Latest news with #MassachusettsRentalVoucherProgram
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tough-to-get rent vouchers popular with tenants, landlords
BOSTON (SHNS) – Both tenants and landlords reported significant satisfaction with a state-run voucher program designed to help low-income residents pay rent, even as they continue to flag difficulties with navigating the system, according to a new report. The MassINC Polling Group and The Boston Foundation on Wednesday published a 56-page report about the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program, combining broader surveys with more detailed interviews involving residents who use the safety-net program. Seven in 10 landlords said they are somewhat or very satisfied with the program, praising it for guaranteeing consistent rent payments, allowing them to make positive community impacts and reducing tenant turnover. Among renters, many described experiencing significant benefits. Eighty-six percent agreed that their children are performing better in school because they have stable housing, and 78% said it's easier to keep a job with housing secured. 'The Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program enables thousands of families to put down roots in our community and access a safe and stable home that provides a foundation for them to thrive in school and work,' Sarah Bartley, senior vice president of safe and stable housing at United Way of Massachusetts Bay, said in a statement provided alongside the report. 'This report demonstrates how we all win when families are able to realize their goals by maintaining employment, saving more, and building credit.' Still, analysts said many MRVP participants continue to experience obstacles. Forty-five percent of renters who were deemed eligible for the program said it took more than a year to receive a rental voucher after they first applied. About a third said it took them four months or longer after receiving a voucher to find an apartment. Roughly one-quarter of tenants said they were treated unfairly in the process of using their voucher. One tenant surveyed reported waiting for hours on the phone to get recertified. 'We have to sit on hold for like five hours. Then the call will get disconnected,' the tenant said, per the report. 'Once you get to number one, you have to sit on hold for another three hours.' Report authors called on Beacon Hill to codify MRVP into statute, instead of keeping it as a single line item renewed in the annual state budget, and to expand the number of vouchers available. Households that make less than 80% of the area median income where they live are eligible to apply for MRVP vouchers. Demand for vouchers far exceeds the supply. The program serves 10,700 low-income households, who typically pay 30% of their gross income for rent and receive a voucher for the remainder, according to the Boston Foundation, but the waitlist to get on the program was recently estimated at 160,000 and the new report pegged it at 168,000 as of February. Policymakers face regular calls for more action to address a statewide lack of affordable, available housing that puts pressure on residents across the income spectrum. In their fiscal 2026 budget proposals, Gov. Maura Healey and the Senate Ways and Means Committee each moved to increase funding for MRVP from $219 million to $253 million. The House-approved budget would go a bit further and bump the program up to $258 million. Healy administration officials have estimated that a $253 million appropriation could support a bit more than 11,000 vouchers, citing increases in rents as a constraining factor. 'Across the Commonwealth, the intensifying housing affordability crisis is disproportionately affecting low-income Latinx and immigrant communities, especially our most vulnerable residents in places like Chelsea,' said La Colaborativa Chief Operating Officer Alex Train. 'MRVP, a major tool in combating the affordability crisis, is a notably effective program, as outlined in this thorough report. We emphatically urge the Commonwealth to codify and expand MRVP, in order to make housing stability a reality for all families in our Commonwealth.' Other report recommendations included better communication with tenants and landlords, state investment in outreach and education about the program, and efforts to tackle the so-called cliff effect, which refers to when a voucher-holder becomes ineligible after an increase in income pushes them above the allowable threshold. The survey, conducted in early December, involved 989 tenants with vouchers through the program and 175 landlords who rent to voucher-holders. Authors also held two focus groups with MRVP tenants and 11 landlord interviews in February. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WWLP.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Less than half of Mass. housing voucher holders can consistently afford rent
