“Unhoused?” We have never heard that term before. It is definitely something thought up by some cool SAAS-enabled tech startup in Boston, operating on Ruby on Rails or some kind of web tech, wouldn’t you think?
Now here comes UrbanBank, a new mobile micro-donation platform that enables users to give the homeless access to essential items for health, like a toothbrush.
The Melnea Apartments – 7 Apartments Available Get the papers — click 431 Melnea Cass Boulevard Roxbury – Deadline to Apply is June 17th
35 affordable apartments out of 168 units in the development are available The Kinloch Apartments 104 Turnpike Road, Chelmsford, MA View rent prices and the application details Must Apply by June 1, 2019 Phone: 978-256-7425, ext. 21 Email lottery@chelmsfordha.com
150 Camden deadline May 29th – get papers < — click 6 Income Restricted Apts 150 Camden Street South End
older When a deadline date passes, there may still be a chance when the property manager decides to keep them open. There are many reasons for them to do that. Phone them or email the address on file in the links.
Burlington Apt Lottery – rents $1,273 – $1,700 The Reserve at Burlington – get the papers 20 Corporate Drive Burlington MA Housing Lottery Deadline – June 17, 2019
older listings
Lucky Strike Residency $1,094 – 1,449 per month 3 income-restricted apartments for rent 281 Adams Street, Dorchester, MA 02122 Application deadline – April 23, 2019 1 Studio, one 1-BR, one 2BR == Lottery Papers required.
Chapel Hill Landing Homes for Sale: 3BRs $228,00, 4BRs $241,000 Off Hospital Road at 1 Stoneridge Way Medfield, MA Open house and on-site application consultation – April 30th. 5-7PM Click for the brochure with contact info.
Hyde Park – Six income-restricted rental apartments 735 – 745 Truman Parkway rents are $1,094 – $1,449 depending on size Apply Online here: www.TrumanParkwayLottery.com Or call to have an application mailed 781-992-5305 Deadline – apply by April 23rd, 2019
April 2019 – Boston Mayor Martin Walsh releases 1,000 new Section 8 rental housing vouchers to support those who suffer from chronic homelessness. The vouchers will be issued by the Boston Housing Authority through four programs that assist homeless individuals: Coordinated Access System referral program, the Rapid Rehousing program, the Moving On program and the Leading the Way Home Program. Section 8 vouchers allow individuals and families with low incomes to only spend about 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, with the voucher covering the rest of costs.
Boston Section 8
The Boston Housing Authority administers a Section 8 program. view web site
Housing eligibility varies by Public Housing or Section 8/Leased Housing programs. BHA staff evaluate each individual application and make an eligibility decision. Here are some general guidelines that BHA uses to assess your eligibility.
Massachusetts Section 8
Section 8housing choice voucher program is the federal government’s major program for assisting very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing in the private market. The Massachusetts Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program Centralized Waiting List feeds Ninety-Nine (99) Massachusetts housing authorities who use this one computerized list. All applicant information entered onto this list can be accessed and updated by any and all participating housing authorities. View the Centralized Listwebsite for Section 8 applications and information. The Massachusetts Centralized Section 8 Waiting List will remain open indefinitely. The Waiting List is updated at least every two (2) years.
CLICK HERE to Search with a zip code. The HousingWorks Net Boston non-profit created a unique Section 8 search engine for Massachusetts properties and waitlists.
Section 8 Legal Help
Consult Greater Boston Legal Services, Inc. – website They are one of a number of organizations offering Section 8 legal assistance when trouble arises with landlords and Section 8 tenants.
Section 8 Federal HUD Information
Look at the Massachusetts Area Section 8 Locator Map.Click to Access.
City of Cambridge affordable housing is owned by non-profits, Town Hall, and there are privately-owned affordable housing units. Low income applicants are charged 30% of their income for rent when selected into the program. The Community Development Department (CDD) is accepting Preliminary Applications. To be considered into the Inclusionary Housing Rental Program you must apply. You can view the eligibility requirements here and download the application.
Housing in the Middle-Income program is for households with an income between $60,000 to $100,000. The Maximum Income Program allows incomes between $90,000 and $150,000.
A number of departments and organizations are building and renting affordable housing in the City of Cambridge. Click here to view the list.
