply when a person was “directly injured by an on-duty public employee.” 

Employers like the MBTA do have a responsibility to carefully select the people who will interact with members of the public, Wendlandt wrote, to make sure that they do not cause “foreseeable” harm, meaning harm that might reasonably be expected to occur under a certain set of circumstances. 

On March 3, 2015, Matthew Theisz fell asleep on an MBTA bus, waking and wandering out into Lynn as a blizzard swirled around him. When another MBTA bus passed by the bus stop, ignoring Theisz’s attempts to flag it down for instructions on how to return to Boston, he rapped on the back door of the bus and chased it down when it did not stop. 

“Lost, cold, and frustrated at the prospect of being stranded, Theisz first questioned why the bus driver had not stopped sooner,” Wendlandt wrote in the ruling. The driver yelled at Theisz, leaving his seat to kick snow at the man.  

According to the MBTA’s brief, Theisz appeared to be impaired by drugs or alcohol, called the driver an “a**hole” and threw a snowball at him, though Theisz disputes the claim that he threw a snowball.  

When Theisz uttered the profanity, Wendlandt wrote, “this further triggered the bus driver’s anger; as the driver subsequently described it, he just ‘lost it.’ Enraged, the driver lunged at Theisz, escalating the encounter.” 

Theisz retreated, the court recounted, but the driver followed him outside and began punching and kicking him. The beating was so severe, Theisz alleges, that he suffered a traumatic brain injury leaving him completely unable to return to his normal employment. 

The state brought assault and battery charges against the driver, who was acquitted by a jury. Theisz sued both the driver – who never responded to the complaint and received a default judgement – and the MBTA. The MBTA, Theisz argued, was responsible for the driver’s actions because the transit authority negligently not only retained the driver even after multiple incidences where he demonstrated hostile or violent behavior but also promoted him. 

The MBTA claimed in Superior Court that it is immune from being sued because the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act protects public employers from liability if they did not prevent harm caused by some third party who wasn’t acting on behalf of the employer.  

Before the driver was promoted to a full-time bus operator in 2013, he had sometimes engaged in unsafe driving and, on occasion, interacted with the public and his supervisors in a hostile or insubordinate manner, according to the court’s account. Seven months after his promotion, driving through Lynn, he left the driver’s seat of a moving bus to deal with an allegedly unruly passenger. 

“The passenger, who witnesses reported struck or spat at the driver, eventually attempted to retreat to no avail; the driver continued to beat him,” Wendlandt wrote. “Meanwhile, the bus, which the driver had left unattended as he attacked the passenger, struck three parked cars, endangering the lives of all the passengers onboard as well as any persons and property in the bus’s uncontrolled path.” 

According to the court, the MBTA suspended the bus driver for one day, taking no further disciplinary action or requiring any training. Four months later, the driver again received no disciplinary action after stopping the bus and blocking traffic, refusing to move or cooperate with a police officer who requested his driver’s license, leading to his arrest. The incident involving Thiesz occurred one year later. 

In December arguments before the high court, MBTA attorney Jennifer Lee Sage said that “the crux of the plaintiff’s claims in this case is that, had the MBTA acted differently – by way of better trained or better supervised or simply fired the bus operator after certain reported bad behavior – this incident, accident, might have been averted.” 

But this is exactly the kind of behavior the Tort Claims Act addresses, she claimed. Retaining the driver is not an act that created this situation, and the transit authority is not responsible for the actions of a third party, she said. 

Justice Scott Kafker pushed back on Sage’s claim during oral arguments in December. 

The third party is a full employee in this case, he said. “It’s not nature, or a kid, or a bully, but an employee.” And there is “some logic” to arguing that an employee is more of the employer’s responsibility, he said. “You’ve hired this person, you’ve maintained this person, you’ve kept them there despite some odd and even reckless acts by this person.” 

In sending the case back to the lower courts, Wendlandt noted that there is little reason to think public employers should be off the hook if they do not exercise reasonable care in the selection of an employee to interact with the public. Here, the MBTA was “choosing to place an employee in that position despite knowing of the employee’s untreated, assaultive behaviors,” Wendlandt wrote. The negligence immunity, she wrote, “provides no safe harbor in such circumstances.” 

