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By State Representative Christine Barber

We need more affordable housing. This is something I hear over and over as State Representative throughout my district of Somerville and Medford. When speaking with a group of high school students from my district recently, I asked about their top priority – it was housing. Is this a typical concern for teenagers? This is where we are today.

The housing crisis has been decades in the making, and has been well-documented. The current crisis is due to too many communities building too little housing, to investors buying up affordable units and reselling them for much higher prices, to wages that have not grown in many sectors, and lack of ongoing investment in public housing and other permanently-affordable units. Where we are today is a lack of available housing at all income levels, but particularly for people with low incomes. As many in my district know, it is nearly impossible to afford housing when making minimum wage. Recent changes like the MBTA Communities Law, which included a bill that I filed, have been in the news lately. Communities in the MBTA’s service area are now required to allow zoning for multifamily housing, and some cities and towns are fighting the state’s requirements. This law is a necessary and important step, but it is not enough.

There are no easy answers to addressing the housing crisis, but it demands action on a number of different fronts. There are currently thousands of homeless individuals and families throughout Massachusetts, including in Somerville and Medford. While the state is struggling to meet the need for emergency shelter, one solution is to move people from shelter into supportive housing. A program that I continue to champion is HomeBASE, a transitional housing program for families in shelters to help them find stable housing. I am continuing to fight for increased funding for HomeBASE in the state budget, and we have been able to strengthen this program to allow families to stay longer until they are stabilized. As our homeless crisis has continued to expand, HomeBASE is a lifeline that gets families out of emergency shelters and into more stable housing. I am now working to make HomeBASE a permanent state program, and striving to establish more supports like case management to help families remain in safe housing.

But Massachusetts also needs many more housing units, particularly for low income people. An omnibus housing bill initially filed by the Governor, the Affordable Homes Act, is now moving through the House and Senate, and will address some of these needs. One of my top priorities for the Affordable Homes Act is to allow communities to enact a local option transfer fee. This would give cities and towns the option to pass a transfer fee, and the ability to raise funds from a small percentage of real estate transactions over one million dollars for affordable housing.

Importantly, the proposed Affordable Homes Act would also provide needed funding for public housing. Massachusetts is one of the only states in the country that funds our own state-based public housing, on top of federal programs. This housing is a critical resource, but one that has often been neglected and fallen into disrepair due to the high costs of maintenance of old buildings. The Affordable Homes Act provides the opportunity for more initiatives like the redevelopment of Clarendon Hill in Somerville, which preserves existing public housing and adds new affordable units, as well as the proposed Walkling Court project in Medford which will make public housing healthy, safe, and accessible for families, seniors and people with disabilities. Without additional funding, we will continue to lose critical state-funded affordable housing all over Massachusetts. 

Families also need protections now. I am also working to include a policy I filed to create a Massachusetts Foreclosure Prevention Program, which would require lenders to engage in conferences with homeowners to review all available prevention options well before an impending foreclosure. Losing a home to foreclosure is devastating for a family, especially when alternatives might have been available but were not explored. This would provide protections for homeowners and go a long way to stopping unnecessary foreclosures. 

A crisis of this magnitude requires a number of bold policy ideas. The housing crisis also requires us to work together as communities to support people in need of housing. I look forward to working with you as we continue to take on the housing crisis, in Somerville, Medford, and throughout Massachusetts.