Press Room

BOSTON -- On the heels of news that more than 1,000 families in Massachusetts have overflowed the capacity of emergency homeless shelters and are instead living in motels paid for by the State, United Way today announced that the organization will invest $661,100 to advance the Housing First strategies of 13 organizations in Boston, Cambridge, Lynn, Lowell, Quincy and Somerville --communities that have all launched 10 year plans to end homelessness. These new funds will fuel the third year of United Way's strategy to fight homelessness in the region through a Housing First approach, which stabilizes families in permanent housing as a first step to recovery from chronic homelessness.

The announcement came today at the 2009 United Way Real Estate and Building Industry Breakfast, which was attended by nearly 1,000 industry leaders including developers, brokers, construction managers, architects, engineers, interior designers, attorneys, consultants, bankers and insurance executives, who have for the past two years aligned with United Way to counter homelessness.  In 2007, the Real Estate and Building community set a goal, as an industry to raise $1 million by 2011 to target family homelessness. Since that time, the effort has grown significantly, putting the industry on track to beat their initial goal and reach $1 million before the set deadline.

"Two years ago, we set out to advance Housing First because we believed it would move us from a system of managing the problem to a true solution for individuals and families experiencing the pain of homelessness," said Michael K. Durkin, president and CEO of United Way of Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley. "Now, entering our third year of funding we are beginning to see signs of significant progress from the agencies funded to tackle this issue."

The Donahue Institute recently studied United Way's progress in its Housing First effort, and found that outcomes data gathered about families served fully demonstrated the funded organizations' effectiveness at moving families experiencing homelessness into permanent housing, as well as assisting families in maintaining their housing through crisis situations. In fact, the report found that "75% of families for whom outcomes data are available were in permanent housing at the conclusion of Year 2 funding."

By the end of the three-year funding period, United Way will have invested around $2.5 million toward the goal of ending homelessness in the Commonwealth. In addition to its investments in Housing First, United Way helped more than 11,200 people get or keep homes last year through its network of partner agencies. The Real Estate and Building Industry raised nearly $3.2 million in 2008 to fuel these efforts, enabling thousands of families to either gain or remain in permanent housing.

This year's investment of $661,000 will advance Housing First efforts at the following agencies:

• Somerville Community Corporation: to better help families move towards greater self-sufficiency by supporting their service delivery work in areas such as emergency assistance, case management, and financial literacy program.
• The Somerville Homeless Coalition : to augment the work with in their prevention and re-housing program by dedicating resources to the increase in staffing needs so as to make sure that households' tenuous housing situations are addressed in a timely manner.
• Father Bills & MainSpring, Inc. (FBMS): to provide intensive case management services to its clients.
• Quincy Community Action Programs (QCAP) to maintain prevention services and successfully advocate for  state policy change that restored essential homelessness prevention activities.
• Community Teamwork Inc: to serve an additional 30 families and 30 individuals and to support a Housing First Coordinator
• Serving People in Need (SPIN): to continue its efforts to increase the supply and availability of affordable, permanent, and transitional housing in its service area and to increase the level and types of services that promote financial and economic stability and self-sufficiency of their clients.

• Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, Inc. to continue their best practice "Home at Last" Housing First Initiative for homeless and at-risk families and individuals who have significant barriers to housing, are in need of support due to illness, disability, domestic violence or other trauma and/or are chronically homeless.
• Homes for Families, Inc: to support the development of best practices and training on systems change and asset development.
• HomeStart, Inc.: to assist additional families that have been victims of domestic violence with housing placement
• Heading Home: to support a case manager who will provide services to families in scattered site apartments.
• Crittenton Women's Union: to fuel intensive supportive services over a 60 month period to low-income public housing residents to assist in their journey towards economic independence.
• Travelers Aid Family Services: To support the HOMES program, which purchase affordable units for families at risk of homelessness.
• Project Hope: to offer multi-lingual adult education, job training, and child care, all while addressing the roots of homelessness and helping community members in crisis move forward on their path to self-sufficiency.