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MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS are free to require that New Hampshire residents – and all out-of-staters – have licenses to carry firearms within the borders of the Bay State after the state’s highest court decided recent gun licensing rules for non-residents pass constitutional muster.  

Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled on Tuesday, can enforce its gun laws even against people who are legally allowed to carry a gun in another state.  

The decision signals that even under a tougher standard for determining the constitutionality of gun regulations recently set by the Supreme Court, Massachusetts’ firearms restrictions – some of the strictest in the nation – may rest on solid ground.  

“Certainly,” Justice Frank Gaziano wrote, “the Commonwealth has the power to enforce firearm restrictions within its own borders that are consistent with the United States Constitution.” 

The SJC considered the separate cases of two New Hampshire men who are allowed to carry firearms back home but were charged for unlawful possession of a firearm when they crossed the border into Massachusetts without applying for and obtaining a Massachusetts license first. The court heard the cases together in September 2024,  and the issue drew attention from gun owner rights groups, gun violence prevention groups, and officials from both states as they watched to see how the SJC would square Massachusetts law with the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that mandated gun laws must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”    

Gaziano wrote both opinions for a unanimous court, tossing one charge brought under an earlier version of the state’s non-resident licensing statute while protecting the current law and the underlying principle of gun regulation applied to non-residents. 

In both New Hampshire cases, the men were involved in car crashes and police responding to the scene found that there was a gun in the vehicle.  

But the cases diverge in the details. Notably, the dates. 

Dean Donnell, Jr. was arrested in 2021 on suspicion of drunk driving after a single-car crash on Interstate 495 near the Lowell Connector, according to the court. Officers searched the car, finding several empty beer cans and liquor bottles, along with two twelve-gauge shotgun slugs in the cabin of the car. Inside a duffel bag, the officers found a pistol with a single round inside and several empty magazines. 

About one month before Donnell was charged under Massachusetts firearms laws, the US Supreme Court handed down its New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen decision in June 2022.  

The Bruen decision tossed out a New York licensing rule that gave individual officials discretion to deny carry permits – essentially identical to Massachusetts law at the time – because the court felt the law was not sufficiently connected to “historical tradition” of gun regulation. Donnell argued that because the Massachusetts statute said officials “may issue” a license rather than “shall issue” and the only reason to be denied a permit was because you posed a particular danger if approved, it conflicted with Bruen. 

He was right in challenging the statute as unconstitutional under Bruen, the SJC concluded, dismissing his charges.  

“To be consistent with the Second Amendment, the Commonwealth’s nonresident firearm licensing scheme cannot vest an official with the discretion to deny a license to a qualified applicant,” Gaziano wrote. “The defendant was charged under a firearm licensing scheme that did just that. This manner of firearm restriction is no longer permissible.” 

But Gaziano emphasized that “the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not absolute” and the SJC’s ruling does not “preclude it from requiring firearm licenses for persons within its borders.” 

The second opinion of the day offered legal justification for doing just that. 

In September 2022, Philip Marquis got into an accident on I-495 in Lowell traveling from his home in Rochester, New Hampshire, to his work in Massachusetts. He told officers at the scene that he had an unloaded pistol but no license to carry in Massachusetts, for which he was charged. 

Marquis challenged his charges under the state gun law, amended after Bruen, arguing that the Commonwealth’s nonresident firearm licensing scheme violated his Second Amendment rights as a nonresident. A district court judge agreed, dismissing the case after finding that the state did not demonstrate that the law was rooted in historical tradition. 

But the SJC determined Marquis never applied for a firearms license under the current law, so his specific rights were not actually violated. As for the challenge to the entire licensing law, non-residents carrying handguns are protected within the scope of the Second Amendment, Gaziano wrote, but because the Legislature updated the “may issue” language, the licensing statute can be compared with historical analogues rather than automatically tossed. 

The purpose of the law is to prevent “demonstrably dangerous persons” from being armed while in Massachusetts, he wrote, which more recent US Supreme Court decisions suggest is similar enough to historical rules preventing those who posed serious risk of violence from carrying deadly weapons unrestricted. 

