It is becoming increasingly clear that Gov. Maura Healey will be unable to solve the state’s housing problem until she solves the illegal immigration crisis.

The two issues have become so intertwined — and so potentially explosive — that it is difficult to talk about one without the other.

And Healey inherited both, the first when President Joe Biden flooded the country with millions of illegal immigrants from around the world, and the second when she inherited the MBTA Communities Act, signed into law by former Gov. Charlie Baker.

She could lean on Biden, whom she supports, to shut down the border, which he will not do, or file legislation to repeal or amend the MBTA Communities Act, which she will not do.

So, she is stuck with both, and they are wrecking her administration.

While one initially had nothing to do with the other, a growing number of Massachusetts residents believe that the thousands of multifamily housing units to be built at MBTA-serviced communities surrounding Boston will go to migrants and not to them.

That may not be the case, but it is what many in the growing resistance to the MBTA housing law believe, even though there was no immigration crisis when the MBTA Act was debated, passed and signed into law by Baker in 2021.

What is true and what people believe to be true is not necessarily the same thing.

And, after all, Healey has to put the migrants coming to a welfare paradise like Massachusetts somewhere. She is running out of hotels, motels, empty prisons and armories to “temporarily” house them until they get jobs and permanent places to live.

Where would that permanent housing be if not in the MBTA-connected communities?

Not in Milton, if the town has any say about it. It opposed changing zoning plans to allow MBTA multifamily housing and is being sued by Attorney General Andrea Campbell while Healey is withholding state grants as punishment.

Other communities like Marshfield, Marblehead, Tewksbury and Hopkinton have also rejected MBTA multifamily construction plans, all hoping to keep their towns and neighborhoods intact and free from Boston’s overflow immigrant problems.

A generation ago, Boston and the state blew the opportunity to build housing and neighborhoods with schools, community centers and churches in what is now the Seaport district of Boston.

Instead, thanks to investment greed and easy political compliance it got the Seaport, a soulless glass and steel haven for the affluent and transient.

Healey, who campaigned on the promise of transparency, has been less than open with communities where she is temporarily housing immigrants. The latest example is Norfolk where residents were blindsided by plans to house some 150 immigrant families in the old Norfolk medium security prison.

This came at the same time the Boston Globe ran a story about the Healey administration placing hundreds of homeless immigrant families with children in hotels that also housed sex offenders who have been convicted of crimes against children, including child rape.

All the while it is costing the Massachusetts taxpayer $1 billion a year to pay for all the free housing, food, phones, security, medical care, schooling and transportation that the immigrants get.

It is all converging at a time when the average taxpayer can barely pay for his own family’s housing and food, let alone that of the illegal immigrants.

And there is not a politician around, let alone an illegal immigrant, to thank the average working stiff paying for it all, or ask for any suggestions he might have.

Here is one, though. Why not require the head of each immigrant family receiving generous welfare benefits to sign an official pledge, like a loan promise, to pay the state back — upon the threat of deportation — once they are employed and housed in the new apartments?

Odds on that happening?  Zero to none.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@boston herald. com

The King Phillip Middle School was packed last week at a special meeting to answer questions about migrants that will be housed at Norfolk Detention center. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)