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Taylor Cain. Photo courtesy of the city of Boston.
Boston has a new point person as it tries to find innovative solutions to the region’s housing crisis.
Mayor Marty Walsh appointed Taylor Cain as the new director of the city’s Housing Innovation Lab, or i-Lab, on Thursday.
“Creating opportunities for people of all income levels is critical to ensuring that Boston continues to be a city where people want to live and employers want to locate,” Walsh said in a statement. “Dr. Cain has an incredible background that will suit her well in this new role, and I look forward to the ideas that will be generated under her leadership as we work to make Boston’s housing stock accessible and affordable to all.”
Cain, a Jamaica Plain resident, recently completed her Ph.D. in sociology at Boston University, and has worked with local nonprofits on evaluation and research projects that focus on a range of issues, including economic development, racial equity and displacement.
“Since its inception, the Housing Innovation Lab has infused a sense of curiosity, creativity, and the lived experiences of Boston residents into our conversations about housing,” Cain said in a statement. “As the new director, I cannot wait to grow the threads of this work. I am looking forward to partnering with the many communities that care deeply about housing in Boston and exploring projects that grapple with the connections between housing, transportation, employment and other important dimensions of urban life.”
Since Walsh established the i-Lab in 2015, the office has worked to craft strategies like the city’s Additional Dwelling Unit, or ADU, program, allowing owner occupants to carve out space within their homes to create small, independent rental units, although the project has seen mixed results so far in part thanks to the cost of these conversions. The i-Lab also spearheaded the city’s Intergenerational Homeshare program, which leverages technology to match older adults with an extra room in their home with a responsible young person looking for affordable rent.
In the coming year, Cain plans to lead the lab on projects related to resilience, multigenerational living and community wealth building.
To help solve the city’s portion of the regional housing crunch, the Walsh administration has set a goal of adding 69,000 new housing units, include 15,820 income-restricted ones, to the city by 2030 to meet Boston’s expected population growth.
