Massachusetts needs more affordable housing, study says. Lots of it.
The figure makes clear the bleak reality: the state's affordable housing system is no longer a reliable safety net. It is a rare commodity awarded only to a lucky few who, in some instances, quite literally
'The reality is that we need thousands and thousands more units of affordable housing for people of every income, every household size, in every place in Massachusetts,' said Jessie Partridge Guerrero, director of data services at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which wrote the report with Housing Navigator Massachusetts, a nonprofit that created a statewide centralized affordable housing waitlist. 'It's not necessarily shocking information, but the scale of that number certainly puts into perspective how far away we are from solving this problem.'
Unsurprisingly, the state's 'affordability gap,' as researchers describe it, is the worst for the state's poorest residents.
Advertisement
Of those 441,000 households who qualify for affordable housing but can't access it, some 44 percent are considered extremely low-income, meaning they make 30 percent of the area median income — in Greater Boston that's $48,950 for a family of four — or less.
Advertisement
Those residents qualify for the government's deepest affordable housing subsidies such as
The Stone Mill Lofts in Lawrence, an old mill building converted into energy-efficient affordable housing.
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
The result is families who end up paying huge portions of their income toward rent, or endure overcrowded apartments, illegal or unsafe units, or in extreme cases, homelessness.
For families who earn just a little more — 'very low income' households between 30 and 50 percent of the AMI — there are even fewer resources, the report found, because most state and federal programs target either the poorest residents or middle income earners, not anyone in between.
Section 8 and public housing are designated for the state's poorest families, and the popular state affordable programs Chapter 40B and inclusionary zoning typically build units for people earning 80 percent of AMI.
The people in between, 30 to 50 percent AMI earners, make too much money for public housing, and too little for inclusionary zoning units. The result is that 81 percent of those households do not live in affordable housing, the report found.
'We call it the missing middle,' said Jerome DuVal, executive director of Housing Navigator. 'We have programs for people earning more than them, and programs for people earning much less. But in this push to build more, we've missed some folks who need an affordable home.'
And while the state has a shortage of affordable units for families, the greatest need is for homes that can house 'small households' with one or two members. That, the reports' authors say, is at least a positive note, because those homes are smaller, cheaper, and easier to build.
Advertisement
The underlying problem is that the state has not built nearly enough affordable housing in recent decades. At the same time, the price of market-rate homes has soared, and 'naturally occurring affordable housing' like older triple-decker units that rented for cheap, have been flipped, upgraded, or simply had rents raised.
Classic three-deckers and other small multi-family buildings, which have long provided a stock of relatively affordable rental housing in Eastern Massachusetts, have in recent years been increasingly converted to more expensive for-sale condos.
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
And income growth has not kept up with the pace of housing price growth, meaning more people than ever qualify for affordable housing.
The aim of the report, said DuVal, is to encourage state policymakers to consider solutions to the state's deep housing shortage will stimulate building for people at all income levels. Simply building market-rate housing, while important, won't provide immediate relief for the people who need it the most.
'The urgency to build a lot more housing is real,' said DuVal. 'But we want to make sure that its not just about more. It's also about ensuring we build the right kinds of housing for the right people in the right places.'
