Co-Chairs of the Housing Committee are requested to schedule hearings to take up the attached proposed Comprehensive …

A Comprehensive Housing Plan for Cambridge

The City of Cambridge, which is home to 45,569 households, is facing a housing affordability emergency. In January 2015, the Cambridge City Council unanimously approved an order setting a goal of creating 1,000 new affordable homes by the end of this decade. Since 1997, the City has maintained a ratio of roughly 15 % of the overall housing stock as affordable, despite the loss of 15,700 rent controlled units (rent controlled units represented 40 % of Cambridge’s total rental housing stock in 1995), the market conversion of 349 low and moderate income rental housing units in expiring-use properties, and the conversion of thousands of housing units into condominiums.

Given the present conditions of one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, and the federal government’s retrenchment of its role in providing housing assistance to lower income renters, it is clear that the City’s existing policies and programs will not produce the number of affordable units and the diversity of housing types to meet the housing needs of our community.

Even if the council’s vision of building 1,000 new affordable units was realized, which according to the Community Development Department, would be a “significant increase to the City’s historic rates of affordable housing creation,” it would not counteract the other major influence on the housing market generating the affordability problem, the dramatic increase in income inequality in this “high opportunity” city.

The change in incomes in Cambridge over the past three decades is one of the consequences of ever rising housing prices. During the period of 1990 to 2011, the number of households in Cambridge earning 50 – 80 % of Area Median Income (low and moderate income households) declined by 49 %, while the number of households earning over 120 % increased by 60 %. Developing a comprehensive local housing plan that would expand the supply and affordability of housing in Cambridge, and ensure greater housing security for low and moderate income renters and homeowners, would serve to protect those people who are most at risk of displacement, and maintain socioeconomic diversity in our community.

The 2017 City of Cambridge Community Needs Assessment Report identified affordable housing and homelessness as top tier community needs. But have we made the City’s commitment to affordable housing a top priority? A comprehensive local housing plan that is not merely another housing report would shift our thinking about what the City’s role should be in creating an affordable Cambridge.

Local decisions would be framed within the question, “How will this affect housing affordability in Cambridge?” To this end, City Departments would be required to produce impact statements that look at how affordable housing would be affected when ordinances, policies, regulations, and fees are enacted or changed.

Beyond considering whether the city’s goal of expanding the supply and affordability of housing would be undermined by an action or decision, every City Department would be charged with developing ideas and practices that would promote affordable housing. There would be a process for measuring and reporting on the changes that occur as a result of this new approach to community planning.

The demand for housing in Cambridge seems to have no limits, but what kind of community do we want to be? A comprehensive local housing plan would describe the specific actions that we can take to make Cambridge the kind of place that develops inclusively.

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What are the dimensions of Cambridge’s affordable housing emergency? What are the consequences?

Escalating rents

Between 2000 and 2015, median asking rents for a one-bedroom apartment in Cambridge increased 90 % from $1,268 to $2,403. For a two-bedroom apartment, median asking rents increased 70 % from $1,691 to $2,882; and for a three-bedroom apartment, 64 % from $2,050 to $3,368. (City of Cambridge

Housing Profile 2016)

Housing cost burdens

In 2013, 65.6 % of extremely low income (at or below 30 % of Area Median Income or AMI) renter households in Cambridge were housing cost-burdened (paying more than 30 % of their gross income on rent); 55.8 % were severely cost-burdened (paying more than 50 % of gross income on rent). (HUD Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy Data, 2000 and 2009 – 2013)

Seventy-eight % of very low income (31 – 50 % of AMI) renter households in Cambridge were cost- burdened; 49.9 % were severely cost-burdened.

Seventy-four % of low income (51 – 80 % of AMI) renter households in Cambridge were cost- burdened; 22.1 % were severely cost-burdened.

Twenty % of renter households in Cambridge with incomes above 80 % of AMI were cost-burdened; 1.6 % were severely cost-burdened.

Changing incomes in Cambridge

The number of households in Cambridge earning 50 – 80 % of AMI has declined by 49 % since 1990, while the number of households earning over 120 % of AMI has increased by 60 %. (Memo to the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust, Analysis of incomes in Cambridge since 1990, CDD Staff, 28 August, 2014)

Voucher usage inside/outside Cambridge

Forty-three % of Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA) Moving to Work tenant-based (mobile) voucher households live outside Cambridge. This represents an 11 % increase since 2011. (CHA, 11 May, 2017)

Over half of recent lease-ups who located outside Cambridge are paying more than 30 % of their income on rent.

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The success rate of recent CHA voucher holders was 59 %. Forty-eight % of elderly/disabled households were able to use their voucher compared to 63 % of family households. (This was a group of preference applicant households on the CHA’s public housing waitlist who were issued vouchers during the period of spring 2015 through April 2017 when the public housing wait list was closed, and vacancies were held for current CHA tenants who were relocated due to construction.)

Waiting lists for housing assistance

CHA Waitlists

All applications: 13,700 (CHA, 18 May, 2017)

Total applications for public housing/RAD/former public housing: 4,909

Applications for elderly/disabled developments: 797 (Preference applicants: 264 No preference: 533)

Applications for family developments: 4,112 (Preference applicants: 754 No Preference: 3,358)

Total applications for the Housing Choice Voucher program: 8,791