Better Access

There are more than 200,000 privately-owned income-restricted rental units across Massachusetts. There’s no reason they should be hard to find.

Our decision to back Housing Navigator with funding and staff support was a no-brainer. Its founder and executive director, Jennifer Gilbert, makes a convincing, impassioned case wherever she goes. She describes how looking for affordable housing involves standing in line for lotteries and combing through newspaper ads while people looking for market rate housing can simply click on a web site.

“For people looking for an affordable home, it’s like 20 years of technology didn’t happen,” Gilbert said at the 2021 MHP Housing Institute. “The digital divide that exists is enormous. There are a lot of pain points. Long lines. Housing opportunities missed. Confusion about eligibility. The inefficiency is heartless.”

Since going live in 2021, progress has been steady. Property listings on Navigator have jumped from 2,100 at the outset to over 3,000. Over 100,000 visit the site each year. Housing administrators attribute an uptick in applications due to Navigator’s searchable list of upcoming lotteries. Social service providers say having listings in one place enables them to spend less time searching for housing and more time helping their clients with other pressing needs.

“Our vision for people standing in line for housing is that it should be like it is for the rest of us,” Gilbert told our audience of local leaders and volunteers. “Our goal is to reduce all that waiting and make the search for affordable housing easier.”

“Our goal is to reduce the waiting and make the search for affordable housing easier.” 
– Jennifer Gilbert