From homeless to home: Fall River family moves out of shelter into affordable apartment in Taunton
Courtney Morris no longer has to wonder where she and her children will sleep at night.
Or where they will go to school.
And she now has a safe place to store her things.
“As of 2 p.m. Sept. 26, my family and I signed a lease and we are no longer homeless,” Morris told the dozens of officials who gathered for a ribbon cutting Thursday morning at Carpenter’s Glen affordable housing development in East Taunton.
She uttered those momentous words slowly and in a soft-spoken voice but with deep emotion and conviction.
She wasn’t at the ribbon cutting because it was her job. She was there because it was her life.
After Morris spoke, Carl Nagy-Koechlin, executive director of Housing Solutions for Southeastern Massachusetts, took to the podium.
“I don’t think there are any other questions why we went through this to make this all happen,” Nagy-Koechlin said.
Morris, 31, has been living in a shelter in Fall River with her two daughters, 6 and 13, and her mother, whom she thanked for her support and guidance.
But the four of them will be moving this weekend into an affordable townhouse at Carpenter’s Glen, one of eight units with a section 8 sliding scale rental subsidy.
Up until a few months ago, Morris was scraping by working at K-mart in Fall River until it closed its doors.
At the time, the family of four was squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment in Fall River paying $500 a month. Even after she lost her job, they were still able to swing the rent, just barely, because her mother is on disability, Morris said.
But then Morris complained to the landlord about safety issues and he evicted them with just two days notice, she said. She had no money for first and last month’s rent and a security deposit, so they found themselves in a shelter.
“It was a whirlwind. I lost my job and then my house,” Morris said.
But she didn’t lose hope, she said.
When she first saw her 3-bedroom townhouse at Carpenter’s Glen in June, she had to pinch herself. It was such a far cry from the inner city life her family had been living, she said.
It even has a big grassy backyard, with woods and sky to look out from the kitchen window.
“I can sleep at night without fear,” she said.
She can even dream.
Now that she has secure, affordable housing, she has two main goals, finding gainful employment and continuing her education, which in turn will allow her to offer those same life-changing opportunities to her children, she said.
Morris would like to be a social worker one day, perhaps working with homeless families, she said.
“It’s a beautiful thing when a great need is met,” she said.
Taunton makes dent in housing crisis with renovation of Carpenter’s Glen
Mayor Tom Hoye still remembers driving by Carpenter’s Glen in East Taunton in the 1990s when it was just a bunch of “holes in the ground.”
The property had been foreclosed on and the private developer had halted construction and abandoned the project with just the foundations poured.
Hoye kept wondering what would happen to the place.
He soon found out.
“South Shore Housing came to the rescue and it’s been a godsend to the city,” Hoye said at a ribbon cutting Wednesday to celebrate the completion of a major renovation of Carpenter’s Glen.
Back in the 1990s, South Shore Housing, a non-profit housing organization now known as Housing Solutions, built 32 affordable apartments there, as well as a group residence for Department of Mental Health clients.
The original development also included 70 single-family owner-occupied houses adjacent to the townhouses. A portion of those were also designated as affordable.
But that was a long time ago and about five years ago, it because clear the apartments could use a major overhaul, Housing Solutions Executive Director Carl Nagy-Koechlin said.
The Taunton renovation included new roofs; rebuilt front and back porches; new windows; new exterior siding; energy-saving insulation; new high-efficiency boilers; updated kitchens and bathrooms; and a new playground.
And as part of the project, for the first time, eight of the townhouses were set aside for very low income people, including formerly homeless families, with subsidized, sliding scale rents.
“We really understand deeply how difficult it is for working families to find a place to live in the communities where they’ve grown up and want to remain a part of,” Undersecretary of the State Department of Housing and Community Development Chrystal Koregay said at the ribbon cutting.
The total project cost was $8 million – which includes the cost of the Carpenter’s Glen renovation as well as a simultaneous overhaul to a Housing Solutions development in Wareham.
Nagy-Koechlin said the project got off the ground a couple of years ago with $245,000 in Community Development Block Grant money through the mayor’s office of Economic and Community Development.
