Healey’s speech on Beacon Hill focused on investments in housing, education, clean energy, and infrastructure.
“We heard her commitment to fully funding the Student Opportunity Act, the latest installment of that seven-year rollout," said Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page. "So that's great. We heard some good thoughts about investing in mental health supports for our young people who are really suffering a crisis of mental health. So that's good. We need to know the details, but the words were good. The governor celebrated a lot that we did around affordability of public higher education, but we got little sense of what would be done in the coming year.”
For Page, what Healey didn’t say was as significant as what she said.
“The words ‘Fair Share Amendment’ were never uttered," he noted to WAMC. "That's the millionaire's tax that the MTA was central in winning. It was interesting, because the governor celebrated a lot of amazing things we were able to do with the millionaire's tax money – universal school meals, the MassReconnect free community college program, hundreds of millions of dollars for the T and for regional transit, et cetera, et cetera – But unfortunately, because she has emphasized tax cuts, she did not celebrate this amazing victory we had back in November of 2022.”
The MTA was among the groups that harshly criticized the first-term Democrat’s tax cut plan as being too generous to the wealthy.
That wasn’t all that Healey omitted in her address.
“We didn't hear anything about overdose or addiction at all mentioned in her remarks last night," said former Berkshire County EMT Stephen Murray, the Harm Reduction Program Manager at Boston Medical Center and director and founder of the Massachusetts Overdose Prevention Helpline. “I would say that's a bit surprising, because Governor Healey has been really on top of this issue historically, and she has been a pretty big ally to us. And we have actually gotten the chance to meet with her a few times this year, and we launched the overdose hotline funding under her direction. So, I was a bit surprised, a little bit disappointed. We're still seeing about six people a day die in Massachusetts from overdose, and so, for us who are working in this, it's very forward in our minds. This is a major issue.”
Murray, an outspoken proponent of safe consumption sites, says he wishes Healey had brought attention to last month’s feasibility study from the state’s Department of Public Health endorsing what it calls overdose prevention centers. Murray says that for the overdose prevention and harm reduction world, it was a missed opportunity by the governor.
“When we don't hear it being mentioned, it's a resounding, deafening silence to us," he told WAMC. "But we really would love to see- There's always an opportunity to come out and next week, say something that would be impactful for us. So, I don't think all is lost by not mentioning it in the State of the State speech. But I really would encourage the governor and her team to come out strong in favor of a feasibility report.”
In 2022, Massachusetts recorded the highest number of opioid-related overdose deaths ever with over 2,300. Between 2012 and 2022, over 400 Berkshire County residents have died from overdoses.
Murray says that while Healey didn’t address the issue, holistically, her focus on housing ultimately plays into the larger harm reduction strategy.
“Most people are only one paycheck away from experiencing homelessness themselves," he said. "And while often drugs get the bad rap of being some sort of pathway to homelessness, I think homelessness is actually a pathway to problematic substance use. I think it's the other way around than what most people think. Experiencing homelessness is really a challenging thing, and a lot of folks use drugs so that they can stay up all night so they don't get attacked on the street, and then during the day to help them to be able to sleep during the day when they're safer outside. So, we often see the sort of opposite said, that problematic substance use is what leads to homelessness- But I think in a lot of cases, the systemic issues around housing, health care, and mental health care are the things that lead to take regular substance use or recreational substance use and then move them toward something more problematic.”
