Melissa Fish-Crane

As evidenced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s recent report, the need for more affordable housing stock is dire, not only in our urban centers and gateway cities, but in suburban and rural areas as well.  

For many obvious reasons, it makes sense for both development and management entities to coalesce behind Gov. Charlie Baker’s recently refiled Housing Choice Initiative, aimed at enabling the building of more than 135,000 new housing units by 2025 – a number that will help to bring us that much closer to resolving the deficit of more than affordable 133,000 units identified by the Fed. In addition to the governor’s proposed legislation, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has proposed an ambitious plan which calls for 69,000 new units built in the city by 2030.  

Karen Fish-Will

Developers, Towns Need to Find New Approaches 

For these new housing units to become a reality, we will need to think outside the box and come up with new development approaches, more incentives for developers and many fewer restrictions. We need to give developers more flexibility. 

Furthermore, we need to provide compelling-enough incentives and rewards for those neighborhoods that approve the development of new affordable housing units, while at the same time promoting the social benefits of doing so: an upswing in the local economies and residents who work, live and prosper. 

We also need to support ancillary organizations. As it stands, our nonprofit partners are finding it ever more difficult to survive in an environment where funding has been cut to nearly nothing. It is crucial for these groups to remain viable, as they are positioned within the populations who are in deep need of housing resources. Two of the ways we can do this are through rewarding for-profit entities who partner with them, as well as creating funding initiatives on the state level. 

Although it may not be evident all of the time, Boston is a fairly housing-friendly city. But cities and towns that are not as housing-friendly should assess their aging housing stock. Since it’s highly likely that the homes were built earlier than the 1980s, they should want and need to access resources that support both rehabilitation and preservation efforts.  

The expiration of government-backed housing subsidies and the fact that our communities could be left with little to no subsidized housing is worrying. Given the costs related to each, we fully support the use of vouchers within the smaller, more rural communities and the use of tax credits for the creation of new housing stock within those cities and townships with larger populations.  

Ultimately, the result of these efforts is going to be a win-win. Cities and towns will stand to benefit from contributions to their economies, such as job creation driven by the creation of new, updated and rehabilitated units – while at the same time housing insecurities of low-income renters will resolve, as they become actively engaged participants within their local communities.   

Everyone Is a Housing Stakeholder 

Whether or not we are directly impacted by low-income housing, we must wake up and realize that as developers, managers, elected representatives, business owners and even residents – we are all stakeholders in the successful growth of sustainable affordable housing within our communities. We should all support the enactment of legislation that spurs the growth of new or rehabilitated housing units. Not only are we helping to support our local economies, but most importantly we’re doing what’s right by the families who need it most.  

By not supporting Baker’s and Walsh’s plans and not creating more affordable housing today, we stand to fall behind in the years to come, put a strain on our local economies and further compound the issue of low-income housing stock and housing insecurity for our affordable renters.   

While many people have differing ideas about the definition of affordable housing, we believe in the basic idea that affordable housing means that families don’t have to make the difficult choice between paying their rent in exchange for funding their families’ basic needs of health care, food and caregiving. Creating opportunities for low-income renters to maintain stable housing means that we enhance the overall multifamily ecosystem – resulting in the reduction of housing insecurity, evictions and, ultimately, homelessness.  

Karen Fish-Will is CEO  and Melissa Fish-Crane is COO of Peabody Properties Inc., a full-service real-estate firm based in Braintree which manages more than 13,000 units of housing, primarily in New England.