Housing Headlines

TISBURY --- The Island Affordable Housing Trust recently celebrated the grand opening of two more homes at its Lake Street affordale homeownership development. One local couple with jobs at the hardware store and a local cafe were able to buy one of the homes for $184,000, making it possible for them to move from where they had been living - their father's basement. The other unit home went for $225,000.

WORCESTER --- Telegram reporter Tom Caywood and photographer Paul Kapteyn take a close look at the city's Union Hill neighborhood and how bank-owned foreclosed properties are impacting this once-proud working class neighborhood. The Union Hill area corresponds roughly to U.S. Census Tract No. 7324, which ranks as the most-distressed tract with at least a thousand homes and apartments in the city and the sixth-most-distressed in the state, according to MHP's Foreclosure Monitor.

SOMERVILL E --- The Volunteers of America Massachusetts (VOAMA) development group are in the final stages of completing construction on the Massachusetts Bay Veterans Center on North Street. The development will provide 22 transitional housing units and 7 permanent units to formerly homeless veterans. In addition to the housing units, veterans will have access to mental health counseling, employment and healthcare referrals, life skills training, homeless services and recovery services on site.

JAMAICA PLAIN --- The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) recently approved plans for a 195-unit development at 105A South Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain. The complex, called Serenity, will be made up of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with 32 units designated as affordable.

DORCHESTER, Monday, June 10, 2013 - Governor Deval Patrick today kicked-off Commonwealth Housing Week by announcing a new compact that creates a goal of providing 10,000 mortgage loans to first-time homebuyers over the next five years. The Home Ownership Compact includes a commitment among lenders to originate a specific number of mortgage loans to first-time home buyers with household incomes below the area median income through the Massachusetts Housing Partnership's ONE Mortgage Program and the homeownership programs of MassHousing.

FRAMINGHAM --- Beacon Communities recently purchased for $22 million the 180-unit Edmands House Apartments - a Section 8 affordable complex on the north side of Framingham.