PHTP particpants at a recent training in Ludlow.

“Before the (PHTP) training, I didn’t understand the way things work… The training is serious. I like to say it’s like an oracle, it gives answers.”

Those were the words of Nicole Beckles, a resident leader and peer trainer in the Public Housing Training Program. Nicole gave a moving testimonial of her participation in the program at the Mel King Institute’s 10^th Anniversary Breakfast in June.

“Changes to public housing don’t affect where other people lay their heads at night, not the Housing Authority staff, or the legislators, the changes affect public housing residents, where we live every day and raise our kids. This is why this program of training residents to understand the process and giving and getting involved is so important. This is why I’m involved,” she continued.

Since its first training in 2017, the Public Housing Training Program (PHTP) has trained more than 200 residents across the Commonwealth, arming them with the knowledge they need to fully participate in the oversight of their housing developments. A recent evaluation report of the program showed that it is building resident leadership skills and knowledge in a variety of areas such as budgets, tenants’ rights, conflict resolution, community building, etc.

The Mel King Institute for Community Building launched the Public Housing Tenant Training Program in 2016 with the purpose of increasing the voice of residents as stakeholders in decision-making in public housing management and administration. Trainings are all conducted by Sarah Byrnes, Manager of the MKI Public Housing Training Program, along with co-trainers and residents.

Director of the Mel King Institute, Shirronda Almeida said, “We are proud to have this effort under the MKI umbrella. The program reaches residents in public housing across the state and gives them the tools necessary to be leaders within their housing authority.  When we hear from these residents, we learn about the powerful impact the training and networking opportunities is having in their lives, and communities.”

Though the Mel King Institute is based in Boston, trainings are conducted across Massachusetts. Recently, Sarah drove out to Western MA for a week of trainings. The week started in Great Barrington with a learning session with two resident board members, followed by two days of resident leader training, and concluded with a resident board member training in Ludlow.

The trainings in Great Barrington were attended by residents of the community who are working to address challenges around maintenance and other issues. Great Barrington residents take great pride in the physical landscape and beauty of the town, and many of them do their own gardening and landscaping. Peer Trainer Mildred Valentin Torres helped run the training, sharing her lessons of working with tenant groups in Chelsea.

Participants had the chance to sharpen their skills in team building, outreach, conflict resolution and running meetings, as well as the opportunity to learn about state regulations and tenant protections, and how to build a strong tenant organization.

In Ludlow, residents from five housing authorities in the area, including Ludlow itself, participated in the resident board member training. Jessica Quinonez, the Resident Board Member in Springfield, helped out as a Peer Trainer.

Resident board members enjoy meeting each other and being able to share and learn from each other’s experiences and challenges. In addition to networking, participants of this training had the opportunity to learn about budgets, capital plans, and the overall role of the board member.

Moving forward, the residents and resident board members who participated in these trainings will receive continued support from our partner, the Massachusetts Union of Public Housing Tenants. They will also be invited to the ongoing learning community supported by the Public Housing Training Program, which provides regular online meet ups and scholarships to other Mel King Institute trainings.

To learn more about the Public Housing Training Program, please contact Program Manager, Sarah Byrnes at sarahb@macdc.org

Secretary Kennealy on a visit to Valley Community Development's Sergeant House, a 31-unit supportive housing development in Northampton

MACDC would like to thank Secretary Mike Kennealy, and Undersecretary for Housing and Community Development, Janelle Chan, for taking the time to visit affordable housing projects across Massachusetts.

On August 6, they will be concluding a three-week long tour of 28 affordable housing projects. We are thrilled that they visited the real estate development projects of five MACDC members:

2Life Communities: The 132 Chestnut Hill Avenue project in Brighton boasts 61 units of affordable senior housing.

B’nai B’rith: A vacant elementary school in Swampscott is being redeveloped into affordable housing units for seniors.

B’nai B’rith: Phase 2 of The Coolidge project in Sudbury is currently in development and, when concluded, will add 56 units of affordable housing for seniors.