Hoye said it was great to see all the hard work pay off on such a worthy project. He said he first met Nagy-Koechlin at a late night City Council meeting as they worked to assure the funding would be in place.
“Let’s continue this journey together,” Hoye said Wednesday.
In addition to the local funding, the project was paid for with state and federal grants, as well as a $3 million mortgage Housing Solutions will repay with rents collected, Nagy-Koechlin said.
State Sen. Marc Pacheco, D. Taunton, said Thursday he remembers working on the initial project in the 1990s when he was assistant to then-mayor Dick Johnson.
“There is a need for affordable housing particularly today when the income gap between the haves and have-nots has never been greater and working class citizens who get up every day and go to work have to struggle to find a place to live,” Pacheco said.
Mark Cook sees that struggle every day.
He is the director of The Matthew Mission at First Parish Church in Taunton, a community outreach center that focuses on helping homeless people, the working poor, veterans, the elderly – anyone in need, he said.
Right now, there are six or seven families with children living out of their cars in Taunton, Cook said.
In one case, the father works full-time and the mother spends her days in the library with their younger child, while the older child is in school, Cook said.
“High rents are doing people in. Working families are becoming homeless families,” said Cook, whose day job is as a disaster captain for the Red Cross.
He can provide families with a warm place to spend the day and vouchers for food and clothing. But he wishes he could do more.
“It makes me feel helpless. When I see them walk away, I feel terrible. The system is definitely broken,” Cook said.
Nagy-Koechlin said Massachusetts has a “Right to Shelter” law that is supposed to guarantee emergency housing be provided to families with children – be it in a shelter or hotel – but too many families fall through the cracks.
Courtney Morris, a single mother of two, will be moving into one of the subsidized units at Carpenter’s Glen this weekend.
Morris, who has been living in a shelter in Fall River, told the officials gathered what secure, affordable housing means to her. Now, she can sleep at night without fear. Now, she can work for a better life for herself and her children.
A place to call home is the foundation on which she can build, she said.
“It’s almost as if she was saying, ‘Now, that I have a place to live, the sky’s the limit’,” Nagy-Koechlin said.
How Mass. ‘Gateway Cities’ Are Crafting New Identities
The hum of textile looms once filled the 19th-century mill buildings throughout downtown Lawrence. Immigrant workers from Ireland and Germany were among some of the first laborers.
Today, many of the mill buildings in Lawrence are home to refurbished work spaces — buzzing with the sounds of artists, innovators and entrepreneurs like Angie Jimenez, who is arranging pots and pans in the site of her future cooking classroom.
“I’m going to be teaching pies, and cooking lessons — cookies, different cookies for the holidays so people can, you know, make their own and give them as a gift,” she says with a smile.
Jimenez is a graduate of Entrepreneurship for All, a business accelerator program. It’s the first of its kind in the country to offer courses and training in Spanish. It’s no surprise that such a program would launch in Lawrence, where more than 70 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino.
EParaTodos — that’s EforAll in Spanish — gathers would-be business owners, mentors and staff who collaborate in the program’s shared co-working space.
Entrepreneurs, mentors and staff collaborate in Entrepreneurship for All’s co-working space in Lawrence. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
CEO David Parker says after two years, graduates of the program have created 150 jobs in Lawrence and nearby Lowell — a key measurement of the program’s success.
“Because manufacturing across the U.S. and certainly here in these cities in Massachusetts has declined,” Parker says, “the immigrant communities still exist, there’s social services to help people, people who speak your language who have built neighborhoods now, except the jobs don’t exist.”
‘Lawrence Is A Place Where People Work’
New England mill towns were once global manufacturing hubs, pumping out cotton, wool and paper products — attracting immigrant workers from around the world.
But, one by one, the mills closed when faced with factors like modernization and global trade.
Unemployment in Lawrence is now among the highest in the state, a dubious distinction the city shares with places like Springfield and Holyoke — all former mill towns, now known as “Gateway Cities.”
On paper, it might not be the most flattering title.
