LSC’s Housing Justice for Survivors program Awarded MGH Community Health Impact Funds

Via LSC Blog

BOSTON, MA – The WilmerHale Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School is pleased to announce that we have received Massachusetts General Hospital, part of the Mass General Brigham health system, Community Health Impact Funds to support our Housing Justice for Survivors program, directed by Julia Devanthéry. This vital investment will allow LSC to deepen our partnership with Casa Myrna and reach more survivors who face housing insecurity, eviction, and homelessness. 

This funding is part of $18 million in Community Health Impact Funds that  has been awarded to 22 local organizations to support affordable housing initiatives in Boston and North Suffolk County. The Phillip and Susan Ragon Building, a multi-year construction project that will result in a state-of-the-art clinical care building on the MGH campus, triggered this landmark investment through the Massachusetts Determination of Need (DoN) process.  This DoN investment—totaling more than $62 million dollars—is the largest in Massachusetts history. 

“Survivors of gender-based violence face complex housing challenges. Some clients need representation to make sure they don’t become homeless as a result of abuse, and others need a lawyer to help them flee a dangerous home without financial penalties or the loss of vital housing benefits. These funds will help us support more survivors alongside our incredible community partner, Casa Myrna,” said Julia Devanthéry, Attorney, Lecturer on Law and Director of LSC’s Housing Justice for Survivor’s Project. “Through our unique collaboration, survivors will get holistic support: legal help to ensure that they don’t suffer housing consequences due to violence, trauma-informed safety planning, and access to all available housing supports from expert housing advocates.”

“Housing insecurity and substandard housing are strongly linked to health conditions like cardiovascular disease, asthma, and chronic stress,” said David Brown, MD, Mass General Brigham’s President, Academic Medical Centers. “We are so pleased for the opportunity to invest in and partner with these community-based organizations offering life- and health-altering solutions to the housing crisis in Suffolk County.” 

“The housing crisis in our state and across the country is felt most acutely in historically marginalized communities,” said Leslie Aldrich, MPH, Mass General Brigham’s Executive Director for Community Health. “The 22 proposals chosen reflect an equitable, multi-pronged approach to benefitting those most impacted by housing insecurity—unhoused populations, LGBTQ+, immigrants, domestic violence survivors, communities of color, and more.” 

Following more than a year of thoughtful consideration and rigorous deliberation, the MGH Community Advisory Board (CAB), guided by the community-driven 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment, identified four Community Health Impact Funds priorities. The $18M housing allocation is the first to be rolled out, with funding opportunities for the other three priorities—mental and behavioral health, economic mobility and financial stability, and food insecurity—being released this spring and summer.

A 12-member Housing Allocation Committee, comprised of community leaders and housing experts from local and state government, public agencies, non-profits, and the philanthropic community, selected the awardees. The decisions were based on creative, community-centered, impactful proposals addressing at least one of the three strategies determined by the CAB: production and preservation of affordable housing, eviction prevention, and support for community development corporations and other non-profit development organizations.

About The Housing Justice for Survivors Project at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School 

Within the Housing Clinic, The Housing Justice for Survivors Project helps survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and sexual harassment who need to move to safe housing or who are trying to keep their homes. We represent clients facing eviction, loss of housing subsidies, those in need of safety transfers, and people who need to terminate their tenancies for safety reasons.  Located at the crossroads of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury in the City of Boston, the Legal Services Center is a community-based public interest law firm. We are home to six legal clinics—Consumer Protection Clinic, Housing Law Clinic, Family Justice Clinic, Tax Litigation Clinic, LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, and the Veterans Legal Clinic—and are Harvard Law School’s largest clinical placement site. The Center’s long-standing mission is to fight for fairness, justice, and legal, economic, and social change, by addressing our community’s civil legal needs and training the next generation of public interest lawyers. For more information, please visit https://legalservicescenter.org/.

About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org. 

About Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. Massachusetts General Hospital is a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. 

About Casa Myrna 

Casa Myrna is Boston’s largest provider of shelter and supportive services to survivors of domestic violence, providing safety, resources, advocacy and information since 1977. Our comprehensive range of services, available in both Spanish and English, provide survivors with tools to recover from the trauma of abuse and begin to build sustainable self-sufficiency. For more information, please visit https://casamyrna.org

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