Home, elusive home
A HIGH POINT of the Menino administration was the mayor's decision in 2000 to set numerical goals for the creation of new housing. Mayor Menino was reasonably confident that the market would bear the overall 18,000 units he promised over a seven-year period, especially during a period marked by a surge in multi family housing production statewide, and it has. The greater accomplishment is that the administration spurred the creation of 4,875 homes for low- and moderate-income families through the clever reuse of vacant city-owned lots, changes in the zoning law, sales of surplus property, and direct use of city funds to counteract high housing and construction costs.
Urban housing specialists from across the nation, including former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros, are expected to gather today at the Convention Center in South Boston to discuss how best to meet housing challenges in high-cost cities. Boston officials will have many lessons to teach, especially in the area of support for nonprofit housing corporations. But this is also a lesson in political will. Cabinet members and department heads from neighborhood development, public housing, inspectional services, and other relevant agencies have been meeting nearly every Monday afternoon with the mayor for the past seven years to map new strategies and measure progress in the permitting and construction of new homes.
This is not, however, an urban success story. More than 300 qualified buyers at any given time compete for the roughly 80 affordable homes that the city markets each year through a lottery. And more than 19,000 applicants linger on the city's waiting list for public housing. The battlefront is also expanding. While some housing officials continue to help low-income people find an affordable home, others are crafting bail-out plans for families facing foreclosure due to the weight of subprime loans. To complicate matters further, there are only about 600 city-owned, buildable lots remaining as potential sites for affordable homes. For all of the administration's hard work over seven years, the problem remains acute.
Boston's housing challenge might best be seen through the eyes of 5,000 unionized hotel workers who ratified a new labor contract yesterday. The specific goal of union leaders was to lift these workers into the middle class. Yet despite their success at the bargaining table, the average hotel worker here will earn about $32,000 annually. Even with a spouse who earns a similar salary and the new contract's generous $10,000 housing grant, this family still falls far short of affording the $360,000 median-priced home in the city.
Walking on a floor of one's own remains an elusive goal in Boston.
