Braintree Housing Authority's Mission Extends to Veterans, Building Families

Lately in Massachusetts, the phrase Housing Authority brings to mind senior safety issues or excessive executive payments, but these public agencies also play a significant role in helping people who are struggling to earn enough money to support their families and themselves.

In Braintree, on the edge of Holbrook off Route 37, sits a low-slung, tan building surrounded by a horseshoe of low-income apartments for seniors and the disabled. Just beyond the edge of the property is a large swath of former Norfolk County Hospital land, and just inside is an office, filled with cabinets and desks brimming with documents. The documents represent programs and guidelines, and also people, looking for assistance.

Section 8 housing, a federal voucher program, is well-known for causing consternation among cities and towns tasked with reaching a 10 percent low-income housing threshold. Last year, a question appeared unsuccessfully on the state ballot that would have eliminated the Massachusetts law that allows for the easing of zoning restrictions for developers who agree to sell a percentage of low-income units.

But the voucher program – funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and operated through public housing agencies like the Braintree Housing Authority – also lends a hand to homeless veterans, while another offshoot helps people who qualify for low-income housing save money for homeownership and higher education.

"I have the best job in town," Lauren Murphy, executive director of the Braintree agency, said in a recent interview, sitting in the community room at the authority's Roosevelt Street headquarters.

"To see somebody be able to buy a house is pretty exciting," Murphy said. "We have some great success stories working with families."

Murphy first joined the Braintree Housing Authority more than a decade ago, working as a coordinator of Section 8 programs. In 2002, after a year off working for a private company, she returned as the director, reviewing the budget, meeting with Housing Authority board members monthly and implementing new programs. Her next big project, Murphy said, is to digitize file keeping. "We're bursting at the seams," she said.

The agency oversees more than 1,000 units around Braintree, including the 667 surrounding the Roosevelt Street building. Others are across town at the William F. McRae on Heritage Lane, at Skyline Drive, Independence Manor and in scattered complexes and single-family homes. Both state and federal programs pay for portions of the rent, depending on the program and a person's income. What residents can pay, also depending on the program, goes to fund the agency's operating budget.

In 2009, vouchers were made available to the authority in Braintree from the federal government to help house homeless veterans. Known as Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing, the VASH program was adopted by Congress at the end of 2007 and tied to Section 8, enacted back in 1937.

Braintree was initially provided with 35 vouchers, which, once issued to a veteran, can be used nationwide. Over the next two years, 50 more were made available. Right now Veterans Agent Richard Walsh said he is working with one disabled veteran, unable to work, living in an apartment in Braintree.

The program, Walsh said, puts veterans in a "well-deserved position" high on the Section 8 list. He meets with the Braintree veteran twice a month to check in and discuss his disability benefits, Walsh said.

Another veteran Walsh worked with has since moved from Braintree to Lynn. Murphy said approximately 50 vouchers have been issued by the local authority.

Laurie Cumberland, a long-time employee of the authority, said that once veterans are approved for the program – they must meet federal definitions of homelessness and agree to participate in case management, for instance – they receive regular help from agency workers, who help them with everything from annual program inspections to paying their utility bills.

Veterans who have passed through the program in Braintree have ranged in age from 22 years old to more than 70 years old, Cumberland said. One veteran was living in the woods by a local Walmart and had the manager there submit a letter as part of his application process. Cumberland smiled as she recounted another story, of a 50-year-old man who had saved his disability money for weeks before his voucher came through and then went and bought furniture for his move-in day.

When Cumberland began at the agency in 2002, it was as a coordinator for another Section 8 subset, called the Homeownership Voucher Program. Not all public housing agencies participate in the program, nor do all take part in VASH, but Braintree's authority is a designated high-performer by HUD and is in good standing with the state, Murphy said.

This year, the ownership program accumulated $70,000 in escrow accounts for several people involved through Braintree's agency. The money can be used to purchase a home, or, in the case of one resident Murphy mentioned, to help fund the education necessary to become a nurse.

Participants must commit to at least four years, and as their rent increases during the program – agency workers help them with life and job skills to increase their income – a portion of that increase is matched with federal funds and put into a savings account.

"We believe in them," Murphy said. "We believe it's the answer."

A woman that Cumberland assisted started on welfare, studying at her desk in the bathroom, and is now working on her doctorate. "These are motivated people," she said.

The program, Cumberland added, gives people the sense that they can better their situation, and their children's future – that they will not always have to live in affordable housing, though if they remain there and improve, that's fine as well.

"We're not looking for a quick fix," Cumberland said. "We're looking for something that will give them a self-sufficient wage."