Tools

Advocates' Guide 2024!

Every year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition publishes the Advocates’ Guide to educate advocates of all kinds about the programs and policies that make housing affordable to low-income people across America.

A VISION FOR INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES

MASSACHUSETTS COALITION FOR RACIAL EQUITY IN HOUSING

National Housing & Financial Capability Survey

NeighborWorks America
On June 24, 2021, NeighborWorks America released findings from its 2021 Housing and Financial Capability Survey, which was conducted in April. The survey showed that many people see the advantages in owning a home but are unequipped to handle financial challenges that stall their dream of homeownership. Since 2019, NeighborWorks America has conducted its annual Housing and Financial Capability Survey to collect data that helps set the foundation for the stabilization of communities. Prior to 2019, the organization released a spring consumer finance survey and a fall homeownership survey. The findings from the survey help NeighborWorks America understand who still needs the organization's help and the areas that need the most attention.

Worforce Training Fund Express Program - Passive House and LEED certifications

BE+
Any company is eligible for $30,000 of training per year through this grant application. There are many certification for building sustainability measures.

Commonwealth Workforce Training Fund Express Program

Workforce Training Fund
50 courses approved to provide PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant training.

Project Manager Core Skills Toolkit

Mel King Institute
The Tracker tool was designed to support the growth and development of non-profit real estate project managers. The tool can be adapted to suit needs of various project managers, as job titles and the division of work will differ for each organization. It can be used with a supervisor/supervisee relationship or as an individual project manager self-assessment.

Know Your Rights: Source of Income Discrimination FAQ

Attorney General, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts residents who rely on public assistance, including rental assistance programs, often face unique challenges in securing housing, which is a key pathway to economic security. Because we recognize the importance of access to housing, we have prepared this guide to help educate residents and landlords on their rights and obligations in this area.

State and Local Antidiscrimination Laws Could Help Renters Access Emergency Rental Assistance and Keep Their Homes

Urban Institute
Despite the needs of both renters and landlords, some landlords are not accepting rent relief. We don’t have much data on how many landlords are refusing rental relief or their motivations for doing so, but we know that the outcomes can be dire for tenants, especially low-income renters and renters of color, who often face housing discrimination when using federal assistance.

COVID Eviction Legal Help Video - Ed's Story

COVID Eviction Legal Help Project (CELHP)
Last October, the COVID Eviction Legal Help Project (CELHP) was created through the Governor’s Eviction Diversion Initiative. Since its inception, CELHP has provided legal help in over 3,650 eviction cases.

Facing an Eviction Informational Videos

COVID Eviction Legal Help Project
Learn what to do if you are facing an eviction in Massachusetts.

South End Affordable Housing Tour

Corcoran Center
South End Affordable Housing Tour with Vince O'Donnell

National Low Income Housing Profiles by State

National Low Income Housing Coalition
Our Housing Profiles provide a one-page snapshot of the information advocates need to make the case for socially just housing policy. The State Housing Profiles are perfect to take with you when meeting with a state elected official or U.S. Senator. Take the Congressional District Housing Profile for your congressional district with you when you meet with your U.S. Representative.

MA Self-Guided Eviction Tool

Greater Boston Legal Services
This completely free guided interview is for Massachusetts tenants who are being evicted. It is estimated to take between 25 and 90 minutes for a typical tenant to use on their own. It will help you make sure that you respond to your landlord's eviction case correctly.

State Support for Local School Construction: Leveraging Equity and Diversity

Lauren Mittman, Nikhil De, and Philip Tegeler
Historically, state support for suburban school construction facilitated white flight and metropolitan segregation. The least we can do today is think more carefully about the impacts of future school construction funding. PRRAC has prepared a policy brief on this question, based on a state-by-state survey of current practices.

Best Practices for RAD "Choice-Mobility" Implementation

Poverty & Race Research Action Council
The Rental Assistance Demonstration has become the most significant public housing redevelopment program in the U.S., bringing new funds to support aging properties around the country. One essential element of the program is that, after conversion, all tenants have a right to request a portable Housing Choice Voucher, and move to a community of their choice (thus opening up their apartment to another eligible family on the waiting list). Few housing authorities have worked out plans for implementation of this Choice-Mobility feature of the program, so we have developed a guidance document for PHAs and advocates, based on extensive policy research and interviews.

Fifty Years Of “The People v. HUD”

Poverty & Race research Action Council (PRRAC)
HUD has benefited enormously from strong civil rights advocacy, and many of HUD’s most important regulatory guidelines have emerged from this advocacy. We offer this selected timeline as a tribute to this ongoing history and, we hope, an inspiration to a new generation of civil rights and tenant activists.

The Boston Foundation Racial Equity Capacity Builders Directory

The Boston Foundation
As part of its continued work to support nonprofits as it centers and advances racial equity within its organizations, the Boston Foundation worked with partners to develop a directory of racial equity capacity builders currently serving Greater Boston nonprofit organizations. The directory lists 80 individuals and organizations providing racial equity capacity building services. Please use this as a resource for organizational racial equity goals.

COVID Community Data Lab

Boston Indicators
We’re scanning the best available data sources to analyze how our communities have changed since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in early March. (Since public health experts are covering the dynamics of the virus spread, we focus here mostly on non-virus-related areas.) We’re looking at non-traditional sources like call volumes to the state’s 211 social service call center and road traffic through Mass Pike toll gantries. None of them are perfect, and there’s a lot of other data we wish we had. But taken together these sources paint a picture of how much our day-to-day lives have been altered across a few key domains.

