WORCESTER—Governor Maura Healey told business leaders and city officials at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Club Thursday morning at the AC Hotel by Marriott that she believes Massachusetts is the best state in the country.
“Just as long as you can afford it,” she added.
Healey told the audience at the sold-out breakfast that affordable housing is the single greatest priority for her administration. She pointed out that rents are soaring further out of reach, home ownership is becoming more difficult and people can’t even afford to downsize.
According to Mass.gov, by 2030 the state will need at least 200,000 new homes to accommodate growth. Only 1.6 percent of housing units today are available for sale or rent.
Healey stressed that the Affordable Homes Act she filed in October must pass in the legislature. The act supports the creation of more than 40,000 homes and would preserve, rehab, improve or support more than 27,000 existing units, including supporting more than 7,000 public housing units and decarbonizing 3,000 public housing units.
In an interview after speaking at the breakfast, Healey said that her top priority is to build more housing.
“My bond bill that I put forward allows us to go out and borrow money,” she said of the Affordable Homes Act, “give it to developers, work with developers, get tax credits out the door. We need to build more housing. Some of that is new construction. Some of that is looking at old factories, old buildings, old state property and turning that into housing, but it’s the number one issue facing our state. We need it for economic growth and development. We’ve got to keep residents. We’ve got to keep employers here. We’ve got to act.”
Tax revenue hasn’t reached the Healey administration’s monthly benchmark since June of 2023 so financing the $4 billion cost of the Affordable Homes Act could be a challenge.
The commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE ranked Worcester as the 15th-best market in the nation for life sciences research talent.
“But we need people to be able to live here,” Healey said, “and afford to live here—people who are going to teach at our colleges and universities in Worcester.”
Healey credited the leaders of Worcester with addressing the housing crisis, but she said the need remains here and throughout the state.
“Worcester has done a lot,” Healey said. “A lot of people want to come to Worcester. A lot of people want to live in Worcester.”
Healey said her administration is encouraging companies to make Worcester their home.
“You look at what Worcester has become,” she said. “This incredible ecosystem of research and academic institutions and now life sciences industries, who are not only doing the research here but also doing the manufacturing here. It’s super exciting.”
After leaving the chamber breakfast, Healey remained in Worcester to visit the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, the longest-running life sciences incubator in the state.
The Mass Leads Act, a $3.5 billion economic development bill that Healey filed last week, includes a 10-year, $1 billion re-authorization of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative that will provide capital, tax incentives and operating money for the industry.
Also at the chamber breakfast, the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce announced the establishment of the Linda Salem Pervier Permanent Restricted Fund to create an annual funding source for one-time initiatives, projects, or consulting services that would advance the economic development and workforce needs of the chamber’s service region of Worcester and Central Mass.
The chamber has received $2.466 million in contributions and commitments for the fund so far and hopes to raise $3 million by the end of 2025, the chamber’s 150th anniversary.
Salem Pervier, 69, the chamber’s vice president of membership development and finance, has served at the chamber for 50 years. She joined as a Becker College intern in 1974 and began working full-time in May 1975.
“It’s fabulous,” Salem Pervier said of the fund being named in her honor. “I’m very humbled. I can’t believe it’s been 50 years that I’ve been walking in that front door.”
“This is an appropriate way to recognize the service that she’s given to the chamber permanently,” said Timothy Murray, president and CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, “and if you think of our 150 years, she’s been here for a third of that in a really important and impactful way. We wanted to do something meaningful that would perpetuate her legacy, but also focus on the things that the chamber is substantially about – economic development, workforce initiative, which she has been a part of in the different roles she’s had over the years.”
Salem Pervier said she and her husband, Mike, who works at CIRCOR Naval Solutions in Warren, still enjoy their jobs and have no plans to retire anytime soon.
Bill Doyle has been a professional journalist for 47 years, most of them as a sports writer for the Telegram & Gazette. He covered the Boston Celtics for 25 years and has written extensively about golf, boxing and local high school and college sports. He also worked for the campus newspaper when he attended UMass-Amherst. He can be reached at billdoyle1515@gmail.com