A household who earns from $22,650 to $200,000 a year can be eligible for below market rate rents and purchase prices. That household could be yours.
Here’s why.
Your Income Matters. The Federal Housing and Urban Development Department established income guidelines for every region of the United States. These regulations are used to fix rental prices to what properties rent and sell for.
The rules created an Income Eligibility Chart.
In most of Massachusetts and the Metro Boston area, a household with an income of at least $22,650 can rent a 30% AMI studio apartment for $470. Each AMI level raises the amount of rent.
Where Section 8 can be used, you get a price break.
SALE: deadline for app is May 8th, 2019 Address: 11 Iffley Road, Jamaica Plain MA 02130 3BR, home for sale – 65% AMI $192,000 apply here
Rental: deadline to apply is May 15, 2019 Keystone Apartments, 151 Hallet Street Dorchester Rent is 30% of your adjusted Gross Income 1 BR – restricted to elderly. income limit. $56,000-$64,000 – APPLY ( 30% of $56,000/12 ) is the month rent
Affordable Housing Lottery The Reserve at Burlington 20 Corporate Drive, Burlington, MA Studios @ $1,293, 1BRs @ $1,470, 2BRs @ $1,632, 3BRs @ $1,792 Apply here before June 2019 *Rents subject to change. Utilities not included. Tenants will pay own Gas Heat, Gas Hot Water, Electric Cooking, Electricity, Water and Sewer.
Landlords who say no to Section 8 housing vouchers or disability checks when you pay the rent are breaking the rules. Fortunately you can do something about it.
Call 617-884-7568 to report your trouble or visit the Suffolk Law Housing Discrimination Testing Program web site at http://www.suffolk.edu/law/hdtp
Suffolk Law’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program (HDTP) is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to work in partnership with the Boston Fair Housing Commission to eliminate housing discrimination in the Boston metro area through testing, enforcement and education.
This problem is caused by elected officials in Massachusetts government. Policy makes a difference. When they don’t get it right, it is a #FAIL. Politics is the control of a limited amount of fixed resources.
The article says … “xtremely hard,” said 35-year-old Ashesha Rockette.”
Rockette receives a state housing voucher that helps subsidize her rent. She is required to pay a third of her monthly income — $211 — toward the rent while the state kicks in the rest.
excerpt: The state’s Department of Housing and Community Development would not comment on the funding levels for the voucher program.
The state slashed the budget in the 1990s. Over the last few years, they’ve restored some funding, but that’s gone to increasing the number of vouchers, not the subsidy amount.
excerpt: At 2005 rates, you may also struggle to find a safe, working apartment that meets state housing standards, said Rockette. When Rockette eventually found a place in Hyde Park for $1,650, it was far from perfect. Last week, the water was turned off. There’s mold, and rodents. Her mailbox has never locked properly, so she misses important mail.
excerpt: Two years ago, that meant the state was paying the difference between her third and a cap of $1,392 — the maximum amount she could spend on rent. Rockette was not able to find an apartment at that rate. She eventually negotiated a better deal with the state, but many people who rely on these vouchers are still locked into the cap, which was set back in 2005.
HEADLINE: Dec 12, 2017,
Governor Baker announce a plan for 135,000 new housing units by year 2025
In May 2016, the governor announced $1.1 Billion for housing investment in Massachusetts. Where is the happy ending to the story?
When policy makers in government allocate billions of dollars to cover necessary expenses, there is negotiation. Do you build more housing the less fortunate can afford? Do you fix rusty bridges, replace underground the water pipes, cover cost of free insurance for poor people? Do you build a new highway?
In high-priced housing markets, a home for $500,000 would require an ideal $100,000 down payment. Who has $100k laying around? Not too many people right.
house with a huge porch in Newport RI
Well, if you are a teacher or eligible professional, here’s an option to consider:
If the house cost $500,000 in high priced market
Downpayment required is $50,000
You put $50,000 down
A Chan Zuckerberg co-funded LANDED initiative pays $50,000
The cost of houses for sale to the affordable housing pre-qualified consumer have been stable. They haven’t changed much in two years.
In these photos, one is $293,000 with low down payment, $425,000 hooks up a two-family spread on Forrest Street and the odd number of $343,000 buys two attached single-family dwellings in Dorchester DOT Boston.
