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Maura Healeys Plan to

Promote Housing Opportunities in
Massachusetts


Every person who calls Massachusetts home should have a safe, affordable, and stable place to live. As a
leader in the Attorney Generals Office, I initiated fair housing lawsuits, took on subprime lenders for
their predatory practices, and oversaw the first-in-the-nation HomeCorps program, which was created to
keep families in their homes and stop unnecessary foreclosures. Through that work, I witnessed the
critical housing challenges that Massachusetts families and residents face.

I am proud of the results we were able to achieve through the HomeCorps program and our
enforcement actions, but our work is far from done. Foreclosure rates are still far too high and continue
to impact every corner of the Commonwealth. Large segments of the population are cut off from many
of the opportunities and services that our more affluent communities enjoy. And far too many residents
must deal with landlords who refuse to make repairs and who operate with impunity.

As Attorney General, I will lead an office that works to ensure quality housing opportunities for all
Massachusetts residents by:

1. Combating abuses and misconduct in the mortgage market;
2. Protecting homeowners facing foreclosure;
3. Aggressively fighting against community blight and irresponsible landlords;
4. Expanding housing opportunities for low-income families; and
5. Promoting opportunities for sustainable homeownership.

Combating Abuses and Misconduct in the Mortgage Market
The Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau of the Massachusetts Attorney Generals Office, which I
ran as Bureau Chief, took the lead in holding Wall Street accountable for its role in the subprime
mortgage and foreclosure crises. The Bureau obtained record settlements against Wall Street investment
banks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and mortgage lenders, such as Fremont and
Option One. Those settlements provided hundreds of millions of dollars in direct relief to Massachusetts
homeowners. As Attorney General, I will continue that ground-breaking work. I will:

Pursue financial services firms and related entities for mortgage lending practices that violate
Massachusetts law. We must continue to hold financial institutions accountable for destabilizing
our neighborhoods and undermining our state and municipal pension funds by enabling
predatory and subprime lending.
Hold Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and other investors accountable for not complying with our
mortgage modification laws, and put pressure on them to be more flexible with their rules for
loan modifications and to offer more sustainable loan modifications that help families rebuild
equity in their homes.
Ensure that borrowers and purchasers throughout Massachusetts have equal access to credit.
Every year, reports indicate that minority borrowers have greater difficulty obtaining
conventional loans. I will target discriminatory lending practices by banks and other lenders.
Focus investigatory and enforcement efforts on fly-by-night brokers and other unscrupulous
businesses seeking to make a quick dollar at the expense of vulnerable consumers, renters, and
homeowners with deceptive and unaffordable financial products.
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Combat mortgage relief and foreclosure rescue scams through monitoring, enforcement, and
public education.
Protect consumers against the risks of reverse mortgages by ensuring that such mortgages are
properly marketed and serviced. Although reverse mortgages can serve as a valuable resource,
particularly for certain senior citizens, the potential for abuse and misuse is high.

Protecting Homeowners Facing Foreclosure
As Bureau Chief, I oversaw the implementation of the first-in-the-nation HomeCorps program within
the Attorney Generals Office. I know how destabilizing foreclosure can be for families and
neighborhoods. I am committed to preventing unnecessary and illegal foreclosures and to ensuring that
homeowners have opportunities to keep their homes. As Attorney General, I will:

