Housing is a rising expense even in relatively well-off communities like Lynnfield, Marblehead and Swampscott, the last of which more than 40 percent of residents spend at least 30 percent of their income on housing.
The Item’s April 9 look “Inside Housing” reveals the depth of the issue and details the remedies available for providing tenants with emergency rent assistance; making the American Dream of owning a home real and helping communities provide affordable housing.
The series examined how homelessness is tied to rising rents, which spiked significantly during the pandemic.
Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) money has helped people who lost jobs during the pandemic continue to pay rent with Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director Robyn Frost calling RAFT a “120 million percent” life-changing source of help for tenants facing eviction.
But “Inside Housing” shows that real change aimed at creating housing opportunities for a broad range of North Shore residents can’t occur without long-term housing policies.
The city of Peabody in 2004 pioneered an inclusionary zoning bylaw mandating that 15 percent of new apartments in any development with eight or more units be affordable.
That bylaw spurred affordable housing construction in Peabody. Swampscott adopted inclusionary zoning in 2018. Saugus has also followed suit and there is an appetite for inclusionary zoning in Lynn.
Lynn landlord Gordon R. Hall (a director of Essex Media Group, the parent company of The Item) said accelerating development in the city convinces him ” …the time has come for inclusionary zoning in Lynn.” Research outlined in “Housing Lynn: A Plan for Inclusive Growth” notes that for every affordable housing unit in the city, there are four families who need it.
Another challenge in addressing North Shore housing needs involves translating federal income definitions for broad population swaths into real income definitions. Swampscott, Peabody, Salem and neighboring communities are lumped into a 110-community region with a $119,000 defined median income for a family of four.
“Inside Housing” found that community-specific incomes range from $53,500 annually in Lynn to $65,528 in Salem to $110,025 in Marblehead.
Incomes, noted the series, have not kept pace with accelerating housing prices. In Saugus, for instance, home prices jumped in the last eight years from $319,000 to $523,000.
But the American Dream is still attainable. Just ask Edwin and Ruth Acevedo. “Inside Housing” detailed how the Lynn couple used Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development’s (LHAND) first-time homebuyer program to help buy their first home.
LHAND Executive Director Charles J. Gaeta said the program’s classes routinely fill up.
“They open the door to people who ordinarily wouldn’t have an opportunity to purchase their own home. We need to make a strong commitment to rent payers — we can’t just let them flounder,” he said.
The challenges involved in broadening housing opportunities are great. But the tools to provide those opportunities are being crafted or are already available.