Andrew Brinker can be reached at
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Boston Globe
Imports plummet in April as tariffs weigh on trade
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up REAL ESTATE Advertisement Healey administration sets aside more than $7 million for office-to-residential conversions The Healey administration this week announced it had awarded more than $7 million to help spur two office-to-residential conversion projects in downtown Boston. Woburn-based KS Partners won $3.4 million to convert 15 Court Square. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff The Healey administration this week announced it had awarded more than $7 million to help spur two office-to-residential conversion projects in downtown Boston. A proposal to convert 31 Milk St. from Dinosaur Capital Partners of Newton was awarded $4 million, while Woburn-based KS Partners won $3.4 million to convert 15 Court Square. The Milk Street conversion is due to carve out 110 new rental units on the building's office floors, including 22 income-restricted apartments, while 80 apartments are planned for 15 Court Square, including 16 affordable ones. The state money is coming from $15 million that Governor Maura Healey set aside last year from the state's Affordable Housing Trust Fund, to help developers planning larger office conversions in downtown Boston finance their projects. So far, at least 15 applications have been filed in Boston to take advantage of the city's own program for office-to-residential conversions, which offers as much as 75 percent off property tax bills for up to 29 years. But construction has so far begun on only one project, building 15 apartments at 281 Franklin St. The Wu administration said on Wednesday that construction on the Milk Street and Court Square projects should begin by the end of the year. — JON CHESTO Advertisement LAYOFFS Pampers maker Procter & Gamble to cut up to 7,000 jobs as companies are buffeted by higher costs The Proctor & Gamble headquarters complex is seen in downtown Cincinnati in 2015. John Minchillo/Associated Press Procter & Gamble will cut up to 7,000 jobs over the next two years as the maker of Tide detergent and Pampers diapers implements a restructuring program at a time when tariffs are raising costs for American companies and consumers are growing anxious about the economy. The job cuts, announced at the Deutsche Bank Consumer Conference in Paris on Thursday, make up approximately 6 percent of the company's global workforce, or about 15 percent of its nonmanufacturing positions, said chief financial officer Andre Schulten. Procter & Gamble, based in Cincinnati, had approximately 108,000 employees worldwide in June 2024. The cuts are part of a broader restructuring program. Procter & Gamble will also end sales of some of its products in certain markets. Procter & Gamble said it will provide more details about that in July. — ASSOCIATED PRESS ECONOMY The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits last week rises to highest level in eight months Filings for US unemployment benefits rose to their highest level in eight months last week but remain historically low despite growing uncertainty about how tariffs could impact the broader economy. New applications for jobless benefits rose by 8,000 to 247,000 for the week ending May 31, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's the most since early October. Analysts had forecast 237,000 new applications. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of US layoffs and have mostly bounced around a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy five years ago, wiping out millions of jobs. — ASSOCIATED PRESS Advertisement BANKRUPTCY 23andMe's DNA data soars in value with new $305 million bid Signage at 23andMe headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., in 2021. David Paul Morris/Photographer: David Paul Morris/ Bankrupt genetic analysis company 23andMe will hold a second auction for its cache of DNA data with an opening bid of $305 million from a group led by the company's former chief executive, Anne Wojcicki. The offer is nearly $50 million more than the last bid from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which had been declared the winner of the first auction last month, only to have the outcome challenged in court by Wojcicki. The new auction is a compromise between Wojcicki, Regeneron, and 23andMe, all of whom had come to federal court in St. Louis on Wednesday prepared to fight over the best way to set up a new round of bidding. 