Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 121F, § 3 – Assistance from fund; eligible activities and recipients; prerequisite findings

(a) The fund shall finance low and no-interest loans, grants, subsidies, credit enhancements and other financial assistance for rental and ownership housing; provided, that any assistance provided shall be the minimum amount necessary to make a project feasible; provided further, that loans, grants, subsidies, credit enhancements and other financial assistance pursuant to this chapter may be provided to qualified for-profit or non-profit developers, community development corporations, local housing authorities, community action agencies, community-based or neighborhood-based non-profit housing organizations, other non-profit organizations and for-profit entities and governmental bodies; provided further, that recipients may enter into subcontracts to administer the contracts with other for-profit or nonprofit organizations; provided further, that loans, grants, subsidies, credit enhancements and other financial assistance pursuant to this chapter may be provided for the acquisition of property to provide or preserve affordable housing; provided further, that the loan program may be administered by the department through contracts with the Massachusetts Housing Partnership Fund established in section 35 of chapter 405 of the acts of 1985; provided further, that the program may include acquisition, financing and other holding costs, interim management costs and operating costs and may be used by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership Fund to secure, collateralize or reserve against other financing obtained by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership Fund to support such costs; and provided further, that not less than 75 per cent of the beneficiaries of the housing shall be persons whose income is not more than 60 per cent of the area median income and not less than 13 per cent of the beneficiaries of the housing shall be persons whose income is not more than 30 per cent of the area median income.
(b)
1. (1) Activities eligible for assistance from the fund shall include, but shall not be limited to:
(i) projects to develop and support affordable housing developments and homeownership affordability through the acquisition, preservation, new construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing; and (ii) the preservation of affordable housing developments that:
1. (A) are currently, or were previously, subject to prepayment or payment of a state or federally-assisted mortgage;
2. (B) are receiving project-based rental assistance under section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937, 42 U.S.C. 1437f, and the rental assistance is expiring; or (C) have received other project-based federal or state subsidies which are terminating or have terminated.
3. (2) Property eligible for assistance shall include, but shall not be limited to, housing where the prepayment or payment of a state or federally-assisted mortgage or the expiration of federal low income housing tax credits or other federal or state subsidies would lead or has led to the termination of a use agreement for low income housing or in which a project-based rental assistance contract is expiring or has expired; provided, that a property eligible for assistance that has been acquired for the purpose of preserving or improving the property shall not lose eligibility due to actions by the purchaser to renew or extend state or federal contracts or subsidies.
4. (3) The department, in consultation with nonprofit organizations, the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership Fund, shall identify projects at greatest risk of prepayment, payment, termination of subsidies and use restrictions or nonrenewal of rental assistance. Funding priority shall be based on at-risk criteria to be determined by the department and set forth in regulations promulgated by the department.
5. (c) Assistance provided through the program may be made in a manner which qualifies the assistance as a matching contribution under Section 220 of the HOME Investment Partnership Act Title II of the Cranston–Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act including, in the case of assistance provided in the form of a loan, a commitment to repay the loan to the commonwealth's HOME Investment Trust Fund established pursuant to Section 92.5000(o) of the regulations of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
6. (d) Prior to providing assistance, the department shall determine that:
  1. (i) the housing would not, by private enterprise alone and without government assistance, be available to lower income families and individuals; and (ii) the amount of assistance is the minimum amount necessary to make the housing development feasible. The department shall require, as a condition of receiving assistance, that:
    1. (A) the housing remain affordable for its useful life as determined by the department; and (B) with respect to rental housing, the operations of the owner and its articles of organization and by-laws, and any changes to the articles of organization and by-laws, shall be subject to regulation by the department.