Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) has signed a $57.8 billion state budget for 2025, which features several provisions designed to assist the state’s senior residents with health care, food assistance and aging-in-place provisions like home-based care. This is according to announcements by Healy’s office and AARP.
Signed into law on July 29, the budget features support for several aging-specific programs advocated for by AARP. These include home- and community-based care designed to support aging in place; community councils on aging to better assess the needs of older residents; funds for outreach and counseling resources for seniors who have mental health needs; and more allocations for the state’s health insurance program.
Councils on aging will receive $1.4 million in additional funds from the budget. Other programs that will get budget increases include elder nutrition ($200,000); congregate housing ($600,000); elder protective services ($4.5 million); elder home care ($16 million) and purchased services ($22 million); and senior supportive housing ($23 million).
The budget also includes a new municipal tax-lien protection program, which “allows property owners going through foreclosure to reclaim any excess equity on their homes once their tax bill is settled.” This is referred to as a ban on “home equity theft,” according to AARP.
The budget also adds support for a virtual senior center, specifically for older members of the state’s LGBTQ+ community; funds a dementia care coordination program; and makes regional bus fares free, although that provision does not impact service from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).
“This budget delivers on our shared priorities and drives our state forward with urgency and purpose,” Healey said in a statement. “It invests in areas that we are already leading on and makes them better — including our #1 ranked schools and our nation-leading child care strategy. We’re also tackling our biggest challenges by lowering household costs and improving transportation. We’re doing all of this responsibly, staying within our means and in line with the rate of inflation.”
AARP also lauded the signing of the budget and the programs it contains.
“AARP believes the budget is an opportunity to plan for the Bay State’s growing older population,” the organization said. “In 2020, the 60-plus group comprised 24% of the population. Adults 60 and over in Massachusetts will soon eclipse the under-20 age cohort for the first time in recorded history.”
Recently, Massachusetts did away with a key impediment to the state’s reverse mortgage business — a prohibition on remote counseling sessions that aimed to restrict such sessions to in-person meetings only.
The law, which had been passed in 2010 and on the books since 2014, had created challenges for the state’s seniors to reach their counseling sessions. This was exacerbated by the presence of only eight full-time counselors serving the state, which dwindled to roughly five by 2021. Six years after the law went into full effect, it clashed with physical distancing mandates the state handed down in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
After several additional years of legislative lobbying by area professionals, the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), Healey signed a budget bill at the end of April that rescinded the in-person counseling requirement.
