Tag: boston

Three Ways AFFH Has Advanced Housing Justice

Grassroots organizers have used the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule to strengthen communities in the past. These examples show what we should advocate for in a new AFFH rule. 

The Shift to Using More Electricity Will Change How Affordable Housing...

Policymakers and building designers have gone from pushing for energy efficiency to focusing on reducing carbon emissions by using more electrical-based systems. What are some of the benefits and challenges of going all-electric, and how can affordable housers move forward?

When a Problematic Landlord Is a Nonprofit

While in most cases having a nonprofit as a landlord is considered a win, it doesn’t prevent conflict with tenants. But organizers can take some different tactics when interacting with nonprofit landlords.

Boston Organizers Protect Individual Tenants, While Trying to Change the System

City Life/Vida Urbana is known for successful tenant union organizing and anti-eviction actions, but every individual action springs from a larger vision of system and policy change.

Organized Tenants Are Baaaaack

After a lull in the 1990s, the tenants rights movement reemerged and has only gained strength. What caused the resurgence and what do tenants’ prospects look like?

Going Home: LGBTQ Renters Find Housing on Facebook

Niche groups on Facebook help the LGBTQ community find affordable housing with folks who share their values.

A New ‘Normal’: Nonprofits and the Next Phase of COVID

Two years after the pandemic began, community development organizations reflect on what’s changed and how they’re moving forward. Some are still in crisis mode; others are refocusing their work.

Helping Tenants with Mental Health Challenges Who Are at Risk of...

Support at all stages of an eviction could help vulnerable tenants navigate the process, avoid being removed from their home, or if they are evicted, help them catch their footing.

COVID Relief Funds Filling Some Housing Budget Gaps

As COVID relief funds have flowed out across the country, state and local governments have so far allotted at least $13.8 billion of their discretionary dollars to housing efforts.

ADUs: Laws and Uses, Do’s and Don’ts

As ADUs gain national attention, cities are searching for the best ways to legalize their development and encourage construction.

Making Affordable Housing Easier to Find

We talk a lot about needing more affordable housing—but the affordable units that do exist can be very hard to locate, which hampers fair housing.

Jerome Rappaport: Generous Philanthropist or Rapacious Developer?

During his life, he made large donations to hospitals, colleges, and museums. He also razed an entire neighborhood to the ground and fought fervently to degrade tenant rights.

Pandemic Housing Market Is Not Like the Great Recession’s

The pandemic housing market may be a different beast from the recession market, but the outcomes could be eerily similar.

How One of Boston’s Top Evictors Changed Its Ways

After learning it was one of the city’s most prolific evictors, a for-profit affordable housing provider created a tenant retention program that’s being touted as a model for other developers.

Community Land Trusts: Combining Scale and Community Control

This is no longer my neighborhood.” Too often, communities of color that experience new investments report that the changes are a detriment to their lives,...

Scaling Up: How Some Community Land Trusts Are Getting Bigger

The community land trust model is in a time of dramatic growth and creativity. Some CLTs are aiming for larger scale than has been typical. How are they doing it?

Fair Housing and Zoning: Toward a New Boston?

How Boston became the first city to add fair housing to its zoning regulations.

Health Care Institutions Invest in Tenant Protections for Community Health

Health care institutions are expanding from funding development to supporting housing justice and tenant rights policy.

Building Camaraderie in a Virtual Workspace

How one community development corporation's youth program flourished during the pandemic

Arts for Community Control: Planning an Arts and Innovation District Without...

Jason Moreno first learned about redevelopment efforts taking place in his Boston neighborhood on a sunny summer afternoon in July 2018 at his local...