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January 21, 2022

Treasury’s Emergency Housing Team

The following is in response to the Treasury’s Emergency Housing Team request for 

additional information or clarification as indicated by the questions below as received on 

January 13, 2022, regarding the Massachusetts HAF Plan submitted on September 10, 

2021. The Budget has been updated in the Portal with a new measure to reflect the 

budget-related answer below.

Thank you

Massachusetts HAF Team

Budget

Question: Budget: Regarding the budget allocation for uses other than mortgage 

assistance:

Final Response: 

a. Under the Budget tab in the Portal, we added a new a new custom 

measure named “Property Charge Assistance” to allot budgeted funds 

towards property taxes, insurance, HOA fees, and municipal utilities as 

may be necessary to avoid or extinguish a lien.

b. We reviewed the statistics of over 1,000 applications received to date and 

determined that approximately 5% of the total amount of funds requested 

are for these Property Charge Assistance uses, the balance is for 

Mortgage Assistance. So, in order to give us some flexibility, we have set 

the budget higher at 10%, or $14m+, for Property Charge Assistance. No 

changes have been made to our commitment to the 5% HCA budget, 

which we think will be very helpful in resolving a variety of matters (with 

and without HAF funds). Below is the language we updated in the Portal 

to set this new budget allotment. 

i. Property Charge Assistance: The Massachusetts HAF program is 

designed as a single program with one application with same 

CHARLES D. BAKER

GOVERNOR

MICHAEL J. HEFFERNAN

SECRETARY

Executive Office for Administration & Finance

COM M ONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

STATE HOUSE ▪ BOSTON, MA 02133

(617) 727-2040

KARYN E. POLITO

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
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eligibility requirements for different design elements. The first 

phase of the program is primarily designed as a mortgage 

reinstatement program to provide funds to eliminate or reduce 

past due payments, and other delinquent amounts as may be 

necessary to facilitate a mortgage reinstatement (e.g., to 

avoid or extinguish a lien), including payments under a 

forbearance plan, on forward mortgages, reverse mortgages, 

loans secured by manufactured homes, or contracts for deed, due 

to a financial hardship associated with the Coronavirus pandemic 

for the purposes of preventing mortgage delinquencies, defaults, 

and foreclosures. Please see the Terms Sheet for more 

information. The Mass HAF Plan allots 80% of the state 

allocation, or $142,834,686, for these purposes, which 

includes 10%, or $14,283,686, budgeted for Property Charge 

Assistance (e.g., taxes, insurance, HOA fees, municipal 

utilities) for avoiding or extinguishing a lien as necessary to 

perform a reinstatement. Massachusetts has allotted the full 5% 

available for statewide housing counseling and legal aid services 

(5% is $8,927,167).

Marketing, Outreach, and Accessibility

1. Question: Regarding strategies for outreach in languages other than Spanish.

Final Response:

a. Here is some information to provide a clearer picture on the different 

languages we will be using to communicate about HAF. All of these 

languages are reflected in the Portal so we did not alter the current 

submission. These marketing strategies are tailored to best suit the 

community we are targeting based on current data and feedback from 

HCAs and CBOs.

i. The consumer fact sheet is available in nine languages: English, 

Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Haitian Creole, Khmer, 

Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese. Those fact 

sheets in those languages are here:

https://masshousing.com/haf .

ii. The application portal www.massmortgagehelp.org can be viewed 

in English, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Khmer, Portuguese, 

Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

iii. 15-second animated ad, which will be used for TV, radio (audio 

only), social media and digital ads will have versions in English, 

Spanish, and Portuguese.

iv. TV ads are planned for English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole 

stations.

v. Radio ads will be English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

vi. We will be advertising in Spanish-, Portuguese-, and Chineselanguage newspapers.

vii. Google ads are running in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian 

Creole, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian.