Debbie Bernabei’s disabled sons Brett (left) and Nicholas enjoy a higher quality of life now that a $25,000 loan from the state Home Modifications Loan Program has enabled the completion of accessibility renovations to their Walpole home. A housing bond bill currently before lawmakers would reauthorize funding for the program and other, similar initiatives.
Debbie Bernabei and her husband Mark moved into a small ranch-style home in Walpole 18 years ago that they have been slowly customizing to accommodate their severely disabled sons.
For a long time, Brett, 20, and Nicholas, 23, both of whom use wheelchairs and rely on feeding tubes, couldn’t join family and friends when they gathered in the Bernabei home’s tiny dining room for meals.
About two years ago, the Bernabeis received a $25,000 loan from the Home Modifications Loan Program, a state program that helps people make their homes accessible. That loan, along with a home equity loan, enabled the Bernabeis to complete a $100,000 renovation project that ultimately enlarged the home’s dining room, added an outdoor deck and made the backyard accessible.
Now, Brett and Nicholas can sit in the dining room and outdoors when company visits. “I can’t even tell you what this has done for their quality of life. It’s just incredible,” said Bernabei, a nurse.
Bernabei hopes the Legislature approves a housing bond bill that reauthorizes funding for the Home Modifications Loan Program and several others that provide housing opportunities for people with disabilities and the elderly so that more families can be helped.
The Senate recently passed the $170 million housing bond bill, which is currently pending in the House Ways & Means Committee.
Included in the bill is a $25 million request for the next five years for the home modifications program. Supporters say the program has helped families renovate their homes to make them more accessible to family members with disabilities, as well as elderly people who would otherwise be forced to live in nursing facilities.
‘A Godsend’
Families have tapped into the loan program to widen doorways, add first-floor bedrooms and bathrooms and build ramps. The average loan has been a little over $20,000.
“It has been a godsend for over 500 families in the commonwealth,” said Anne Lane, coordinator for the Home Modifications Loan Program. “People want to be home. They don’t want to be in [a] nursing home.”
The program, first approved in 1999, was set up as a revolving loan account, explained Lane. In the past three to four years, over $300,000 has been given back to the six nonprofit provider agencies that distribute the loans throughout the state. That money has been distributed again as loans.
Some loan recipients are able to complete entire projects with the small loan from the modifications program. “But some of the folks that come to us, especially families with children, have to go to other sources because their projects are large and costly,” said Lisa Sloane, a housing consultant for the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission.
Fifty percent of the loan recipients have been adults with disabilities, while 30 percent have been families with children with disabilities and the remainder are elderly. More than 3,000 requests for loan applications or information about the program have been received, according to Sloane.
Besides improving the quality of life for hundreds of individuals, the loan program also helps the state save money in nursing home and rehabilitation costs, according to supporters. An estimated $43,800 to $127,750 per person has been saved annually in nursing facility costs, according to the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association.
Since the bond bill has received favorable recommendations from various legislative committees, housing advocates are optimistic that the bonding will be approved.
“We have reason to believe that we’ll be successful in getting a significant cap to keep the program going,” said Sloane.
In addition to the Home Modifications Loan Program, the bond bill includes recapitalization requests for the Facilities Consolidation Fund at $100 million and the Housing Innovations Fund at $20 million.
Various nonprofit developers like the Pine Street Inn have used the FCF, which provides permanent, deferred-payment loans for up to 50 percent of the total development costs of community-based housing that’s designed for people who are mentally ill or mentally retarded.
Developers also have used the Housing Innovations Fund to produce housing for low-income households, including rooming houses and shelters for abused women.
The Pine Street Inn received $250,536 in FCF funding several years ago to develop Woodward Park House, which is located in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. Woodward Park House provides housing as well as onsite support services for 10 people, and includes offices for case managers and an apartment for a resident manager.
“We were able – with the Facilities Consolidation Fund – to design this building in a way so that it creates this housing opportunity for people who are chronically mentally ill to live in the community,” said Jan Griffin, director of planning for Pine Street.
Pine Street also has a $713,370 commitment from the fund to develop another 17 units for mentally ill people in two separate locations in Dorchester and Boston’s Roxbury section. Both projects are in the pre-development phase.
The FCF is important because it allows nonprofit developers like Pine Street to create housing for mentally ill people who, in addition to needing a place to live, require a complement of support services that can’t be found in the general housing market, explained Griffin.
“We have an awful lot of people who are chronically mentally ill who are homeless,” said Griffin. “The Facilities Consolidation Fund has been a very significant vehicle to move mentally ill people out of [homeless] shelters.”
