SMOC Sober

Housing

Massachusetts

Introduction

The Developer

The Member

The Residents

The Numbers

Tour the Houses

Introduction

SMOC sober house at 90 Irving Street in Framingham, Massachusetts.

South Middlesex Opportunity Council's housing continuum offers a step-by-step approach to overcoming homelessness and substance abuse in Massachusetts.

"We began to experiment with strategies to keep people housed so they wouldn't fall back into homelessness or begin using drugs or alcohol again," says James Cuddy, SMOC's long-time executive director. "That's how our model got started."

Over time, the Framingham, Massachusetts, social-service agency discovered that the most effective remedy for homelessness was to construct environments that addressed the substance-abuse problems of many shelter residents.

"We noticed that the best way to keep folks sober was to have their peers reinforce their sobriety," notes Mr. Cuddy. "Attending meetings, being responsible for their own sobriety, and being with people who would reinforce their sobriety seemed to be the key."

Starting in the late 1980s, SMOC began to acquire many former nursing homes and boarding houses and convert them into single-room-occupancy housing for the homeless. The organization now has more than 30 sober houses in an area stretching from Framingham to Easthampton. Some of these houses are dedicated for specific groups, including women, veterans, young adults, and people with psychiatric disorders.

Residents of SMOC's sober houses pay an affordable rent, help maintain the houses, attend weekly residents' meetings, and participate in substance-abuse programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

"If a resident can't maintain his sobriety, the house will intervene and try to get that person help," says Mr. Cuddy. "That's really the theory behind our sober-housing network."

"Many of the homeless people who live in our housing suffer from both substance abuse and mental illness," he adds. "But we try to have a broad enough approach so that people who don't make much money and need an inexpensive place can also live in these houses."

To finance the organization's elaborate housing continuum, the nonprofit relies on conventional first mortgages through community banks, most of which are members of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. Another key piece of funding has been Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grants and advances. To date, SMOC and its associated organizations have won a total of 10 AHP awards to finance its housing network.

"We could not have created that housing without those Affordable Housing Program grants," says Mr. Cuddy. "The AHP has really been a key source of funding that makes our development model work."