People in Cambridge agree there is an urgent crisis in housing affordability. More than 6,000 people who live or work in Cambridge are waiting for federal Section 8 rental vouchers. We are excited about the potential of the recently passed amendments to the Affordable Housing Overlay to add affordable units, but it takes years to build units and people are being forced out of Cambridge now. What is something Cambridge could do to house people and prevent displacement much more quickly?

Cambridge could create a city-funded rental voucher program. The vouchers would act somewhat like federal Section 8 vouchers, making up the difference between what a tenant can afford to pay and the market rent. Boston and Somerville are already doing this. Some Cambridge residents have created a proposal to explicitly create a funding pathway for city-funded vouchers in Cambridge.

What would it take to create city-funded rental vouchers?

Cambridge’s Affordable Housing Trust determines how most of the city’s affordable-housing funds are used. The trust largely spends its allocated funds on building and repairing affordable housing, which are the uses of funds specified in the city zoning that created the trust. That is why residents have introduced a zoning petition that would add pathways for funding city vouchers to the zoning language that established the trust. The City Council could then design and pass an ordinance creating a city-funded rental voucher program funded through the trust. This could quickly help many residents afford housing and prevent their displacement.

What more can Cambridge do to help unhoused people?

Many residents feel not enough is being done to help unhoused people in Cambridge. They want the city to provide low-threshold noncongregate shelter, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing and services for unhoused Cambridge residents that will enable successful entry into affordable housing. Right now, the trust does not have an explicit funding pathway for these types of support for unhoused people; the residents’ zoning petition would allow it. The trust has already, within its funding discretion, funded the construction and renovation of 116 Norfolk St., which will lead to 62 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly unhoused households. We hope that adding this explicit pathway to the trust zoning would open the possibility of additional, flexible projects toward the same purpose.

How will this be funded?

This petition would allow these two new funding pathways, and we expect conversations within the council, including about how to fund the programs. We do not intend this expansion of the trust’s responsibilities to sacrifice the important work of affordable-housing construction and rehabilitation that the trust supports. To that end, we support conversations around potential new dedicated funding sources for the trust, as well as the expansion of current ones. These include but are not limited to the recently increased commercial linkage fee, a real estate transfer fee and an expansion of the percentage of the city budget allocated to affordable housing.

Who should make decisions about funding affordable housing?

The trust is run by a nine-person board appointed by the city manager. There is no requirement that any board member has experienced housing instability. The petition would expand the nine-person board to 13, and require it to include at least six people affected by housing instability or who live in affordable housing. Common sense and fairness tell us that low- and moderate-income community members who have experienced housing instability should have a say on how affordable housing is being addressed. All trust members would be paid an annual stipend for their time, which allows for those affected by housing instability to more easily participate.

These changes to the trust would give Cambridge an exciting opportunity to address the crisis in housing affordability in a more democratic and faster way. You can sign here in support of the zoning petition. To read the zoning petition and for more information, click here.

The petition is a project of the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition, which includes members of several progressive groups in Cambridge as well as individuals. The people working on the petition include several people who have experienced housing instability, as well as several people who have worked for affordable housing developers.

Lee Farris, Kavish Gandhi, Lida Griffin, Jean Hannon, Richard Krushnic and Dan Totten, on behalf of a working group of the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition