Housing Headlines

Just as advocates for domestic workers used two feature films to address stereotypes as part of a campaign to win better working conditions, so too can housing advocates use culture and the arts to shift away from deeply ingrained narratives such as personal failure being the root cause of housing insecurity.

ORLEANS --- As part of its bid to redevelop the former Cape Cod 5 headquarters into 62 mixed-income apartments, Pennrose LLC has asked neighboring Harwich to contribute $100,000 in local funds to the project. The request is not unusual as Pennrose received local funds from Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet when it built Nauset Green, a 65-unit affordable housing development in Eastham.

Wall Street got bailed out after foreclosure crisis. This time, federal measures like Build Back Better and a state proposal to give tenants and non-profits a chance to preserve affordability and prevent displacement are ideas that can keep people in their homes and "repair the generations of hurt, harm, and policy violence inflicted on our most vulnerable and neglected communities."

QUINCY --- Father Bill's and MainSpring has broken ground on the first phase of a new $24 million Broad Street facility that will include long-term housing and related services. The new facility will feature 30 affordable apartments and 75 beds to house the homeless, about 60 less than its current emergency shelter, which is being knocked down to make way for a new city police station.

NORWELL --- A neighborhood association is threatening to sue the town if it does not act on a spring Town Meeting vote which made it possible for the select board to put two parcels of land into conservation. The land was taken by the town for non-payment of taxes and designated for affordable housing in 2004 but residents petitioned to have the town make the site conservation land to head off an affordable housing development. The petition gives the select board the option to reclassify the land, but does not require the board to do it.

NEWTON --- Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller has announced that the city has reached an agreement to pay $2.45 million to turn part of a religions conference center in Auburndale into affordable housing. The proposed housing would be next to an elementary school and three forms of mass transit. The purchase would be funded from Newton’s allocation of pandemic relief money provided through the federal American Rescue Plan Act, said Fuller.