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Providing Affordable Housing Opportunities |
Affordable Housing |
The City of Boston contains some of the oldest public housing developments in the nation. Mary Ellen McCormack, one of the BHA’s largest developments with approximately 1,000 units, was first occupied in 1938 and was the first of its kind built in the New England area. The Bunker Hill Public Housing Development, BHA’s largest, was occupied in 1940. Due to the age of its developments and a strong desire to preserve as much public and affordable housing for future generations, the BHA continually works to address capital needs and develop innovative methods that allow rehabilitation and redevelopment of its existing public housing. At the same time, BHA collaborates with many partners to create new affordable housing opportunities and preserve existing homes. Through a variety of such initiatives, the BHA has brought about the redevelopment of more than 2,000 new public housing and low-income units. Part of this effort was guided by Mayor Menino’s Leading the Way Housing Strategy, under which city Cabinets worked together on a common goal of creating and preserving needed affordable housing throughout the City of Boston.
Leading the Way: Boston’s Housing Strategy
In July of 2000, Mayor Thomas M. Menino boldly announced his plans for Leading the Way, Boston’s Housing Strategy to build 7,500 new units while preserving 10,000 units of existing, but at risk, affordable housing. After three years and $2 billion in investments, the city of Boston reached its goals and even exceeded them on some levels. As part of this plan, the BHA took the boards off 1,000 long-term vacant public housing units and brought them back into use for families who needed them. Following are some noteworthy examples.
- 43 uninhabitable and vacant units at East Boston’s Orient Heights development were rehabilitated and now house families
- Three vacant buildings at the Bromley-Heath development in Jamaica Plain were gut rehabbed and renovated. The new buildings contain nine one-bedroom, six two-bedroom, 24 three-bedroom, and six four-bedroom apartments. Nine of the 44 apartments are wheelchair accessible. The design includes a central courtyard to provide a safe environment for children and their families
- Bickford Street, a former public housing high-rise for the elderly that fell into disrepair, was redeveloped by a non-profit redeveloper through HUD’s Section 202 Program. The modern four-story facility houses 56 low-income elderly residents and includes and extensive community space and facilities that will be an asset to seniors throughout the neighborhood
- 15 two-bedroom units were designed specifically for grandparents who care for their grandchildren. The program, which is located at the Franklin Field elderly/disabled development, also has a supportive service/self-sufficiency component to assist these families
- 160 long-term vacant units in several buildings at the South End’s Cathedral development were completely renovated and rented, many to families in need of wheelchair accessible apartments
Under Leading the Way, the BHA also collaborated with other city departments, developers and non-profit agencies to subsidize, through its Section 8 program, new affordable units as part of larger redevelopment efforts. In this way, the BHA helped bring about the production of 370 new affordable apartments in the City of Boston. All residents housed in these programs were homeless or in danger of becoming homeless. An additional 200 existing at-risk apartments were provided with project based assistance under this program in 2006, which allowed affordability for the future. These Project Based units provide affordable housing for families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. Many of the programs offer supportive services to residents.
Redevelopment under HOPE VI
The federally funded HOPE VI program allows housing authorities to leverage public funds with private sector resources in order to tear down and rebuild some of the nation’s most distressed developments. The program also incorporates social and community services to address residents’ needs and includes a strong community participation component. By forging broad-based partnerships and implementing programs like homeownership, youth and career development, and elder services, HOPE VI has established and enforced high standards of personal and community responsibility. In addition, it has increased the economic independence and self-sufficiency of BHA residents. Through the HOPE VI Program, the BHA has been able to redevelop three of its most troubled developments; Mission Main, Orchard Gardens and Maverick Landing. All of these redevelopments received strong support from the City of Boston, which, in addition to assisting with funding, built the surrounding infrastructure and new roadways needed to reconnect the developments to their surrounding neighborhoods. Each redevelopment effort also required the housing authority to relocate residents while construction took place. All residents in good standing were able to return to the redeveloped site, choose to relocate to another BHA development of their choice, or opt to use a Section 8 voucher and rent in the private market.
See the PDFs below for information about specific developments.
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