affordable housing

James Berger checked into the Sonesta Simply Suites Hotel in Braintree last November during a moment of desperation. He and his 9-year-old daughter had lost their housing in Roxbury when the relative with whom they were living was evicted.

For 20 currently unhoused families, a new development in Dorchester will offer permanent supportive housing. It also represents another step to make affordable housing across the state more environmentally friendly.

Harvard was conducting its sedate commencement exercises in 1970 when a young community activist from a nearby section of Cambridge mounted the stage, bullhorn in hand, with 20 other protesters.

A development project currently under review by the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) would bring 23 units of affordable and market-rate housing to the Garrison Trotter area of Roxbury.

Vanessa Snow was a youth organizer for the Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF) when the Archdiocese of Massachusetts announced it was closing the Blessed Sacrament Church in 2005. Snow and other teens working at the Jamaica Plain youth-focused nonprofit knew what they wanted to happen there.

Hundreds of activists, organized under the banners of Homes for All Massachusetts and Right to the City Boston, gathered in front of the Massachusetts State House last Saturday to rally in support of legislative bills introduced in the state House and Senate last week that would lift the state’s decades-old ban on local rent control measures.

Mayor Michelle Wu announced plans to create a new planning department that would be separate from the Boston Planning and Development Agency, streamline the city’s development processes and use the bulk of the city’s share of federal recovery funds to accelerate the production of affordable housing as part of a set of ambitious goals outlined in her Jan. 25 State of the City address.

Calling housing affordability “our most pressing challenge in the city,” Mayor Michelle Wu announced a new set of proposed changes to two of the city’s main affordable housing policies.

A new report from The Boston Foundation, Metro Housing and other Boston nonprofits is arguing for increased funding and a “universal approach” to Massachusetts’ chief rental assistance voucher program.

Boston City councilors passed a resolution last week calling on the administration of Mayor Michelle Wu to increase the percentage of affordable housing required in new housing developments to 20% from the current 13% and to lower the building-size threshold at which the policy takes effect from nine units to five units.

There is a limited availability of housing in Boston. Roxbury is geographically a prime location. There is no reason for Roxbury homeowners who have survived during economically unrewarding times to be prevented from developing their real estate at prevailing rates without suffering lost values because of affordable housing restrictions.

City officials gathered at the site of a newly built affordable two-family home in Mattapan Friday to announce a $60 million investment of federal funds to help moderate- and low-income families buy homes in Boston as part of the Welcome Home Boston initiative.