13-05-2025
Bridge aid pitched to keep older residents sheltered
BOSTON (SHNS) – To address homelessness among senior citizens, housing and senior advocates are pushing to expand a Somerville pilot program that provides temporary rental assistance to help older adults stay housed while they wait for long-term affordable options.
Massachusetts launched the pilot program last year in Somerville, where housing costs are skyrocketing, to provide rental assistance to low-income adults over 60 years old to remain in their homes while waiting for long-term subsidized housing.
The pilot was funded at $113,000 through the state budget. Advocates are now returning to the Legislature saying it was a success, and that the pilot should be used as a model for other programs around the state.
Julia Garvey of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless told the Joint Committee Aging and Independence on Monday that 41% of extremely low-income renter households in the state are older adults, testifying in favor of a Sen. Pat Jehlen and Rep. Shirley Arriaga bill (S 475 / H 4015) that would expand the senior bridge housing program.
The bill does not have funding attached to it, but Jehlen filed an amendment to the Senate Ways and Means budget (#153) that would fund the expanded statewide program at $7.5 million.
'Older adults have turned to long-term subsidized housing for relief through programs such as state-funded public housing, the Massachusetts rental voucher program and the housing choice voucher program. But waitlists can be years or even a decade long. We do not have the time to wait and must implement a solution that will help older adults who often have complex health needs and are moments away from living in a shelter, in a car, or on the streets, to remain stably housed,' Garvey said.
In Somerville, the bridge funding became available earlier this year.
'Our office in the last two months has gotten requests from 55 older adults, almost all of whom were facing imminent displacement and long waiting lists for public housing,' said Ellen Schachter, director of Somerville's Office of Housing Stability.
Schachter said some of the seniors have lost spouses, and therefore lost half their household income, or have health issues that make it difficult to work. Some individuals have come to their office with stories of landlords who had allowed them to live in the same unit for decades at below-market rent, but when the elderly landlord dies, their rent suddenly skyrockets.
In 2024, Somerville had 247 seniors waiting to get into elderly disabled housing. Four of them got a spot that year, she said.
Of the $113,000 allocated in the budget last year, $100,000 went to the Community Action Agency of Somerville to administer the program.
With those funds, the agency provided rental assistance for nine households 'that likely otherwise would have been evicted to the street' while they wait for an offer of affordable housing, said Director of Housing Advocacy Ashley Tienken. Of those nine, two recently moved into permanent affordable housing, she said.
'One story that illustrates the importance of this program is about a gentleman that we recently worked with. He was about to be evicted after losing his wife to illness. When she became sick, he had no choice but to enter early retirement to become her caregiver, and by time she died, he had debt, no savings and only his Social Security income, which was not enough to cover his monthly expenses. With this program, he will be able to properly grieve his wife in the home that they shared until he is able to move into permanent affordable housing,' Tienken said.
Under the expanded program that Jehlen and Arriaga propose, adults over 60 years old facing housing instability would not pay more than 30% of their income towards rent, mortgage and other housing costs, with the bridge subsidy making up the difference.
Individuals would be eligible if they had incomes below 80% of the area median income and are at risk of eviction due to not being able to consistently pay rent, according to the bill text.
The bill also creates a steering committee led by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to guide the expansion of the bridge subsidy program, with annual reports due every year.
Lawmakers on the committee had many questions about the bill, including about its cost and how many people it could serve.
'The cost of keeping people in their homes is so much less than hospitalizations when someone has no place to discharge to, or paying for shelters. So this is cost effective, it's humane, and it's really the only thing that we can think of,' Schacter said. 'My job is to be creative, to think about programs to meet urgent needs, and I think that this program is a creative response to dealing with the crisis we see in elder homelessness in the commonwealth.'
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