Roxbury rents rising rapidly

Jenaya Nelson was intrigued by the Craig’s List advertisement for a three-bedroom apartment in Roxbury for just $1,575 a month. She took an application for Clayton Palmer’s third-floor unit on Crawford Street in Grove Hall, competing with about 30 other families for a rare shot at an affordable rental in Roxbury.

Nelson, a construction worker who is in the midst of a divorce, is in the process of selling her Hyde Park home and re-entering the rental market at a time when low vacancy rates and rising home values is putting a squeeze on tenants in Boston.

“It’s scary coming back into the market,” she said. “The prices are so high. I have three little ones. Paying $2,000 a month for rent is too much.”

While $2,000 a month may be too high for many long-time Boston residents, it’s now the norm for a three-bedroom apartment in Roxbury. With real estate values and rents rising rapidly in the Greater Boston area, Roxbury renters now must compete with those priced out of other neighborhoods. But next to the rental markets in Jamaica Plain, South Boston and the South End, Roxbury’s rents are still a bargain.

The average montly rent for all apartments in the Greater Boston area was $2,403 in December 2014, up from $1,839 in December 2010. For two-bedroom apartments, the average was $2,519. Yet in Roxbury, the average rent for a two bedroom apartment over the last six months has been $1,654.

The average wage earner in Roxbury — bringing in $34,000 a year — would only be able to afford a rent of $940 a month, according to the commonly-used formula that pegs affordable housing costs at one-third of annual income. But in Boston, more than half of all renters pay more that 30 percent of their income on rent, according to a study by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. In fact, more than a quarter spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent, the study found.

Palmer, a long-time landlord whose Crawford Street three-bedroom drew dozens of prospective tenants with its $1,575 rent, says collecting a high rent is not as important to him as finding a tenant he is comfortable with.

“I’m not going to gouge,” he said. “I know I could get a lot more. For me it’s about having a family I like here. This is my home.”

A landlord’s market

Roxbury has just over 4,900 owner occupants, and not all of them are disinclined to gouge. But owner occupants aren’t the only landlords in Roxbury. Corporate real estate firms, who buy multifamily homes at auction with cash, have driven up rents appreciably, according to City Life/Vida Urbana organizer Maria Cristina Blanco.

“City Life has seen an expansion within our membership of speculation in the rental housing market, leading to huge rent increases,” she said.

The rent hikes by corporate owners recently caught the attention of District 7 City Councilor Tito Jackson, who held a hearing on corporate landlords last year.

“I’m seeing my people being pushed out of Roxbury,” he said. “We have some reasonable landlords, and then we have predatory landlords who are doubling rents in the first re-negotiation of the lease.”

Because the federal Section 8 rental assistance program pays just $1,800 for a three-bedroom, those lucky enough to hold a rental voucher often have difficulty finding an apartment in Boston.

“We unfortunately counsel clients to look outside the city — Attleboro, Fall River, Brockton. Rhode Island, sometimes, depending on their income,” said Tabitha Gaston, director of Housing and Homelessness Prevention at Action for Boston Community Development. “Rents are extremely high in the city. Rents have gone up, and now you have college students moving into Roxbury.”

But Gaston’s clients, many of whom grew up in Boston, want to stay in the city to live close to their jobs and family members. Sometimes they get lucky.

“You can find a two-bedroom for $1,200 to $1,400,” she said. “Usually it’s something that’s in horrible condition. Sometimes elderly people will charge you $1,100 for a three-bedroom. But there are very few of them.”

The Boston Housing Authority, which also administers mobile Section 8 vouchers, has had better luck placing voucher holders in Boston, with 67 percent of the 2,436 applicants finding apartments in the city. Of the 793 applicants who find housing outside of Boston, the majority ended up in outlying cities, including Lynn with 82 former Bostonians, Randolph with 82, Quincy with 63 and Brockton with 60.

The agency, which funds its vouchers at 110 percent the Fair Market Rent rates set by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for its vouchers, gives its renters a leg up over others, offering a maximum of $2,047 for a three-bedroom apartment, provided utilities are included.

Market forces

For renters who don’t have vouchers, the market is even tougher. With one-bedroom apartments in Roxbury advertised for as much as $1,400 and two-bedroom apartments for as much as $2,200, rental prices are putting a squeeze on the largely working-class population.

Even apartments built as affordable housing can be pricey. In the Jackson Commons building under development by the Urban Edge Community Development Corporation, a two-bedroom apartment ranges from $1,275 to $2,337 a month, with rents set at 30 percent of individual or family income. Just across the street, at 225 Centre Street, rents for a two-bedroom go as high as $2,850.

Former City Councilor Chuck Turner says the black community could become weaker, if Roxbury — and Boston — see a net reduction of black families.

“The reality is that we’re in a free market system where stagnant wage growth doesn’t allow stability in this housing market,” he said. “The danger is that if could continue to weaken our ability as black people to build a foundation for future generations.”