The City of Boston can rightfully brag that it does better than most cities in the US when addressing the need for affordable housing inventory,
Take this message contained in the Boston Mayor’s State of the City 2019 speech where he said …
” We are committed to leaving no one behind. In Boston we’ve created more affordable homes than any time on record. We’ll create 1,000 new homeowners in the next five years by building more affordable homes and providing more financial help. We’ve housed over 1,600 chronically homeless people. A year ago we launched the Boston’s Way Home Fund and set a goal of raising $10 million over 4 years for supportive housing. After just 1 year, we have already raised $5 million.”
Housing policy wonkssay the claim rings true, that Boston has put a larger “percentage of affordable rentals” on the market than most other cities of its size in the U.S, in recent years.
But the devil is in the details.
Politics is about the control of limited resources. Land and money are limited resources. It takes both to create a housing unit, be it an expensive luxury apartment building or an affordable building of similar size.
And because land and money are limited, there may or will NEVER be enough affordable housing to meet everyone’s need in urban areas. Let’s face it. A substantial number of people have limited incomes. Its just the way it is.
What a housing lottery really is
A democracy is a hard thing to administer, therefore its political leadership invented THE HOUSING LOTTERY as an attempt to be fair. This works for a lot of people. But when there are 6,000 applicants for a workforce priced building unit that has 200 openings, then the policy has not worked for 5,800 people who applied for the units.
The Beverly building workforce priced housing in downtown Boston
This was the case at THE BEVERLY, a downtown Boston building near the North End that demonstrates an interesting way to fairly treat the pre-qualified affordable housing consumer. See chart below for the affordable rental rates in that new modern complex.
The Beverly’s affordable-housing units were offered in a housing lottery to households with annual incomes of $17,578 to $60,000, according to the developer. Rents were to start at $492 a month depending on income. It is a LUXURY apartment building complex that has 239 units. It offered 66 Affordable Price units in chart below.
Numbers like these are repeated at most Housing Lottery opportunities. But there is good news in the mix. When a building full of condos for sale to the income-restricted went to market with 11 available units, only 18 lottery applications were received by management.
Eleven people won a unit of 18 that applied. Probably, some of those 18 applications were rejected for technical reasons as they usually are.
We spoke to one of the winners – a coffee shop manager in the Seaport. He said when it put in his application he didn’t expect to win, but he thought “what do I have to lose” he said. The move enabled him to save hundreds of dollars a month less the going market rate.
The $5 billion city plan
If Boston had won the Amazon Headquarters II deal opportunity that plan called for the new construction of housing to meet the needs of 50,000 employees. AMAZON valued the deal at $5 Billion
Do you want to know who was going to build that new housing? Guess no more, we have the document. Click here to read it.
This writer would like to think that a BEVERLY-like solution with the scale of the Amazon buildout can be constructed. The Affordable Housing industry uses a rough figure of $400,000 each to build a unit to meet standard requirements in urban areas. That cost is all inclusive of land, construction materials, finance cost, labor and all that.
If it cost $400,000 a unit and there are 50,000 people looking to access affordable housing at the BEVERLY income ranges stated above, then there is cash to work with. It would cost $20 Billion to build 50,000 affordable price units.
at the 2018 lottery closing
Would an extra 50,000 affordable housing units take the pressure off? You bet it will! If you divided the $20B construction cost of 50,000 new units by the 50,000 people now in the market looking for a unit, you’ll arrive at a figure of $40,000 per person.
This simple math can be looked at any way you want, but from the calculations, there appears to be enough regular cash flow coming from 50,000 renters to pay off the $20B construction cost, while holding tenant monthly housing cost to an amount no more than 40% income all inclusive. The Beverly affordable rent range started at $492/mo and ended somewhere north of $2,000 per unit scaled to income.
Eminent domain property taking is necessary to put up a new apartment complex of this magnitude. Boston mayors have unusual powers. They are tremendous.
What does financing $20B over 15 years look like? Chances are with all the rent coming in against it, there would be a profit to be taken that can pay for building a few more 50,000 affordable unit packages where they need to go. Look around Boston, don’t disturb the greenspace and figure how to do it.
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