Hearth Receives $50,000 Safety Net Grant from The Boston Foundation to Enhance Homelessness Prevention Efforts

Hearth is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a two-year Safety Net Grant totaling $50,000 from The Boston Foundation. This generous funding of $25,000 per year will support Hearth’s Outreach initiative, which provides housing search and homelessness prevention support to older adults in the Greater Boston area.

“This grant will allow us to expand our Outreach programs, providing critical support to older adults at risk of homelessness,” said Rhonda Pieroni, President and CEO of Hearth. “We look forward to building upon our record of housing more than 3,000 unsheltered and housing-insecure Greater Boston residents since our founding in 1991. This funding will enable us to serve more people in more places with our signature elder-specific case management model.”

Hearth is a non-profit organization dedicated to the elimination of elder homelessness. This mission is accomplished through a unique blend of prevention, placement, and housing programs, all designed to help at-risk older adults attain and maintain safe and stable homes of their own.

“Hearth has decades of experience caring for and supporting one of Greater Boston’s most vulnerable populations—older people at risk of or dealing with homelessness,” said Orlando Watkins, Vice President and Chief Programs Officer at the Boston Foundation. “We are honored to support Hearth’s critical work meeting the immediate needs of those who rely on Hearth’s case management to help them secure and stay in long-term housing.”

Funds for this grant come from The Boston Foundation’s Permanent Fund for Boston, an endowed pool of funds built over more than a century by generous contributors who want to help the Greater Boston community thrive. Each year, The Boston Foundation distributes more than $15 million in discretionary grants and other resources from the Fund, which are largely awarded through a competitive process open to nonprofits serving the Foundation’s catchment area, stewarded by the Foundation’s Program Department staff and approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors.

The Boston Foundation is one of the nation’s first and most impactful community foundations. Partnering with community members, donors, the public sector, businesses, and nonprofits, it exists to close the gaps caused by the city’s greatest disparities, to advance economic justice, and to help build a better Boston. The Foundation collects data, commissions research, shares knowledge, develops dynamic programs, fuels new ideas, and funds change. Its work informs public policy, catalyzes conversations, and advocates not only for change but also for repairing the historical harms of inequity. Ultimately, it aims to support, contribute to, and create well-being and opportunity within communities. The Boston Foundation is also one of New England’s largest grantmakers, supporting nonprofits in Greater Boston through its endowment and working closely with donors to support nonprofits locally, nationally, and internationally. To learn more about the Foundation and its work, visit TBF.org.