Oct 29, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog, News
Local Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) agencies are accepting applications for the 2025-2026 winter season for first-time applicants and applicants renewing/recertifying from the previous year. Please continue to encourage your community members to apply and please continue to offer your assistance.
However, beginning November 1st, HEAP will have limited funding for heating emergencies only. Awarding HEAP benefits that are NOT emergencies will be otherwise paused until the federal government reopens and approves new funding for the Home Energy Assistance Program.
Heating-related emergencies include:
- No heat.
- A termination notice from a utility.
- Less than 1/8 of a tank of oil.
- Less than three days’ supply of other deliverable fuels.
*Emergencies for delivered fuels will be authorized by a phone call with a follow-up voucher for each emergency order. *
Because this is a federally funded program and the federal government shut down on October 1, applicants should anticipate experiencing delays in application processing and payments.
Additionally, low-income members of your community may be eligible for shut-off protection via the Winter Moratorium.
The Winter Moratorium has been put into effect early this season and extended. The Moratorium begins 10/27/2025 and ends 4/1/2026. This means low-income customers will have their utility protected from termination, provided they have submitted verification of financial hardship to the utility company: Financial Hardship Forms. Each utility company has its own version:
The Winter Moratorium helps protect most low-income utility customers from having their services shut off, but this does not happen automatically.
The Department of Public Utilities No Shut Off List
The DPU No Shut Off List provides another means of shut-off protection. Please access information on this program on the state’s website for eligibility details.
Your state legislators are aware that this protection is critical for many seniors, and they are willing to advocate for them. They can work with the DPU and the Attorney General’s team to ensure people get on this list if they qualify.
Please be aware that some gas heating systems require electricity to run. Gas consumers are protected from having their gas shut off as their primary heating source, but their electricity can still be shut off, so getting all the protections possible—for more than one utility connected to a heating system–is essential.
Oct 2, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog
The following update was provided by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and is shared here with their permission:
As you may know, federal LIHEAP staff have been laid off [Note: this happened in April 2025]. LIHEAP funding is subject to congressional appropriating funds. The President’s budget has zeroed out the LIHEAP program, but as you may know, the House and Senate have released their budgets and both have funding for LIHEAP.
There may be a delay in local action agencies (LAAs) if there is a delay in funding as they will be unable to hire staff until Congress passes a budget, or an interim budget prior to the start of the federal fiscal year.
If there is a federal shut down due to a budget not being passed that will further delay processing of applications.
The EOHLC will have some carry over funds that we will contract out to the LAAs so they will be able to deal with emergencies.
The start of the heating season does not change. It begins on November 1.
Sep 25, 2025 | Grants & Funding Resources, News, Resource finding, State
Many MA artists, performers, and other cultural program-creators routinely partner with senior centers to apply for Local Cultural Council grants. These grants, offered yearly, provide funds for arts programming that might otherwise be inaccessible to Councils on Aging with limited budgets.
The application deadline for Mass Cultural Council’s Local Cultural Council Grants is October 16.
If this is news to you and you’re interested in learning more about the kinds of programs that these grants support, you can look up any community’s LCC on the MCC website and see the list of recent grant recipients, the titles of their projects, and the amount they received. If you or the artist you’re working with are interested in offering a program to residents of more than one city or town, the applicant (usually the artist devising the program) may submit applications to more than one LCC.
Each LCC has its own set of funding priorities, so be sure to read up on your particular community’s LCC profile, which will also provide local contact information.
Sep 9, 2025 | Age & Dementia Friendly, Economic Security & Outreach Blog, Legislative Alerts
An Act supporting family caregivers, S.1938/H.3159, has been scheduled for a hearing in the Joint Committee on Revenue on Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 10:30am in Hearing Room A1 and Virtual. This bill is supported by MCOA.
Staff members at Councils on Aging know that caregivers are often spouses, and they know that caregivers shoulder a massive responsibility that can lead to negative health impacts and financial strain. If you’ve witnessed caregiver challenges, your testimony can make a difference.
The hearing notice is linked here, where you can find all of the information you’ll need for providing oral and/or written testimony. The deadline to sign up to provide oral testimony is Monday, September 15, 2025 at 12 PM, (see instructions in the linked hearing notice on how to sign up). The deadline for submitting written testimony is testimony is 53 days from the date of the hearing.
Senator Joanne Comerford filed S.1938 in the Senate and Reps. Kushmerek and Rogers filed H.3159 in the House. Both bills have the same text.