23andMe had initially proposed limits on the new auction that were questioned by US Bankruptcy Judge Brian Walsh. At the start of the hearing on Wednesday, Walsh asked lawyers for Regeneron and 23andMe to justify the proposed auction rules, including a $10 million breakup fee and a limit to the bidding, which he said may be 'inefficient.' Under the new rules, Wojcicki, who is partnering with a California-based research institute, would make a bid of $305 million, which Regeneron can counter with an offer that must be at least $315 million, company attorney Christopher Hopkins told Walsh. After that, Wojcicki and the research institute can make their final bid. If they do, Regeneron gets the chance to make the last offer of the auction. — BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement LEGAL Mattel settles baby sleeper death suits before start of a trial Mattel headquarters in El Segundo, Calif. Bing Guan/Bloomberg Mattel Inc. and its Fisher-Price unit have settled lawsuits alleging their recalled Rock 'n Play baby sleeper was so defectively designed that it led to the deaths of infants. The agreement, disclosed in a Delaware court filing last week, resolves lawsuits over six death cases and four allegations the faulty design of the Rock 'n Play product led to babies suffering flattened heads when they rolled against the product's side, said Michael Trunk, an attorney representing victims who settled their cases. He declined to provide financial terms. Among the cases settled was a suit filed by Ameena Brown over the death of her son, identified in court filings only as AB. Jury selection in her case was slated to start Thursday in Delaware. There are at least four other such cases pending in Delaware Superior Court. A representative of Mattel declined to comment. Mattel acquired Fisher-Price in 1993 in a deal valued at $1 billion. — BLOOMBERG NEWS GAMING Eager fans endure long lines for the Nintendo Switch 2 launch A Nintendo Switch 2 is sold at the Nintendo store in New York's Rockefeller Center on June 5. Richard Drew/Associated Press Eager customers lined up outside electronics stores in Tokyo hours in advance to collect their pre-ordered Nintendo Switch 2 video game consoles. The much anticipated Switch 2, being released around the world Thursday, is an upgrade to its eight-year-old predecessor with new social features meant to draw players into online gaming. Nintendo is counting on the Switch 2 to boost sagging sales. In the United States, a chaotic pre-order process in April left some fans frustrated after the consoles quickly sold out. Still, some eager fans lined up early Thursday at retailers such as Target in hopes of purchasing a unit. 'I'm just rolling the dice here,' said Edgar Huo, who was in a line of about 25 outside of a Target in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. — ASSOCIATED PRESS Advertisement TOURISM Where Canadians are traveling this summer now that they're avoiding the US Canadians are traveling more this summer than they did last year — just not to the United States. According to data from Statistics Canada, the government's data-crunching agency, they have logged 10 percent more flights to overseas countries in the first five months of 2025 than they did in 2024. In that same period, they also curbed their flights to the United States by 20 percent. Car trips across the border have declined by 35 percent, leaving US border towns ravaged. The dominant winner in this behavioral shift are Caribbean countries. According to a May 2025 report from flight and ticketing analytics firm ForwardKeys, summer flight searches to the region have increased by 22 percent from last year, more than to anywhere else. Data shared with Bloomberg by the Caribbean Tourism Organization also shows that at least a half-dozen island nations have so far documented gains in Canadian arrivals, with Bermuda taking the lion's share. Although its weather is more consistent with the mid-Atlantic — with optimal temperatures in the summer — it already saw Canadian visits grow by 34 percent in the first quarter of the year. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Boston Globe
Tiny Fupo in Cambridge's Huron Village is serving a Chinese and fusion menu
The Backstory Before they opened Fupo, Xuyang (Benny) Zhang was an R&D mechanical engineer, and his wife, Qianyi Lin, worked as a business intelligence analyst. When they decided to open a restaurant, they returned to China — he is from Canton and she is from Sichuan — and tried food from many regions to see what they wanted to bring to their new place. The Chinese beef flatbread at Fupo. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff What to Eat Chinese beef-stuffed flatbread, from the street food section of the menu, with a flattened patty seasoned with red and green Sichuan peppercorns baked inside a yeast dough. It's delicious. Roasted dumplings (eight to an order) with vegetables, chicken, or pork, with crispy edges and juicy filling. Stir-fried broccoli with garlic, perfectly cooked, almost crunchy. Cold noodles (with or without shredded chicken) with carrots and cucumber and a chile oil sauce you add yourself, so you're in charge of the heat. You'll find vegan dishes, such as noodles tossed with stir-fried zucchini slices; familiar food such as egg and veggie fried rice or roasted pork ribs; family fare as in thin-crust pizza; exciting specialties such as Sichuan peppercorn shrimp pasta; and unusual offerings such as brown sugar buns. The dumplings at Fupo. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff Advertisement What to Drink Regular coffee and latte, plus many versions of iced latte, including lavender, Nutella, and banana; several matcha drinks; and more bottles and cans to choose from. Advertisement The Takeaway Fupo means 'rich lady' in Mandarin. When Qianyi Lin told a friend that she and her husband were opening a restaurant, he wished them great success and hoped she became rich, hence the name. The couple is very enthusiastic and accommodating, and their food is quite fresh, prepared with care, and mostly healthy. This is a shoestring operation with 16 seats. You want to encourage and patronize a sweet place like this. 359 Huron Ave., Huron Village, Cambridge, 617-491-3133. Dumplings, noodles, vegetables $9.95-$22.95; meat and seafood $8.25-$26.95. Sheryl Julian can be reached at