State law defines a Gateway City as a mid-sized municipality, where the median household income and rate of bachelor’s degree holdersare both below state averages.
But Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera says there’s more to Gateway Cities than those metrics alone.
“Lawrence is a place where people work,” he says. “We’ve always been a place where people work.”
Rivera says he’s proud of the city’s immigrant heritage and the work ethic he believes accompanies those roots. He believes that owning that immigrant identity has helped shift the image of the city.
“We’ve already changed the way people talk about Lawrence,” he says. “They used to talk about Lawrence in these whispered tones and, like, not so great intonations and now they’re like, ‘Wow, something good maybe’s happening up there, maybe we should go check it out.’ “
Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Despite ongoing challenges, Rivera says he’s confident Lawrence is poised for progress, and hebelieves the city’s geography plays a role.
“When you think about what’s happening in Boston, and that’s around the boom in housing, they’re just doing great and we’re so excited about that because at some point they’re going to cap out and people are going to come toward our areas,” he says.
That’s the hope in many of the state’s 26 Gateway Cities, some just close enough to see the glow of the red hot market in Boston.
But a recent report findsBoston’s boom remains largely isolated from the rest of the state.
Benjamin Forman is research director at MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank. He’s also co-author of the Gateway Cities report, “Rebuilding Renewal.”
Forman says that while state investment in Gateway Cities is robust, it lacks coordination, which hinders significant impact, especially in places south and west of Boston.
“The biggest story in Massachusetts is the pull of Boston, how everything has been pulled into the orbit of the city,” he says, “and so to that extent the closer you are to that action, the better off you are as a small, mid-sized regional city in our state.”
A man walks his dog in front of vacant commercial spaces along Main Street in Fitchburg. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Embracing Change In Fitchburg
Forty miles west of Lawrence, another Gateway City is also planning a revival.
And on this day, a group of six nonprofit leaders and city officials are gathered around a table to figure out how to pump a little more vitality into Fitchburg’s downtown.
Mayor Stephen DiNatale, who took office in January, says the city’s weak real estate market has yet to fully recover from the subprime mortgage crisis. Nearly one in five homes in Fitchburg are underwater on their mortgages, according to real estate tracking firm Zillow Inc.
An old housing stock and deteriorating commercial and civic buildings present another challenge — one that the mayor says the city is trying to address through demolition.
Fitchburg Mayor Stephen DiNatale (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
“When I took over, the demolition figure for Fitchburg was about $30,000,” DiNatale says. “This year we’re going to be spending close to a million.”
DiNatale says that increase partially reflects a better system in place to identify blighted properties, as well as a renewed commitment to improving the community.
“That will take care of, in terms of removing some of those areas that bring a neighborhood down,” he says. “I mean the challenge is, more of those buildings than we can deal with, so we’re going to chip away at it every year.”
Fitchburg, once known for its bustling paper mills, is also chipping away at a new identity.
Much of that work falls to NewVue Communities, a local community development corporation.
Walking out onto Main Street, Marc Dohan, NewVue’s executive director, says he sees more than vacant storefronts and sparse sidewalks. He also sees opportunities and success stories.
Pointing just over his shoulder, he shares one such story.
Luis Feliciano cuts the hair of a young boy at the newly opened Brother’s Barber Shop on Main Street in Fitchburg. Feliciano worked with NewVue Communities, a local community development corporation, to open his business. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
“We have about seven businesses just right in this little section of Main Street that we work with,” he says. “So, Brother’s Barber Shop, Luis started it on his own. He came in for us, got technical assistance. It’s impossible to get your hair cut there now ’cause he has so many people with him.”
Heading north of Main Street, Dohan stops to point out the vacant B.F. Brown School, NewVue’s next big development project, which Dohan says will be renovated into artist apartments.
The old school is just across the street from the Fitchburg Art Museum, an institution that Dohan and others say is integral to Fitchburg’s sense of place.