Senator Comerford’s office prepared this short summary of the bill (please note that this bill contains language from a bill Senator Comerford filed in previous sessions, An Act allowing spouses to serve as caregivers):
Family caregivers provide care and support for a relative with a physical or mental health problem, allowing their loved one to receive dignified care and remain in their home. While providing this essential care and service, family caregivers often experience hardships including a loss of income if they have to leave their job, workplace discrimination, and their own mental and physical health challenges. This omnibus bill creates new benefits and policies to support family caregivers and their loved ones, including providing a tax credit to family caregivers, allowing spouses to be paid as caregivers by MassHealth, expanding unemployment insurance eligibility to people who leave their job to care for a relative, protecting family caregivers from workforce discrimination, and creating a permanent advisory council on family caregiving.
Thank you for considering sharing your important first-hand experiences with legislators and advocating for caregivers!
Jul 28, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog, Healthy Aging, News, Public Health
Many Senior Centers and other public buildings in Massachusetts are designated Cooling Centers. The Mass.gov website has a page devoted to the creation and implementation of Cooling Centers, which offers many good ideas. These ideas seem obvious when encountered in a list of best practices, but it’s easy to overlook some of the simple but important touches like easily read, large-font signage with hours and the posting of rules of use for visitors. This is a great opportunity to think about whether or not your current signage indicating where restrooms are (among other things) is effective for people living with dementia.
Here are some ways to help your guests seeking relief from the heat feel comfortable:
- Be ready to host visitors of all ages and be alert to the needs that can arise when children are in the building.
- Serve chilled water or make sure that guests know where your water fountain or bottle filling station is located.
- Bowls of water for pets are an especially welcoming touch.
- Offer a matinee: a darkened, air-conditioned room can be an extra treat if you’re screening a well-loved classic or other choice.
- Have extra chairs out.
- Encourage the playing of board games and create some game-friendly spaces.
- Print and distribute safety tips and ideas for reducing the risks of extreme heat.
- Advertise your Cooling Center in multiple languages and utilize your local media platforms so that the community is aware of your hours.
- Collaborate with other municipal departments and boards to adequately staff your Cooling Center.
- Be sure that your public safety colleagues are aware of the Cooling Center and know its hours of operation. Maybe one of them could do a presentation on staying safe in extreme heat!
- Deploy volunteers as Cooling Center hosts.
Does your Senior Center offer a Cooling Center? Do you have any tried and true tips to share with the COA community? We’d love to hear them: please post your best practices (or unforeseen challenges) to the InfoHub!
Jul 24, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog, Health Insurance
The following information was shared by the Executive Office of Aging & Independence:
MassHealth has been made aware of a report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities. The vast majority of these individuals are U.S. citizens and individuals with lawful immigration status. MassHealth has not received any direct communication from the Trump administration regarding their plans.
MassHealth have developed talking points for front line staff who work directly with MassHealth members about how their information may be shared. Please see that information below: For members and those working with members:
- MassHealth is aware of the report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials will be given access to data on Medicaid members, including home addresses and ethnicities.
- MassHealth only uses immigration and citizenship information as needed to confirm members’ eligibility and comply with state and federal rules.
- MassHealth is federally required to share member information with the federal government.
- MassHealth cannot guarantee that the federal government has not shared members’ personal information with immigration enforcement authorities or will keep members’ personal information from immigration enforcement authorities moving forward. We object to this sharing and strongly maintain that it violates federal law.
- Massachusetts has joined a lawsuit over the federal government’s sharing of Medicaid data with ICE.
- If you work with individuals who have questions about immigration, please recommend they speak to an immigration expert.
- For a list of immigration services in the community, visit Immigrant Health Toolkit – Health Care For All.
If asked: What if I disenroll to protect myself or my family? Can you delete my information?
- MassHealth is required to share historical information on members with the federal government.
- MassHealth cannot remove historical information in our system.
- If you choose to disenroll from MassHealth, the federal government will still have access to the historical information in our system. However, you would not be required to update your information with MassHealth moving forward.
What data is being shared with ICE?
- Based on the reported agreement, the following data fields may be included: Name, address, assigned Medicaid identification number, social security number, date of birth, sex, phone number, locality, ethnicity, and race.
Jun 5, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog, Housing, News
Many of you know all too well how the housing crisis is affecting vulnerable, low-income older adults in your communities.
Homelessness among older adults is expected to nearly triple by 2030, according to the authors of the study, Emerging-Crisis-of-Aged-Homelessness.pdf
One thing we can do is increase our knowledge of state-wide housing advocacy, such as the Older Adult Bridge Subsidy Campaign, sponsored by the MA Coalition for the Homeless, which supports the expansion of the bridge subsidy program.
The short-term housing bridge subsidy program, currently being piloted in Somerville, helps extremely-low-income older adult renters maintain their housing stability by providing them with rent assistance while they wait for placement in permanent, subsidized housing.
