GBIO Blog

Lots of work was done during July to help move forward key legislation that would affect the Housing and Mental Health/Substance Abuse Disorder agendas of GBIO. Both Steering Teams called upon GBIO members to contact Speaker of the House Mariano and Senate President Spilka to express support for both the Real Estate Transfer Fees bill (H.1377/S.868) and the omnibus mental health bill (H.4879 and S.2584). We know that GBIO members made well over 200 calls. If you were one of those who called, thank you! It made a difference. The mental health bill was passed! MAMH (MA Association for Mental Health), with whom GBIO partnered, sent GBIO the following message “Congratulations on all your work to reach this milestone. All of the calls and emails generated by the GBIO network certainly helped push this bill to the governor’s desk.”

Sadly, the Real Estate Transfer Fees bill, which still had some life in it toward the end of July as an amendment to the Senate’s version of the economic development bill, did not make it out of the Revenue Committee. However, it is primed to be addressed in the next session. Our Housing Team focused on making those legislative calls, attending other related City Council meetings on ARPA money, and on building relationships with each other across institutions by doing relational meetings and sharing housing stories. GBIO was praised by City Councilor Bok for its work related to the City’s housing budget.

The Reentry Team continues with its efforts to secure IDs for returning citizens. They were successful in getting $2.7 million (more than hoped for) for the Office of Returning Citizens and will continue working on that program’s staffing. Fees for parole and probation have been eliminated for 2023 and the Team is researching and defining new issues.

These efforts continue with CDTers attending Action Team meetings, which remain open to anyone with an interest.  The next Mental Health/SUD Team meeting will be September 8 at 7:15 on Zoom.  The Housing and Reentry meetings will be scheduled for sometime in September.  Stay tuned.

In an exciting new piece of news, an ad hoc committee of GBIO leaders are meeting with attorney general and gubernatorial candidates to begin the process of finding out where they stand with regard to GBIO’s agenda. Perhaps there will be an action with them in the fall! Stand by for that.

Finally, CDT’s GBIO Core Team will begin holding monthly meetings, OPEN TO ALL, to keep us updated. Everyone is welcome to attend the first of these meetings, which will be on September 7 at 7:00 pm on Zoom. We will keep it brief and have fun!

Please be in touch with Louise Enoch if you have any questions.