The court also was not convinced by Marquis’ argument that the law infringed on the right to travel between states – a sticking point between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which filed an amicus brief in support of Marquis.  

“Strict application of Massachusetts’s firearm statutes imposes on many New Hampshire citizens, particularly those living close to the border with Massachusetts, something of a Hobbesian choice,” New Hampshire officials wrote. “Lay down your right to armed self-defense upon entry into Massachusetts or face felony charges that carry harsh penalties and mandatory imprisonment.” 

But residents and nonresidents are treated equally under the licensing wrote, Gaziano noting that the burden is minimal. 

Second Amendment advocates have taken their constitutional grievances with state gun laws to the federal courts when possible, and the sprawling gun reform bill passed last legislative session – which includes provisions on ghost guns, expands areas where guns are prohibited, and strengthens courts’ abilities to take away firearms from dangerous people –  is targeted by three lawsuits and a potential ballot campaign. 

The SJC has treaded carefully around Second Amendment law since Bruen, aware that the conservative US Supreme Court majority has expanded gun rights beyond what Massachusetts law allows. After being overturned upholding a state ban on carrying stun guns, the SJC struck down bans on carrying switchblades. 

But the SJC has found cracks in the Second Amendment armor where it can, as it did in the Marquis case. As the restrictions on firearms loosen, however, the Supreme Court will determine who gets the last word.

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IMAGINE WAKING UP one day to find that the life you have built over many years is suddenly in jeopardy. This reality now affects approximately 900,000 people living in the US with humanitarian immigration protection known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Trump administration has begun rescinding TPS—starting with Venezuelans and Haitians—stripping them of their humanitarian status and rendering them vulnerable to deportation. Uprooting lives, the administration is unnecessarily and recklessly tearing at the fabric of entire communities that are here legally and playing by the rules.

In response, on Monday, Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the first lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of TPS for both Venezuelans and Haitians. The federal court case was filed in Boston, home to the country’s third-largest Haitian-American population.

TPS protects about 500,000 Haitians and 300,000 Venezuelans. With TPS, they have rights and responsibilities: They can live safely and work legally in the US, but they must pay taxes, follow the rules, and remain law-abiding. Getting into criminal trouble disqualifies them under strict TPS conditions. They don’t threaten public safety because they are vetted by the federal government each time they renew their humanitarian status.

Unlike undocumented people who are pushed into the shadows to avoid detection and deportation, TPS recipients are fully known to immigration officials. Collectively, they are model community members. 

TPS recipients reside in blue and red states across the US, with significant populations in Florida, Texas, New York, California, and New Jersey. In Massachusetts, over 17,000 people live and work with TPS, including at least 10,000 Salvadorans, 4,500 Haitians, and 1,300 Hondurans. TPS recipients are essential workers, small business owners, homeowners, and community members who help drive the economy. 

Deporting nearly 900,000 TPS holders would be economically catastrophic. It would exacerbate labor shortages in key industries like health care, construction, and food services, driving up already high costs. The loss of workers would destabilize businesses and hurt local economies, making services and products even scarcer.  

At least 380,000 TPS recipients are in the workforce, filling jobs in industries with chronic labor shortages. For example, more than 100,000 work in food services and accommodations, helping to keep restaurants, hotels, and other businesses running. About 50,000 work in health care, with TPS recipients well-represented in hospitals, nursing homes, and home health aide providers—all critical services, especially for the aging baby boomers. Another 50,000 play other vital roles in service industries.

Altogether, the economic contributions of TPS workers are an astounding $31 billion annually. TPS rescission will deprive the economy of this massive and much-needed boost. It will also burden taxpayers with the unnecessary costs of deporting hundreds of thousands of people who are already here lawfully and working for America. 

Over the years, with the stability afforded by humanitarian protection, many TPS holders have been able to save and invest. TPS entrepreneurs have launched their own businesses and created work opportunities for other Americans. People with TPS have started shops and restaurants, injecting new life into Main Street. This fuels the revitalization of neighborhoods that would otherwise struggle with stagnation. The elimination of TPS would harm everyone in these communities.    

