State housing policy in Massachusetts is a failure, not only for those individuals and families seeking affordable housing, but for the communities of the Commonwealth as well. What is needed is a plan to distribute the responsibility for housing more evenly while giving cities and towns the flexibility to meet local needs creatively within the context of that shared responsibility.
It has been widely reported that homeless families have been shuttled all over the state and kept in temporary shelters–motels–under questionable conditions and with limited services. What has been less publicized, but is all the more relevant to the failed housing policies of the Commonwealth, is the practice that many housing agencies have had to resort to when faced with a lack of housing options for people in their communities. As reported in The Boston Globe, housing advocates in Boston rent a van every Monday and bring people to Fall River and New Bedford for housing. “We don’t like it,” John Drew, vice president of Action for Boston Community Development, told the Globe. “At the same time, we don’t like them sleeping under a car.”
This situation, which has been played out hundreds of times over the last several years, shows a housing policy that is completely out of control. It is inherently unfair to the poorer urban communities that already exceed the 10 percent threshold for affordable housing under the state’s 40-B law, and it is an outrage for those families displaced from their neighborhoods and sent 60 miles away for short-term housing opportunities, separating them from their extended families and the schools their children once attended.
It is this failed status quo that the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development defends. It is this reality, along with the knee-jerk reaction of housing advocates and others, that Fall River’s effort to restructure the delivery of housing services within its own community has fallen victim to.
The city of Fall River has submitted a home rule petition to the Legislature, similar to the one approved for the city of Lowell in 2000, to replace the 100 units of public housing at the state-aided Watuppa Heights Housing Development with 100 units of affordable housing throughout Fall River’s neighborhoods. This petition will allow us to reorder our housing needs, meet our commitment to provide a variety of housing options for our citizens, and still exceed the threshold for affordable housing set by the Commonwealth. This legislation, which has widespread community support, allows for the transformation of Watuppa Heights–currently in need of extensive repair and rehabilitation–into a new development with single-family homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income families. This home rule petition should be seen as a way to improve housing options for the residents of Watuppa Heights and other housing developments, for those living in neighborhoods around these developments, and for working families waiting for the chance to own their own homes.
Under the legislation, the city’s Housing Improvement Plan will continue to ensure that Fall River maintains its status as one of 27 communities (out of 351 across the state) to exceed the 10 percent threshold that Massachusetts asks cities and towns to achieve as their obligation in meeting the Commonwealth’s housing needs. In fact, because of the one-for-one replacement called for in the petition, Fall River’s percentage of publicly subsidized units, which stands at 17.3 percent when federal Section 8 rent certificates are included, will not be reduced.
Fall River’s obligation to provide housing to its local residents will also continue to be fulfilled. The city, with the assistance of RKG Associates of Durham, NH, recently conducted a housing survey showing that the Fall River housing market is fairly unique in its affordability and the quality of its housing stock. This study determined that when the number of “affordable” units in the city is compared with the number of Fall River residents and families whose incomes qualify them for affordable units, our city has an “oversupply”of between 2,500 and 4,000 units.
RKG found that the Fall River Housing Authority is primarily servicing a statewide housing need, as evidenced by:
- a waiting list for public housing on which 87 percent of the names are non-local applicants;
- the number of non-local applicants who have occupied public housing units, in spite of the Fall River preference that gives any city resident on the waiting list the first choice to accept or refuse units; and
- the very high turnover rate in Fall River Housing Authority units as families vacate their housing here after a two- or three-year period, when they move up the waiting list in their communities of origin.
RKG also recommended that Fall River adjust its housing services to more appropriately meet local needs, particularly through the creation of single-family homeownership opportunities for working families.
The desire to better serve the housing needs of our community while still maintaining our obligation to the Commonwealth has been and remains the motivation for our legislative petition. We must also recognize the need of older cities like Fall River to maintain the proper balance of services in its community, taking into account the infrastructure costs related to maintaining an excess of public housing and the economic viability that comes with a healthy mix of housing types across all neighborhoods.
Fall River remains committed to meeting the housing needs of all its residents–including those families currently residing at Watuppa Heights, 88 percent of whom have moved into that development within the last three years. The housing improvement plan required by the legislation includes relocation of every family at Watuppa Heights, offering them a range of options including housing certificates and housing units of equal or better quality within the Fall River Housing Authority. Children will be allowed to stay in their current schools, and transportation issues will be addressed. Displaced families can be easily absorbed in a system that, over the last 10 years, has averaged a 10 percent vacancy rate (nearly 250 units), half of which are family units in other state and federal housing developments.
In opposing Fall River’s home rule petition, the state argues that it has allocated approximately $6 million to renovate the 100 units at Watuppa Heights. But this argument begs the question: Why pump $6 million into a failed housing philosophy? More to the point, why spend $6 million of anyone’s tax dollars to fix up units in Fall River that the community has determined are superfluous to meeting the local need?
The home rule petition specifically allows the Department of Housing and Community Development to reallocate the $6 million set aside for Watuppa Heights to any other community where there is a demonstrated need. Thus, our petition could actually increase the amount of housing statewide–maintaining the current level in Fall River, through the replacement of units, and increasing it through a $6 million appropriation elsewhere.
DHCD officials have also argued against Fall River’s home rule petition by citing the loss of what they call “permanently” affordable units and units serving tenants whose incomes are below 30 percent of median income. On this, the state is inconsistent, given its support of Lowell’s home-rule petition to raze the Julian Steele Housing Development. Even with replacement units, this move resulted in a net loss of nearly 200 permanent units, twice that contemplated in our proposal.
The city has offered, in an attempt to secure the department’s support for the petition, to include some replacement of permanent and “0-to-30” units in its Housing Improvement Plan. Unfortunately, that proposal has been rejected, apparently out of fear that letting Fall River do so will open the door for other communities to attempt the same. In the words of housing department officials, they don’t want “another Lowell,” which they say was a mistake. They oppose Fall River’s initiative, even though it makes sense for our city and for the state, because they want to hold onto Watuppa Heights as a symbol of the importance of public housing. In fact, it is more symbolic of the failures of public housing and its rigidity when it comes to helping communities provide appropriate housing services to its residents.
The state should take a page from the federal handbook. The Hope VI program has been celebrated by communities and advocates alike as a tool for reducing public housing density in neighborhoods without requiring any replacement of lost units. Hope VI projects in Boston and elsewhere have reduced the number of permanent public housing units to an extent far greater than is sought by Fall River. The state needs to allow similar flexibility in regards to state-aided public housing as a way of giving communities the proper tools to shape housing services to local needs.
I understand the challenges facing our Commonwealth and the Department of Housing and Community Development in dealing with issues that are longstanding and seemingly intractable. However, they should never forget that their mission, as well as their title, includes “community development.” That should compel them to be partners, not antagonists, when it comes to shaping local housing policy. This is particularly true when that partner is one of a handful already meeting what the state asks of all its communities.
Edward M. Lambert Jr. is the mayor of Fall River.