Marc Dohan, executive director NewVue Communities, stands in front of the vacant B. F. Brown School which NewVue plans to renovate into artist apartments. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
“One of the things that we think of for Fitchburg, it is one of the cultural hubs of the area. It has the art museum, it has the university, and we want to build on that asset,” Dohan says. “This neighborhood in particular, it’s one of the more diverse neighborhoods in north-central Massachusetts, and that’s another type of culture that we want to take advantage of because people who live here want to celebrate their own culture.”
Dohan says recognizing the importance of change is key to Fitchburg’s success.
“I think all great places, it’s not just the old, it’s not just the new, but it’s welcoming and being able to accept that change as opposed to being afraid of that change,” Dohan says.
Fitchburg and Lawrence are trying to embrace change, recognizing their mill town histories while crafting a vision of their future as Gateway Cities.
And that willingness to change may be one of the most important indicators of success.
WBUR is participating in a national week of conversation, along with other NPR member stations, on economic opportunity. Find more from “A Nation Engaged” here.
Pine Street Inn Opens New Brookline Affordable Housing
Home sweet home is the new reality for 30 people in Brookline, thanks to the efforts of the Pine Street Inn.
It’s part of an effort to build permanent homes for people who had been homeless. And for the people moving in, having their own places is changing their lives.
“I don’t worry about going hungry, sleeping somewhere,” says Joe Joy, one of the new residents.
For Joe, his humble studio apartment means everything.
“I say a prayer in the morning and in the night. I’m like, my God, where would I be right now?” he says.
Joy is one of 30 formerly homeless people who will live on Beals Street in Brookline, a tree-lined residential area just a stone’s throw from JFK’s birthplace.
“It’s a huge, enormous victory and a miracle, and we’re very grateful to the town of Brookline,” says Lyndia Downie the head of the Pine Street Inn.
Friday was the official dedication, celebrating the renovation of two buildings by the Pine St. Inn and its partners. The Inn has developed 900 units of permanent housing like this in Greater Boston.
“Housing is the basis of everything. Housing is where you get up in the morning, where you go to sleep at night, where your community is, where you eat,” says Downie.
As part of the project case managers will work with residents if they need services like health care or job training.
“It feels good to be able to just walk out and go about your business,” says new resident Joe Joy.
Congressman Joe Kennedy was the keynote speaker. He lives just around the corner from the new housing.
“The support that went into making this investment, the hard work that brought it to fruition I think, is a real testament to the power of upward mobility and the promise that housing provides,” says Kennedy.
And for people like Joy, Friday really was the first day of the rest of their lives.
“I try to do the best that I can. It’s a complete turnaround,” he says.
Thanks to projects like Beals Street, the Pine Street Inn now has more permanent housing units than shelter beds.
Of course the Inn couldn’t do it alone. Their partners include the town of Brookline, state agencies, banks and an army of volunteers.
SourceCBS Boston
PUTNAM SQUARE APARTMENTS, CAMBRIDGE: Anatomy of a Preservation Deal
The U.S. needs more affordable housing. A lot more. Between 2001 and 2013 the countrylost 2.4 million rental housing units (both market-rate and subsidized) that were affordable to people making less than 50 percent of area median income. Building more units will help, but preserving existing affordable housing is critical too: It’s generally cheaper than new construction, prevents displacement, takes advantage of existing land use patterns and allows people to remain where they already live. But preservation also presents challenges of its own, often necessitating the blending of multiple federal, state and local funding sources and greater collaboration between developers, policymakers and other stakeholders.
In a bid to better understand how affordable housing preservation happens, the Urban Institute has released a new report and a series of six case studies under the title “Anatomy of a Preservation Deal.” While the report emphasizes that every case is different, it identifies five key lessons for other groups seeking to preserve affordable housing.
First, write the authors, federal subsidies may play a crucial role in funding a project, but they’ll likely be insufficient. Federal subsidies have been flat or declining since 2004. According to the report, between 2004 and 2014 the number of housing vouchers increased from 2.1 million to 2.2 million, but 106,000 public housing units and 146,000 project-based rental assistance units were lost. Another 400,000 units are at risk of losing their affordability because of expiring contracts, and 50,000 are at risk because of deteriorating physical conditions.
