displacement

The city of Boston’s initiatives to increase income-restricted housing have provided affordable spots, especially important during a time where job loss can mean missing rent payments and subsequent eviction. But displacement still persists, and the city is working to keep struggling residents in their homes.

The 1,300-space parking lot is now a site of competing visions for Dorchester as residents struggle over its future. The conflict has exposed neighborhood divisions along racial and class lines and stoked tensions between homeowners and renters.

The core principle of our current housing system is protection of the private market, with 96.3% of the nation’s housing stock in private hands. Only 3.7% is made up of different forms of social housing ¾ public housing, nonprofit housing, cooperatives and community land trusts.

Neon signs declaring the Piano Craft Guild apartment block and studio space on Tremont Street an “art free zone” hint at the uncertain future remaining artist residents face.

Artists affiliated with Northeastern’s African American Master Artists in Residence Program (AAMARP) have called 76 Atherton St. their creative home for decades, but the university is now demanding that the collective vacate its workspace, citing numerous safety concerns and code violations.

While there is no “silver bullet” for our housing problems, there are actions that we can and must take in order to ensure that we can remain in our community.

District 1 City Councilor Lydia Edwards has focused on housing issues in the city of Boston since her election in November.

Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start & Early Head Start center in Brighton has been providing childcare services to low-income families at 149 Washington Street since 1985. According to ABCD President and CEO John Drew, the owner of the property, St. John’s Seminary, sold it to AvalonBay Communities, a national developer, leaving ABCD scrambling to find a new location to house their school.

Condo conversions and new construction in Roxbury are pushing up prices in the Roxbury market.