Capacity Building Working Group
The Supportive Housing Pipeline Coalition will offer a unique CaseMaking Cohort to address the challenges of creating supportive housing challenges head-on. Through a series of six 90-minute training sessions, a dedicated Strategic CaseMaking cohort will learn and practice skills and strategies described in TheCaseMade founder Dr. Tiffany Manuel’s Case Made! 10 Powerful Leadership Principles that Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Grow Impact. The result will be a shared "case guide" to help providers collectively make their case, and a CaseMaking peer group to continue to work toward progress together. This is a unique opportunity will support development teams statewide in their local communities and likewise enable the Coalition to effectively elevating the case for Supportive Housing statewide. The CaseMade has already worked with CHAPA to re-frame the case they make for housing.
Anticipated Impact of Supportive Housing CaseMaking Cohort
The immediate outcomes of the Cohort are for 25 Supportive Housing Developer + Service Provider teams, and the Supportive Housing Pipeline Coalition as a whole, to cultivate:
A case and set of practices to support the Supportive Housing projects in their pipelines, rooted in real brain science – how people are persuaded to support equity and justice
Increased affinity and common message across the field and a stronger voice across populations and communitis’ – a shared voice will build collective power and able to access resources
Better relationships with the Healey Administration and Municipal Leaders who play critical roles in siting and funding projects
More local neighbors and neighborhood groups turning out in support of housing initiatives
Clear guidance for how to address NIMBYism and common pushback to Supportive Housing, such as the specific onsite services'
Some may get additional Technical Assistance from Dr. Manuel to support particularly challenging community engagement plans
The anticipated impact of the Cohort is that the 25 provider teams, and the Coalition as a whole, will produce more units of Supportive Housing, which will ultimately provide better outcomes for people experiencing homelessness, and more effective services because they are paired with housing. Based on the selected examples included below, we conservatively estimate that the Cohort will support the development of hundreds of Supportive Housing units that are likely to be lost to local opposition. Developers are regularly delayed, forced to scale-back proposals, or worse, projects are never built as a result of local opposition. The tools developed by the Cohort are critical for reversing this trend, and getting units built. A few current examples include:
11/16/23 Salem News: Calmer response, but opposition remains for Lifebridge plans’
Harborlight Homes and LifeBridge scaled back to 34 Supportive Housing units in Salem, and are continuing to receive pressure to scale-back further
Harborlight Homes says that in the past 3-5 years, the organization has reduced proposed projects by 108 units in Hamilton, 210 units in Wenham, and 53 units in Salem, as a result of local opposition.'
11/1/23 Bay State Banner: Growing coalition voices opposition to Shattuck plan
Boston Medical Center, Bay Cove Human Services, Pine Street Inn and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation in Boston proposed 200 units at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital site and are receiving pressure to scale back or move the entire project to another site.
12/7/22 The Boston Globe: Fighting homelessness, and ‘not in my backyard’
St. Francis House is partnering with the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, the nonprofit housing development arm of the Archdiocese of Boston, and receiving significant opposition, including from local elected officials.
Father Bill’s and MainSpring estimates that in the past 3-5 years, they had to scale-back development plans by 80-90 units for individuals and 30-40 units for families experiencing homelessness.
While public support will continue to be the greatest challenge, the tools that the Cohort will develop will also support the Supportive Housing Coalition in addressing other barriers that require policy and practice change. In the next year, Coalition leadership is planning to advocate for legislation that will address multifamily zoning, increased bond authorizations for programs that finance supportive housing, pooled funding, increases in rental assistance, and interagency collaboration. The tools will support growing the Supportive Housing Pipeline Coalition and will be critical to winning the support needed to create housing. Every single Supportive Housing unit requires tremendous resources to get approved and funded. When all of these tools come together, we will have created the enabling environment.
Just Launched:
New Permanent Supportive Housing Community of Practice
The Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) launched a virtual Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) Community of Practice. This is a new, ongoing opportunity will be hosted on the 4th Thursday of every month at 11AM.
The CoP is for current providers of PSH in a variety of roles – program directors, case managers, supportive service providers, etc. If members of your agency would like to participate in the PSH Community of Practice please click here to submit the names and email addresses of any agency members who would like to participate. Please complete a separate form for each staff person.
For more information contact Ian Gendreau, the Director of Programs & Planning at MHSA at igendreau@mhsa.net.
Launching March 5th:
The CaseMade is coming to Massachusetts to empower your team to make the case for Supportive Housing
Your Supportive Housing team is invited to join a dedicated Strategic CaseMaking cohort. You will practice skills and strategies described in TheCaseMade founder Dr. Tiffany Manuel’s Case Made! 10 Powerful Leadership Principles that Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Grow Impact. The result will be a shared "case guide" to help providers collectively make their case for Supportive Housing, and a CaseMaking peer group to continue to work toward progress together.
Series of six, 90-minute sessions, each beginning at 10:30AM
Series runs bi-weekly March 5 through May 7 with a final case presented on June 25
Sessions hosted virtually with periodic in-person gatherings by region
For more information this flyer and contact Sarah Bartley at United Way or submit an interest form now. Meet our trainer, TheCaseMade, at thecasemade.com.
Launching April 9th:
Gain a deeper understanding of developing and operating Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) with the PSH Learning Forum
The Massachusetts Alliance for Supportive Housing (MASH), in partnership with the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) will host an interactive Permanent Supportive Housing Learning Forum to provide participants with a robust education on developing and delivering high-quality supportive housing with the goal of intentionally increasing the volume and diversity of supportive housing developers in the Commonwealth. This will aid in expanding the inventory of supportive housing and ending chronic and high-need homelessness for individuals, families, and young adults who are experiencing chronic and/or long-term or episodic homelessness and have a disabling condition.
The Learning Forum will start on April 9th with an in-person One-Day Kick-off Conference held in Worcester, MA, followed by a biweekly virtual training series of 1.5-2 hours each hosted over five months. A final event will be held for participants to network, share what they gleaned, and receive technical assistance.
For more information consult this flyer and contact Calpurnyia Roberts, the Director of Supportive Housing and Special Initiatives at MHSA at croberts@mhsa.net for the schedule of sessions and how to register.