Rising to Meet COVID’s Housing Crisis

While FamilyAid Boston may best be known for its homelessness prevention work and its shelter services, the agency is also a national urban leader in housing placement. FamilyAid Boston’s expert staff move families, who are unstably housed or living in homeless shelters, into safe and affordable permanent housing and work with families to keep them in their homes over the long term.

Finding affordable, permanent housing for families in a city with skyrocketing rent prices in the middle of a pandemic isn’t easy, yet FamilyAid Boston’s housing placement rate is almost triple the national average. The national average rate of families moved out of shelter and into stable housing over the course of one year is just 25%. Over the last twelve months, FamilyAid Boston housing staff moved more than 70% of the families in its care into permanent housing, with more than 425 children and parents like Kelly and Sophie finally finding home.

FamilyAid Boston’s housing placement team boasts eight seasoned housing specialists led by longtime housing manager, Audrey Beare. Over the last decade, the team has created an incredible community network of landlords, property managers, and listing agents that they’re able to tap to help families find a home.

In the face of economic and housing crises created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the housing placement team is working harder than ever to ensure FamilyAid Boston families obtain permanent housing. FamilyAid is now partnering with Boston Public Schools (BPS) to place families into housing with 500 Section 8 vouchers that have been allocated by the mayor to BPS families who are “doubled-up,” living in crowded conditions with another family and who need assistance in finding their own stable housing.

“These vouchers will be critical to our work in helping families make it through the pandemic,” Beare said, while noting additional challenges for her team. “It’s been difficult since the pandemic started. Our housing team and families can’t visit apartments, and many of our clients don’t have the technology to view apartments virtually.”

Despite the hurdles, Beare’s team presses on. The vouchers, along with strengthened partnerships with the Boston Housing Authority, city officials and BPS is accelerating an often-lengthy housing process. Beare noted that more than 11 families in the last month alone obtained their subsidies in record time.

“We’re determined to meet the growing housing challenge before us,” said Beare. “Our families have no other choice, and neither do we.”