TPS recipients are also taxpayers. In 2021, they paid nearly $1.3 billion in taxes, helping to sustain and support federal programs. They even pay taxes to support services they typically can’t access because many federal public assistance programs are reserved for US citizens. Yet, even after decades of living and working here, TPS recipients have no pathway to American citizenship. They are economically valuable and immensely productive, but the Trump administration has unfairly painted them as an undesirable nuisance.

In the past, Republican and Democrat administrations—from Bush to Biden—have recognized the importance of TPS by renewing it in response to crises abroad. Ending TPS now exacerbates the conditions that triggered humanitarian protection in the first place. If TPS is revoked, TPS recipients will be deported to indisputably unstable countries.

TPS-designated countries like Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, and Ukraine are already grappling with conflict, natural disasters, and other hardships. They cannot guarantee the safety of deported TPS recipients. None of these countries have the infrastructure or capacity to safely or sustainably absorb thousands of people. By destabilizing vulnerable countries, TPS rescission will backfire, leading to even more migrants in the long run.  

The unsafe conditions that deported TPS recipients would face underscore that the Trump administration’s actions are discriminatory and arbitrary. Terminating TPS raises serious legal and practical concerns: How can the government justify rescission, especially when conditions abroad have, in many cases, worsened?  

Ending TPS is also problematic from a policy perspective because it’s the only immigration program that provides relief for people affected by climate change, including those fleeing storms and other environmental disasters. Many countries designated for TPS—like Haiti—have experienced hurricanes and other extreme weather events. As climate change intensifies, ending TPS would be devastating.  

During the first Trump administration, organizations like Lawyers for Civil Rights sued to prevent TPS termination, arguing that rescission was motivated by discriminatory animus. Once again, legal action is needed to stop the latest attempts to revoke TPS. In times like these, the availability of free legal support from organizations like Lawyers for Civil Rights is among the most critical interventions to protect families and communities.  

Make no mistake—this is a manufactured crisis, and the upheaval effectively condemns TPS recipients to undocumented status. This cannot be allowed to happen. Employers and business leaders must speak out against ending TPS. Congress must also take action to create a permanent solution for TPS holders, ensuring they are no longer in jeopardy. We must stand with our neighbors and co-workers who depend on TPS. This fight isn’t just about TPS—it’s about the rule of law, the economic fallout, and fairness.  

Iván Espinoza-Madrigal is executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights.

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THE PITCH FROM Hometap — a Boston-based home equity investment company — is simplicity, speed, and transparency. A homeowner applies, if approved, the company gives them a home equity “investment” of cash in exchange for a share of the home value, and the homeowner can use that money however they like. 

But Attorney General Andrea Campbell claims the deal is a poison pill. In a lawsuit filed February 19 in Suffolk County Superior Court, Campbell’s office alleges that Hometap engaged in unlawful and predatory practices that targeted financially vulnerable homeowners for profit. 

“In reality, this product is vastly more expensive than any common mortgage product on the market—and when consumers cannot pay, Hometap will sell their homes,” the complaint reads. “A significant portion of Hometap’s customers are at risk of losing their homes as a result of not being able to afford the repurchase payment when it comes due,” it further claims.  

Instead of cash-out refinancing, a home equity line of credit, or a traditional reverse mortgage, homeowners repay the home equity investment (HEI) money in its entirety plus some appreciation when they sell the house, refinance, or hit the end of the investment term.  In Hometap’s case, the term is 10 years. 

According to the attorney general, Hometap put consumers at an unreasonably high risk of foreclosure and financial harm by collecting unlawfully high interest when repayment comes around, making mortgage loans without adequate financial assessments or underwriting, offering illegal reverse mortgages that fail to comply with state consumer protection laws, and concealing the high cost and nature of the product. 

A spokesperson for Hometap said in a statement that it “firmly believes in the integrity of our products and the financial flexibility they provide to Massachusetts homeowners. We have pursued every possible avenue to engage in constructive dialogue with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Unfortunately, those efforts have not been reciprocated, and we believe they are pursuing an unfounded lawsuit predicated on meritless claims.” 

The spokesperson declined to comment further. 

