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The Metro Boston Network to End Homelessness builds upon the ongoing efforts of constituent cities and towns, partnering state and federal agencies, local nonprofits, faith communities, public-spirited members of the business community, and individual residents to take the next, more collaborative step of transforming those existing programs and services into an integrated regional safety net of housing, housing stabilization (including income and asset building), and homelessness prevention resources that can preempt and end family and individual homelessness.
 On Feb. 23, 2009, the Metro Boston Network to End Homelessness had its first Steering Committee meeting, which was attended by Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray. Shown from left are Executive Director of the Massachusetts Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness Robert Pulster, Lt. Gov. Murray, and Revere Mayor and Network Leadership Council Chair Thomas Ambrosino. The meeting was held at the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership offices.
Benefits of Regional Approach
People become homeless in all of our communities, although they often wind up in the cities that host shelters, transitional housing, and basic supportive services. By taking a regional approach, we can:
1. increase the cost effectiveness of interventions by allowing staff and housing resources to be deployed where/when they are most needed;
2. decrease the cost of preventing eviction by encouraging earlier referrals before impossibly large arrearages are incurred, and by linking the receipt of financial assistance with participation in case management to maximize incomes and better manage budgeting/assets;
3. increase the efficacy of interventions by promoting a culture of shared learning among providers offering similar services in different communities;
4. leverage the investment of community resources that smaller, lower profile efforts would not attract; and
5. serve more homeless families and individuals more quickly by ensuring better dissemination of information about resources and by implementing a no-wrong-door approach that ensures that at-risk and homeless households receive the same access to the supports they need, no matter how they enter the system.
Network Innovations
The Metro Boston Network to End Homelessness has identified two major innovative program areas: Housing First for individuals and families, and diversion and prevention for families. In addition, the Network will investigate efforts to increase the production of housing with supports for people who have been homeless. In each of the initiatives as well as through efforts to increase production, we are effecting innovations specific to the program itself, but committing to a more broad regional implementation with a network perspective that we believe will have the most transforming effect.
Housing First: The Network includes innovations for chronically homeless unaccompanied adults and families who are chronically homeless and/or facing many complex barriers to housing. Housing First initiatives combine housing with supports to help individuals and families to retain their housing. Our initiatives build on the experience of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Association’s Home and Healthy for Good, and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley’s Housing First work with families.
Diversion and Prevention: Network activities include diversion and prevention programs to decrease reliance on shelter. The diversion program focuses on interventions at the front doors of emergency assistance family shelter in our region; efforts are made to divert families from shelter toward alternative safe housing options (temporary and longer-term) to avoid a stay in shelter. Prevention activities help families avoid eviction, preventing homelessness and a stay in shelter. These activities are targeted to assist families immediately before they are at the shelter front door – at district courts, within local housing authorities, and with large property owners and management companies.
The network initiatives will work to change practice -- to transform existing regional activities from individual programs to address specific needs to a network of solutions available to residents in need. Each initiative will start with income maximization assistance but also will explore an “employment first” concept to mirror the Housing First model, where possible.
As part of the network coordination (as essential private funds are raised), the network will investigate ways to increase production of supported housing for individuals and families who have been homeless.
Network Structure:
The Leadership Council is a diverse membership of more than 50 members providing the vision of the work of the Network. The Steering Committee is a subgroup of the Leadership Council responding to issues between Council meetings.
Other Committees are responsible for input on specific activities of the Network: ensuring committee membership is inclusive of a range of partners, working to define best practices for housing and services, overseeing the selection of contractors, identifying policy and practices to improve regional and statewide efforts to end homelessness, and raising critical issues with the Network Coordinator and/or Ste erin g Committee and Leadership Council. Other Committees include: Operations and Data; Resources and Outreach, Housing Production; Tenancy Preservation; and Housing First.
Communities in the Metro Boston Network:
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Arlington
Bedford
Belmont
Brookline
Burlington
Cambridge
Chelsea
Everett
Lexington
Malden
Medford
Melrose |
Milton
Newton
Revere
Somerville
Stoneham
Wakefield
Waltham
Watertown
Wilmington
Winchester
Winthrop
Woburn |
Convening Agency: Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, Inc.
Contact: Elizabeth Winberry, MBN Network Coordinator
Phone: (617) 425-6704
Fax: (617) 532-7551
E-mail: elizabeth.winberry@mbhp.org
Address: 125 Lincoln Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02111-2503
Website: www.mbhp.org, see Metro Boston Network to End Homelessness under "Resources"
For a list of Client Access Points, click here.
For a map showing locations of organizations offering help for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in Massachusetts, visit http://www.onefamilyinc.org/hprp/.
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