Hearing: Dozens Decry High Rents, Home Prices, Demand Concrete Action
SOMERVILLE — Scores of homeowners and renters packed the City Hall Aldermanic Chambers on April 30 to decry the lack of affordable housing in the city. All but one urged elected officials to take concrete actions to address what they varyingly labeled with terms like “a crisis” and “the most urgent issue facing our community.”
Note: A version of this article appeared in the Somerville Journal.
Almost all of the speakers also said they supported the proposed real estate transfer fee but noted that the fee and ongoing programs are not enough and called for more commitment and concrete steps.
The Board of Aldermen’s Committee on Housing and Community Development convened the hearing, attended by all but one aldermen and about 150 people, some accompanied by their children. For two hours, the officials and audience heard story after story of individuals and families made homeless or forced to move out of the city, sometimes due to evictions. Others recounted feeling trapped in public housing because of the precipitous rise in market-rate rents.
Committee Chair and Ward Three Alderman Ben Ewen-Campen opened the hearing by reading a list of 13 questions he and the committee want city staffers to answer, such as facts and figures on the current number of public and subsidized units, the number of “condo conversions” and apartments being used as short-term rentals and trends in rental and home prices in the city in comparison with neighboring cities and other questions.
Annie Connor of the Mayor’s Office and who spoke briefly, promised that the committee would get “answers in writing.”
“The goal of tonight’s hearing and the work that we will be doing in this committee to follow up is to put some specifics on it, both in terms of data and numbers, context, but also in terms of testimony,” Ewen-Campen said in opening remarks, “to help guide this board and this administration towards wise policies that will do the most good for the most people.”
The hearing began with testimony from six invited “local experts” from what Ewen-Campen called “organizations that do work directly on the front lines of the affordable housing crisis in Somerville.”
What followed could be called a list of housing horrors.
David Gibbs of the Community Action Agency of Somerville said that 247 city residents have become homeless over the past six months. Housing attorney Ellen Shachter said that, as of March, the Somerville Housing Authority had over 10,000 families on its waiting list. Scott Hayman, real estate director at the Somerville Community Corporation, recounted how more and more people apply to their lotteries for subsidized housing. In 2017, he said, 1,600 people applied to be considered for just five units, a ratio of about 320 applicants per unit.
Regina Bertoldo, district homeless liaison for Somerville Public Schools, said that the city has recently been spending over $200,000 per year to transport homeless students from temporary housing outside of the city back to their classrooms in Somerville schools.
“Something is not right,” she said.
Mark Alston-Follansbee, outgoing director of the Somerville Homeless Coalition, said that some poor people don’t even qualify for so-called affordable housing because their incomes are too low and urged officials to “please act.”
“My biggest fear is — we’re too late already,” he said.
When Welcome Project Executive Director Ben Echevarria noted that the city’s tax revenues have risen by tens of millions of dollars over the past decade and then called for the city to build its own public housing with some of that money, the room erupted in applause.
Next, 19 people gave two-minute statements. While one homeowner said he opposed the pending real estate transfer tax, claiming it would likely force him to raise his below-market rates, almost of the others urged aldermen to approve it. They also demanded more transparency from the City on all of its housing-related programs, including the new Office on Housing Stability.
“What is the Office on Housing Stability anyway?” one speaker asked, referring to a recently announced initiative.
Somerville High School Sophomore Angie Mejia, who lives in public housing, said she and her family have worked hard to make their lives in Somerville and that they have dreamed of moving to a non-subsidized apartment.
“But it’s not easy going out,” she told the packed hall.
Mejia said that the family’s three-bedroom apartment is “home” and that she feels “privileged to be able to live here in a Sanctuary City.” But, she noted, the city needs to be affordable to everybody.
Evan Seitchik and a few other speakers called for the real estate transfer fee being considered by the aldermen to be higher than the currently proposed one percent. A member of Socialist Alternative, he called for a fee of six to nine percent to be paid by developers and for “working people to fight for what works!”
One 30-year resident of the city, Amanda Gazin, said she had to move to Arlington when her building was sold and the new owner doubled the rent. Most of the tenants left the building, she said.
“I’m lucky, I’m fine,” she told the crowd, but noted: “I miss my community.”
Gazin said that she was not forced into homelessness because she is single and has “the median income” (over $78,000 in 2016 dollars, according to the US Census.) But that income does not allow her to live in Somerville, she said. She urged aldermen not to forget about those “in between,” who don’t qualify for affordable housing but who also cannot afford to rent or by in Somerville’s inflated market.
Fred Berman, who in 2014 co-authored a study on child homelessness, reminded aldermen that “the market doesn’t work.”
“We need to be purchasing housing and deed-restricting it,” he suggested.
As the crowd dispersed, Ewen-Campen said he thought the hearing “went very well.”
“This is a board that sees a lot of spreadsheets,” he noted. “It was important to hear directly from the front lines.”
To watch the entire hearing, click here.
On May 7, the Committee on Housing and Community Development will hold a hearing on the proposed real estate transfer fee.
