BOSTON: Improving Affordable Housing
Boston has more affordable and mid-market housing than other cities, but it must do better, says housing chief Sheila Dillon. On July 21, Mayor Walsh's housing task force that she leads will offer ideas on how to solve a problem troubling most US metros. The Millennials and seniors producing Boston's first population growth in decades are also exerting pressure on the housing stock. Already, 25,000 households pay more than 50% of their income on housing, she says. Boston has added 50,000 high-quality mid-market housing units with public funding to its total housing stock of 250,000 units.
Now it's focused on transit nodes and neighborhoods comfortable with dense multifamily development, Shelia says. Some will be light industrial areas with low-rise buildings and good transit access, while others will be more accustomed to dense development like Chinatown, where the Mayor, the Chinese Economic Development Council's Dr. Edward Chiang, and these masked men broke ground on Oxford Ping On's 67 affordable rental apartments last month. The City spends $30M/year—which it leverages by a factor of 10—to produce and preserve affordable housing.
