Vision

At the heart of MHP is vision and its quest to find new solutions to address the need for affordable housing.

MHP was founded in 1985 to challenge the usual ways of building affordable housing. In 1990, the state legislature took that premise one step further, becoming the first and only state in the nation to pass an interstate banking act that requires companies that acquire Massachusetts banks to make funds available to MHP for affordable housing.

Since 1990, MHP's one-of-a-kind loan pool has grown to over $1 billion. Through 2006, it has used these private-sector funds to provide over $440 million in low-interest, long-term loans and commitments for the financing of 12,000 units of rental housing.

MHP has been at the forefront of housing innovation, from helping to create the SoftSecond Loan Program for first-time homebuyers in 1991 to the Local Initiative Program (LIP), which gives cities and towns more flexibility in meeting their housing needs. MHP also created Perm Plus, a zero-percent, deferred payment second-mortgage program designed to help developers buy and fix properties and offer affordable rents. And in 1999, MHP established the 40B technical assistance program to help local zoning boards of appeal.

Since 1990, MHP's one-of-a-kind loan pool has grown to over $1 billion.

Most recently, MHP has been focused on making the system more efficient, pursuing initiatives such as mixed financing for public housing, making 40B work better and MassDocs, a new loan document system designed to make the affordable housing development process more efficient.

While pursuing new solutions, MHP has done the basics, supporting local housing initiatives in over 300 of the 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth with early technical assistance, long-term financing or by supporting homeownership opportunities through the SoftSecond program.

The Vision section of this web site is dedicated to featuring the new ideas MHP is working or tracking, and to also show what's going on around the state with its daily summarizing and posting of housing news from local newspapers.

For more information about MHP, please email MHP or call 617-330-9944 x227.