A New Online Search Tool for Massachusetts Affordable Housing

Good information drives good choices.  Few choices are as important as where to live.

For some, a few clicks deliver attractive photos of housing near school, work or family, updates on openings, and 360-degree videos of interiors and amenities.

For low and moderate income households in Massachusetts, it was a whole different world, as if twenty years of technological progress hadn’t happened. There was no reliable, centralized, information-rich source—online or otherwise– for the most basic affordable housing search.

Kuehn Charitable Foundation partnered with multiple organizations–funding agencies, tenant advocates, property owners and the public sector–to seed fund and launch Housing Navigator Massachusetts, Inc. (HNMI).  This effort is now bridging the digital divide and easing the process of finding and applying for affordable housing.

Updates on HNMI’s progress and more information available at HNMI website .

“DHCD also wishes to note the launch of the highly-anticipated Massachusetts Housing Navigator.  The Department commends the Kuehn Foundation for its exemplary leadership in working with the public and private sectors to design and implement a search engine capable of identifying Massachusetts affordable rental housing units by location, characteristics, and availability in real time.  The 2021 launch of the Massachusetts Housing Navigator has been highly successful.  Only one other state in the country has implemented a comparable search engine to provide such detailed and useful information on its affordable rental housing stock.  Under the 2022-2023 QAP, sponsor/owners seeking LIHTC and/or subsidy funds from the Department must participate in the Housing Navigator.”  —  MA Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), Draft 2022-2023 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP)