Housing activists call for more affordability

Yawu Miller

On Friday, Oct. 14, Cheryl Lawrence was among the four housing activists arrested in Egleston Square protesting the eviction of a tenant.

The following Tuesday, she joined scores of tenant activists in the city council’s Ianella Chamber in a hearing calling on the city to re-define what it considers affordable housing.

“The lack of affordable housing is having a profound effect on our families,” she says. “The city councilors keep saying production of more housing is the answer. It hasn’t done much.”

While Mayor Thomas Menino has touted the city’s record of developing affordable housing — including more than 2,000 units in the last three years — housing activists are increasingly questioning who in the city can afford to buy or rent the new units.

Most of the 3,000 units produced in the city are geared toward households earning between $42,000 and $66,000 a year. But, as UMass Boston Professor Michael Stone notes, fewer than half of the city’s households earn that much.

The problem, according to affordable housing activists, is that the area median income statistics used by the city incorporate cities and towns including Brookline, Wellesley, Lexington and Concord where incomes are much higher than those in Boston.

Consequently, what is median for the area is twice what is the median for Boston.

“The question is, affordable to whom?” asked activist Jerry Coats during his testimony. “People are going from being renters to being homeless. People in our communities are struggling. I ask the city council to do all it can to bring the guidelines to real affordability.”

Councilors Arroyo, Turner and Yancey listened to Coats and dozens of other tenants and housing activists for more than two hours of testimony on their struggles with housing. Councilors John Tobin and Paul Scapiccio also made appearances in the hearing, as did council candidate Gibran Rivera, who is challenging Tobin.

“I think we have to ask ourselves two very important values-related questions,” said Rivera, who has made affordable housing a cornerstone of his campaign. “Is housing a human right? Is the city of Boston going to have working people at the center of its life?”

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative Executive Director John Barros also advocated for housing as a “fundamental human right” in voicing support for a re-calibration of the city’s affordability guidelines.

“Today, I strongly urge the Housing Committee of the Boston City Council to stand by your neighbors — stand with and for those that might not be able to live here any longer,” Barros said. “Push for a more responsive definition of affordability.”

Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance Executive Director Tom Callahan took a decidedly different note during last week’s hearing, arguing that altering affordability guidelines in Boston could open the door for the wealthier communities to slant their affordability in favor of higher-income home buyers.

“Just imagine if Boston did this,” he said. “Why wouldn’t Wellesley change to a town-wide formula? We feel like this might have unintended consequences.”

Barros, however, urged the council to disregard Wellesley’s affordable housing decisions.

“I respectfully disagree with the notion that Wellesley even wants to think about affordable housing, let alone welcome people from this city into their community,” he said.

“We can’t wait for other cities to establish housing programs that they haven’t established so far,” Arroyo agreed. “If we keep the established guidelines, people who can’t afford to live here will leave. And it won’t be for Wellesley or Needham.”

Arroyo called the exodus of low-income families from Boston a hemorrage, urging fellow councilors to change the affordability guidelines.

Arroyo, the sponsor of last week’s hearing, has not yet crafted a proposed ordinance on the affordability guidelines.