Creating Housing for Everyone in Boston: The Housing Innovation Lab

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The three-person I-Team of the Boston's Housing Innovation Lab has quite the challenge -- keep Boston a city that isn't just for the rich and the poor -- and places that the working middle class can still call home.

Funded by a three-year $1.3 million Bloomberg Philanthropies Innovation Team grant, the lab is guided by a planner, an educator and an artist -- an intellectually diverse team assembled to address the challenge of building and sustaining housing in Boston for middle-income working families.

There are two co-chairs: Susan Nguyen and Marcy Ostberg. Nguyen was program director at the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, which houses the Housing Lab. She has a master's degree in urban planning from the Harvard School of Design. Ostberg is a graduate of Tufts University, where she studied urban and environmental policy, and has taught high school biology. Sabrina Dorsainvil, a graduate of Massachusetts College of Art and the Parsons School, joined the team in August.

In October 2014, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh released his long-anticipated housing report. The report stated Boston will need to build 53,000 units of housing by 2030 to keep up with population growth. One of its major findings was that only 5% of the current city housing stock was affordable for a two-income working family earning $50,000 a year; Only 9% of the available rental housing was affordable for that same family (based on 35% of income going toawrd rent). The report estimated that 140,000 units during the next five years would be required to meet that need, or about 9,000 units a year.

The New Urban Mechanics office applied to the Bloomberg Philanthropy Innovation grant program to help find solutions, and the grant was awarded in January 2015. The co-chairs were appointed and the Housing Innovation Lab -- an innovation in itself -- got underway in late spring.

The lab's defined objective is that housing is a basic need, and a city without a middle class was not sustainable for the long run. If that middle-income base could not afford to live in Boston -- if they in fact left -- there would be a two-income city -- those in subsidized housing and those in luxury housing.  The co-chairs determined to focus on where the income base housing ended -- at the $50,000 for a two-wage earner household. The team wants to systematically analyze and find solutions for housing of families who do not qualify for subsidies, but are priced far above luxury housing.

Nothing illustrates this need better than at The I Team. The Artist The Planner and the Educator l- r Sabrina Dorsainvil. Susan Nguyen. and Marcy Ostberg. The I-Team. Left to right: Sabrina Dorsainvil, Susan Nguyen, and Marcy Ostberg.[/caption]

 

The chalkboard at the Egleston square Peace park as the I Team gathers community ideas.

Housing Innovation Lab

The chalkboard at the Egleston Square Peace park as the I-Team gathered community ideas.

 

I Team member Sabrina Dorsainvil ( second from L) takes notes while John Dolzell of the BRA talks with those at table #1 during the JP/Rox workshop Sept 28

Richard Heath

I-Team member Sabrina Dorsainvil (second from left) during the JP/Rox workshop on September 28th.

 

The Challenge Only 23 % of the housing in Boston is affordable to those earning $50,000 a year can live in Boston..and Jamaica Plain is not one of those affordable neighborhoods

Housind Innovation Lab

The Challenge: Only 23% of the housing in Boston is affordable to those earning $80,000 a year .and Jamaica Plain is not one of the affordable neighborhoods.

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