The Women's Institute is a leader in creating affordable housing that supports low-income individuals and families in our region. With a mission to promote economic opportunity and build strong communities by developing safe, affordable and supportive housing for individuals and families, we embrace the following objectives:
- Developing safe, affordable and supportive housing by bringing our development expertise and management capacity to communities across Massachusetts and Connecticut, and working in partnership with local organizations to create and/or preserve quality housing
- Promoting economic opportunity by creating housing that is more affordable and therefore decreasing the disproportionate amount of income that many individuals and families must budget for their housing; and
- Building strong communities by creating enduring partnerships that provide support to residents and neighborhoods.
Since our inception in 1981, our organization has collaborated with non-profit organizations, public agencies, and community groups to create quality affordable housing for homeless and struggling families, and also bring key supportive services and program space to neighborhoods across the region. In all, we have created over 1,500 homes in these first three decades, and are on track to significantly increase this result over the next two years.
We have built new homes for at-risk families, veterans, and seniors, and have also preserved critical existing affordable housing that otherwise might have been lost to the open market. We hope you will take a moment and look through our retrospective of 2011, which highlights our projects, partnerships, and as well as our strategic plan which will guide our work in 2012.