Allocate critical resources to the HomeCorps program, which has enjoyed tremendous success
because it brings together mortgage modification specialists, legal aid attorneys, and social service
providers to ensure that more homeowners are able to stay in their homes.
Enforce Mandatory Loan Modifications. Under Massachusetts law, a bank must modify a
predatory mortgage loan where both the bank and the homeowner would benefit economically
from avoiding foreclosure. I fought hard to get this bill passed because it provides much-needed
relief to vulnerable families and helps stabilize neighborhoods.
Encourage principal reductions wherever reasonable to maintain loan payments and support
homeowners.
Consider foreclosure mediation as a means of enabling homeowners and lenders to achieve
mutually agreeable resolutions. A number of states and jurisdictions have recently experimented
with innovative mediation programs that have the potential to reduce foreclosures and to keep
homeowners in their homes when viable alternatives exist.
Support a law giving foreclosed homeowners a right to rent their homes from large financial
institutions after the foreclosure until those homes are purchased by new buyers. The
Massachusetts Legislatures Foreclosure Impacts Task Force, which I chaired, found that such a
law would be feasible and would not pose an undue burden on large financial institutions. A right
to rent law would ease transitions for homeowners and minimize the harmful impacts of
unnecessary vacancies on communities.
Respond to the recent phenomenon of municipalities selling or assigning their tax liens to third
party debt collectors, who are motivated to maximize their returns through foreclosures. This
practice particularly impacts senior homeowners, who often have no mortgage (and thus no
mortgagee that shares a vested interest in preventing foreclosure) and may not have the
wherewithal or the capacity to make the required tax payments.

Fighting Community Blight and Irresponsible Landlords
The foreclosure crisis has left vacant homes across Massachusetts, which are magnets for criminal
activity, harm neighborhood property values, and starve the local tax base. One study estimates that
violent crime within 250 feet of a foreclosed home increases by more than 15 percent once the home
becomes vacant. Property owners who do not maintain their homes cause problems for tenants,
neighbors, and communities. They need to be held accountable to ensure that blighted properties do not
overrun neighborhoods. As Attorney General, I will:

Expand the work of the Abandoned Housing Initiative (AHI), through which the Attorney
Generals Office uses the state sanitary code to compel property owners to rehabilitate blighted
properties. AHI has developed strong relationships with cities and towns, which work with the
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Attorney Generals Office to identify blighted properties. As Attorney General, I will bring AHIs
significant expertise to municipalities across the state by providing trainings and workshops for
municipalities that wish to adopt AHIs proven model on the local level.
Collaborate with local boards of health and inspectional services departments to identify
landlords who routinely leave their rental units in uninhabitable conditions, and bring
enforcement actions against them so they cannot subject their tenants to such conditions.
Investigate the possibility of developing a modern, statewide collaboration system that would
allow municipalities to share information about inspection histories and problem landlords, to
ensure that a complete picture of their misconduct is available.
Bring enforcement actions against banks and servicers that fail to maintain properties after
foreclosure, particularly when those properties are concentrated in communities of color.

Expanding Housing Opportunities
Securing affordable housing remains a critical challenge for many families. As a 2013 report from the
Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development documented, many families with
low incomes and other limitations are forced to relegate their housing searches to resource-poor areas. I
am committed to enhancing housing opportunities for all residents. As Attorney General, I will:

Support efforts to reform our housing authorities to ensure that they work efficiently and
effectively for the entire state.
Support an increase in tax credits available for deleading properties so that landlords face fewer
economic barriers to making their apartments safe for families with young children.
Protect individuals with disabilities by advocating for increases in accessible and supportive
housing, and by working to prevent local communities from blocking group homes and other
supportive housing arrangements.
Collaborate with fair housing organizations to test realtors, brokers, and other professionals to
ensure that they are not discriminating or unlawfully steering renters away from available units.
Dedicate resources to educating the public about their rights under landlord/tenant, fair housing,
and other laws, and to inform them about programs and other opportunities available to enhance
housing opportunities.
Promote the development of affordable rental housing throughout the Commonwealth.

Promoting Opportunities for Sustainable Homeownership
Though not every family can afford to own their own home, neighborhoods and communities are better
off when more residents have an ownership stake in the community. As Attorney General, I will do
everything I can to increase opportunities for sustainable homeownership. I will:

Collaborate with non-profits and community development organizations to find opportunities to
transition foreclosed homes back into owner-occupied homes.
Work with MassHousing and community lenders and banks to develop mortgage products for
multi-generational and other non-traditional familial arrangements to better meet the needs of
diverse family structures throughout Massachusetts.
Support organizations that offer training on financial literacy, personal savings, and
homeownership.
Work with the Legislature and the Department of Housing and Community Development to
expand programs that incentivize the development of more affordable, smart growth-oriented
homes, particularly in suburban communities and other areas with inadequate housing.