Massachusetts General Hospital Community Health Impact Funds – Housing Awards 2024

In June 2024, 22 projects were granted a total of $18 million in Community Health Impact Funding to support affordable housing initiatives in Boston and North Suffolk County.

These projects are focused primarily on the production and preservation of affordable housing.

• Bridge Over Troubled Waters
  The Next Step: Independent Housing for Formerly Homeless Youth
  Play a crucial role in the community by offering "the next step" for youth and young adults who have been in transitional living programs. With a well-designed program and strong DEI efforts, CHIF funds will support the renovation of innovative housing serving this unique population.
• City Life Vida Urbana DBA Urban Revival Inc.
  Growing the Antidisplacement Ecosystem
  Will increase community organizing capacity in Boston's neighborhoods of color, improve coordination across ecosystem partners, advocate for upstream policies to support and protect deeply rooted communities, and provide catalytic investment in City Life / Vida Urbana's Anti-Displacement REfund, a new affordable housing acquisition fund.
• City of Boston Mayor's Office of Housing
  Collaborative Fund for Housing Acquisition
  Will establish a fund to provide below-market financing to mission-driven partners to acquire and deed-restrict occupied multi-family rental housing, making it permanently affordable.
• Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative
  Housing in our Hands: Reclaiming and Building Thriving Places with Community Land Trusts
  Will build out and leverage the existing Community Land Trust Development, Acquisition, and Preservation Fund and support the establishment of a credit facility and fuel programmatic, operations, and policy work to ensure long term neighborhood stability.
• Madison Park Development Corp.
  "Lease to Legacy": Piloting an Innovative Homeownership Model in Roxbury's Affordable Rental Housing
  MPDC will pilot an innovative homeownership advancement model utilizing a new financing tool that will create a clear pathway for low/moderate-income MPDC tenants to build savings toward a down payment over the course of two years. Will simultaneously address the shortage of affordable rental units by opening income restricted MPDC rental units as current tenants transition into their own homes.
• The Neighborhood Developers, Inc.
  Anti-displacement Revolving Loan Fund
  Will acquire, upgrade, and permanently preserve multifamily properties as affordable, energy efficient and healthy homes. Establish a revolving loan fund making it possible for TND to acquire multifamily rental properties and prevent evictions and displacement in Chelsea and Revere.
• Women's Lunch Place
  Permanent Supportive Housing For Women
  Develop Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) for chronically homeless women who have experienced gendered violence, trauma, and poverty in Boston. While respecting the buildings’ historic properties, renovations will be focused on creating a safe, supportive home for the residents, accessibility, and efficient building systems.

These projects are focused on policy and advocacy.

• Boston Tenant Coalition (BTC)
  Housing Equity Campaign
  Will continue to unite diverse grassroots community organizers and partners in BIPOC communities to provide multi-lingual trainings on using the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) laws to impact local developments. Will monitor, share relevant information, provide follow-up support, and coordinate with the Inclusionary Development Policy organizing strategy for equity.
• Citizens' Housing and Planning Association
  Affordable Housing Policy Engagement
  Belief that all communities should be open to all who choose to live there and provide a diversity of rental and homeownership housing options that are affordable for people across race and income levels. Will increase capacity and policy staff to implement the plan of creating 200,000 new homes by 2030, with 40,000 of those homes affordable to people of lower incomes and 20,000 of those homes deeply affordable to people of extremely low incomes.
• GreenRoots, Inc.
  Advancing anti-displacement, zoning reform and waterfront affordable housing in Chelsea.
  Will grow the work of the Chelsea Anti-displacement Roundtable by strengthening and engaging new community-based organizations, residents, elected and appointed officials and others. Will further efforts to pass citywide zoning reform, advance a multi-partner, community-led effort to secure the 17-acre Forbes site along the Chelsea Creek, and continue to support the incubation and growth of Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust, which is housed at GreenRoots.
• Homes for All Massachusetts (HFA-MA)
  Grassroots Housing Justice Policy Platform
  Will coordinate an existing and growing network of grassroots groups and policy advocacy organizations working to advance a community-centered housing justice policy platform in Suffolk County and statewide.
• More than Words
  Housing for Transition-Aged Youth
  Will focus on housing resources and advocacy for transition-age youth who are leaving public systems of care. Will support both the youth-led systems change efforts related to ending the child welfare cliff as well as models for developmentally appropriate transitional housing that will increase housing options for young people.
• New England United 4 Justice (NEU4J)
  A Community Roadmap for Healthy Homes and a Thriving Region
  Will catalyze an expansion of work that anchors environmental justice within a housing and economic development focus in BIPOC communities in the county and beyond. Will aim to galvanize and develop the community response to concerns, such as air quality and transit, while simultaneously empowering residents through skill-building and supporting homeowners and small landlords in creating sustainable, affordable housing solutions.
• Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts, Inc.
  Pathways to Housing Stability for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming/Non-Binary Individuals
  Will continue working with local government officials to advocate for policies that promote equity and access to resources for the transgender and non-binary community. Through a community-based residential transitional housing support intervention, the goal is to eliminate homelessness in the transgender community in Greater Boston.

