Partnerships Bring 112 Families Home for the Holidays
FamilyAid Boston has housed a record number of homeless children and parents – more than 350 – since the pandemic. These results were largely driven by several new FAB partnerships and initiatives that have rallied to organize, streamline and implement more than 1,000 federal housing subsidies that Boston Mayor Marty Walsh earmarked in April for Boston Public Schools students and their families who are living in shelters or in overcrowded, illegal and “doubled up” conditions brought on by the pandemic.
With deep working partnerships already in place and additional BPS families being referred to FAB’s Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center prevention programs, Boston Public Schools selected FamilyAid Boston to lead the voucher program’s assessment, referral and housing process. To meet a tidal wave of demand, funding from the school system, Day 1 Families Fund, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston Medical Center, the Clipper Ship Foundation and the Kraft Family Foundation, allowed FAB to triple the size of its housing placement and case management teams during the pandemic.
Twelve FAB staff are now working to aid an additional 1,300 children and parents who have been referred to the agency since July. Our housing placement specialists and case workers are assisting families through an initial needs assessment and complex application process while simultaneously identifying available landlords, and eventually, placing families in permanent housing. Once housed, families will continue to be supported by FAB staff with financial and employment coaching and connections to other community-based resources.
FAB Housing Manager Audrey Beare credits both her staff and the agency’s partners for the program’s accomplishments. Audrey and leads from the other partners meet weekly to troubleshoot issues and expedite the vouchers. “It really does take a village to help families in need,” says Beare. “We could not have helped so many families so quickly without the trust and shared commitment the partners all have to house as many families as quickly possible.”
One such family, Marta and her son Jacob, received their keys to their new apartment last month. A young working mother in her mid-20’s, Marta lost both her job and the support of her spouse at the start of the pandemic. Unable to get child support, Marta and seven-year old Jacob moved into her mother’s three-bedroom Chelsea apartment that already housed 8 other family members. The situation was dire as COVID cases rose in the neighborhood and Marta struggled, as an immunosuppressed cancer survivor, to keep herself and her son safe in such overcrowded conditions.
Boston Public Schools referred her to FamilyAid Boston in June. The agency helped her quickly resolve her rental arrearages and provided additional food and supplies to her extended family to reduce community spread.
By mid-August, FAB helped Marta obtain her voucher. After a challenging, several-month search, Marta moved into a one-bedroom affordable apartment that she and Jacob could call their own. Marta remains furloughed from her job and continues to receive support from FamilyAid, including a Thanksgiving meal that she and Jacob will enjoy in the safety of their new home.
Despite this success and hundreds of others, Beare notes that more work needs to be done. “The federal vouchers are almost completely accounted for now, and our task moves to finding more housing units and helping hundreds of families achieve stability and healthy, happy homes.”
