Massachusetts has a new point person in place to lead state government’s response to the housing crisis: Ed Augustus, sworn in Thursday as the latest member of Gov. Maura Healey’s cabinet.
Augustus, a former Worcester city manager, now serves as secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. It’s a newly formed arm of state government — previously, the state’s housing and economic development agencies were combined into a single secretariat. Healey split housing off into its own office, with a chief reporting directly to her, to signal it as a priority for her administration.
The new office will be the main player on issues around housing production, affordability and stability. It’s a big job in a state where ever-rising rents and home sale prices are one factor driving younger residents away, and where a surge in demand has the emergency shelter system straining to keep up.
Here are five things to know about the person taking on that charge.
1. His mantra is “more, faster.”
After taking his oath Thursday, Augustus said he knows the housing shortage is an urgent problem, in need of quick action.
"When people ask me, 'What's your mantra, what's your focus?' More, faster," he said. "More housing, and do it more quickly. Those folks who are in the shelter system, those folks who may be in jeopardy of coming into the shelter system, they can't wait."
If Augustus and the state as a whole can successfully boost housing production, it'll take time to see results. In the near term, he said he wants to explore the potential of converting unused state land into housing, identify any "bureaucratic things that we do that might inadvertently slow down production," and help communities make zoning changes to support denser, multi-family housing near transit stations.
2. His record in Worcester depends on who you ask.
Augustus spent eight years leading New England's second-largest city, stepping down in 2022.
“As a former city manager of Worcester, Secretary Augustus has a track record of creating and preserving thousands of affordable housing units,” Healey said Thursday. “He led the revitalization of the downtown, [and] attracted crucial economic development to the city. He left Worcester a stronger city than it was a decade ago.”
But some advocates in Worcester have questioned the appointment and the way their city has handled housing production, pointing to new developments that are out of reach for lower- and moderate-income residents and a growing homeless population in the city.
“He was the city manager, the CEO of the city, at a time where his role [was] to organize and oversee the current wave of gentrification that is not benefiting — and is in fact harming and pushing out — the most vulnerable segments of the population,” Addison Turner, who advocates for homeless people in Worcester, said last month.
3. The State House is familiar territory for him.
Augustus is well-versed in Massachusetts government and politics. He served as a Democrat in the state Senate from 2005 to 2008, making him a familiar face to many of the lawmakers he’ll need to work with to advance the administration’s housing agenda.
Augustus has also worked as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, and in the U.S. Department of Education under President Bill Clinton. That gives him some ties to Washington, D.C., which has its own role to play in housing funding and policy.
Healey indicated she sees his municipal background as particularly important, saying he “knows what it takes to collaborate with our cities and towns to move our state forward on our housing goals.”
4. He doesn’t come from a housing policy background.
The new secretary may need to do some learning on the job on housing issues that didn’t previously come across his desk in Worcester.
Apart from his government roles, Augustus has held some notable posts in higher education — most recently, chancellor of Dean College in Franklin, and before stepping into the city manager job he was director of government and community relations for the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. He holds a bachelor’s in political science from Suffolk University, and a master’s in the same subject from The Johns Hopkins University.
In his two terms in the Senate, he chaired the Election Laws Committee and later the Senate Committee on Bills in the Third Reading, which reviews bills before they're brought to the floor for a vote.
5. He’s not yet wading into policy debates.
As Healey swore in Augustus and introduced him to reporters, groups rallied at the State House in support of bills that would lift a statewide ban on rent control and create a foreclosure prevention program.
Boston is pursuing a local rent-stabilization policy, and Healey has said that she believes that’s a choice that should be up to individual communities. The Legislature would need to sign off on the move, though, and several other housing ideas are also awaiting review on Beacon Hill.
Augustus said he wants to “get up to speed” on the various potential solutions being offered, like rent stabilization, eviction protections and transfer taxes on high-dollar real estate sales that fund affordable housing. He said he wants to “make sure that we are looking at all the tools that are available to us.”
“I think we have to think out of the box,” he said. “I think we have to think creatively. I think the same old isn't going to get us where we need to go, and so we need to be open-minded to a lot of different ideas we previously weren't open-minded to.”