Less than half of low-income tenants in Massachusetts who hold state-funded housing vouchers can consistently afford their monthly rent, according to a Boston Foundation report released Wednesday. The report, which studied the efficacy of the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP), revealed that 44% of voucher holders were always able to afford rent, while 33% said they could afford it most of the time and 16% said they could only afford it sometimes. Researchers determined through surveys and interviews with tenants and landlords that while the program is a lifeline for the people it helps, it also has significant shortcomings. Those shortfalls make it difficult for people to access rental assistance and/or build long-term financial security. 'While safe, stable housing is a vast improvement on the alternative, [tenants] aspire to geographic and economic mobility,' the researchers wrote in the report. 'Voucher holders want to have a choice of decent places to live, to be able to save and someday to be able to afford homeownership.' What is the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program? The state rental assistance program is the oldest housing voucher program in the U.S. and serves more than 10,000 low-income households, according to the report. The state budgeted $219 million for the program in the current fiscal year. Gov. Maura Healey calls for raising that to $253 million in her proposed fiscal 2026 budget. To be eligible for the program, a household must make 80% or less of the area median income for their city or town. Voucher holders pay 30% of their monthly income toward rent, and the voucher covers the rest. Tenants who use state-funded vouchers told the researchers the program has allowed them to improve their lives. Seventy-eight percent of tenants said it was easier to find and keep a job because of the housing stability a voucher provides, and 86% of parents said their children were doing better in school. 'My kids aren't living in a shelter apartment. My kids are with me. I'm not in fear that my children are going to be taken by DCF [Department of Children & Family] because I can't provide a stable living,' one tenant told the researchers. Voucher recipients are generally able to access higher-quality housing. Tenants in focus groups said their homes are better, and appliances and utilities work better than in previous apartments. Sixty-four percent of survey respondents said their current home is in excellent or good condition. Landlords who rented to MRVP tenants broadly said the program also benefits them. A large majority — 81% — cited the guarantee of consistent rent payments as one of the most helpful aspects, while 38% mentioned reduced turnover rates and 20% mentioned access to a wider pool of tenants. Seventy percent said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the program, and 47% said they were 'very likely' to seek out voucher-holding tenants in the future, in addition to 22% who said they were 'somewhat likely' to do so. What challenges exist for tenants with rental vouchers? The state program currently has a waitlist of 168,000 people hoping to receive a voucher, according to the report. Of voucher holders surveyed, 45% said it took more than a year to receive a voucher after they applied. However, even those with vouchers said they faced challenges affording basic necessities and saving money. This was particularly true for households at both ends of the eligible income spectrum. For the lowest-income tenants, even with some of their rent covered, their remaining funds may not stretch far enough to cover bills. Participants with the highest eligible incomes experience 'cliff effects,' or the drop-off of assistance programs if their income exceeds the eligible level. Another issue discussed by tenants and landlords is that of communication and transparency on the part of the state. 'Tenants and landlords both emphasized how much smoother their experiences were when dealing with a representative who they felt was competent and communicative,' the researchers wrote. 'They also described frustrating situations with uncommunicative representatives, long hold times on the phone, missing information or feeling lost when contact dropped off after move-in.' What improvements can be made to the program? The report outlines several recommendations for improving the state rental voucher program, including creating more vouchers and providing more opportunities for tenants to build wealth. The researchers suggested providing 'bridge' financial assistance to households that lose their eligibility due to an increase in income, to offset cliff effects, and giving waitlist priority to previous voucher holders if their income drops back down below the threshold. They suggested expanding the existing Self-Sufficiency Program within MRVP, which helps tenants develop career skills and access employment, and if their income increases, the extra funds are placed in an escrow account until they complete the program. Only some of the organizations that administer vouchers offer this program. The report also emphasizes the need for better education for tenants and landlords about the requirements and process of the voucher program and communication with the agency. The researchers acknowledged that most of these improvements would require more funding for the program, but did not say how much more funding would be needed. To help provide more resources and stability to the program, they recommended that MRVP be codified into state law. Currently, money for the program is renewed annually in the state budget passed by the Legislature, which leaves tenants without a guarantee that the funds will be allocated each year. 'Codifying the program is a simple step that would give everyone who relies on it confidence that it will remain in place and continue to serve a critical function in the housing ecosystem,' they wrote. You can read the full report on The Boston Foundation's website. More on housing Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts Housing Secretary says uncertainty may scare away investors
