Almost daily in the legal notices section of this newspaper, homeowners are facing “the power of sale” foreclosure of their property “for breach of the conditions” of their mortgage. The Massachusetts Division of Banks estimates there were 5,343 foreclosures filed in Massachusetts last year.
In November 2024, a protester interrupted Gov. Maura Healey during a speech a few days after she had signed legislation legalizing a new kind of mortgage — known as a “Shared Appreciation Mortgage” (SAM) — designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Healey was praising an economic development bill she had signed, when a man began shouting: “You need to veto section 269, that deals with predatory lending — Blue Hub,” he continued. “They’re trying to get 50% of our equity. Why won’t you veto it?”
Healey later told the Franklin Observer she “didn’t file” the bill, but the SAM “allows people who are in a tough situation facing foreclosure to actually have somebody come in and help them refinance and stay in their home.”
The protesting homeowner was referring to a controversial new law which protects a company called Blue Hub Capital (BH), a Roxbury-based nonprofit, which since 2020 has been fighting a lawsuit filed by 18 homeowners, funded by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), over predatory lending and deceptive loan practices.
Bewildered by tax liens, tax title takings, and auctions, many homeowners — desperate to escape foreclosure — seek a financial Hail Mary. Blue Hub buys properties in short sales from homeowners, or banks and lenders, who are foreclosing a property — then resells the property back to the original owners — adding a 25% price increase to the property as a new mortgage, plus a mortgage promissory note entitling BH to a share as high as 50% of the appreciated value of the property at sale or refinancing.
BH is the only lender offering SAMs in Massachusetts. The law protects SAM lenders going forward, and retroactively, from being liable for “monetary relief, injunctive relief” or other legal actions — like the homeowners’ 2020 litigation. The Massachusetts AG filed an amicus brief to oppose removing homeowners’ rights to sue over SAM retroactively.
The homeowners allege that BH misled them into debt without being informed that they could lose a substantial part of their increased equity in their property. Homeowners complained that the CEO of BH had a $1.3 million annual pay package, and was a major fundraiser and friend of Gov. Healey.
Bruce Marks, the head of NACA, wrote that the new law “would allow Blue Hub Capital — and only Blue Hub Capital — to falsely advertise its program; charge usurious interest rates … SAMs usually result in huge balloon payments that push borrowers into further financial hardship.”
The CEO of BH responded: “The passage of this new law will mean that families in Massachusetts facing foreclosure will continue to have the chance of saving their homes and building long-term equity and generational wealth … they now have more equity than their neighbors who did not participate in the (BH) program.”
In August 2025, Chief Justice of the Superior Court Michael Ricciuti handed down a decision in the 5-year-old lawsuit against BH: “BH engages in no charitable endeavors at all … They mark up the resale prices of the homes by 25% and collect a percentage of any further appreciation. Regardless of their motivation, BH engaged in profit-seeking business activity, which took them outside the realm of purely charitable conduct.”
After this ruling, NACA issued a statement saying: “Blue Hub … profited by extracting 40% to 60% of the home appreciation value from struggling families through its predatory shared appreciation mortgage. This is in addition to significant fees and high interest rates. Homeowners, mostly low-income, elderly, and minority have been exploited by Blue Hub Capital who stand to make more than $60 million from the homeowners … From the very beginning, Blue Hub never cared about the homeowners, and their mortgage program was nothing more than a cash cow scheme that exploits homeowners determined to save their dream of affordable homeownership.”
Three months after the judge’s decision, BH announced that it would pause its shared appreciation mortgages in Massachusetts and 10 other states. A trial date to decide plaintiffs’ relief and damages has not been determined. One of the plaintiffs who sued BH told the Boston Globe, “There is no way that anybody could say that this organization serves the public good.”
Every home that is foreclosed, every house that is condemned, every family unhoused in any city or town, is not just a personal tragedy — it’s a blow against the public good.
Al Norman lives in Greenfield. His Pushback column is published in the Recorder every first and third Wednesday of the month.