ADAMS, Mass. — The state's new secretary of housing got a bit of a rock-star welcome on Wednesday morning as Adams Housing Authority residents, board members and staff lined up to get their picture taken with him. 

 

Edward Augustus Jr. was invited to join the Adams Housing Authority in the rededication of its renovated community room, named for James P. McAndrews, the authority's first executive director. 

 

Executive Director William Schrade said he was surprised that the secretary had taken up the invitation but Augustus said he's on a mission — to visit every housing authority in the state. 

 

"The next logical question is how many housing authorities are there in Massachusetts? There's 242 of them so I get a lot of driving left to do," he laughed. "This is number 40. You're in the first tier I've been able to visit but to me, it's one way for me to understand what's actually going on."

 

The former state senator and Worcester city manager was appointed secretary of housing and livable communities — the first cabinet level housing chief in 30 years — by Gov. Maura Healey last year as part of her answer to the state's housing crisis. 

 

He's been leading the charge for the governor's $4 billion Affordable Homes Act that looks to invest $1.6 billion in repairing and modernizing the state's 43,000 public housing units that house some 70,000 low-income, disabled and senior residents, as well as families. 

 

Massachusetts has the most public housing units and is one of only a few states that support public housing. Numbers range from Boston's tens of thousands of units to Sutton's 40. Adams has 64 one-bedroom units in the Columbia Valley facility and 24 single and multiple-bedroom units scattered through the community.