Editor’s Note: On Wednesday, March 12, at 9:30 a.m., The Berkshire Edge will present a free webinar on “The Housing Crisis in the Berkshires—A panel discussion featuring Mass. Housing Secretary Edward Augustus.” Local housing advocates Eileen Peltier of Hearthway, Jane Ralph of Construct, Inc., and Jim Harwood of the Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire, will join Secretary Augustus on this panel, and local business leaders will be invited to contribute questions and comments regarding the impact of the housing crisis on the local economy. Click here to sign up to attend this webinar.
This is the third in a series of Edge business webinars. Many thanks to Berkshire Money Management and Lee Bank for generously sponsoring the series.
Berkshire County — With its lack of affordable housing, western Massachusetts officials and agencies have been searching for ways to accommodate the region’s rental community members. Nonprofit organization Hearthway, formerly known as Berkshire Housing Corporation, is at the heart of that quest and will now be bringing its advisors to Great Barrington, North Adams, and Williamstown to reach those residents who might not know where to begin to find a roof over their heads.
Hearthway provides financial assistance and housing resources for both tenants and landlords in Berkshire County. Although the Pittsfield-based group meets with clients and prospective clients at its Fenn Street main office, staff are slated to hold meeting hours in the community rooms at its residential complexes in March, providing assistance with federal and state housing programs.
In North County, Hearthway representatives will offer services to individuals on a walk-in basis on March 4, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Clark Biscuit Apartments at 191 Ashland Street in North Adams, and on March 13, from 1 to 4 p.m., at the Cole Avenue Apartments, 330 Cole Avenue in Williamstown. The organization has also scheduled walk-in office hours in the South County town of Great Barrington on March 6, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Bentley Apartments, 20 Bentley Avenue, and on March 10, from noon to 2 p.m., at the Windrush Commons at 910 Main Street.
Providing office hours in the communities they own and manage is a new venture for the organization that rebranded itself in June, said Hearthway Director of Housing Resources Education and Access Jane Pixley. “We have had a real culture shift to meet the needs of the community,” she said. “Not only are we trying to prevent homelessness and increase housing opportunities and support low-income households in Berkshire County, but we’re also trying to be a partner in the journey of sustaining that housing.”
According to Pixley, the name change reflects Hearthway’s efforts that don’t stop at finding apartments for individuals or a subsidy to fund that unit but go a step further in assisting clients to seek out ways of staying in that housing, an aspect of the organization that had previously been missing. Besides administering Section 8 vouchers promulgated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that enable very low-income recipients to choose any residence that meets the program’s requirements, Hearthway offers help with other government assistance programs, including grants to aid individuals in coming out of homelessness.
“We wanted to make sure that people who couldn’t make it to Pittsfield, which is where our main office is, or who were intimidated by getting on the bus or for whatever reason couldn’t get a ride here and can’t navigate our website, that we made ourselves available to people in North County and South County,” Pixley said.
The neighborhood walk-in program debuted in February but wasn’t well attended because very few people knew about it, she said. The sessions aren’t confined to just tenants or current clients in their neighborhoods but are also available to landlords and persons wanting to become first-time homebuyers.
The timing for offering field office hours is relevant, Pixley said, as housing costs continue to skyrocket, shelters endure new pressure to move residents through the process from long wait lists, and a lack of apartment inventory so a larger group of renters are competing for the same small set of units.
“Housing searches are especially a problem right now,” she said. “Even if we could say to somebody, ‘You’re approved for us to move you into an apartment,’ then the issue becomes ‘where are they going.’ That’s a statewide struggle; that’s not just us.”
Additionally, individuals living in very high-rent districts in the Commonwealth are being directed by advocates to areas where rents aren’t as high, such as the Berkshires, adding to the local competition for housing.
The information that can be provided in the face-to-face sessions is also available online, but Pixley said these meetings offer a chance for individuals who aren’t as adept with technology to gain housing insight or “[who] really just want to sit in front of somebody and say, ‘This is what’s going on with me, what do I do and who do I talk to.’”
“Considering what’s happening in the world today, we felt like making it more of a human interaction might help people feel like there is some hope out there, that somebody is listening to them, that they’re being heard, and that we’re here to help,” she said.
For more information, visit Hearthway’s website or call (413) 499-1630.
