Somerville Housing in Crisis

As a struggling college student approaching my junior year at Tufts, I understand the strife associated with finding an affordable off-campus apartment in the Medford-Somerville area. Luckily, I have the benefit of parents who are willing to help support me financially. For elderly persons, families, and single workers in Somerville, however, the rising costs of housing are putting many citizens at risk of being "priced out" of their homes. Somerville is no longer a haven for the working-class, but rather it is becoming a new home to Boston professionals and academics. With rents rising and residential subsidies expiring, many citizens of Somerville are fighting to retain their affordable housing. As citizens of Medford and Somerville, I urge Tufts students to join community organizations and help to put an end to the affordable housing crisis plaguing the area.

Somerville is the most densely populated city in Middlesex County, making it an "urban suburb" of Boston. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the median family income is somewhere in the mid-$30,000 range; the average worth of a home in the city, however, is approximately $275,100. Two and three family houses are the most common type of housing in Somerville. Only 31 percent of people in the city own homes, making the rights, issues, concerns of tenants particularly important to the majority of residents.

Western Somerville contains what is considered to be "higher quality" housing than the eastern section of the city. West Somerville is less densely populated and considered to be "safer" than East Somerville. Not surprisingly, Tufts University is located in West Somerville. Because of the proximity of many houses to campus, the land values of homes around Tufts increase and students of the University are often willing and able to pay such high rents. Rents in the Davis and Porter Square areas are much higher than those in the eastern portion of the city. Monthly rents in some areas of West Somerville, particularly near the University, are as high as $1,400-$2,000 for a two to three bedroom apartment. The areas surrounding Union Square and the eastern borders of Cambridge and Charlestown are often considered the "less desirable" sections of the city. Many of the subsidized housing facilities in the city are located in these areas.

With the lack of affordable housing in Cambridge and Boston, many professionals and students from these cities are seeking homes and apartments in Somerville. Because there is a greater demand for housing in the city, landlords are able to charge higher rents. Consequently, the availability of affordable housing for working-class citizens and families is decreasing.

Expiring government subsidies are also threatening the existence of affordable housing in Somerville. In the 1960s and 1970s the state and federal governments financed the building and renovation of thousands of privately owned multi-family units across the state; the owners of the complexes, in exchange for the mortgage financing, guaranteed the government that a percentage of the housing would be available for low- and middle-income residents. Many of these subsidies are now expiring, allowing owners of buildings to choose whether or not to convert their affordable residences to regular apartments. The owners who continue to subsidize their units are not guaranteed funding by the government. According to the Somerville Community News, between the years 1997 and 2002, the contracts of 609 subsidized housing units expired; another 141 units are due to expire by 2007.

In an attempt to save the affordable and subsidized housing in Somerville, many residents have organized to protect tenants' rights. Because of their effective community mobilization, the Mystic Tenant Association and the Clarendon Hill Tenant Association are two particularly strong, local organizations fighting to preserve affordable housing in Somerville. The Clarendon Hill Towers, located on Broadway, are home to more than 340 affordable housing units. The Haitian Coalition works closely with the Clarendon Hill Tenants Association to organize residents in the Clarendon Hill Towers.

The Welcome Project is another group which works with residents of both the Mystic Housing Development and the Clarendon Hill Housing Development to preserve affordable housing. The Welcome Project, which was created to build a strong multi-cultural community in Somerville, aided the Mystic Tenants Association in gaining a commitment from the Somerville Housing Authority to move forward in making Mystic Housing a mixed-income development. The Housing Authority promised not to displace the low- and middle-income residents in order to make room for middle-income tenants from other neighborhoods.

The Boston Department of Housing and Urban Development Tenants Alliance works along with the aforementioned organizations to mobilize residents around the issue of affordable housing. The groups not only organize to protect tenant rights, but also to promote literacy, education, economic self-sufficiency, community leadership and multi-culturalism within the city.

As students at Tufts, we are also members of the Medford and Somerville communities. We are not immune to the issues that this area faces, nor should continue to perpetuate the problem of affordable housing by agreeing to pay higher rents. While many students are aided financially by their families, issues of affordable housing will not cease to exist by the time they graduate and begin to enter the workforce if they continue to be left unaddressed. I ask the Tufts community to get involved with the effort to preserve affordable housing not simply to support the citizens of Medford and Somerville, but also because we, too, are members of this community.

Courtney Boen is a sophomore majoring in sociology.