“Home means to me having loved ones all around you. Sharing each other’s day spending quality time with each other.” –Anonymous
“Everything because I want to have a roof over my kid’s head.”
–Emily Hache lolinga
We asked Housing Navigator MA users: What does home mean to you?
“Home is my peace, my serenity. Home should be my one safe space in this world. Without a home, I can do nothing. The base for life is our home.”
–Renter
“Protección.”
–Anonymous
“
The place where I feel safe and comfortable.”
–Alexa from Somerville
“A place and space of my own with my name on the lease.”
–Paul T. on the North Shore
and chronically homeless survivor from Dorchester
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
When Housing Navigator MA launched in 2020, we created values to guide our work in connecting people with a place to call home. Over the past year, we reached a turning point in one of those values: centering the renter’s perspective with both lived experience and data. With the innovative combination of our 24/7 housing search tool and our new Affordable Housing Supply Dashboards, we’ve put previously unavailable information in the hands of people trying to find their way home—and everyone working tirelessly to address our Commonwealth’s critical housing gap.
Our first-ever data release in January was the product of a four-year journey to collect and visualize information about the statewide and town-by-town affordable rental housing supply. Our release was by no means an endpoint. As we celebrate the third anniversary of the launch of our search tool, we’ll keep seeking more ways to join forces between lived experience and data-driven policy.
As you’ll see in our 2024 Impact Report, we’re constantly leveraging this twopronged approach to help our organization and others within the affordable housing ecosystem find pathways to change. Together, we are making a difference. Whether it’s being inspired by our Home is the Foundation series or collaborating with advocates, service providers and the public sector toward more transparency and housing production, I’m motivated by the progress we witness every day.
To the Housing Navigator team, partners and supporters—thank you for how you help drive our mission forward. You make it possible for us to deliver—creatively and compassionately—on our promise to connect people with places to call home.
QUICK LINKS
Jennifer Gilbert Founder & Executive Director
FY2024 by the numbers
400,000
Number of unique visitors searching on our site in the last year
3,777
Statewide properties analyzed in our Data Dashboards
“They’re in your corner.”
From our annual user survey, answering the question: How would you describe Housing Navigator MA?
379 Largest audience at a Housing Navigator MA information session
291 Towns represented in our Data Dashboards
300% Annual increase in visitors since our 2021 launch
Thought Leadership
Making connections and advancing the affordable housing conversation, the Housing Navigator MA team presented on how we can bring transparency to the affordable housing market.
The affordable housing problem in Massachusetts might be even worse than we thought
OP-ED | COMMONWEALTH BEACON, JUNE 2024
an op-ed about a critical housing supply finding and how to manage forward toward the housing we need.
Boston Area Research Initiative Conference
BOSTON, APRIL 2024
COO April Ognibene and ILC Coordinator Jordan Stocker presented initial findings from Housing Navigator MA’s custom-built accessible housing data.
Equitable Affordable Housing in the Digital Age REPORT | JUNE 2024
This report, a collaboration between Housing Navigator MA, Exygy and Ivory Innovations, makes the case for leveraging technology and lays out the eight “ingredients for success” to building an affordable housing search platform like ours.
Affordable Housing Council
URBAN LAND INSTITUTE, NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 2024
Executive Director Jennifer Gilbert served on a panel on “Hot Topics in Affordable Housing Technology.”
HNMI Executive Director Jennifer Gilber and Aja Kennedy, a research fellow at Boston Indicators, penned
OUR DATA DASHBOARD
This first-of-its kind information is available and free to the public 24/7 on the Our Data tab of our website. The State of Affordable Housing dashboards contain interactive town-by-town and statewide information, covering more than 3,700 properties, and are essential to better charting the path toward the homes that Massachusetts needs.
Data Reveal Day
In January, we held our first Data Reveal Day to release the most comprehensive inventory of affordable housing in the Commonwealth. Our goal was to show the very same gaps that renters are experiencing— because what gets measured is what gets managed.
As an inspiration for how we hope people will use our data, research teams from Boston University, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, and Boston Indicators presented findings based on our 2023 data. Be sure to check out those presentations here, and look out for a fall publication using our data from BU’s Katie Einstein and Max Palmer.
AFFORDABLE + ACCESSIBLE RENTAL REPORT
Responding to feedback from one of the Data Reveal Day break-out groups, we released a report on Affordable + Accessible Rentals in June, another first for bringing transparency to this critical resource. And we’re just getting started! Stay tuned for updated dashboards and more work bringing our data into the conversation in early 2025.
Boston Indicators Aja Kennedy presents at Data Reveal Day
Home is the Foundation
CAMPAIGN
Each year, shifting the narrative around who lives in subsidized and public housing, Housing Navigator MA shares reflections from Massachusetts leaders who grew up there. Here’s what Boston’s Former Chief of Planning Arthur Jemison, Compass Working Capital Board Member Scott Carmel and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell had to say during Fair Housing Month in April.
RESULTS FROM OUR ANNUAL USER SURVEY
“ How would you describe Housing Navigator MA?”
FROM RENTERS SEARCHING FOR A HOME
“They’re in your corner.”
“A great resource that is updated frequently.”
“It is easily accessible and clear in finding the housing you need.”
FROM SERVICE PROVIDERS
“Housing Navigator has helped many of the clients I’ve worked with, it’s very organized and easy to work with.”
“The best website to get started if you are looking for an apartment.”
“It provides a space to gather lots of information about affordable housing in MA. It reduces a lot of the frustration in having to look at sites individually.”
Arthur, his sister, and his mom on the day of his college graduation in front of the home where he grew up in Amherst.
Scott as an elementary school student.
Building Relationships
We were thrilled to be among our many partners in person and online this year. Here are just a few of our favorite appearances.
New England Affordable Housing Management Association Conference
Emma Rial, Abby Werner, Tori Decker and April Ognibene
Monthly online information sessions and special convenings hosted by partners at EOHLC and MRC
