North Shore Affordable Housing Crunch Similar to Rest of Nation
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2002–Two years after the 2000 census that rated Massachusetts the third-lowest state when it comes to home ownership, the state’s lack of affordable housing continues to grow.
With a 13 percent price increase in single-family and condominium homes in Northeastern Massachusetts since last year, it is no wonder North Shore residents have difficulties finding a home.
The Greater Newburyport Association of Realtors reports that the average price for a single home in Newburyport in the first nine months of this year was $433,613 as compared to last year’s second quarter price of $350,000, a rise of almost 24 percent. As the Newburyport area becomes more desirable for professionals and young families, housing costs rise and lower-income residents have trouble finding affordable housing.
“The sale prices in Newburyport are way off of what a low-income family could afford,” Christine Cashman, director of Newburyport’s Community Development Block Grant Program,said Wednesday.
As more homeowners move out of the Boston area, more people are looking for property on the North Shore. Over the last few years Newburyport has become a popular area for young professionals and families who can afford more expensive single-family homes and condominiums. This leaves lower-income families looking for housing farther north or in New Hampshire.
Barbara Moynahan, president of the Greater Association of Newburyport Realtors, says even moderate-income residents are forced to look for housing elsewhere because of growing gentrification.
“Newburyport has become an incredibly desirable community,” Moynahan said. “As far as people coming in five years from now, I don’t see any way that low-income families are going to be able to live here.”
The declining availability of low-income housing is a national issue. Earlier this month Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the Affordable Housing Expansion Act of 2002. The legislation would establish a $1 billion block grant program for state housing agencies to build more low-income housing and assist in the preservation of existing low-income housing. It also would issue a tax credit for assisted rental units for low- and extremely low-income families.
At a Senate subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, along with Bond Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and housing agency representatives, testified that skyrocketing costs and limited housing availability have left low- to mixed-income families without many options.
“Despite, or maybe because of, the strength of the housing economy across our country, working families and people of all ages, at different income levels, are struggling to keep a roof over their heads,” Menino said in his prepared testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation.
Witnesses called on the federal government to help state governments fund housing subsidy programs. Richard H. Godfrey Jr., executive director of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp., testified that the best way to alleviate the housing problem is for the government to help subsidize programs that build more low-income housing units.
“The private market just can’t meet the demand. We need government intervention to fix it,” Godfrey said. The best option, he said, was to establish a federally supported housing program with flexibility that allows states to decide directly where housing money goes.
While Massachusetts’s Chapter 40B law aims to ensure that at least 10 percent of every municipality’s housing is affordable for low and medium incomes, many communities still do not meet the housing needs of their lower-income residents.
Cashman said that if the figure is approved by the state, Newburyport’s official affordable housing percentage would be up to 8.6 percent. Of 7,717 housing units in Newburyport, 687 are subsidized and low-income. In 2001 there were only 666.
The Community Development Block Grant Program also is developing 22 new housing units, 15 of which would be considered affordable. The units would be built on the former site of the Public Works Building on Merrimac Street near Route 1.
Getting low-income people into affordable housing also frees up Newburyport’s rental market, Cashman said. “You can’t have a tight market in both of those areas and expect people to afford to live here.”
Published in The Newburyport Daily News, in Massachusetts.
