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Housing · Case Management · Western Massachusetts
One Application, 25 Waitlists: My Approach for Every Housing Case
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The first thing I had to let go of was the idea that I was going to solve housing.
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I know how that sounds. But once I got honest about what the crisis actually looks like on the ground. Not enough apartments, not enough accessible units, waitlists that stretch seven to ten years. Something shifted. I stopped trying to fix something I couldn't fix and started focusing on something I could actually run: a workflow. That's what this is. Not a solution. A workflow that holds.
Who I'm Usually Working With
Almost every housing referral I get is for someone whose income comes from Social Security: SSI, SSDI, or both. The age range is wide. I've worked with people as young as 21 and as old as 93, 94. That tells you quickly that this isn't a niche population. This is everybody.
And the barriers layer on top of each other in a way that's hard to explain unless you've sat across from it. CORIs. Past evictions. Active or past addiction. No rental history. An income that doesn't touch anything on the open market. In Western Mass, you can have one of those things and be in a tough spot. You have two or three and you're not looking for an apartment. You're waiting for a door to open.
The First Call
When a referral comes in, I call the person. First move, every time.
Part of that call is confirming the need, making sure what was reported in the referral actually matches where the person is right now. But I also use it to complete a social determinants of health screening, because housing almost never travels alone. I explain what the SDOH assessment is, why I'm asking what I'm asking, and what it's meant to catch. People respond well to that. Nobody likes being asked a long list of questions without knowing why.
Start with CHAMP
After the screening, my first real move on the housing side is connecting the person to CHAMP, the Common Housing Application for Massachusetts Programs. It's a centralized platform that lets someone apply to multiple housing programs and housing authorities across the state in one place. That's the big deal about it.
You choose up to 25 housing authorities. Within each town, you can apply to multiple programs: housing for elders, for families, for people with disabilities. Every town has its own housing authority, its own waitlist, its own budget. Springfield has one. Chicopee has one. Holyoke, Greenfield, Northampton. All of them. CHAMP lets you put yourself in front of as many of those programs as make sense.
How I help someone get through CHAMP depends entirely on the person. Some people can do it themselves. I give them the link and a heads up on what to expect. Some people need me to walk them through it over the phone, which gets tricky because it involves opening an email and clicking a verification link, and that step alone can be a wall for some folks. When phone support isn't enough, I schedule a home visit and we do it together in person.
The application itself is pretty standard stuff: name, address, income, housing history for the last five years. The hard part isn't filling it out. The hard part is getting the person to start.
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One Thing a Lot of People Miss
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The Springfield Housing Authority has federal housing applications that don't show up on CHAMP at all. You have to walk in and ask for them. Word is that these applications are moving faster right now, around two years, which when you're used to hearing seven to ten, actually starts to sound like something. I bring this up with every client in the Springfield area. 35 Saab Court, Springfield. It's worth a trip.
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On How Many Applications to File
This is where it gets more judgment call than checklist. Some of it comes from the client: where they're willing to live, what kind of building, how urgent things actually feel for them. Some people are in crisis. Some people have a strong preference and aren't ready to expand that yet. You meet them where they are.
What I've found is that having a clear sense of where a case begins, what the middle looks like, and what a legitimate endpoint is. That's what keeps you from carrying cases forever while you wait for a housing crisis to resolve itself. It won't. The case can still close. The person can still be in a better position than when they came to you.
What This Actually Is
We can't build apartments. We can't fix the market. We can't move someone to the top of a waitlist because we want good things for them. But accepting that isn't just a coping strategy. It's the first step to becoming a better social worker. When you stop fighting what's out of your hands, you start doing more with what's in them.
What we can do is point them in the right direction, hand them the tools, and teach them how to use those tools themselves. Educate. Guide. Show them what's available and how to get there. Most people, given the right information and a clear next step, can do more than we give them credit for.
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