In July 2025, Massachusetts celebrated a first-of-its-kind housing milestone: The state joined a private developer in breaking ground on 92 new mixed-income rental homes by using public investment equity.
This project, the Residences at East Milton, is exactly the kind of development Massachusetts needs to advance. Developed by the Joseph J. Corcoran Company and Falconi Properties, the housing project replaces a surface parking lot and some obsolete strip retail with high-quality new rental housing. A fourth of the new homes are affordable for moderate-income renters. The project brings a new housing choice to Milton, a suburb bordering Boston that has struggled to create new multifamily housing opportunities.
The Residences at East Milton is being constructed with $5 million in Momentum Equity, an innovative new financing product from MassHousing. Under Momentum Equity, the public makes direct equity investments in catalytic new housing developments.
Publicly financed investment equity is a new form of public/private partnership, meant to catalyze private investment in larger-scale housing production statewide.
Indeed, a new statewide housing plan found that Massachusetts must create 222,000 new homes by 2035 to support a growing economy and meet the housing needs of residents at every income level. Nationwide, according to Harvard research, between 2019 and 2023, rental costs grew in 89 of the country’s 100 largest metro areas.
As a result, public agencies nationwide are embracing financial innovation and deploying public funding in nontraditional ways to spur new housing construction. In the states of New York and Maryland and in Atlanta, government agencies are launching a mixed-income, public/private financing revolution amid our nation’s housing crisis.
In Massachusetts, public agencies normally support new housing by providing mortgage financing and direct subsidies to affordable housing developments. The state boasts one of the most robust financing systems for building new affordable homes in the United States but reaches only one segment of the market.
MassHousing’s Momentum Equity creates an entrepreneurial approach to partnering with private sponsors of mixed-income, market-oriented housing. The program invests public dollars directly into mixed-income housing, as preferred equity in the project. Equity investments are underwritten to generate a financial return, but MassHousing places equity with concessionary pricing and patient terms.
This unique public/private financing partnership is meant to provide housing developers with greater flexibility and is likely to help jumpstart more housing construction. Public equity financing helps to lower developers’ overall cost of capital; change project economics; and allow stalled, shovel-ready projects to proceed to construction.
Momentum Equity exists thanks to the leadership of Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll. Their Affordable Homes Act—the largest housing bond bill in the state’s history—allocated $50 million to mixed-income investment through Momentum Equity.
With one transformational project underway and another closing soon, the program is on track to jumpstart the creation of at least 1,000 new mixed-income rental homes over the next year. And it has the potential to do more through co-investment partnerships with municipalities and impact investors.
The demand for Momentum Equity is exceptionally strong. Currently, 33 projects, representing more than 7,000 new homes and $4 billion in total development cost, are in the project’s funding pipeline.
This demand—and the construction underway in East Milton—showcase the benefits of embracing innovative public/private partnerships. By acting entrepreneurially and engaging with private markets, we are helping to unlock new investment in the housing production Massachusetts needs to achieve a healthy and inclusive economy.