Therefore, state and local resources are critical as well. Putnam Square, for example, an affordable rental property in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with 94 units for senior citizens and residents with disabilities, utilized both Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and Project-Based Rental Assistance (PRBA) funding from the federal government. But the project also received acquisition and predevelopment funding from the state’s Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation and financing through the city of Cambridge and the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust.
Funding these sorts of projects is a complex endeavor, often involving a host of stakeholders. Funding Putnam Square alone involved 13 agencies and organizations. Hence the second lesson identified in the Urban Institute report relates to developer capacity: “The bigger a project, the more sophisticated the methods needed — and partners involved — to make it successful.” Projects are further complicated by expensive, competitive markets or by the need to preserve historic structures or serve the needs of special populations, like the elderly.
And sophisticated, mission-driven developers are particularly necessary in areas where private capital can’t be attracted. The report cites as an example 4657 West Madison in Chicago. A private local buyer wanted to purchase and renovate the vacant building, but a bank wouldn’t finance it. Community Investment Corporation, a local CDFI did. Now the building provides 10 units that are naturally affordable because of low market rents in the area.
The report also highlights the need for collaborative relationships, which are often led by mission-driven sellers. Putnam Square, for example, had previously been owned by Harvard University, which sold the property to nonprofit developer Homeowner’s Rehab with the explicit desire to keep the units affordable. Harvard continues to fund a resident services program there. A similar relationship ensures the affordability of Billings Forge, a development in Hartford, Connecticut.
Relationships and social goals were key in the two deals above, but the report notes that policy is also key in supporting preservation efforts. Putnam Square was aided by Massachusetts’s 40T expiring use preservation law, which requires affected parties to be notified when affordability restrictions are going to expire, protects against displacement of current residents, and gives the state an opportunity to make or match purchase offers on subsidized properties up for sale.
Both Oregon and Washington, D.C., have Opportunity to Purchase Acts, which require landlords planning to sell their properties to give tenants the chance to buy their homes. In D.C., they have a set period of time to secure financing and negotiate a sale, or to assign their rights to a third party to do so. The latter occurred at the Monseñor Romero Apartments in D.C., purchased by a nonprofit organization.
The final lesson included in the report is the importance of communicating these successes and the policies that made them possible to other interested groups around the country. This can include sharing how financing was structured or how policy frameworks were created — any strategies that helped preserve affordable housing. The report cites the example of the National Preservation Working group, a coalition of affordable housing advocates, developers and other stakeholders who are lobbying for more effective preservation policy. Locally, the Preservation Compact does similar work in the Chicago region.
The report concludes with a lesson that should have been learned from the failures of large-scale public housing. “Initial funds for construction were not enough to ensure stable, secure, and solvent developments in the long term,” write the authors. “Buildings get old. Contracts and rent restrictions expire. Residents and community needs change. Funding for renovations and repair, services, and other features need to come from somewhere. Tax credits and the like can help, but the reality is that affordable housing can be lost for a number of reasons. Preservation requires the continuing efforts of those in the affordable housing field to obtain funding and respond to ever-changing local contexts.”
Two Community Development Nonprofits Receive $1.3M
Two Community Development Nonprofits Receive $1.3M
August 19, 2016 — The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, a public-private community development finance institution that provides financial resources and technical expertise to promote community development in Massachusetts, yesterday announced that it is providing $1,323,100 to two Boston-based nonprofits.
The loan financing will support development of affordable housing in the Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood and improvements to a parent support program in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood.
The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) provided $1,200,000 in acquisition financing to Urban Edge in Boston, which helps build affordable housing and diverse communities in Boston and surrounding neighborhoods. The funding will support the purchase and development of a new affordable housing project on Columbus Avenue in Roxbury.
Located just south of Jackson Square, Urban Edge’s Columbus Avenue site will include 38 units of multifamily affordable rental housing and 1,000 square feet of commercial space.
CEDAC has been involved in the redevelopment of Jackson Square since 2006 and provided over $1.5 million in early stage financing for the master planning of the neighborhood and other affordable housing development projects. The new affordable housing project will serve low- and extremely low-income families in the community and continue the trend of growth in the area in- and around Jackson Square.