Cambridge College Resource Library for Business Development Program

Cambridge College
The Business Resource Library connects Consultants, Technical Assistance Providers and students to a variety of learning tools, including sample documents and industry trend topics. This library can quickly provide comprehensive information you may need to assist small businesses during their start-up, stabilization and growth phases. These materials can be downloaded from the links below. This library was built with the collaboration of Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation (MGCC), Mel King Institute, Lawyers for Civil Rights, and Technical Assistance providers.

COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard

Eviction Lab
Safe, stable, and decent housing has always been central to ensuring health and stability. Today, with the United States focused on containing the COVID-19 pandemic, the broader and longstanding issue of income and housing insecurity has quickly become paramount to the health of an entire nation.To better understand the steps states have taken to prevent homelessness during and after the pandemic, the Eviction Lab and Columbia Law School’s Professor Emily Benfer have developed a policy scorecard for each state, distilling the contents of thousands of newly-released emergency orders, declarations, and legislation into a clear set of critical measures included in, and left out of, state-level pandemic responses related to eviction and housing.

Arts & Planning Toolkit

MAPC
The Arts and Planning Toolkit has been given a reboot to become better aligned with the needs of municipal planners who are doing arts and culture-related work. Each page now follows a consistent outline of tools, resources, and examples to show how ideas may be put into action.

Storytelling Toolkit: Lessons Learned from NHT's "Where Will We Live"

National Housing Trust
This toolkit is a guide for advocates to replicate the National Housing Trust’s efforts and successfully employ digital, visual and audio storytelling strategies within their advocacy tactics.

Opportunity360 Community Dashboard

Enterprise
Opportunity360 Community Dashboards provide the information necessary to determine where action is most needed and where established programs and policies have been most successful in any neighborhood in the country. These dashboards now allow data comparison for up to three census tracts, anywhere in the US. In the free Opportunity360 Community Dashboards, you will find over 150 indicators from 27 sources.

Public Policy Resources

BestColleges.com
This guide includes links to free public policy online resources that will help one get a better sense of the entire field.

Public Policy Career Outlook

BestColleges.com
This guide provides you with in-depth information on degree planning including program structures, concentrations, and skill development and application for a Public Policy career.

Earning a Public Policy Master’s Degree

BestColleges.com
This resource will help you learn about the common Master's in Public Policy admission requirements, coursework, and jobs available for graduates.

Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgement

Sponsored by: U.S. Department of Arts and Culture
Created in partnership with Native allies and organizations, the Guide offers context about the practice of acknowledgment, gives step-by-step instructions for how to begin wherever you are, and provides tips for moving beyond acknowledgment into action.

Vision, Values, and Voice: A Communications Toolkit

The Opportunity Agenda
This toolkit focuses on the broader goal of identifying universal themes and values that tie together a range of issues.

Rights for Renters Messaging

Public Will Initiative with Topos
This tool reiterates focusing on the positives instead of the negatives when it comes to messaging. Even though the series is called Rights for Renters, it isn’t actually limited to renter issue areas—such as the Critiquing Without Undermining Government brief.

A Progressive’s Style Guide

Hanna Thomas (SumOfUs.org); Anna Hirsch (ActivistEditor.com)
A Progressive’s Style Guide is explicitly multi-voiced and is created with the following commitments. 1) We combat discriminatory language. 2) We seek advice or more information when we’re unsure. 3) When writing, speaking, or using images, we aim to use examples that reflect a broad range of identities and perspectives.

Housing Matters

Urban Institute
Housing Matters is an online resource for the most rigorous research and practical information on how a quality, stable, affordable home in a vibrant community contributes to individual and community success.

The Move

Ceasar McDowell, Founder; Ayushi Roy, Podcast co-host; Misael Galdamez, Website Author; Julia Curbera, Website Author
The Move is a movement to rebuild our public’s muscle for democracy. This movement aims to bring together people of all backgrounds who are seeking to facilitate real civic engagement in today’s democracies. The Move rebuilds our public muscle in three ways: We will partner in the design and implementation of at least one civic engagement project each year. We will provide a collaborative learning and knowledge exchange platform on TheMove.MIT.edu and it’s adjacent social media channels for cities, institutions, and community organizations. We will advance learning, experimentation, and innovation in civic design using eight design principles.

Massachusetts Defense For Eviction (MADE): Self-Guided Eviction Help

Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)
This completely free guided interview is for Massachusetts tenants who are being evicted. It is estimated to take between 25 and 90 minutes for a typical tenant to use on their own. It will help you make sure that you respond to your landlord's eviction case correctly.

DataTown

Massachusetts Housing Partnership's Center for Housing Data
The site compiles community-level information from various data sources for all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns, and visualizes that data in graphics and charts so it's easy to understand, print out and bring to a community discussion.

Homes for Families: Family Housing Resource Guide Massachusetts

Brooke Murphy, UMass Boston Master of Public Administration Graduate Student
All of the resources, terms, definitions, subsidies and programs one should know to create affordable family housing in Massachusetts.

Green + Healthy Property Management: A Guide for Multifamily Affordable Housing

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
LISC created this Guide to help affordable housing owners define and pursue measures to reduce the use of energy, water, and harmful chemicals in their properties, reduce waste generated on site, create healthier living environments for residents, and reduce the carbon and environmental footprint associated with residential properties.

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