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Boston Globe
After two years on the job, Charlie Baker remains focused on his role as NCAA president — not on running for office
Related : To be clear, that squelches remaining speculation over a potential run against Senator Ed Markey next fall. 'You can shut the door on that one,' said Baker. Baker's Asked to weigh in on the Trump administration Advertisement But he did reveal his concerns. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'That issue is in court now, right? You might recall from my time as governor that I don't like talking about issues that are before courts that involve me or my administration,' said Baker. 'What I would say is that there were 1,400 current or former student-athletes who participated in the Olympics last summer. I think about half of them were from the US, and half of them were from other countries. One of the more interesting elements of college sports is the appeal it has to the international community. And part of that is because there really isn't anything that looks like this anywhere else in the world.' Advertisement Baker likes his job, and he wants to stay at it long enough to find solutions for an unusually long to-do list of complex issues hovering over the roiling college sports landscape. As the front man for an organization of 1,100-plus schools, more than half a million student-athletes, and an operation that generated close to $1.4 billion in its last fiscal year, Baker's touch points far exceed those he had on Beacon Hill. Charlie Baker has no immediate plans for a return to politics. Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff Some small schools need guidance on NIL, some big schools are about to begin sharing revenues with student-athletes, and some really big schools with powerhouse football programs are beginning to wonder if they need the NCAA at all. Factor in NCAA exposure to legal, legislative, and economic forces that place Baker in contact with media power brokers, a Congress and president who want a say in the future of college sports, and the scale and scope of Baker's job makes his old job and even the potential of some new political one sound almost quaint. 'I travel a lot more in this job,' said Baker. 'I used to leave the house at 6 o'clock in the morning and get home at 9 or 10 o'clock at night, and I'd probably hit 10 or 12 different places during the course of the day. But I got up out of the same bed I got into at night. I never, ever left Massachusetts, hardly. 'Whereas in this job, I have a lot of weeks where I'm in five states in five days. So that's probably in some respects one of the biggest differences, the travel schedule is just a lot geographically more complicated.' Baker said he spends about two or three days a week at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. Advertisement 'I have an apartment there, and I'm probably two or three days somewhere else, it depends on the week, but it's a lot of travel, which is fine,' he said. 'I get a lot of grief from a lot of people who work at the NCAA about the fact that I think Sweetgreen's is a pretty great place for a meal. I think they think I need to up my game a bit. And they're probably right. 'My Hoosier friends think there are a lot of great restaurants in Indianapolis, and that I'm missing out. They're also right about that, too.' The skills Baker employed governing Massachusetts from 2015-23 don't seamlessly overlap with this job. 'It's hard to retail this job the way the lieutenant governor and I tried to retail our previous jobs — Karen Polito visited all 351 cities and towns, they all had her cellphone,' said Baker. 'I probably went to 220 cities and towns, and everybody, for the most part in local government, had my phone number, a lot of the folks in the legislature had our phone numbers. It's very hard to do that when you have 1,100 members in 50 states [in the NCAA].' Baker said he's spoken with thousands of student-athletes since starting the job in March 2023, and speaking with international students at the Division 2 tennis championships last year in Orlando reinforced his beliefs on the value provided by college sports. 'Long story short, what they said was there just isn't anything quite like the combination of academic opportunity and athletic participation that exists here in the States in most other parts of the world, and the gratitude that a lot of these kids had for the chance to be part of a team here and to get a degree was pretty cool,' said Baker. Advertisement Conversations such as those are the favorite part of Baker's job. The longer he stays at it, the more optimistic Baker sounds that all the noise surrounding college sports will not stand in the way of the athletes themselves. 'I keep saying to these kids, these are lessons you're going to get to use all the time,' said Baker. 'The more I talk to these kids, the better I feel about the future of our country, because they are such good kids, and they are going to be such positive forces for good and such great role models.' Michael Silverman can be reached at
