The Neighborhood Hub
About the Neighborhood Hub
The Neighborhood Hub is a technical assistance grant program that supports neighborhood revitalization in communities across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Hub helps participating municipalities and their local or regional partners identify and implement strategies to repair and renew neighborhoods with high rates of vacant, abandoned, and deteriorating homes.
The Neighborhood Hub is managed by MassHousing in collaboration with MassDevelopment, the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP), the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), the Massachusetts Institute for New Commonwealth (MassINC), the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC), and the Attorney General's Office.
Mission Statement
MassHousing's Neighborhood Hub will provide selected Gateway Cities with technical assistance for comprehensive neighborhood revitalization projects. Our vision for technical assistance involves interventions tailored to the needs of local markets and specific neighborhoods as a catalyst for housing creation.
Program Overview
The Neighborhood Hub works with Gateway Cities and their regional and nonprofit partners for three years to provide technical assistance grants of up to $200,000 for comprehensive neighborhood revitalization projects.
Selected communities work with Neighborhood Hub staff and local partners to craft projects that respond to the specific needs of the community and neighborhood. For examples of Neighborhood Hub grant activities, view the current Neighborhood Hub projects highlighted below.
Eligibility
The Neighborhood Hub is open to the 26 Gateway Cities in the Commonwealth: Attleboro, Barnstable, Brockton, Chelsea, Chicopee, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Methuen, New Bedford, Peabody, Pittsfield, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Springfield, Taunton, Westfield, and Worcester.
The program is also open to projects that respond to a regional need. All regional projects must have a Gateway City as the lead partner and require the identification of a target neighborhood or corridor for small-scale project implementation and focused technical assistance and support.
Neighborhood Hub Communities
The following communities have previously received technical assistance and continue to benefit from ongoing support through The Neighborhood Hub: Brockton, Chelsea, Fall River, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Malden, Lynn, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester.
Receivership
Dina Fein is a retired Massachusetts Housing Court judge with deep expertise in property receivership and housing law. During her judicial career, she presided over numerous receivership cases, developing a strong understanding of the legal frameworks governing these actions.
Following her retirement, Dina partnered with the City of Springfield to facilitate a pilot program helps nonprofit organizations convert properties in receivership into affordable homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers. She played a key role in drafting and advancing state legislation to codify a nonprofit receivership process into Massachusetts law. With the passage of this legislation, Dina is working with The Neighborhood Hub to scale the use of receivership as an effective tool for expanding affordable homeownership to more communities across the Commonwealth.
To learn more about the receivership technical assistance initiative, email NeighborhoodHub@masshousing.com.
Project Highlight: New Bedford Vacant Property Viewer
Developed by Innes Land Strategies Group Associates with support from The Neighborhood Hub, the New Bedford Vacant Property Viewer is an online map and data collection system served by ESRI’s ArcGIS Online cloud platform. The tool allows the City of New Bedford to update data from the Assessor's, Facilities & Fleet Management, Inspectional Services, Health, and Treasurer-Collector's Department systems and then map properties that have been identified with issues. The data displayed for each parcel shows property details, property tax status and lien details, and property management. City staff can also populate the tool while doing windshield surveys or otherwise inspecting properties in the field.