Housing Corporation of Arlington: The Downing Square project in Arlington spans two sites with a total of 48 units, including 16 deeply affordable, five units for homeless tenants, and a space for a food pantry.

Valley CDC: The Sergeant House Expansion project in Northampton consists of the renovation of 15 Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units, and the construction of 16 new SRO units.

Valley CDC: The Lumber Yard project in Northampton is redeveloping the former Northampton Lumber Company into 55 units of family rental housing and commercial space.

Way Finders: The Live 155 project in Northampton is a 70-unit transit-oriented development, 47 of these units being affordable housing, with access to support services for tenants.

Massachusetts hospitals devote millions of dollars annually to public health programs that serve their surrounding communities. As hospitals shift the focus of their public health programs towards upstream issues such as housing, education, and employment, it is important that they partner with organizations that are engaged in these areas, such as CDCs.

One of my roles as the Program Director for Health Equity at MACDC is to facilitate relationships between CDCs and their local hospitals. I view supporting these partnerships as building upon my previous role in which I worked to strengthen the state guidelines that direct many of these investments. The updated state guidelines provide the tools for hospitals to increase the transparency by which these investments are made and to increase community involvement in program planning and implementation.

Hospitals, as the institutions that ultimately control the focus of these investments, must commit to engaging community partners. While hospitals may have additional tools and incentives for engaging their community partners, many community organizations continue to find the procurement of hospital funding to be an opaque process. For a CDC, securing a seat at the table in which these investments are discussed is not an easy task. However, there are muscles that potential community partners can build in order to achieve successful partnerships with their local hospitals.

One way in which community organizations can learn more about the nuances involved in hospital investments is through trainings offered by the Mel King Institute for Community Building. Last March, the Mel King Institute held a training in which participants had a chance to learn about different types of hospital investments. For example, participants discussed the distinction between Community Benefits investments – which are annually budgeted for – and Community Health Improvement investments – which are episodically tied to capital expenditures.  Becoming well-versed in these different types of investments, is the first step toward meaningful conversations between CDCs and potential hospital partners.

This coming year, in partnership with the Mel King Institute, I will be introducing several trainings in which we will discuss the challenges associated with developing partnerships and continue to develop the language and the tools needed to initiate and deepen these crucial partnerships between CDCs and their local hospitals. The following are examples of topics that we’ll discuss in upcoming Mel King Institute Health Equity trainings:

Establishing a common language to talk about health equity
 CDCs must deepen their understanding of the pathways by which various social determinants of health (e.g., housing, employment, and education) contribute to health disparities. By establishing a robust vocabulary in which to have meaningful conversations with institutional partners CDCs will be better positioned to advocate for hospital investment in their work.

Deepening understanding of hospital funding

It is important to understand how community health programs fit into the complex hospital financing equation in order to better understand the role of community organizations in this process. Better understanding hospital financing is increasingly important as the system changes, such as the trend toward shifting from the pay-for-service model to Accountable Care Organizations.

The importance of long-term partnership building

 It is not surprising that small- and medium-sized community organizations become interested in partnering with hospitals when they hear of potential funding opportunities. Partnerships, however, rarely originate from a grant opportunity. Organizational relationships must be cultivated long before an opportunity becomes available. It is for this reason that CDCs must cultivate relationships with hospitals independent of a specific funding opportunity.

Keeping track of individual investment opportunities

CDCs must devote time and resources to keeping track of opportunities. This can mean there is a lot to keep track of: in many areas of the state, several hospitals serve the same region and the timeline for hospital investments vary by hospital and by type of investment. CDCs must have a mechanism for learning about funding opportunities as they become available.

What are questions that you have about cultivating relationships with your local hospitals? What challenges have you encountered? What would you like to learn about in this area?

