HomeBASE Sign-on Letter Sent to Legislators with Participation from 68 Organizations Across the Commonwealth. Let's Keep Up the Momentum!
HomeBASE is a program administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to assist extremely low-income children and their families pay rent to private market landlords and to cover other essential housing needs. HomeBASE currently provides eligible families a maximum of $10,000 over 12 months, and only is available for families that otherwise would be residing in the state’s Emergency Assistance (EA) shelter system.
Since May, advocates statewide have been asking DHCD to create a plan for families whose HomeBASE benefits were set to expire during the pandemic. We have been urging DHCD to renew the HomeBASE assistance for another year for eligible families to retain their housing rather than face eviction and return to EA shelter. Thus far no plan has been released, and each month more families lose access to the program that helps keep them safe at home.
In a meeting with DHCD this week, senior staff confirmed that the only families that currently can receive any additional shelter or HomeBASE assistance after the expiration of the initial HomeBASE award, according to DHCD's interpretation of the program's rule and restrictions, are families that once again meet the narrow eligibility criteria for EA shelter, including the need to be experiencing homelessness due to domestic violence; fire, flood, or natural disaster; excused fault eviction; or extreme health and safety risk.
We coordinated efforts to send an organizational sign-on letter to the Legislature asking legislative leadership and members to urge DHCD and the Governor immediately to extend HomeBASE benefits for an additional year to eligible families, and to consider including language in the FY’21 budget or another legislative vehicle requiring DHCD to provide extensions to eligible families. The final version of the sign-on letter, which included 68 organizations, is linked here.
Details about the campaign are on our website.
We have been hearing back from legislators who have sent their own letters to legislative leadership, Governor Baker, and DHCD. We still need to increase the pressure to make sure swift action is taken to preserve housing stability for families participating in HomeBASE.
Next Step:
Please reach out to your State Legislators by phone and email to let them know that this is an important issue to you, and that you want to see them take action to protect families and landlords participating in the HomeBASE program (line item 7004-0108).
Ask your legislators to:
- Pressure the Baker Administration to take action administratively
- Strongly advocate with legislative leadership to include language and funding for renewals in the FY'21 budget (or another bill that is moving
Find out who your State Representative and Senator are and their contact information by going to www.wheredoivotema.com. You can call your legislators by dialing the State House switchboard: 617-722-2000.
