A Plan For Housing Justice in Cambridge
Cambridge needs a housing plan that prioritizes the needs of Black, brown, and no income, low income and moderate income people. Black and brown people in Cambridge have been disproportionately burdened by housing costs and displaced in shocking numbers. For instance, from 2010 to 2018, the percentage of Black, non-Latinx people in Cambridge went from 11.5% to 7.6%. These circumstances are the result of decades of policies that prioritized private development, including lab and office space, and high cost housing, rather than meeting the needs of Black and brown households, unhoused persons, and no-, low- and moderate-income residents.
Housing is a human right. Every person has a right to safe, stable, affordable, and comfortable housing. Cambridge has failed to protect the rights of those most vulnerable and most in need. Housing should not be understood and used as a commodity to maximize profit. Private developers and the market will not solve our housing crisis. In their pursuit of maximum profit developers and builders rent or sell at the highest price to yield the greatest revenue. We demand that:
All future housing policy should center the needs of Black, brown, and no income, low income, and moderate income people. We must prevent a further reduction in the % of Black people living in Cambridge and welcome back former residents formerly displaced by the private market.
Because private developers treat housing as a for-profit commodity, they will not solve our housing crisis. The private housing market must be regulated and we must create effective alternatives to it.
The city needs to prioritize social housing solutions.
Social housing is housing that:
Advances social equity by treating housing as a public good and as such:
Provides housing based on the fundamental principle that everyone—no matter their income, race, background, or their conformity to social or legal norms—has the right to a home.
This means that social housing is open to all residents of Cambridge. This encourages the development of social networks that unite members of diverse communities. It also avoids any stigma associated with living in social housing.
Provides permanent affordability and community stability through decommodification, i.e., state or non-profit ownership which protects it from the pressures of the for-profit real estate market.
Enables residents’ meaningful participation in all decision-making and governance. This is only possible if residents have very strong rights and the resources to organize, formulate their policy preferences, and use their rights effectively.
To create and grow a social housing sector, the federal, state, and local governments should develop policies that prioritize permanent affordability, treat occupants of all types of housing with equal dignity and respect, and incorporate resident participation and control. Policies should not only support new social housing, but preserve and improve existing developments that could fall under the social housing umbrella, like public housing. The city’s emphasis on market-rate housing development, rather than social housing, fuels gentrification and displacement. Cambridge should work towards such solutions as:
The creation of more housing outside of the for-profit market, including more public housing, limited-equity co-ops, community land trusts, and stable non-profit low and middle-income housing.
An increase in the proportion of affordable housing in Cambridge going to extremely low and low-income people. People should not be excluded from housing assistance because their income is too low.
The inclusion of a mix of unit sizes for all types of households in below-market housing.
The end of punitive public housing governance and surveillance of residents and an increase in the control that residents have over their living situations
Advocacy towards a lift of the federal cap on the production of new, public housing. A repeal of the federal Faircloth Amendment, passed twenty years ago, will enable the government at all levels to fund new affordable housing which serves low and no-income people.
Finally, repurpose the golf course at Fresh Pond for new social housing with substantial public open space and trees. Similarly, use other city-owned land, such as city parking lots, for new affordable housing and green space.
Cambridge needs new zoning based on an Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Assessment that determines the possible effects of development plans on residents and businesses before plans are approved. Specifically, new developments must not negatively impact historically underserved people. Boston has already adopted such zoning. We support such a change, and support a requirement that development proposals show that projects will not harm area residents who need affordable, non-market rate housing, including, as in Boston, those who have been historically discriminated against. The era of up-zoning each individual site in the absence of a comprehensive, city-wide AFFH zoning plan must end, as this practice has resulted in the constant approval of projects that disadvantage the most vulnerable.
Tenants need protections. Most people in Cambridge rent their homes. Tenants deserve safe, secure, affordable, and comfortable housing and their rights need to be strengthened. Specifically, tenants need rent control and stabilization, tenants’ rights of first refusal to purchase, strengthened condo-conversion protections, tenant councils and unions, and access to legal counsel. Finally, we also must preserve and extend the eviction protections provided for the COVID-19 pandemic until full economic recovery.
The city needs to create and support a Department of Housing Stability. Although having a housing liaison to the City Manager is useful and brings housing services closer to other social services, what we need is a fully staffed Housing Stability Department. This should be modeled on Boston's Office of Housing Stability, to “help residents find and maintain stable, safe, and affordable housing.” This Department would:
Provide direct assistance to people seeking housing, trying to keep their housing, experiencing homelessness, or dealing with other housing issues
Provide information about tenants’ rights and about accessing available housing services, including legal aid
Develop resources and programs for tenants and landlords
Collect, track, and analyze data about tenant displacement, rent costs and home sale values, repeat offender landlords, and properties recently put back on the market
Develop and advocate for policies at the city, state and national level that aim to prevent displacement and set goals for the amount and mix of market and non-market housing
The city must prioritize creating permanent housing for the unhoused community members now.
