Massachusetts · Nonprofit
MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE
MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE (Massachusetts) receives grants from 42 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,779,613 to it, the largest being HEALTH RESOURCES IN ACTION INC ($750,000). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $24M
- Funders on record
- 42
- Grants received
- $3.8M
- Net assets
- $2.4M
What Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance does
Mission
The Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance (mhsa) is a nonprofit, public policy advocacy organization dedicated to ending homelessness in massachusetts.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Permanent supportive housing & diversion - during fiscal year 2025, the program helped fund, in partnership with community-based service organizations and landlords, 1,396 units of permanent supporting housing and leases for formerly homeless individuals across the state (1,315 units in fiscal 2024). These services are delivered in every region of the state and are the programmatic basis for the organization's cost-benefit analysis and increasingly recognized outcome-focused data studies. The program provides clients with permanent housing, meals, transportation, case management, income-related referrals and public benefits access, housing search, and other services focused primarily on helping individuals to access and sustain permanent housing, the program includes substantially all contracts not mentioned in any of the other major service categories.
$18,239,342 spent$122,486 earned by the program79% of program spendingMassachusetts alliance for supportive housing, llc (mash) - a single member llc, mash was organized on june 19, 2014 for the purpose of providing charitable and educational activities consisting of coordinating, facilitating, providing, and/or promoting social services and housing for high-use homeless individuals, including the following program:permanent supportive housing - mash entered into a $15 million contract with the commonwealth of massachusetts to award subrecipient grants to expand the development of permanent supportive housing (psh) units and address the public health emergency of homelessness, exacerbated by covid-19, due to the densely populated congregate shelters and growing encampments of unsheltered individuals. The majority of subrecipients will receive grants to create 243 new psh units in the commonwealth, while others are receiving funds utilized to provide technical assistance and educational opportunities to emerging and existing developers to increase the number and diversity of supportive housing developers in the commonwealth.
$4,801,784 spent$45,263 earned by the program21% of program spendingAdvocacy, planning, and technical assistance - provides a forum in the commonwealth of massachusetts for the planning and coordination of policy, community, and stakeholder education and communication of issues, and the piloting and implementation of housing and services for homeless individuals. Programs and advocacy are designed to end the commonwealth's reliance on emergency services for homeless individuals. The organization conducts site visits and program reviews to share best practices, provide technical assistance, and strive to create a network of resources and collaborative service providers. The organization conducts advocacy and planning to ensure that the state reduces its reliance on emergency services and focuses its efforts on permanent housing as a solution to homelessness.mhsa's advocacy, planning, and technical assistance work is a core priority of the organization. These activities are the primary responsibility for six full-time staff and significant contributions to this work are made by several additional staff. Given the close connection of this work to permanent supportive housing, functional expenses are generally reported under the latter.
$35,304 spentof which $24,998 as grants0% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $23,076,430.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $9.2M to $18M (+94%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2019 2% · 2020 1% · 2021 1% · 2022 2% · 2023 1% · 2024 1% · 2025 95%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (21% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Ben Josephson
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $91k → $564k.
9 of 42 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 38% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 42 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
62% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 60% · 2018 72% · 2019 46% · 2020 46% · 2021 36% · 2022 24% · 2023 35% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
55% of MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
69% of MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE's grant income comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE is better cushioned than half of the 2,297 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,297 human services nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $4.1M on record.
- Department of Veterans Affairs$4.1M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
96% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Massachusetts Alliance for Supportive Housing LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE?
- MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE (Massachusetts) receives grants from 42 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,779,613 to it, the largest being HEALTH RESOURCES IN ACTION INC ($750,000). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE have?
- IRS filings report 42 organizations giving $3,779,613 in grants to MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE?
- HEALTH RESOURCES IN ACTION INC is the largest funder on record, with $750,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MASSACHUSETTS HOUSING & SHELTER ALLIANCE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 42 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing