MHSA Receives MetLife Foundation Grant

Great news for MHSA and a hearty congratulations on their most recent grant award! We as a region look forward to our continuing relationship with MHSA.

See below for the press release with further details.

Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) Receives a MetLife Foundation Assuring Quality Initiative Grant Award from CSH to Improve Supportive Housing
BOSTON – August 24, 2010. The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) has announced that the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) is one of seven nonprofits nationwide to receive a MetLife Foundation Assuring Quality Initiative grant award, which is designed to assist community-based, supportive housing providers improve the quality of their permanent supportive housing. Permanent supportive housing, which combines affordable housing with supportive services, has proven to be a highly cost-effective way to end long-term homelessness for people facing complex challenges, including mental illness, substance abuse and physical disabilities.
Since 2006, MHSA’s Home & Healthy for Good (HHG) initiative has provided permanent supportive housing to more than 450 formerly homeless individuals with a housing retention rate of 84 percent. The annual costs per person decreased from $33,514 before housing to $24,007 after housing placement, resulting in an annual savings of $9,507 per person. An analysis by the state Office of Medicaid showed that on average, Medicaid costs per HHG tenant dropped by 67 percent after participants moved into housing.
MHSA oversees administration, data collection and evaluation of HHG and 14 partner agencies provide housing and services to tenants. To continue its rigorous program analysis, MHSA will use the MetLife Foundation grant to analyze HHG program performance more deeply at its partner agency level, thereby shedding light on what constitutes quality in supportive housing. MHSA will examine similarities and differences across program sites, baseline costs of permanent supportive housing and best practices in supportive services design and delivery. As a result, MHSA will be able to determine what links exist between service design and delivery and positive social and economic outcomes.
“We at MHSA know that Home & Healthy for Good is a successful program – it ends homelessness and saves money. This grant will allow us to delve deeper into what specific factors make the program successful and share this knowledge with the permanent supportive housing community,” said Joe Finn, MHSA President & Executive Director. “We look forward to working with the Corporation for Supportive Housing and are thankful for the MetLife Foundation Assuring Quality Initiative Grant Award.”
MHSA will implement quality improvement projects based on the framework described in the CSH publication, The Seven Dimensions of Quality for Supportive Housing, which describes best practices for the operation of permanent supportive housing. MHSA will work to design and implement projects that improve the quality of its supportive housing, with regard to one or more of the Dimensions of Quality. CSH will provide technical assistance to MHSA and will create a summary report to share the new resources created, and lessons learned, by all grantees during the Assuring Quality Initiative with other nonprofit organizations nationwide.
“This initiative provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate how a wide variety of supportive housing providers can take concrete, measurable steps to improve the quality of their supportive housing,” said Liz Drapa, Acting Director of the CSH Consulting and Training Group.
“Supportive housing can play an important role in reducing homelessness and helping individuals achieve greater stability in their lives,” said Dennis White, president of MetLife Foundation. “We are pleased to partner with CSH in helping MHSA improve the quality of its supportive housing and improve outcomes for the individuals who reside there.”
Other grant recipients include:
Caringworks, Inc, Decatur, Georgia
Coalition on Temporary Shelter, Detroit, Michigan
Human Solutions, Portland, Oregon
Jamboree Housing Corporation, Irvine, California
Supportive Housing Coalition of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Temenos Community Development Corporation, Houston, Texas
“At CSH, we are committed to helping organizations to achieve the best possible outcomes for the tenants they serve in supportive housing, and to ensuring that the limited resources available for supportive housing are used as efficiently and effectively as possible. We are pleased that these grants will allow us to partner with supportive housing providers around the country who share our commitment to quality,” said Deb DeSantis, President and CEO of the Corporation for Supportive Housing.
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About Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA)
The Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, a non-profit, 501 (c) (3) public policy advocacy organization, was established in 1988 by Greater Boston homeless providers and citizens seeking to create a coordinated strategy to end homelessness. MHSA represents 90 community-based agencies operating more than 250 programs statewide that serve more than 98 percent of all homeless individuals in Massachusetts. Through strategic partnerships formed with government, private philanthropy, service providers, homeless individuals and business, MHSA works to ensure that homelessness does not become a permanent part of the social landscape. For more information, visit http://www.mhsa.net.
About the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) and the CSH Consulting and Training Group
The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) is a national non-profit organization and community development financial institution that helps communities create permanent housing with services to prevent and end homelessness. Founded in 1991, CSH advances its mission by providing advocacy, expertise, leadership, and financial resources to make it easier to create and operate supportive housing. CSH seeks to help create an expanded supply of supportive housing for people, including single adults, families with children, and young adults, who have extremely low-incomes, who have disabling conditions, and/or face other significant challenges that place them at on-going risk of homelessness. In 2009, CSH created the CSH Consulting and Training Group in order to reach more communities. Since then, staff from the Consulting and Training group have provided support to communities in 29 states. Learn more about how we fight homelessness and our work around the country, at http://www.csh.org.
About the MetLife Foundation
MetLife Foundation was established in 1976 by MetLife to carry on its longstanding tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. Grants support health, education, civic and cultural programs. For more information about the Foundation, visit http://www.metlife.org.