Baker hands out housing funds
Touts Lawrence project; criticizes country on affordable housing
Gov. Charlie Baker raised his voice in passion over the importance of affordable housing Thursday at a Lawrence event to announce $139 million in awards for those projects across the state.
“If you talk to almost anybody who does analysis around why Massachusetts is such a tough place for working people,” he said, “more often than not, it comes down to the price associated with housing. It is the biggest single nut that everybody pays every single month that comes out of their pocket.”
The Lawrence project, in which 87 additional units at Arlington Point in the Arlington Mills National Historic District will be converted into housing units, is one of 28 projects in 21 communities Baker is funding.
Of the $139 million in total, $93 million will go toward direct subsidy funding and $46 million will go toward federal and state housing tax credits.
MassHousing is supporting the Lawrence project with a $22.75 million permanent mortgage, a tax-exempt short-term equity bridge loan, and $2.1 million in workforce housing financing.
State Sen. Barry Finegold, whose district includes Lawrence, spoke about the city’s upswing in desirability, citing a tenfold decrease in annual carjackings in the last 15 years, from 2,000 to under 200. Meanwhile, the median annual income in Lawrence hovers around $38,000, below the salary needed to pay rent on the average twobedroom apartment in Lawrence, which he said costs $1,500 a month.
“In the next seven years, we can have up to 150,000 new jobs,” he said, speaking about the burgeoning biotech and other industries. “So my question is, where are we putting all these people?”
The Baker administration announced a plan last month to funnel $1 billion in federal American Rescue Plan funds toward housing initiatives, because, as Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said, these funds are a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to make a dent in the state’s housing crisis.
Baker said $300 million of that $1 billion will go toward down payment assistance. He ardently defended the high price tag, signaling that housing is one of his signature issues. He argued that the U.S. created zoning laws and other restrictions, especially in the wake of World War II, that barred people of color from accessing down payment assistance.
“We have simply done a bad job as a country at making those same sorts of opportunities available in many cases to the communities and the people of color,” he said.
“If you’re not worried about displacement right now in a lot of these communities … you should be,” he added, almost shouting. “The power of homeownership is, guess what? You can’t be pushed out.”