Since 2015, MassHousing has made small grants to support the efforts of more than 20 local hoarding task forces. Called Mannillo Grants after the late Lee Mannillo, a founding member of the Cape Cod Hoarding Task Force, the awards enable interventions, meetings, support groups and other local efforts.
In 2019, $43,500 in Mannillo Grants helped local task hoarding forces hold 33 professional or peer led support groups with 493 sessions and 283 participants, as well as 47 public community education events, workshops or trainings for 643 participants. In addition , task forces identified 189 households affected by hoarding and intervened in 130 cases, resulting in 122 positive outcomes. Sixty households received 670 hours of clean up, sorting and discarding, and/or coaching.
Since 2015, MassHousing has provided a total of $228,500 in Mannillo Grants to local hoarding efforts.
"The MassHousing grant provided the opportunity of making support groups accessible to clients with demonstrated financial need," said Eileen Dacey of North Shore Elder Services. "These groups have demonstrated profound group cohesion where the members continue to reach out to one another for support outside of group sessions."
MassHousing has taken a leading role in efforts to confront hoarding disorder in Massachusetts. The Agency has organized two conferences on the topic, regularly holds trainings for rental housing and social service professionals, hosts a web page of hoarding resources and hosts meetings of and serves on the Statewide Committee on Hoarding.
Learn more at www.masshousing.com/hoarding.