Operations: Programs and Staffing
Building the right operational and staffing plan involves more than creating organizational charts. VIVA can help organizations determine the operating models best suited to their goals to create structures that support growth and help your staff find success.
Featured Project
Ensuring Stability for Low Income Residents in Troubled Times: SHERA
Economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic created a major threat to the housing stability of low- and moderate-income families. Congress appropriated funds for emergency rental assistance in the fall of 2020 and followed up with a second tranche of funding in early 2021. But while the federal resources were available, getting the money out the door remained a huge challenge for state and local governments across the country.
VIVA’s team worked with quasi-public lenders, MassHousing and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, as well as with the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), to create and launch an innovative emergency rental assistance program targeted at the state’s 250,000 units of subsidized housing. These developments provide homes to many of the poorest and most vulnerable households in the state. The Subsidized Housing Emergency Rental Assistance (SHERA) program built on the regulatory practices already in place at eligible properties to create a streamlined process for ensuring emergency rental assistance reached households who faced pandemic-related economic hardships.The SHERA program launched in April 2021. By the time the program closed a year later, it had succeeded in distributing over $33 million to 11,500 households throughout Massachusetts. The average time from application to actual payment was just over 15 days.