How Does Cambridge Rank on Housing?

        Cambridge has long been proactive in adding more affordable housing. The 2019 Concord Highlands development is a case in point.  We also have great regional data  and Cambridge is very near the top regionally

Evidence: The Boston Foundation Report
         The Boston Foundation is out with their new Area Housing Report and Cambridge does very well in this. It is ranked top 3 in the region for rentals, multi-families and Diversity and beats our neighbors Arlington, Belmont, Somerville for Housing Affordability (see top image). The issue in pointing this comparison out is NOT that we shouldn’t do more, but that on multi-family housing,  and housing diversity more generally we are near the top for the region. On affordability,  we are actually ahead or or on part with nearby Arlington, Somerville, and Belmont. This is very important. Somerville has done lots of very good things on affordability (some that Cambridge is not yet willing to do) such as have the city buy more properties for housing. We are FAR richer city, and so this should be a top priority! ​

               In addition to this good news, the Cambridge Housing Authority has announced a reset on Section 8 subsidies that will encourage more low income rents in our more expensive neighborhoods (see image below).

The above image is published in  a June 26, 2019 Cambridge Day article by Sue Reinert: "The Cambridge Housing Authority is trying a new tactic to make more housing available to low-income residents in a high-rent city – one that doesn’t require building anything [italics & red for added emphasis]. Instead, the housing agency intends to set maximum rents available to landlords in the Section 8 voucher program by ZIP code instead of citywide. This move, together with a giant increase in the Section 8 rent cap overall, could open Cambridge’s higher-income neighborhoods to poor tenants with rent vouchers for the first time, agency officials said at a board meeting June 16. “This would unlock Authority codes where we don’t have a lot of Section 8 [units],” director of leased housing Hannah Lodi told its commissioners. The Section 8 program helps low-income renters pay for housing in the private market. The tenant pays 30 percent of his or her income toward the rent and the federal government pays the rest, up to a government-set limit.”  Cambridge has the time to get this right.      
        Yes, we should and will do more, but we have the time to get this right, and not rush into things like the proposed radical city-wide up-zoning  that are to date untried elsewhere in the country,  that are highly risky, and that we are likely to regret later. Housing is a regional issue – unless we tackle this together the chances are worse (whether for traffic, costs, or other issues).   
        Cambridge needs to significantly rewrite the Affordable Housing Overlay Proposal or send it back to rethink it entirely!
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