Affordable housing: Have we really done our share?
A common refrain among density-nervous Cantabrigians is that when it comes to creating affordable housing, we have “done our share.”
According to Metropolitan Area Planning Council data, just under 13 percent of our housing is subsidized. That puts us ahead of Newton and Somerville (at around 9 percent), on par with Lincoln, Lexington and Brookline (11 percent to 13 percent) and well under Springfield and Boston (16 percent to 19 percent). But why should we compare ourselves to our neighbors? Read the Boston Globe report on Milton’s stance toward housing and you will quickly want to distance yourself from exclusionary communities rather than compare.
Instead, lets look for inspiration. Vienna is regarded as a beacon of housing abundance, quality and accessibility. Here is a city in which 60 percent of the population lives in subsidized housing, and nearly half of the city’s housing stock is owned by the city. The city is consistently at the top of The Economist’s “livable” city survey, and it is on architectural student’s travel itinerary for its great design. How did this come to be? In the words of Vienna’s deputy mayor, “Social housing policies in Vienna have been shaped by the political commitment that housing is a basic right.”
While we cannot hope to replicate Vienna’s housing wealth, we can learn from it and other European city’s successes. This summer, state Rep. Mike Connolly introduced the Massachusetts Social Housing Act. It combines some of the benefits of traditional public housing with some of the cash-flow advantages of market-rate development, and it avoids some of the challenges that doomed so many of our public housing programs over the years. Cambridge could be an early adopter of such policies with our own wealth and expertise.
As long as we have unhoused people populating our squares, children and graduates who don’t even consider staying or moving back to their hometown because of out-of-reach rents and countless workers forced out, we have not done enough. And with the early waves of climate refugees lapping at our shores, we cannot afford to sit back.
When you vote next week, consider which of the City Council candidates are ready to continue the hard work of creating housing opportunities in Cambridge, and which believe that we have already done too much.
For details on candidates’ views on the housing crisis, visit ABC’s election page.
Bill Boehm, Laurel Street
Who are the candidates who say we’ve built enough? I’m not hearing that. I hear some difference of opinions on how, when, how much, and how sffordable, but which candidates are saying no more building?
I find it interesting that the author is a newly minted member of the city Zoning Board of Appeals which is supposed to be objective and contemplative to ensure equal deliberation while overseeing building cases. But here we have a member with a pre-determined position which could only complicate any cases by favoring anything that smacks of affordable housing. I want objective thinkers on an important board like the BZA. This may also be evidence of the Manager taking suggestions from a pro-housing council to influence decisions. I find this highly unethical.
Bill Boehm – this kind of political advocacy opinion piece promoting ABC’s specific housing policy approach (and candidates) means you should recuse yourself from any related discussions and votes before the BZA.
Candidates endorsed by the CCC say that. They are the Party of No. Don’t change anything. I like the city the way it was when I moved in. All the change before my arrival was fine. But no more change now that I am here.
I hope voters choose other candidates. We don’t need the backwards, selfish thinking of the CCC candidates.
@Jean Cummings – During election season, most anti-housing candidates and their supporters have eased up on saying “no” to more housing, since that’s an unpopular (and harmful) position in Cambridge.
Still, you can often identify them by looking for proposals that include: stopping or rolling back prior city actions that have actually produced more housing in recent years; delaying any further pro-housing actions until more studies/forecasts have been done, meetings held and extremely detailed planning completed; or waiting until the Federal or state government steps in.
Another common anti-housing marker is insistence that zoning reform approved by a majority of the relevant authority (City Council) is not acceptable, and must be contingent on consensus or unanimity among *all* residents!
With a state-wide housing crisis that Lieutenant Governor Driscoll says will require 200,000 new units, it is necessary to ask who will build them. This is a need not easily met by for-profit builders as the costs of land acquisition and construction make it too challenging to profit from housing for low and middle-income residents. Therefore, it is good news that Governor Healey has proposed a pilot project for social housing. Representative Mike Connolly goes further with a bill that commits $100M to social housing.
A huge success in central Europe, it is little used in the States. Social housing is mixed-income rental housing on government-owned land. Low-income tenants get rent subsidies, median-income tenants pay real costs, and high-income tenants pay market rates. The buildings are managed by tenants and local stakeholders, distinguishing them from classic government-owned and run projects. Rental income finances new construction.
All Council candidates endorsed by Our Revolution support social housing. We are happy to learn that some ABC candidates do as well. This is an important innovation whose time has come.
Henry H. Wortis
These anti-housing candidates are only out for themselves. Taking care of disadvantaged people is good governance. It is the right thing to do.
There is overlap between the candidates who are against affordable housing and those opposing bike lanes.
Selfishness is the common theme. Oppose anything that seems to threaten my privilege, no matter how many lives are threatened or how many people need homes.
We don’t need the politics of meaness in our city. We should be helping and protecting people.