Press Release: 12/15/2025

Chairman Haggerty, Housing Committee Tour St. Mary’s Center

 

December 15, 2025

  

DORCHESTER – Representative Richard Haggerty (D-Woburn) and members of the Joint Committee on Housing recently toured St. Mary’s Center, seeing direct, supportive housing and transitional housing services that support pathways out of poverty for hundreds of Massachusetts’ women and children.

St. Mary’s Center, a registered nonprofit founded in 1993 and a member of the National Women’s Shelter Network, offers shelter, transitional and permanent housing, basic needs assistance, and critical wrap-around support services for over 500 of Massachusetts’ most vulnerable women, children, and families annually.

Representative Haggerty, Representative Badger (D-Plymouth) and the committee toured the Dorchester facility for 90 minutes, witnessing children cared for in the nonprofit’s center, its workforce and education wings as well as shelter spaces young families have previously lived in.

Residents at St. Mary’s Center utilize the state’s Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program – a rental assistance program that gives vulnerable families and those with a disability affordable housing – and partake in the nonprofit’s job and financial literacy program to help transition young mothers with children from homelessness to independent living and job security.

“As a legislator, it’s invaluable to see firsthand the work our shelter providers and housing centers do to make sure Massachusetts residents have a decent, affordable place to live,” said Representative Haggerty, who serves as the House Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing. “I’m incredibly thankful to St. Mary’ Center President Alexis Steel and all the work the organization does to make sure our most vulnerable families have a place to safely hang their hat and be members of our communities. I also want to thank Representative and Chairman Dan Hunt for helping us coordinate this visit to his district and his continued strong support of St. Mary’s.”

Women and children are disproportionally impacted by homelessness, with an estimated 1.2 million women and 2.5 million children experiencing homelessness each year in the United States, according to 2022 data by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“We at St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children are so grateful for the opportunity to meet with Chairman Haggerty, Representative Badger, and the entire Housing Committee to showcase our work serving over 500 women, children, and families experiencing and exiting homelessness each year,” President Steel said.

“We are excited to continue partnering with such an incredible committee dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and in our joint pursuit to push affordable housing as a strategic effort in ending homelessness,” she added.

St. Mary’s Center is expecting to renovate and establish 71 new, supportive housing units on its campus during the summer of 2026.