The Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership helped the Citizens for Affordable Housing in Newton Development Organization renovate this home in West Newton into a residence for six low- to moderate-income developmentally disabled adults.

At the beginning of next month, just in time to celebrate Thanksgiving, six developmentally disabled adults will move into a renovated residence in West Newton that they will be able to call home.

The home, located at 228 Webster St., was recently renovated by the Citizens for Affordable Housing in Newton Development Organization. CAN-DO has worked on several proposals for affordable housing developments throughout its 10-year history, including transitional housing for battered women and their children.

With the Webster Street project, however, CAN-DO got a helping hand from the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership. MBHP provided free technical assistance to the nonprofit community housing group – offering advice on everything from the bidding process and the selection of a general contractor – and now wants to help even more small community-based developers that lack construction expertise.

“We’re looking to do more and more of that,” said Janice Zazinski, MBHP’s communications director. “We don’t really develop affordable housing ourselves, but we have construction specialists that can partner with and offer expertise to developers of affordable housing.”

Founded in 1983, MBHP provides rental housing assistance to homeless, elderly, disabled and low-income working people in Boston and 33 communities surrounding the city. Today, the agency serves more than 10,000 tenants and 3,000 property owners through its programs. Years ago, MBHP also used to develop affordable housing and still oversees properties and retains ownership of about 1,100 units.

But in 1991 the agency merged with Metropolitan Housing to form a comprehensive regional housing agency and stopped developing housing. In the last few years, MBHP tapped into a federal program that allows it to provide assistance to developers of smaller affordable housing developments. The agency gets paid for the services it provides through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Housing Development Organization program.

‘Invaluable Aide’

Currently, MBHP is assisting Watertown Community Housing, and has worked on a similar project with WATCH, a community-based housing development corporation in Waltham.

In March of last year, CAN-DO requested MBHP’s help with the Webster Street project. Josephine McNeil, CAN-DO’s executive director, said she knew that MBHP had a program to help community-based developers. MBHP helped CAN-DO monitor the construction process, providing just the right balance of assistance without actually taking over the project, said McNeil.

“It was an invaluable aide,” said McNeil.

Established in 1992 by the city’s Planning Department, CAN-DO has partnered with various agencies and worked with the city to advocate for more affordable housing in Newton.

In the summer of 2000, CAN-DO purchased a three-bedroom, single-family home on Webster Street with hopes of converting it into a home for the disabled. McNeil said that she knew that the Newton Wellesley Weston Committee for Community Living, a Newton-based nonprofit group, was interested in finding another site to provide more housing for its disabled clients.

“As I looked at the [Webster Street] house, I realized we could add some bedrooms to it,” said McNeil.

In addition to renovating the existing home, CAN-DO added three handicapped-accessible bedrooms as well as a bathroom with the help of Ammondson Architects in Cambridge and Construction By Design Limited, a contractor based in Rhode Island. The renovated home can accommodate six residents. CAN-DO was able to get Section 8 rental assistance for the residents who will end up paying one-third of their income for rent. The Newton Wellesley Weston Committee for Community Living will manage the property and provide 24-hour staff support and services to the developmentally disabled residents.

“I think it’s really important – so necessary – for this type of housing to be built in communities throughout Massachusetts, especially in suburban communities,” said McNeil. “The state made a decision years ago to de-institutionalize [disabled people] and communities have to provide housing for these residents. As a society, we have an obligation to do this.”

CAN-DO’s first project in Newton, the Louis Garfield House, involved the renovation of a home that the group purchased in 1995 into three units of transitional housing for women and children who are survivors of domestic violence. The first family moved into the home in October 1996, and to date 10 families have lived in the house and eventually moved into permanent housing.

Another CAN-DO project is currently under construction in the city’s Newton Highlands section. CAN-DO is building transitional housing for single mothers and their children and four condominiums at a Christina Street site. The group purchased the property in 1999, which consists of approximately 35,500 square feet of land and a large historic single-family home. The home is being converted into five housing units, and two duplexes will be built on the site.