• The Small Business Technical Assistance (SBTA) program's funding increased by 50% from $2 million in FY19 to $3 million in FY20. Additional funding will support new businesses, new jobs and the overall increased economic stability in neighborhoods and towns across the Commonwealth. To learn more about the program and the powerful results for which it's noted, go to MGCC's website;
• Chapter 206 funding available to the Division of Banks was increased by 40% to $2.805 million. This program supports nonprofit housing counseling services that provide homebuyer education and foreclosure prevention counseling;
• Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative: A new $750,000 capacity-building program through MassHousing and MassDevelopment, in coordination with MACDC and MassINC. This program will help local governments and community partners implement neighborhood-level revitalization efforts to address vacant and abandoned properties in Gateway cities and rural areas and convert these buildings into homeownership opportunities and rental housing.  Check out the study released this past January by MassINC and MACDC "Building Communities of Promise and Possibility" upon which this recommendation was drawn;
• CPA Trust Fund: Most recording fees at the Registries of Deeds will be increased from $20 to $50, which would raise an estimated $36 million in additional annual revenue for CPA beginning in 2020, and increase the CPA match for all 175 CPA communities to approximately 30%. The Conference Committee also agreed to language that will authorize up to $20 million from the state's budget surplus to expand the November 2019 distribution. CPA exclusively supports the creation of affordable housing, preservation of historical sites, open space preservation, and development of recreational facilities.

On July 9, Governor Baker, joined by Undersecretary for Housing and Community Development Janelle Chan, and MassHousing Executive Director Chrystal Kornegay, announced $86 million in new funding to expand the Administration's Workforce Housing Initiative, including $60 million to support homeownership and help to narrow the racial homeownership gap. About 500 new workforce homes, i.e. affordable housing that would be in close proximity to the workplace, for moderate-income, first-time homebuyers will be created, along with an additional 260 new workforce rental units. 

On July 18, Mayor Marty Walsh announced that the Barriers to Homeownership Working Group, in a partnership with the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA) and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), worked to create the ONE+Boston mortgage program, which will be launched this fall. The new program, offered by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP), is intended to make progress on the original ONE Mortgage program and aims to permanently buy down interest rates for first-time home buyers earning less than $90,000 in a two-person household, which in turn will create more opportunities for low- to middle-income families to buy a home.

The Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC) has announced that Eastern Bank has renewed its commitment to the Community Investment Tax Credit (CITC) program by pledging $250,000 in grants to participating Massachusetts Community Development Corporations (CDCs). The announcement was made by Quincy Miller, Vice Chair and President of Eastern Bank, at the 10^th Anniversary Celebration of the Mel King Institute on June 25^th at the Boston Park Plaza. Eastern Bank was the Presenting Sponsor of the event. This is the fourth consecutive year the Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation is awarding grant funding to the CITC program. Since the inception of Eastern Bank’s participation in the program in 2016, the bank will have contributed more than $1 million in grants to organizations participating in the CITC program.

In 2018, Certified CDCs in Massachusetts, which include all organizations participating in the CITC program, accomplished the following:

• Homes Built or Preserved: 1,535
• Job Opportunities Created or Preserved: 4,305
• Entrepreneurs Provided Technical Assistance: 1,369
• Families Supported with Housing, Jobs or Other Services: 84,224
• Community Leaders Engaged: 1,910
• Investment in Local Communities: $801.5 million.

“Affordable housing and community development create pathways to prosperity, and Eastern Bank is committed to standing alongside the leaders and organizations advocating for these issues,” said Miller. “Thank you to the CDCs who are doing incredible work in Boston and across the Commonwealth in creating new opportunities for all, and congratulations to the Mel King Institute on celebrating 10 years of leading our neighborhoods in community building.”

The CITC program provides a 50% refundable state tax credit for donations of $1,000 or more to participating CDCs.  Because the donation is refundable, organizations, such as foundations and donor advised funds, can support CDCs across Massachusetts through the program as well as individuals and businesses. CDCs can apply for an Eastern Bank grant at www.easternbank.com/foundation.