City makes progress in housing campaign

City makes progress in housing campaign

As 1999 drew to a close, Mayor Thomas Menino called reporters and housing advocates together at a nearly completed Hyde Park home to celebrate permits pulled for the construction of 2,061 units of housing that year.

The battle against the city's housing crunch -- its lack of available housing stock, inflated costs and lack of affordable units -- was being won one house, one unit at a time.

This year the announcement of 2,655 new units comes amidst an increasing demand for solutions and an acknowledgement that even 2,655 units a year may not be enough.

The underlying problems of sky-high rents and housing costs remain even more intractable than last year.

"The median income of Boston renters is $27,000 a year," notes Kathy Brown, coordinator of the Boston Tenant Coalition. "That in no way can support the rents landlords are asking for."

The city's main approach to the problem is two-pronged. One thrust is to create more units of housing to reduce the demand, and therefore the cost of housing. The other is to build more affordable housing to help curb the displacement of low- and moderate-income residents.

"We have a mayor who has set a goal of increasing housing production," says Charlotte Golar Richie, director of the city's Department of Neighborhood Development. "He's set a very ambitious goal and we're meeting it."

Menino, who pledged to facilitate 7,500 new housing starts in three years, may well reach that goal at the current rate.

But Richie and others acknowledge the city cannot rely on production alone to tackle the housing crunch.

"People are losing their homes, landlords are raising their rents," Richie says. "People are between a rock and a hard place."

The city has filed a barrage of legislative initiatives aimed at increasing affordable housing in and around Boston. The Act to Promote Affordable Housing Construction would require municipalities that have less than 10 percent affordability in their housing stock to contribute funds into a state affordable housing trust fund.

The Act to Designate Surplus State Revenues for Affordable Housing Construction would require the commonwealth to use 10 percent of the money in a fiscal year's budget surplus for the construction of affordable housing.

The Act Providing an Incentive to Keep Rents Fair would allow owner-occupants of small rental properties to claim a $2,000 tax credit for non-subsidized apartments rented below the HUD fair market value.

Richie says the initiatives the administration is advancing came out of a series of meetings city officials use to help develop housing policy. Richie, Boston Redevelopment Authority Director Mark Maloney and Boston Housing Authority Director Sandra Henriquez meet regularly to compare notes and discuss solutions, according to Richie.

"We're at the table not just once a month, but week-in, week-out," she said. "We're working on issues of affordability, housing for the homeless, complex issues."

Housing advocates, like Kathy Brown, acknowledge that the administration has committed considerable resources to the housing problem. Menino has committed $30 million to housing production.

But Brown says a one-time infusion of cash is no substitute for a line-item in the city's annual budget.

"We think the city could target the increased tax revenue for affordable housing funds," she said.

Photo (Mayor Thomas Menino Speaks)