Housing Navigator
Find affordable housing in Massachusetts - by community (click here)
COMMON QUESTIONS
Who is this for? Housing Navigator Massachusetts is for anyone seeking options for affordable rental housing in Massachusetts. Want a shorter commute to work? Are you stressed from stretching a fixed income to stay in the neighborhood you love? Are the stairs getting too hard? Whatever your circumstances, you can use our search tools to find housing opportunities that fit your needs and your goals.
What's listed here? Will more properties show up? Short answer. Housing Navigator is building an inventory of all income-restricted rental housing in Massachusetts. We show property listings which are “actionable.” Actionable means we can provide enough information to answer your basic questions. From there, you can decide whether you want to keep looking, learn more about the property, or, if eligible, choose to apply. We work hard to make listings as reliable and up-to-date as possible. Housing Navigator partnered with property owners and Massachusetts housing funders to gather all the data on our site, and we will keep working together to add more properties with more information and better details. Longer answer. We are building an inventory of any property that includes permanent, income-restricted rental housing open to the public in Massachusetts. Specifically, this inventory includes privately held subsidized projects, public housing, HUD assisted housing, 202s, inclusionary units, workforce units, tax credit units, 40Bs, and more. Our inventory serves a wide range of income levels. From low income households at 30% AMI to moderate income households at 80 or 100% AMI (and, in some cases, even families making up to 160% AMI), our inventory captures it all.
To protect tenants’ privacy, some of the housing in our inventory is not shown on our site. We do not show group homes or other buildings where all units are filled by direct referrals from a state agency such as DMH. Also, extremely small buildings (e.g. a single family home which is an affordable rental) may not appear with an exact address on our site.
So far, we have identified over 3000 properties that include income-restricted rentals in 260+ Massachusetts cities and towns. Our database will keep growing. The MA Department of Housing and Community Development is now requiring new developments it funds to list on this site. Further, our number of visible listings will keep growing as we work to make more listings actionable* and reliable**.
*More on Actionable. We only show property listings when we have confirmed enough information—location, bedroom mix, eligibility basics, and contact information—that anyone using our site would know enough about the property to take the next step. As we launch, over 60% of properties in our inventory are visible to the public. Click here to see a list of how many properties we are still working on, by town.
**More on Reliable. We confirm our information through public records and the help of our agency partners. If you see a property has been “verified,” that means an owner has checked our information as well as added details like photos and waitlist status.
How do I know if I'm eligible for this housing? What's the rent? Our listings include information that helps answer these questions for each property. To start, if you are looking for the most affordable rentals, you may want to click on properties that say “Rent Based on Income” or filter your search to only show these properties. Your rent will be capped at a portion of your income, usually 30%. Or, if you are an older adult and want to live in an older adult community, you may want to check the “age-restricted” filter on a search. Otherwise, the tables under “Unit Information” in the listing pages show more details on exact income levels and rent. Check out the videos in our Help Center to learn more about filtering your search and understanding eligibility.
Do these buildings all have vacancies? In fall 2021, “First Come, First Serve” rentals will appear on the site. These will be immediate openings. However, even if there are no immediate openings, there are ways to take the next step. Whenever we have the information, a property’s waitlist status is shown clearly at the top of each listing, and many properties have an Open Waitlist. Getting on the waitlist is your best next step. Our listings link to applications and provide contact details to find out more. Lotteries are another way to apply for affordable housing. Lotteries happen when a building is new or a waitlist reopens. To find out more about a lottery, filter your search by lotteries and click on individual listings to learn more. If you are in crisis and need housing immediately, a best option may be emergency services here. To learn more about getting into an affordable home, watch our video tutorials.