COVID Relief

When COVID-19 hit, Massachusetts faced not just a housing supply and affordability crisis but also a new housing stability crisis as thousands of renters and homeowners lost wages and struggled to pay their housing costs.

The state’s housing organizations had to shift gears from attacking supply and cost issues to developing emergency programs to keep people in their homes.

MHP was no exception, participating in various efforts to deliver funds to those in need. These included:

• Quantifying the need: MHP’s Center for Housing Data (CHD) teamed with Boston Indicators to create the COVID Community Data Lab to analyze and suggest responses to the economic impacts of COVID-19. CHD provided analyses of household ability to pay rent, eviction filings, and what regions were most effective in distributing emergency funds. Its two-part research brief on housing stability was the cornerstone of this effort. 

• Emergency Rental Assistance: In 2021, MHP’s Portfolio Management team helped develop and run the state’s Subsidized Emergency Housing Assistance (SHERA) program. Between May 2021 and June 2022, this federally funded program distributed $33.4 million and helped 21,000 affordable housing and public housing residents who were behind on their rent.

• Mortgage assistance: MHP’s homeownership team designed and administered the state’s Housing Assistance Fund (HAF). Launched in Dec. 2021, HAF worked with over 294 mortgage servicers to channel more than $119 million in mortgage relief on behalf of more than 5,400 homeowners whose ability to make their mortgage payment was impacted by COVID-19.

“This was an unprecedented effort that reached every corner of MHP,” said Clark Ziegler, MHP’s executive director. “We’re proud to have played a role in helping the Commonwealth keep its most vulnerable residents housed during the pandemic.”