Gov. Maura Healey stands before state and municipal officials to announce the latest round of subsidies and tax credits meant to support the production and preservation of 1,900 housing units across Massachusetts at the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain on Jan. 22, 2024. Photo by Alison Kuznitz | State House News Service

Top state officials, headlined by Gov. Maura Healey, gathered in Boston’s Jamaica Plain Monday to announce the latest round of state grants to 26 affordable housing projects around the state.

The money comes from the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.

The marquee project landing money this morning was developer Penrose’ renovation of the former Blessed Sacrament Church in the neighborhood’s Hyde Square area into mixed-income apartments and a community center. Penrose was picked by the Hyde Square Task Force community group, the site owner, as the developer following an RFP process.

“Pennrose is honored to be entrusted by the Hyde Square Task Force to preserve this incredible historic asset with them and to create performance space for the community that fulfills their mission.  We are incredible grateful to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Boston for their commitment, dedication and resources to make this restoration and transformation a reality and to complete the work on this campus that has been done so well by the Jamaica Plain NDC and others,” Pennrose Regional Vice President Charlie Adams said in a statement provided by the governor’s office.

Healey’s office noted that $20 million of the state LIHTC money, which will help create roughly 1,900 homes, was part of a tax bill she and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll championed at the state legislature last year. That figure represented a 50 percent increase in the annual state LIHTC budget, to $60 million.

“These housing projects are a great example of why we expanded the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit in our tax cuts bill,” the governor said in a statement. “From a church transformed into mixed-use mixed-income housing in Boston to the re-use of a vacant nursing home as affordable rental housing in Northampton, these funds will make it possible for thousands of Massachusetts residents to afford a home. We look forward to continuing to work to pass the Affordable Homes Act this year to create much-needed housing across all income levels in the state.”

The remaining affordable housing projects announced Monday stretch from Athol to South Hadley to Welfleet, and include two developments aimed at housing vulnerable populations: the 150-unit Solimine House in Lynn, focused on seniors with health care needs, and the 900 Morrissey Blvd. project in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, which will turn a vacant hotel into 99 apartments with supportive services for chronically homeless individuals.

“These projects, which will now be built as a result of the increase to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, are a direct result of the governor’s tax relief bill,” Housing Secretary Ed Augustus said in a statement. “The funding of these projects is proof that housing production for all of our communities is a top priority for the Healey-Driscoll Administration. The governor’s Affordable Homes Act will soon fund even more, much needed, affordable housing in the commonwealth.”