Boston Foundation announces $160,000 in planning grants for Health Starts at Home initiative

The following post is adapted from a press release posted by The Boston Foundation. LIFT-Boston is a partner of Mortar Between the Bricks: Building a Foundation for Child Health Through an Integrated Network of Support, Prevention & Intervention, one of the grants’ beneficiaries.


The Boston Foundation has announced planning grants of $40,000 each to four health and housing coalitions that seek to improve children’s health and housing stability, while decreasing costs associated with homelessness, rehousing, and healthcare.

The awards are part of the first phase of the Boston Foundation’s Health Starts at Home initiative, designed to bring housing and health organizations together to address the negative impact that a lack of stable, affordable housing has on children’s health outcomes.

“We are pleased to establish the Health Starts at Home initiative and fund this competition,” said Paul S. Grogan, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation. “Health Starts at Home brings together the best of both the health and housing advocacy worlds, particularly where children’s health and family stability are concerned. We look forward to helping the four grantee partnerships strengthen and coalesce, as they fine tune their strategies to place and keep often transient families in long-term housing and help them engage in preventative health.”

The four coalitions are Building Bridges to Better Health, Chelsea Homes for Health, Designing and Stocking the Housing Pharmacy: Pairing Healthcare and Housing Dollars to Improve Stability and Health, and Mortar Between the Bricks: Building a Foundation for Child Health Through and Integrated Network of Support, Prevention & Intervention.

Mortar Between the Bricks: Building a Foundation for
Child Health Through an Integrated Network of Support, Prevention & Intervention

Partners: Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, Horizons for Homeless Children, LIFT-Boston

Model: This partnership includes a nationally-recognized medical provider, poverty law experts focused on policy reform and high-capacity direct service providers. Together they will identify at-risk, housing insecure and homeless Boston Children’s Hospital patients. They will provide interventions and services to stabilize families through an integrated cross-referral system and access to peer support. This model intentionally focuses both on services to the adults, as well as to the children based on a two-generation framework.

Read the full release on The Boston Foundation website.