Friday, February 7, 2020 - Building on his commitment to create and preserve affordable housing in Boston, Mayor Martin J. Walsh today announced $69.2 million in new and recommended funding from the Department of Neighborhood Development, the Neighborhood Housing Trust, and the Community Preservation Fund to create and preserve 1,097 units of housing in Brighton, Chinatown, Dorchester, East Boston, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale, Roxbury and West Roxbury. The funding will also contribute to affordable housing programming like the Acquisition Opportunity Program and the ONE+Boston program. These funds represent the largest affordable housing funding awards by the City of Boston since the release of Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030 in 2014.
"These funds for affordable homeownership will benefit the record number of first-time homebuyers who are graduating from our classes each month," said Symone Crawford, Director of Homeownership Education for the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA). "We thank Mayor Walsh and the Community Preservation Committee for recognizing the real need that exists to create more opportunities to help people buy a home in Boston. MAHA is pleased to partner with the city in helping to close our racial homeownership gap by assisting first-time and first-generation homebuyers."
The new funding will create 936 new units and preserve 161 units of housing, with a majority of them serving households with incomes at or below 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), which amounts to $71,100 or less for a family of four. The new units are a combination of homeownership and rental opportunities.
"Madison Park is thrilled about our award to create 20 new homeownership units for low- and moderate-income residents of Roxbury," said Leslie Reid, CEO of the Madison Park Development Corporation. "Our project at 75-81 Dudley Street will continue our partnership with the City to move Nubian Square forward, and will give families a chance to build wealth within their own community."
Funds to create and preserve the 1,097 affordable housing units will be awarded from three sources: the first, of approximately $37 million, comes from municipal and federal funds administered by the Department of Neighborhood Development. The second source, of approximately $16 million, utilizes funds from the Neighborhood Housing Trust (NHT), which are collected through the City's Linkage policy, extracting affordable housing funds from developers of large commercial projects.
The third source contributing almost $16 million utilizes funds from the Community Preservation Fund, which are collected through the CPA's one percent property tax surcharge adopted by Boston voters in 2016 to invest in affordable housing, historic preservation, and open space. The Community Preservation Committee held a public meeting on Monday, January 27, 2020, to vote on the Mayor's recommended slate of projects for funding. At that meeting, the CPC voted to dedicate the majority of this funding round to affordable housing projects, including affordable housing programming. The projects will be submitted to the Boston City Council for approval with an anticipated hearing and vote from the Council in the coming weeks.
"Recognizing the housing crisis facing Boston, the Community Preservation Committee chose to allocate 65 percent of available CPA funds to affordable housing," said Madeligne Tena, a member of the Community Preservation Committee. "In thinking about how to best serve those most in need, our priorities included rental housing for the lowest-income residents and affordable homeownership for households earning under 100% of Area Median Income."
