One year ago in April, the Trump administration abruptly announced its intent to shut down the bipartisan Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initiative that has allocated billions of dollars in federal grants to pre-disaster mitigation efforts in communities across the country since 2020.
Trump
Posted inHousing
Worcester’s ‘A Better Life’ housing program helps break generational poverty by promoting self-sufficiency
Last month, Trump administration officials announced a long-awaited proposed rule that encourages, but does not require, all public housing authorities and private property owners who rent to people using a Section 8 housing voucher to implement a work requirement and time limits for non-disabled, non-elderly adults in federally-funded housing.
Posted inHousing
Trump administration targets program for chronically homeless residents, sparking fear for vulnerable populations in cities like Springfield
The overhaul has been temporarily and partially blocked by a federal judge, but the move is impacting local administrators of the federal program across Massachusetts and has threatened millions of dollars in funding for permanent housing and thousands of beds for the chronically homeless.
Posted inOpinion
The top 5 CommonWealth Beacon commentary topics in 2025
Thoughtful CommonWealth Beacon opinion pieces offered a stark contrast to a year of oxygen-sucking pronouncements by a president whose coarsening of public debate commanded nearly nonstop headlines.
Posted inEnvironment
Five Codcasts from 2025
CommonWealth Beacon reporters moderated panels and guided conversations on some of the thorniest problems facing the state. Here are five Codcasts from 2025 worth revisiting — or checking in on for the first time — as the new year kicks off.
Posted inHousing
Our top five housing stories of 2025
The Bay State’s housing crunch seemed to reach into all corners in 2025, tying up courts, lawmakers navigating climate and transportation concerns, groups dependent on federal fair housing funding, and services promising to make it easier for more people to afford to live in pricey Massachusetts.
Posted inThe Codcast
Restoring civic discourse in an age of polarization
On this week’s episode of The Codcast, Jim Peyser, who served as secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker, talks with CommonWealth Beacon executive editor Michael Jonas about the yearlong series of essays he wrote for CommonWealth Beacon on the need for civil discussion of often controversial issues in an era of polarized debate.
Posted inState House News Service
Senate president says federal government ‘working against us’
During an interview televised Sunday morning, Spilka echoed comments made earlier in the year by House Speaker Ron Mariano, who said Massachusetts had “lost our federal partner.”
Posted inEnergy
Cuts to federal solar tax credits send Mass. farmers ‘scrambling’
Federal solar tax credits that once covered 30 percent of project costs are being phased out. For farmers, that can mean fewer opportunities to use agrivoltaics to offset rising costs and keep farmland in production.
Posted inOpinion
Offshore wind is alive and well. Maybe we should just keep quiet about that.Â
Is it possible that the predictions of the death of offshore wind power – one of our single best tools in the fight against climate change – were greatly exaggerated?Â
Posted inOpinion
The Commonwealth has the money to protect the common wealth
While Gov. Healey is right that Massachusetts can’t make up the $16 billion in federal funds the state receives annually from the federal government, we have to be prepared to protect our people from the worst of the harm coming from Trump.
Posted inPolitics
Trump’s shadow looms as offshore wind price negotiation deadline missed
The latest delay was the second time since Trump was elected that the two sides have failed to meet a deadline and contract negotiations had to be extended.
Posted inHealth Care
Mass. ‘eds and meds’ sector in the cross hairsÂ
Greater Boston’s acclaimed universities, hospitals, and affiliated research institutions are the fuel that has made the region a juggernaut of the 21st century knowledge economy. Now they are making it a target.Â
Posted inEconomy
AG Campbell: Medical research change could ‘undermine our economy’
Attorney General Andrea Campbell and nearly two dozen of her peers sued the Trump administration and federal health care agencies Monday, alleging that they unlawfully moved to cut crucial federal dollars for research.
Posted inPolitics
Progressive politics from the ground up
Photographs by Frank Curran STATES’ RIGHTS HAS a long and ugly history in this country. The phrase has often served as code for the segregationist Jim Crow policies that southern […]
Posted inPolitics
Galvin won’t cooperate with Trump voter fraud panel
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S COMMISSION to investigate allegations of voter fraud is reaching out to state officials to gather information, but they won’t be getting a lot of help from Massachusetts Secretary […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Mass. Democrats are energized
THIS SATURDAY, the Massachusetts Democratic Party will hold our largest ever platform convention. Nearly 5,000 delegates are mobilizing to debate, vote, and collectively decide the key issues that represent who […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
A Republican path to ACA reform?
IF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP and Congressional Republicans were to decide that fixing rather than destroying the Affordable Care Act, especially its private health insurance marketplaces, was in their self-interest, could […]
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Trump’s attack on environment is attack on communities of color
TWO WEEKS BEFORE the commencement of President Trump’s reign of error, the New York Times reported that in an effort to undermine strong public support for policies to prevent climate […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Polling matters now more than ever
POLLING IS AN act of political resistance. It agglomerates the messy and inconvenient opinions of everyday people, kneads them into a whole, and forces them through the door into the […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Say no to Trump’s anti-labor secretary
ANDREW PUZDER, the CEO of CKE Restaurants and President Trump’s pick for secretary of labor prefers robots over working people. He has said that machines “are always polite, they always […]
Posted inPolitics
Was Baker privately ‘With Her’?
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER is heading to Washington later this month to attend fellow Republican Donald Trump’s inauguration. But would he have been happier to be attending Hillary Clinton’s swearing-in? Of […]