Massachusetts

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?

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.

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?

Yes in My Back Yard activists started with a simple—and some would say simplistic—argument: to solve the nation’s housing crisis we just need to build more housing, of any type and in as many places as possible. But as the movement nears a decade of existence, some of its members argue that their message has become more nuanced.

Why should owners of buildings in illegally poor repair be able to buy more rentals? As Washington, D.C., found, it’s not the easiest thing to prevent.

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.

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.

When landlords name minor children in eviction filings, the negative effects could haunt them years later.

3D printing, repurposed shipping containers, and offsite manufacturing have been held up as potential solutions to the country’s affordable-housing crisis. But are these new construction technologies helping?

When residents were recruited to conduct an annual study that examines community change and health in nine Massachusetts communities, they didn’t just collect data—they changed how and what was collected.

In our next installment, we take a look at some positive outcomes—what happened with affordable housing on transit-owned land, cooperative agency work in Massachusetts that helped at-risk people, and the Minneapolis tenants who were facing eviction after court wins against their landlord.

Whether the governor’s rent relief and eviction diversion program will keep people in their homes depends on whether landlords can be persuaded—or compelled—to participate.