Record Details:

End Family Homelessnes [statewide and metrowest advocacy]

Website: http://www.endfamilyhomelessness.net/fy2021-budget-priorities/







This organization provides Temporary or Permanent Service? Temporary

Notes:

Legislative advocacy group

FY2021 BUDGET PRIORITIES

Please help to advocate for as many of these budget issues as you can. Advocating for these struggling families requires very little effort on our part, but the impact of our actions is significant. We hope you will respond to the alerts you receive from us this spring so that programs are fully funded and significant suffering can be avoided.

Mass. Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) – long term housing stability. MRVP is the most effective tool to immediately help families who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness secure homes they can afford. MRVP provides affordable housing for families and individuals experiencing instability. $130M will increase the number of vouchers available, help preserve housing developments, and make programmatic fixes that will make vouchers more usable, and help tenants stay more stable in their housing. Funding MRVP at $130M will also increase the value of MRVP vouchers to better match current fair market values.
MRVP Funding Request: $130 million Budget line item: 7004-9024
Public Housing Operating Subsidy – supports 45,600 state-sponsored public housing units. Years of underfunding have left many housing authorities struggling to operate and keep units in good repair. The additional $6.5M will help provide up to 6% increase in local housing authority budgets to help operate and preserve this valuable resource.
Public Housing Funding Request: $78 million Budget line item: 7004-9005
Residential Assistance for Families in Transition. RAFT helps families that are at risk of homelessness remain housed. RAFT provides up to $4000 in a twelve-month period to help families pay security deposits, first and last months’ rent, moving expenses, rent, utility and mortgage arrears and other housing-related expenses. With $27M, eligible households would be able to receive immediate resources to prevent homelessness. This includes $7M to begin to provide upstream homelessness prevention resources to households who have fallen behind on rent or mortgage payments but are not yet in the eviction or foreclosure process.
RAFT Funding Request: $27 million. Budget line item 7004-9316
Emergency Assistance Family Shelter and Services. Adequately fund and protect family emergency shelter and service programs, the “Safety Net”; and include funding and language to provide shelter to families at “imminent risk of staying in a place not meant for human habitation”. In the first four months of FY’19 another 221 (18% of all approved families) were approved for EA only after staying in such dire circumstances. Since this policy was implemented by DHCD in 2012, over 3500 families were approved only after staying in unsafe places. (This does not include those who slept in unsafe places and were never approved for shelter.) In FY’20 though this language was approved in the budget, there is significant evidence that DHCD continued to require eligible families to sleep in emergency rooms before acceptance into shelter.
EA Funding Request: $185 million. And POLICY LANGUAGE CHANGE. Budget Line Item 7004-0101
HomeBASE, Massachusetts Short Term Housing Transition Program. HomeBASE offers families an alternative to shelter by allowing them to stay in their homes, move to new housing, or live with another family. This increase in funding by $2M will support these changes and reduce the number of families in shelters and motels.
HomeBASE Funding Request: $28 million. Budget Line Item 7004-0108
Housing and Services for Unaccompanied Youth and Young Adults Experiencing Homelessness. Provide increased housing and wraparound services to youth and eligible young adults experiencing homelessness and housing instability through the 10 regional agencies selected to administer this program.
Unaccompanied Youth Homelessness Prevention Funding Request: $8 million. Budget Line Item 4000-07

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