“We have been extremely proud to support the efforts by the Jackson Square Partners to revitalize the neighborhood in a way that helps current residents,” said CEDAC’s Executive Director Roger Herzog. “The current site is blighted and the neighborhood will greatly benefit from quality housing on that site. It is a pleasure to continue our effective relationship with Urban Edge, which goes beyond the Jackson Square redevelopment and into other nearby neighborhoods in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.”
CEDAC also provided $123,100 to Family Nurturing Center of Massachusetts (FNC) in Dorchester, which provides support services to families promote skill-building and access to educational, social, and health resources. The funding, made through CEDAC’s affiliate Children’s Investment Fund, will support expansion of FNC’s Bowdoin Street site in Dorchester.
The commitment is in addition to $375,000 previously provided to FNC by the fund for this project. To allow for the expansion of programmatic and administrative space, FNC, which has provided comprehensive family support services to low-income families throughout Boston, is renovating and enlarging its existing Bowdoin Street center to include two additional floors.
“The fund is proud to continue to support mission-focused providers like the Family Nurturing Center of Massachusetts,” said Theresa Jordan, director of Children’s Facilities Finance for the fund. “Supporting children and their families builds strong communities and encourages positive environments for children to learn and grow both in the center and in their homes.”
State grant to benefit Boston Street affordable housing 2 rooming houses will become units for formerly homeless
State grant to benefit Boston Street affordable housing
2 rooming houses will become units for formerly homeless
By Dustin Luca Staff Writer
Aug 19, 2016
SALEM — Harborlight Community Partners just landed a valuable chunk of change toward its $6.5 million overhaul of two Boston Street properties.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration said this week that Boston Street Crossing is one of 26 projects in the state that will receive state grants aimed at developing and preserving affordable rental housing. Andrew DeFranza, executive director of Harborlight, said he didn’t know yet just how much money the project will receive.
The project grew out of a homelessness task force that has been meeting on the North Shore for about a year and a half.
“This is sort of springing from that soil,” DeFranza said. “It’s going to take two existing rooming houses in Salem — 43 Boston St. and 179 Boston St. — and make dramatic physical improvements to those buildings.”
There are currently 37 rooms in the two buildings. Once the project is finished, the buildings will house 26 studio apartments tailored for formerly homeless individuals. All 26 units will be reserved for people making less than 30 percent of the area’s median income.
Lifebridge, the nonprofit that runs the shelter for the homeless in downtown Salem, is a partner in the project.
“They’re going to provide the case management services,” DeFranza said. “We do the development and run the property, but we bring in partners to provide services.”
The state grant is one of several funding sources for the $6.5 million project.
“The (Community Preservation Act) funded it and the city of Salem funded it,” DeFranza said. “It was funded with North Shore Home Consortium funds. It also has a redevelopment loan from CEDAC (the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.).”
The City Council voted earlier this year to approve $59,000 in funding from CPA funds. The money comes from a small surcharge on property taxes that is dedicated to historic preservation, open space and affordable housing.
This project represents one of the best ways to fight against homelessness, said DeFranza.
“Creating (good quality) affordable housing is the key method for making it possible for those who are homeless to be housed again,” he said. “You have to create housing they can afford with their income levels and have the services that allow them independence.”
The homelessness task force, meanwhile, “created the space to help allow solutions addressing that problem,” he continued. “This is one of the mechanisms to address the problem in the region.”
The Beverly-Salem Mayors Regional Task Force on Homelessness began meeting in December of 2014, bringing together local officials, law enforcement and social service agencies to come up with solutions to the problems of homelessness.
CEDAC Provides $1.3M In Funding To Support Boston Housing And Child Care
CEDAC Provides $1.3M In Funding To Support Boston Housing And Child Care
Aug 19, 2016
The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) recently approved acquisition and predevelopment loans totaling over $1.3 million to Urban Edge Housing Corp. and Family Nurturing Center of Massachusetts. CEDAC’s financing will support the development of affordable housing in the Roxbury neighborhood and improvements to a parent support program in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.