BOSTON (SHNS) – State government leaders in Massachusetts are trying to instigate a building boom to address a housing shortage marked by high rents and sale prices, but a top housing official is now warning that headwinds from Washington could threaten their efforts. 'The equity that's often needed to facilitate a deal doesn't like uncertainty, and we are in the midst of lots of uncertainty,' Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said in Lee on Wednesday during a policy talk with local experts hosted by the Berkshire Edge. He added, 'If you come in and want to fund a project, and you look at what the [financial estimate] says, but you're going to actually go in the ground 18 months from now, how could you guarantee that those are the prices that you're going to have, given this uncertainty?' It's an argument Augustus also made earlier in the week, testifying before lawmakers in Gloucester on Monday about Gov. Maura Healey's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. 'What developers tell me is equity, which they are usually pursuing in order to get the financing to build a unit, equity doesn't like uncertainty. And the idea that this project may cost 10 or 15 or 20% more than they're projecting, it doesn't often attract that investment,' Augustus said on Monday. The administration has long pointed to a goal of increasing the statewide supply of year-round housing by 222,000 units over the next decade — a 7% increase in supply. As production slowed over the past few decades, the share of homes available for sale or rent in Massachusetts has shrunk to 1.6%, and costs have skyrocketed. Programs focused on keeping low-income residents housed are struggling to keep up with housing inflation. The Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program has seen large increases in spending, without making a significant bump in the 160,000-person waitlist of people who need help paying rent. 'We're putting significant additional dollars into the voucher program, but not necessarily getting more vouchers. We're just having to pay higher rents for the vouchers that have already been leased so that we don't lose any of those units and have people fall into homelessness. So again, some of it is just, you're paying a lot more, but you're not necessarily getting more. You're trying to keep what you've got,' Augustus said Wednesday. The governor and Legislature passed a law last year that authorizes $5.16 billion in long-term bonding, mostly focused on production of new units. State officials are trying to put some of that money, and new production-oriented policies, to work in a state where building remains mostly under the oversight of local zoning rules. The state housing secretariat estimates that the law will lead to the creation of over 45,000 new units and the preservation of 27,000. The law was signed in August, three months before the election, and Healey and Augustus have both warned recently that policies coming down from President Donald Trump could threaten the planned production boom. In addition to seeing a pullback of investors, the housing secretary warned Wednesday about Trump's tariffs on lumber making it more expensive to build housing. 'When you get most of your lumber from Canada, and that's subject to a 25% tariff, that is driving up the costs,' he said. Trump's promised tariffs on Canadian lumber are scheduled to start on April 2. The 25% tariff on softwood lumber used in most home building would be on top of the existing 14.5% lumber tariffs previously imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, according to the National Association of Home Builders. At a National League of Cities Conference, Vice President JD Vance spoke Monday about the national housing crisis, calling it 'not acceptable or sustainable' that the average income it takes to buy a new house is nearly two times the average salary of a typical American family. 'We want Americans to be able to afford the American dream of homeownership because we know that when people own their homes, it makes them a stakeholder. It makes them a stakeholder in their neighborhoods, in their cities, and ultimately, of course, in this country that all of us love so much,' Vance said. He pointed at the Biden administration, saying the cost of a median-price home more than doubled under former President Joe Biden. He mentioned how lower energy costs could aid housing development, and lamented how immigrants living in the country illegally are increasing the demand for limited housing. In addition to urging people to be 'a little bit smarter about our local zoning rules,' Vance said the administration is working towards cutting red tape at the Office of Housing and Urban Development that 'hike costs and shift the decision-making from local governments to Washington, D.C.' 'I'm hard-pressed to think of a time in my 40 years of life where it's been so hard for normal American citizens to afford a home,' Vance said. 'Even renting a home has become a challenge or, worse yet, fallen completely out of reach for so many of our families.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