This housing must:
Provide a low-barrier to entry; this means no preconditions for entry, such as abstinence or participation in substance use treatment
Be offered through a transparent and streamlined process that:
Includes fair rights and responsibility policies
Includes a grievance process
Is easy to understand and translated into many languages
Be non-congregate (i.e., private rooms or apartments).
Welcome all members of the unhoused community including families of all configurations and people who experience barriers to accessing traditional shelter, such as lacking Cambridge residency, drug use, and involvement in the criminal justice system
Once housed, community members should be proactively offered voluntary supportive services that meet their self-identified needs, including harm reduction, mental health care, and case management:
Maintaining housing should not be contingent upon participation in these services
Community members should have full tenant rights and protections and access to free legal counsel and support
All associated staff members should be:
Paid a living wage
Provided comprehensive training in:
Harm reduction, boundaries and communication, de-escalation, and crisis response
How to work with people who use drugs, including overdose prevention and response
How to work with people who have experienced interpersonal, institutional, and systemic trauma related to domestic violence, sexual violence, police violence, marginalization based on identify, and the other systems of power and control that create and perpetuate violence
Affordable home ownership:
Our deepening housing unaffordability crisis is continuing to cause gentrification – an influx of high-income, mostly white residents – and displacement – the outflux of low-income, including many Black and Brown, residents. This crisis has its roots in the active discrimination against Black and Brown people in the housing market in the 20th century, including the so-called practice of “red lining”, leading to multi-generational poverty and a massive wealth disparity.
With this in mind, we support the Council’s recent policy order for:
Aggressively increasing the stock of affordable homeownership units by financing the construction of new affordable housing with no less than $500 million over the next ten years
Ensuring that the city gives preference for purchasing any units resulting from this plan to members of populations historically disadvantaged in the housing market.
We further support the following policies for affordable homeownership units:
Implementing an affordable downpayment program to enable existing Section 8 and low-income tenants to become homeowners
During an affordable unit’s resale, the City must pay for a seller’s attorney; right now, the seller is responsible for finding and hiring their own
Family members, etc. should have Right of First Refusal on affordable homeownership units (currently, only the City does). Allow residents participating in affordable homeownership programs to transfer their units to their children.
In addition to program coordinators, we support the creation of a housing planner position whose job is dedicated to finding privately-held buildings and houses which may be sold and, with City support, opening negotiations with the owners. The housing planner should also work with the Cambridge Housing Authority to implement a rent-to-own program for Section 8 voucher holders.
Amend the tree protection policy to ensure that social housing and other low-income housing maintains and increases its tree canopy. Do not build new social housing in flood plains.
To support these investments, the city will need to increase revenue in a manner that does not fuel displacement. For too long the city has favored commercial development, such as big labs and market-rate condo development, that drives up the cost of Cambridge land, displaces residents, and reduces the availability of space for housing that meets the needs of no-, low- and moderate-income people. Cambridge is a wealthy city but does not make maximal use of its resources for the public good. Cambridge should:
Enact a condo-conversion tax
Enact a vacancy tax that would raise revenue from speculators who buy housing and keep units vacant hoping for rising prices and a lucrative sale and profit
Support state legislation (HD. 3207) that would enable the city to receive Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) at 25% of the commercial tax rate
Support H.1379, Representative Connolly’s bill that would fund an emergency supplemental affordable housing bond
Increase linkage fees
Pass a real estate transfer fee home rule petition
Float bonds for social housing
More aggressively spend Free Cash for these purposes
Increase or maximize its property tax levy, while continuing its payment remediation policies for homeowners who are cash-poor.
Because Cambridge has a government that operates under a Plan E Charter, city policies, including tax policy and the budget for land purchase and investment in housing, are proposed by the City Manager, not the City Council. The term of the present City Manager ends in a year. We need a manager who places people before profit. We demand that the City Council search for and appoint a candidate who embraces this housing justice plan.
Finally, just, affordable, and livable housing does not exist in a vacuum. The right to housing must be embedded in policies which support livable and sustainable neighborhoods, with access to transportation, safe streets, employment/retail resources, arts/entertainment/recreation, healthy food, both public and private spaces for congregating, and opportunities for communities to engage and connect. Environmental concerns are paramount; protected wetlands, floodplain mitigation, tree canopies, open space not only make living in the city more enjoyable, they make them possible. With rising heat temperatures, heavier rains, more compromised air, environmental health is at the base of human health, and should therefore be at the basis of any plan for housing justice.
We have presented our vision of housing justice for Cambridge. It is based on a belief that housing is a human right and that the free market cannot meet our needs. We are keenly concerned with increasing housing stability for all people regardless of income; however, we are quite intentional in our desire that the focused push be towards meeting the imminent needs of Black, Brown, unhoused, no income, low income, and moderate income people. We believe that mobilizing a diverse group of people to realize these proposals will bring us closer to housing justice in Cambridge.