Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership (MBHP), a nonprofit that provides housing services and aims to prevent homelessness in the Boston area, is hitting the refresh button, switching up its name and moving to Roxbury Crossing.
The organization is changing its name to Metro Housing | Boston and will be moving to the Parcel 25 development at 1411 Tremont St., according to executive director Chris Norris. Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services (MHNHS) is the developer of Parcel 25, which will have 40 units of affordable housing, retail, and community space. Norris said that Metro Housing is partnering with MHNHS and will own two floors of office space.
“We have been thinking about moving over the last four years,” said Norris. “One of the reasons is finances. We want to be control of our own destiny.”
He said that organization is taking its own advice, as it often tells people to purchase a home so they can build equity.
Norris said that another reason they are moving is because they have outgrown their current space downtown, with the organization increasing from 86 employees to 150 employees over the years.
With that many employees and with more than 30 years of stuff accumulated at its current location, Norris said that the move will be “difficult,” but that “we have no doubt we will pull it off.” He said that the organization expects to be in the new place by the end of the month and have an open house on Nov. 28.
Norris said that the name change is “part and parcel of the move,” as the nonprofit has talked about it for a number of years. He said the thinking behind it is to simplify the name and better explain what the organization does, which includes serving not just Boston, but 32 cities in the area.