When Melissa Santiago lost her apartment and became homeless in 2020, she was a 22-year-old single mom to a five-year-old and a newborn. She and her daughters moved into a shelter in Holyoke where they stayed for nearly two years.

Santiago grew up with a single mom in an unstable household and helped raise her other siblings. When she became homeless, she felt as though history was repeating itself.

“It took a big toll on me, because I felt like I was following in my mom’s footsteps, and my kids are going to feel the way I felt having to be the head of the household,” she said. “I felt horrible.”

It’s a far cry from where the 28-year-old is today.

No longer homeless, Santiago is in her third semester of college working toward a degree in early education. She recently made the dean’s list. On top of being a full-time student and working 14 hours a week, she is just a few steps away from being licensed to operate her own in-home daycare. She now has thousands tucked away in a savings account and has boosted her credit score to 744. Her next goal is to buy a home for her family.

She says it’s all thanks to a Worcester Housing Authority (WHA) program that has allowed her to live “a better life.”

The A Better Life (ABL) program launched in 2015 for families in state-subsidized public housing. The unique program requires residents to work, attend school, or participate in community service for 30 hours each week. The roughly 250 participating families receive intensive case management services and are required to complete life skills, job training, and financial literacy classes. Each participant must raise their credit score to a minimum of 650 to graduate.

Each ABL participant is also incentivized to save up to $15,000 through an escrow account – an interest-bearing account established by the WHA on behalf of the resident. Deposits are tied to each family’s rent payment and increase when a resident’s income goes up. The head of the household cannot touch the funds and will only receive the savings when they have graduated from the ABL program.

The intention is to motivate residents to reach independence as quickly as possible while freeing up housing slots for other families who remain on extensive wait lists amid a severe shortage of affordable housing units. But there is no time limit for residents completing the ABL program.

“We measure our success by how many families are able to move out,” Worcester Housing Authority CEO Alex Corrales said.

For over a decade, the program has been widely successful in helping residents reach self-sufficiency. Now, it has piqued the interest of Trump administration officials who are reshaping public housing policy across the nation.