Home equity investments are a growing industry –– the first HEI company launched in 2006 with most competitors entering the mix in 2015 –– that can help homeowners bypass expensive mortgage rates.  

HEI companies say that home equity is an overlooked tool in financial security planning, and the mortgage market can be needlessly rigid. 

“Homeownership is unique in that the home typically serves two concurrent purposes: it’s a place to live, and it’s also the primary way many homeowners build wealth,” Shoji Ueki, chief growth officer at Point, a home equity investment firm, told Inman, a real estate trade publication, in December. “Whether someone is looking for extra cash to handle rising expenses or planning for long-term security, this equity can offer flexibility and peace of mind. So, instead of thinking of the home as just a place to live, consider it one of the most valuable tools in your retirement toolkit.” 

In announcing the suit, Campbell said the first-in-the-nation legal effort is not only aimed at Hometap but will “put other companies on notice that my office will continually seek to protect communities from predatory business practices.” 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau –– the imperiled federal agency launched in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession to shield consumers from unfair financial practices — has warned that home equity investments are far from a simple contract. 

Home equity contracts can be difficult to understand or compare to other options, the bureau concluded in an analysisis of HEIs in January. They are also expensive compared to other home-secured financing options, it found.  

Hometap joined the industry in 2018, a period of rapid growth for HEIs that would ramp up in 2023 when companies began pooling these contracts and selling them as securities to be traded in financial markets. 

The industry still accounts for a tiny share of loans homeowners take out against their home’s value. The four largest home equity contract companies securitized about 11,000 home equity contracts in the first 10 months of 2024, less than one percent of the 1.2 million home equity lines of credit issued over roughly the same period of time.  

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, complaints from consumers “shows homeowners that felt frustrated or even misled about various aspects of home equity contracts — including confusion about the financing terms, surprise at the size of the repayment amounts, disputes about appraisal values, difficulty with refinancing due to the existence of the home equity contract, and frustration that they felt their only option to get out of the contract was to sell their home.”  

On the same day the complaint was filed, Hometap announced a partnership with Heading Home, the Boston area’s largest provider of services for homeless families with children, through its Up & Out program — an effort in which “volunteers purchase and assemble furniture, household goods, and essentials to transform empty apartments into welcoming homes.”  

In the February 19 press release, Hometap CEO Jeffrey Glass said the partnership is part of their “commitment to support housing stability across our community. By addressing housing challenges at every level, we can create stronger pathways to sustainable homeownership.”  

Campbell’s office argues that Hometap actually devalues homeowners’ equity. It claims a percentage of the value of the home when repayment comes, the AG’s office alleges, which is “far higher” than the percentage paid to the homeowner in the initial investment. The company often pays homeowners just half of the value of the equity it claims, the suit says. 

“Although styled as an ‘option’ and characterized by Hometap as an ‘investment,’” the complaint states, “in reality, the Hometap HEI is a loan. In particular, Hometap’s product is an unlawful reverse mortgage product.” 

Because of the danger of reverse mortgages, where the amount owed to the lender goes up over time unlike traditional mortgages, these products are federally restricted to individuals over the age of 62.  

In Massachusetts, reverse mortgage loans are limited to owner-occupiers over the age of 60 who must receive independent counseling regarding the risks of reverse mortgage loans, plus be given a seven day “cooling off period” to rescind the reverse mortgage loan after entering the contract. 

Hometap, the attorney general argues, is effectively skirting these requirements by classifying its product as an investment. The National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Boston focused on issues affecting low-income consumers, described HEIs  as an “exploitation” of the country’s $35 trillion home equity market without the regulations directed at traditional mortgages or even reverse mortgages. 

“Whatever this product is called, it is a loan masquerading as obligation-free cash,” the consumer rights organization asserted, asserted, advocating for state regulations to address the risks. “The companies that market and sell them often use deception to lure financially struggling consumers into unconscionable, high-priced loans.” 

While Campbell’s suit is the first to target the HEI product as a deceptive and illegal reverse mortgage in court, other states, including Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington, have clarified in law or regulation that these are effectively loan programs. No current Massachusetts legislation attempts to tackle the question. 

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