Boston Equity Cabinet Opens FY26 Budget Hearings With $2M Black Male Advancement Request

BOSTON — April 28, 2025 — Boston's Equity and Inclusion Cabinet defended its fiscal year 2026 budget before the City Council's Ways and Means Committee Monday, with the Office of Black Male Advancement seeking level funding at $2 million and reporting an 87 percent graduation and college continuation rate among participants in its My Brother's Keeper program. Committee Chair Brian Worrell opened the hearing — the first of the council's annual budget review season — by noting the deliberate choice to begin with equity departments. Executive Director Frank Farrell said BMA's community empowerment grant program distributed $500,000 to 53 organizations this year, while the Black Men and Boys Commission has submitted more than 20 policy and budget recommendations totaling $34 million. The hearing's sharpest exchange came during public comment, when Kelly Vieira of Suffolk University's Housing Discrimination Testing Program told the committee that federal HUD funding for fair housing testing has effectively been cut off, leaving Boston without active housing audit testing for the first time in over a decade, and asked the city to include $200,000 in its FY26 budget to fill the gap. Chief of Equity and Inclusion Mariangeli Solis Severo confirmed the city is searching for a new director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equity following the death of Bob Terrell, and said fair housing complaint volume has flatlined in recent months due to reduced outreach capacity.