A new report from The Boston Foundation finds that although more housing is being built in Greater Boston, homeownership is still unattainable for many, and rent is becoming increasingly burdensome:
Now for the bad news: Despite efforts to build new units, the number remains stubbornly low. Rent and home prices have skyrocketed. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, households now need anThe picture isn't much better for renters. Almost half of renters in the region are spending more than a third of their household income on housing, according to the report.
The consequences of the state's housing crisis are becoming more palpable, Schuster said. He believes more people are leaving the state to work, raise families and pay taxes, in lower cost states such as New Hampshire or North Carolina. The Boston Foundation report found fewer families with children are living in Greater Boston today compared to a decade ago.
One big reason supply hasn't kept up with demand, according to Schuster: Most Bostonians still idealize the single-family home.In the majority of land in Greater Boston today, it's against the law to build a modest two-unit duplex or the classic Boston triple-decker that the city is known for," Schuster said.
The dearth of multi-family units puts home ownership out of reach for many first-time homebuyers, particularly from Black and Latino communities. This contributes to a persistent wealth gap and ongoing racial segregation in the region.Despite growing racial diversity in Greater Boston, the majority of the area's Black and Latino residents live in only a few cities. And those cities tend to have lower median household incomes, according to Census data.
Many aspects of housing development in Massachusetts are governed by zoning rules, which are made by individual municipalities. Schuster said that needs to change. He argues a key strategy for easing the state's housing crisis is for more housing policy to come from the a state level.
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