MCOA is supporting An Act Promoting Housing Stability for Older Adults across the Commonwealth (H.4025/S.475) please give this short bill a read and consider reaching out to your state legislators to voice your support and ask them to co-sponsor the bill.
May 6, 2025 | Digital Equity, Economic Security & Outreach Blog, News
Low cost access to high speed internet is the main building block of digital equity. Are you observing older adult community members who are lacking access to essential services due to lack of access to the internet? Please consider sharing your experiences in written testimony!
Low Cost Internet Bill H.3527 & S. 2318, Virtual Hearing Tuesday, May 6th at 11am
Written testimony can be submitted via email to Benjamin Minerva at Ben.Minerva@masenate.gov and Caleb Oakes at Caleb.Oakes@mahouse.gov. The deadline to submit written testimony is Tuesday, May 13 by 5:00 p.m., go HERE for formatting details.
MA Healthy Aging Collaborative’s Executive Director, James Fuccione, provides these useful information points, should you choose to provide written testimony:
Potential Talking Points You Can Use to Draft Your Testimony
Tell the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy why you and your organization are taking time to testify and what is your unique lens/experience on this topic.
- This bill does not ask the legislature to spend money, but instead proposes a private-based solution.
- Internet access is no longer a luxury.
- With services and staffing being cut due to federal funding cuts, more programs and contacts will be moved online, making it imperative that people be able to access the internet if phone or in-person availability is no longer an option.
- In a recent survey, 50% of MA respondents found it difficult to pay their internet bill.
- About 368,000 MA households (14%) received help from ACP before it ran out of funds. In some areas, 25% of households were enrolled in ACP.
- Nearly 1 in 10 MA households don’t have high-speed internet at home.
- High internet costs are the biggest barrier to residents having broadband at home.
- Rural communities across the commonwealth are stuck in a monopoly with their options for Internet companies – in all other instances, the government steps in and ensures that there is equitable access to the internet.
- The Supreme Court said that states can regulate the Internet. This is a new opportunity to ask internet service providers, who will also benefit from new customers, to pay their fair share in provide equitable, affordable internet.
- Ensuring Adequate & Equitable Service: Establishing a “minimum download speeds standard to 100 Mbps” ensures that the low-cost option provides genuinely usable high-speed internet, not outdated or insufficient service.
- Hidden Costs Disproportionately & Negatively Affects Low-Income Subscribers: Flat rate with taxes and fees included, ensures transparency and prevents hidden costs from burdening low-income users.
- Access to the Internet is now a necessity for everyday activities and essential for education, employment, leisure, business, public services, civic participation, and healthcare.
- 70,000 western Mass residents relied on ACP as their affordable Internet.
- There are parts of the state that have insufficient infrastructure and the costs have not been equally distributed. This evens the playing field for communities.
- ACCESS to the Internet is NOT an affordable internet.
May 2, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog, News
Wealth Gaps in the Golden Years: Economic Insecurity for Older Adults in a High-Cost State
By Kelly Harrington, Luc Schuster Boston Indicators. Laura D. Quinby, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
May 1, 2025
Across the nation, many older adults struggle to make ends meet: the Elder Index from UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute shows about 30 percent of older households lack the income needed to cover basic expenses and remain in their homes. Whether Massachusetts fares better or worse is unclear—while the state is relatively wealthy, its high cost of living and entrenched inequality leave low-income and older residents of color especially vulnerable. To shed light on these dynamics, this mixed-methods report by Boston Indicators in collaboration with Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research pairs a quantitative assessment—detailing income and wealth sources, the share of older households below Elder Index thresholds, and racial gaps in retirement security—with a qualitative study of structured interviews that reveal how low-income, low-wealth seniors stretch limited resources to make ends meet.
FIND FULL REPORT ONLINE HERE
Feb 24, 2025 | Economic Security & Outreach Blog, Resource finding
There’s a reason that state legislators and Governor Healy sent letters to the MA Department of Public Utilities (DPU) earlier this month: MA residents are seeing significant increases on their natural gas bills, a situation that is caused by several factors including an unusually cold winter and rate changes that went into effect November 2024. Typical bills have risen 23-30 percent, according to The Boston Globe. The DPU has told the gas utility companies that they must reduce gas bills by at least 5% in March and April.
Now’s the time of year that COAs are actively assisting residents in applying for the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP, also referred to as Fuel Assistance).
The application window is November 1-April 30, so there’s still some time for income-eligible residents (they don’t need to be homeowners) to apply. First time and repeat applicants can apply on-line. To find the web portal for your community, go HERE.
The FY2025 Income Eligibility Guidelines:
| Household Size |
Maximum Income Level |
| 1 |
$49,196 |
| 2 |
$64,333 |
| 3 |
$79,470 |
