Services
CAAS plays a central role in the community by working with other agencies and organizations in Somerville to coordinate programming and services. At CAAS, we offer two major programs:Head Start ,and Advocacy & Community Services. Both programs are administered at the CAAS main office, 66-70 Union Square in Somerville. For directions to the CAAS office or to its Head Start classrooms in Somerville and Cambridge, please see the Contact page.
The Head Start Program is a comprehensive developmental pre-school program that provides education, health, nutrition, special needs, and social services to more than 350 three-to-five-year-old Somerville and Cambridge children and their families. CAAS Head Start provides disability services for at least 36 children and their families. The program offers:
- Head Start services 4-1/2 hours per day, five days a week during the school year for 315 children and families in Somerville and Cambridge.
- Full-day services, five days a week during the school year, for 20 families in Somerville.
- Full-day, full-year services for 20 families in Cambridge.
The Advocacy & Community Services Program serves low-income Somerville residents. (Household annual income limits are: $18,953 for 1 person, $25,498 for 2 people, $32,043 for 3, $38,588 for 4 people, and so on. Please call us if you are not sure whether you are eligible.) We can help keep the roof over a family's head, food on their table, and heat in their house in the winter. We work with elderly individuals, large families, and everyone in between, regardless of immigration documentation. In case of eviction, CAAS helps defend tenants in court and maximizes their income through access to benefits. CAAS makes it possible to apply for food stamps and fuel assistance right here in Somerville. Like an emergency room for non-medical needs, through direct services and through referrals, the Advocacy Program works to strengthen and support clients with the help they most urgently require. The Program also provides expert advice and support to partner organizations in the community so that they can serve Somerville better.
Current Advocacy programs and projects include the following.
- Eviction Prevention: We work to preserve tenancies and keep people in their homes by informing tenants of their rights and responsibilities in English, Spanish, Haitian-Creole and Portuguese. Often, we are able to open a dialogue with landlords and mortgage lenders. We collect summons from Somerville District Court, send out letter in four languages informing tenants of availability of assistance, meet with tenants to help prepare Answer and Discovery, negotiate with landlords and lenders, schedule health inspections, stand up in court with clients, connect to resources, mediate, and in nearly half our cases, keep people in their homes. If tenants must move, we help them by assisting them in finding safe, sanitary, affordable housing.
- Housing and Benefits Advocacy: We help low-income residents obtain subsidies and benefits for which they are eligible, to stabilize their current living situation and assist them to strive for economic self-sufficiency. Often, people have never applied for or have been denied benefits which they are entitled to. We can help make sure people get what they deserve.
- Income Maximization: CAAS has become home to a satellite of the Department of Transitional Assistance and a partner of the Fuel Assistance program, so that our clients will be more easily and promptly served with these forms of entitlement. We can help you apply for food stamps/SNAP, cash assistance, health insurance, social security and other sources of assistance you are entitled to. Call CAAS to make an appointment.
How do I get help from CAAS?
- Are you low-income?
- Do you live in Somerville (or do you live in Cambridge and want Head Start services)?
- Could you use any of the help listed here?
