Gentrification

Boston Liberation Center leads fight against gentrification in Roxbury

The idea of a Starbucks operating in this part of the city — home to taxi drivers, school teachers and government workers — caused rumblings in Mattapan and Hyde Park among some residents who say the major chain is a precursor to higher rents and housing prices in two of the city’s most affordable neighborhoods.

On Monday night, residents from Roxbury and across the City of Boston, joined together at the Roxbury Branch of the public library to discuss encroaching gentrification and the kind of development they hope to be pursued by the city and their elected officials.

For years, urban planners and housing advocates have understood the effects of gentrification on local populations in general ways — Black, Haitian and Cape Verdean families leaving Boston for Brockton and Randolph, Latinos in East Boston seeking lower rents in Revere and Lynn.

Meidan Lin didn’t expect to find a home for her family of four quite so soon. Waiting lists for affordable housing in Boston can take years, and winning lotteries for affordable homeownership can be like, well, winning the lottery.

The city of Boston’s initiatives to increase income-restricted housing have provided affordable spots, especially important during a time where job loss can mean missing rent payments and subsequent eviction. But displacement still persists, and the city is working to keep struggling residents in their homes.

The 1,300-space parking lot is now a site of competing visions for Dorchester as residents struggle over its future. The conflict has exposed neighborhood divisions along racial and class lines and stoked tensions between homeowners and renters.

The Boston Planning and Development Agency voted unanimously on Sept. 25 in favor of HYM Investment’s plan for the former Suffolk Downs racetrack, paving the way for one of the largest housing development projects in Boston’s history.

The core principle of our current housing system is protection of the private market, with 96.3% of the nation’s housing stock in private hands. Only 3.7% is made up of different forms of social housing ¾ public housing, nonprofit housing, cooperatives and community land trusts.

Dwindling affordable housing isn’t the only issue affected by Roxbury’s spate of new developments: area restaurants, many of them minority-owned, are realizing mixed blessings as the neighborhood vastly changes around them.

Mayor Martin Walsh’s office has made significant strides in boosting Boston’s income-restricted housing stock, but for residents and activists in parts of the city this progress is insufficient in scale, depth and pace.