Dear Neighbor,
Everyone agrees we need a lot more housing in Massachusetts We're spending a lot of money and passing laws like the Affordable Homes Act and the MBTA Communities Act that we hope will create that housing.
But at the same time, we're losing housing for low and moderate income people.
The Healey administration wrote in A Home for Everyone reported that the total number of units grew by 190,300 from 2010 to 2020.”
But over a similar 10-year period (2012-2022), we lost 163,000 low-cost homes, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
A Home for Everyone adds “We are at risk of losing the homes we have, especially the affordable ones…The availability of modestly priced homes and apartments is dwindling as they are acquired and upscaled by investors who sell or rent at a much higher price point.” (pp. 31, 61).
There's a hole in the bucket! My staff and I used visual aids to demonstrate this in my speech about TOPA on the Economic Development bill. (You can watch it, with visual aids by my staff, here.)
Nationally, we see the same trend: more housing, less housing for low and middle income people. The New York Times reported that “In cities that aggressively built housing in recent years, rents rose dramatically for low-income households and stabilized for wealthier ones. The new rental housing that was built was often luxury housing, with studios and one-bedrooms, units that targeted young, single professionals but were too small and too expensive for low-income households with children. New single-family homes for sale were larger than they were in the past, aimed at wealthier buyers, rather than cash-strapped, first-time home buyers.”
Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies wrote in "The State of the Nation's Housing" that "rather than being replenished by units filtering down to lower rents, the existing stock of low-rent units is shrinking." (p. 3) This chart is from the report:
WE NEED PRESERVATION, NOT JUST BUILDING!
Chris Dwan, a Somerville writer, observed: "You can't build old and cheap."
The CEO of Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation wrote in the Globe, “The state cannot build its way out of the current housing shortage. It must also prioritize purchasing existing affordable housing that is at risk of conversion to market-rate units. In many cases, acquisition costs are nearly half that of new construction.”
Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing is not the same as "affordable housing," which is income-restricted and subsidized.
NOAH is rapidly being replaced by luxury housing in many communities.
UPZONING CAN INCENTIVIZE ELIMINATION OF NOAH
One example of many: A multi-family in Somerville was sold two years ago for $710,000. Under current zoning, the buyer demolished it and built four condos, each selling for between $925,000 and $1,350,000 So there’s more housing, but fewer units available for people with modest incomes. (Want a tour of the new condos?)
Moreover, upzoning raisies the market value of a property because of the opportunity to build more expensive units. Potential homeowners are outbid by corporations who can pay cash with no conditions. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council report, Homes for Profit, Speculation and Investment in Greater Boston, reported that from 2004-2018 in East Somerville over half the 3-deckers and almost 2/3 of 2-families were sold to investors. The situation is much worse now, but there’s no more recent data.
In earlier years, a 3-decker could be a "starter home," allowing a family to rent units to help pay their mortgage, or sharing wth extended family. This is no longer possible.
Song of the Month: There's a Hole in the Bucket by Harry Belafonte and Odetta.
Video of the Month: "There's a Hole in the Bucket Speech"
On July 25, I spoke about our amendment on Tenant Opporunity to Purchase. My legislative aide Tara Christian made the props; my chief of staff Vicki Halal and my budget and policy advisor assisted with the visual aids. It was short because it was almost midnight, and I had to change the speech, because day-long negotiations changed the amendment.
Next in this series:
What is to be Done?
The Somerville Story
The Housing Crisis is a Symptom of the K shaped economy
More soon,
Pat Jehlen