CEDAC provided $1.2 million in acquisition financing to Urban Edge Housing Development for the purchase and development of a new affordable housing project on Columbus Avenue in Roxbury, which includes 38 units of multifamily affordable rental housing and 1,000 square feet of commercial space. This new affordable housing project, which will be located just blocks from the Jackson Square MBTA station, will serve low- and extremely low-income families in the community and continue the trend of growth in the area in and around Jackson Square.
“We have been extremely proud to support the efforts by the Jackson Square Partners to revitalize the neighborhood in a way that helps current residents,” Roger Herzog, CEDAC’s executive director, said in a statement. “The current site is blighted and the neighborhood will greatly benefit from quality housing on that site. It is a pleasure to continue our effective relationship with Urban Edge, which goes beyond the Jackson Square redevelopment and into other nearby neighborhoods in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.”
Family Nurturing Center of Massachusetts (FNC) also received $123,100 from CEDAC, through its affiliate Children’s Investment Fund, for the expansion of a Dorchester location. This commitment is in addition to $375,000 previously provided to FNC by the fund for this project. For over two decades, FNC has provided comprehensive family support services to low-income families throughout Boston. To allow for the expansion of programmatic and administrative space, FNC is renovating and enlarging its existing Bowdoin Street center to include two additional floors.
Baker Administration Announces Affordable Housing Development Awards
Baker Administration Announces Affordable Housing Development Awards
Aug 16, 2016
The Baker Administration announced awards to fund the development, renovation and preservation of affordable rental housing across the commonwealth on Monday. The money will be used to create or preserve 1,420 housing units.
“These affordable housing awards reflect our administration’s commitment to a stronger, more prosperous and more inclusive commonwealth,” Gov. Charlie Baker said in a statement. “By increasing affordable housing production, and stabilizing working families, low-income senior citizens and homeless families or those at risk, these housing awards will strengthen communities across Massachusetts.”
The announcement was made at48 Boylston St. in Boston, a historic rehabilitation project for formerly homeless residents sponsored by St. Francis House and the Archdiocese of Boston’s Planning Office for Urban Affairs.
The 26 projects awarded will create or preserve 1,420 rental units, including 1,334 affordable units, across 16 Massachusetts communities. The Department of Housing and Community Development is awarding over $31 million in state and federal low-income housing tax credits, which will generate over $218 million in equity for these projects. Additionally, the administration is awarding over $59 million in housing subsidy funds, including federal HOME funds and state capital funds, across the 26 projects.
Projects will serve a wide variety of constituents, including individuals and families transitioning out of homelessness, persons with disabilities and the elderly. Four projects are focused on senior housing, five will provide supportive services to residents and all 26 will include deeply affordable units. The Baker Administration prioritized applications that included a 10 percent allotment for individuals and families who are, or are at risk of becoming, homeless.
In May, the administration unveiled a five-year capital budget plan that includes a $1.1 billion commitment to increasing housing production, an 18 percent funding increase for mixed-income housing production, and affordable housing preservation. In May, the Administration and MassHousing committed $100 million, to support the construction of 1,000 new workforce housing units. Since 2015, the administration has provided funding to create and preserve 2,856 units of affordable housing, including 874 deeply affordable units for at-risk populations.
“St. Francis House is a perfect example of an organization committed to ending homelessness for individuals and families by providing safe and affordable housing and meeting the full needs of their tenants,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders said in a statement. “These awards will help support vulnerable citizens in the commonwealth.”
The award will include 46 units of affordable housing at the former Boston Young Men’s Christian Union building at 48 Boylston St. The state Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) will support the project with federal and state low income housing tax credits that will leverage about $11.8 million in equity and $4 million in subsidies from DHCD.
St. Francis House and the Planning Office for Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Boston (POUA) purchased the building in April of this year, and the two entities plan to rehabilitate the historic, but presently vacant, building into affordable housing. The completed development will include units reserved for people who have experienced homelessness and others with very modest incomes. Twenty-six of the units will be reserved for individuals earning less than 30 percent of the area median income.
