The time to act on a comprehensive housing strategy in the city of Lynn is now. Our community, along with the rest of the region, is in the midst of a housing crisis that is showing no signs of letting up anytime soon. Too many of our friends, family and neighbors are suffering from inadequate access to safe, affordable and healthy housing.
Taking the lead with the Lynn Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development (LHAND), the City partnered with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to carry out a comprehensive, community-driven planning process to create a housing strategy specifically for our city.
This process included significant effort by the project team to dig deep with the community to develop a full picture of the housing needs and associated challenges, to inform the establishment of goals and to recommend a broad array of programs and policies to meet them. Now, 15 months later, I’m pleased to support and advocate for the adoption of “Housing Lynn: A Plan for Inclusive Growth.”
When we began this process, we knew there was an unmet need for safe and affordable housing in the city. The Housing Lynn process has laid bare the depth and breadth of that need, which touches all income levels and household types. Safe and affordable housing is a foundational requirement to health as well as economic mobility for every household.
Our community as a whole is strengthened when more people have adequate housing. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to this basic human need, and those disparities have only been exacerbated and highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to extensive community and stakeholder engagement, the Housing Lynn planning process included an in-depth quantitative analysis of Lynn’s housing conditions. This analysis used housing and demographic data in our city to better understand the broader conditions and supplement the stories provided by the community during the public engagement process.
Although the city may have more affordable housing units than neighboring communities at just over 12 percent — or roughly 4,500 units — there is a much greater need in the city than what those units can provide.
There are 19,840 Lynn households (62 percent of the total number of households) that qualify as low income. That means that there is roughly one affordable unit for every four eligible households in our city. We also know that many residents can’t afford housing in the Lynn market, with the median household income of $53,513.
This is approximately $25,000 less than what’s needed for median rent. More than 42 percent of Lynn households are housing cost burdened, meaning they are paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Renters are more likely to be cost burdened, with 51 percent of renter households spending 30 percent or more of their income on rent.
Throughout the country, cities are moving aggressively to take on the compounding effects the pandemic has had on the housing crisis in their respective communities. Lynn should be no different. We know that people of color have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic, including loss of income and housing stability.
The Housing Lynn plan sets out a vision and actionable steps that we can take over the next five years to make housing more affordable, accessible, inclusive, equitable and safe, especially as we begin to recover and rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It sets an aggressive, yet achievable, target for construction of new affordable housing units, but also outlines important policies to maximize the benefit of existing housing by minimizing displacement and improving safety.
Importantly, it strikes a balance between the need to create new affordable housing with the continued desire to welcome economic development and market-rate housing to ensure a housing stock suitable for a broad range of household incomes and sizes.
As successful as the Housing Lynn plan is in establishing a clear strategy for the city to address its housing needs, it remains a policy document. It is a critical foundation for Lynn.
It is a jumping off point. By adopting the plan, the City is committing to a response to the current housing crises; however, adopting the plan alone does not implement any immediate changes to housing regulations or programs. More work must be done. Implementing plan recommendations and tools will take further collaboration with the City Council, city departments, stakeholders and the broader community. That is why we must act quickly to adopt the plan and move forward with the implementation stage.
The housing crisis is fundamentally a regional one, but Housing Lynn makes clear that there are steps we can and must take at the local level.
By joining me in supporting the adoption of the Housing Lynn plan, the City Council has a historic opportunity to emphasize the importance of creating and preserving housing that is for all Lynners. I look forward to working with the Council and the broader community to move forward swiftly to adopt, then implement recommendations of the Housing Lynn plan.
Thomas M. McGee is the mayor of Lynn.
