Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has pledged to dramatically grow the city’s stock of public housing units. But the effort will hinge on public officials and private developers collaborating quickly this year.
Following a wide-ranging investigation by WBUR and Pro Publica that found the state’s housing authorities had around 2,300 vacant, state-subsidized affordable apartments, the Healey administration announced it’s launching a “90-day push” to get tenants into empty units.
Former city councilor Kenzie Bok is bringing big ideas and big visions to her new job as the incoming head of the Boston Housing Authority, including a goal to bring around 2,500 new public housing units to the city.
Activists want Gov. Maura Healey and the legislature to use the regular housing bonding bill and other spending vehicles to ramp up funding for public housing and affordable housing production.
In response to some local officials’ blatantly NIMBY reactions to the MBTA Communities zoning reform, the state is cutting the budgets of their communities’ public housing authorities.
City officials, representatives from Cambridge Savings Bank and developers from Marcus Partners, Joseph J. Corcoran Company and John M. Corcoran & Company broke ground Wednesday afternoon on a redevelopment of a Chelsea public housing project.
Housing – and sometimes commercial – relocation is often an integral part of the renovation and preservation process for affordable and public housing. Smart developers create and implement a housing relocation plan that prioritizes the needs of vulnerable residents.
Public housing advocates lobbied Monday for a list of policy and budget priorities that included the request from local housing authority officials for an additional $6 million in support to hire resident service coordinators.
Seven local housing authorities suing the DHCD for what some are describing as an “overreaction” to an almost decade-old scandal at the Chelsea Housing Authority that is causing experienced staff to retire early.
You reap what you sow. And after driving up rents and prices to insane levels thanks to decades of blocking any and all new residential construction, NIMBY homeowners in Massachusetts and across the country have succeed in sparking an extreme counter-reaction.
With recent public debate focused on the lack of new and affordable housing and its impact on job growth, traffic congestion and others facets of daily life, public housing advocates reminded lawmakers on Tuesday not to neglect what the state already has.
There are 160,000 people in Massachusetts on waiting lists for public housing, according to housing authority representatives who visited the State House last week to ask for more state funding and a larger role in helping the state tackle its affordable housing problem.
Four companies will pay up to $340,000 to settle allegations of illegal asbestos work during the renovation of a public housing facility for elderly and disabled residents in Salem.
“Housing ‘crunch’ now a crisis,” the Boston Globe headline read. “Massachusetts legislators have an answer.”
A newly-launched website provides updates on plans for a massive redevelopment of the Boston Housing Authority’s Bunker Hill public housing complex.
