Why is this important? The ideal is to create a range of housing affordability within each of Boston’s neighborhoods to provide for a healthy mix of residents—including seniors, single people, young families, and people of many backgrounds and all incomes. While a precise assessment is difficult because a number of affordable housing units that are scattered throughout Boston are reported as ‘one’ development project, an approximation of the number of 40B eligible units by Boston neighborhood is possible. Programs included in Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s “Leading the Way II” strategy will create new affordable units in areas that have low rates of affordable housing stock. However, the City of Boston is constrained by a lack of ‘developable’ land, and already provides a highly disproportionate share of affordable housing when compared to the rest of the region in which it resides, underscoring the need to distribute affordable housing more equitably across Metro Boston to serve the full range of household types, sizes and incomes.How are we doing?
Between 2001 and 2005, the number of affordable units in Boston increased by 13%. Affordable housing stock grew faster in Mattapan, Roxbury, Roslindale, the Fenway, and Dorchester than in other neighborhoods. In five of Boston’s 15 major neighborhoods, more than 20% of the housing stock is affordable: Roxbury (50%), the South End (44%), Charlestown (29%), Jamaica Plain (27%), and South Boston (21%). In all other Boston neighborhoods, more than 10% of the housing stock is affordable except for Hyde Park and Back Bay/Beacon Hill. |  | |
"Percent Affordable Housing, by Neighborhood, Boston, 2005"
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