Community Trust was founded six years ago with a staff of six. Today we employ thirteen at our main office in Andover, Massachusetts, and another nine at our new affiliate, Public Guardian Service, headquartered in Braintree, Massachusetts. Through these two organizations, Community Trust improves the lives of seniors and individuals with disabilities, including many who reside in nursing homes, and others need a guardian or conservator but do not have access to such help under the current social services networks in Massachusetts.
What We Do
The heart of our mission is a pooled-trust program that helps disabled and institutionalized individuals to preserve their independence, comfort and dignity while receiving government benefits. We do this by enabling our beneficiaries to set aside some of their own assets in a professionally-managed, Medicaid-exempt trust account for supplemental needs.
Matching the pooled trust mission is our commitment to improve permanently the lives of the indigent and incapacitated in Massachusetts who need a public agency to be their guardian or conservator. We do this through our own research, writing and advocacy, through training and education, and through an active grant-making program that enlists the creative energies of others in Massachusetts who share the vision of such an agency.
On July 6, 2020, our affiliate, Public Guardian Services, began operating a pilot program in Suffolk and Plymouth Counties that will offer guardianship and conservatorship services to the indigent who have no other options for decisional support while in crisis. This pilot is a bold first step toward developing a statewide service that can eventually take responsibility for meeting the decisional needs of the thousands of underserved individuals in need of professionally-managed guardianship or conservatorship services, but who lack the support systems and/or financial means to obtain help without public intervention.
Why We Exist
The mission of Guardian Community Trust is to support quality of life for vulnerable elderly and disabled persons in Massachusetts, especially those who suffer isolation, incapacity and/or indigence, working through creative partnerships with public and private stakeholders at every level. Our vision is to create a strong and stable private agency to continue providing essential trustee services to the elderly and disabled, and to establish a permanent endowment for public guardianship to protect the most indigent and isolated individuals in need of decisional support.