These projects are focused on policy and advocacy as well as eviction prevention.

• Boston Affordable Housing Coalition DBA Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants (MAHT)
  Save Our Homes Campaign
  Will mobilize low-income HUD and MassHousing tenants to increase resources, secure permanent affordability, and prevent evictions for Extremely Low Income (ELI) households. MAHT will mobilize ELI tenants to provide voices of ‘lived experience’ in coalition advocacy for policy changes and negotiating permanent affordability.
• Chinese Progressive Association
  Chinatown Stabilization Campaign
  Will focus on stabilizing the working-class residential core of Chinatown and Chinatown as a social, political, economic, and cultural center for Greater Boston’s Chinese community. Employs a multi-prong strategy to mitigate the displacement of residents and grow the amount of affordable housing, while also strengthening the voice of ordinary Chinatown residents to unite and lead determining Chinatown’s future.

These projects are focused on eviction prevention.

• FamilyAid Boston, Inc. DBA Family Aid
  Family Early Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (EHIP) Program
  Will support FamilyAid’s Early Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (EHIP) eviction prevention program for Boston Public School students and their families. The program connects Homeless Liaisons in each of BPS’s 125 schools – who identify and refer families in crisis – to FamilyAid, which then provides comprehensive services that restore families' stability, reduce trauma and lead to long-term success.
• Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)
  Neighborhood-Based Eviction Defense and Organizing Project
  Will partner with its long-time community collaborator, City Life/Vida Urbana (CL/VU) to provide neighborhood-based eviction defense and community organizing in East Boston and Dorchester neighborhoods. Will support neighborhood- and building-wide organizing focusing on properties where where landlords are attempting rent increases or mass evictions. GBLS’ attorneys will defend residents as a group and use this as leverage to encourage landlords into negotiations. Focusing the attorneys’ work by neighborhood will allow GBLS to better understand trends and spot issues that can be addressed in a way that benefits even more residents.
• HarborCOV
  Affordable Housing for Domestic Violence Survivors
  Will offer comprehensive, holistic support for domestic violence survivors experiencing or at-risk of homelessness in the Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, and Charlestown communities. Will allow HarborCOV to maintain their affordable transitional housing units and enhance the supportive services it offers to local survivors at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
• HomeStart, Inc.
  The Renew Collaborative
  The Renew Collaborative (RC) is the nation’s first landlord-funded eviction prevention program. Based on a pilot project with the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) was able to demonstrate it could PREVENT an eviction for $2,000 per intervention, as opposed to the $10,000 that BHA was spending, on average, to execute an eviction. Has shown that 97% of the BHA households who participated in this program remained stably housed 12 months after the intervention and 95% avoided a nonpayment eviction 36 months after the intervention. Funding will scale the program and sustain it permanently.
• Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School
  Housing Justice for Survivors
  Will represent tenants facing housing instability due to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. Will deepen their organizational partnership with Casa Myrna to reach more survivors who face housing insecurity, eviction, and homelessness.
• Urban Edge
  Coordinated Eviction Prevention Services Paired with Flexible Assistance Across Boston
  Six Boston organizations are addressing the housing stability crisis for vulnerable residents in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. Urban Edge, Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, Nuestra Comunidad, Madison Park Development Corporation, and WinnCompanies will use their MGH CHIF award to combine housing stability and eviction prevention models with flexible rental assistance. This initiative aims to mitigate post-COVID rental delinquency and prevent evictions, offering a scalable model for similar organizations.