Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced Tuesday $40 million to fund 14 affordable housing projects in the city, the majority of which will be new housing units.
"The funds that are going to be used in partnering with community organizations and community leaders in creating more than 700 affordable housing units will come from the mayor's Office of Housing's budget, our Neighborhood Housing Trust and the Community Preservation Fund," Wu said from the Dewitt Community Center in Roxbury. The proposed and redeveloped units will be located in Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Chinatown.
Funding agencies selected the projects after a competitive proposal process that began last August, before Wu was elected. Projects that offered more units to rent for people at lower income levels received priority in the evaluation process.
“Housing is a human right,” the mayor said, echoing a rallying cry of housing activists throughout the region. “Housing is health. It is opportunity and safety and stability, and it must be the foundation for our recovery from this pandemic.”
Wu made housing affordability a central tenet of her mayoral campaign and has taken several actions in the 70 days since being sworn in. The latest announcement comes on the heels of her pledge to put $50 million in federal pandemic relief funds towards addressing deferred maintenance at the Mildred C. Hailey public housing complex in Jamaica Plain.
All rental units within the round of projects will be permanently deed-restricted, meaning that the developer’s proposed affordability levels will be codified in the units’ deeds, while all homeownership units will be deed-restricted for 50 years, city officials said in a press release.
Nine projects within the slate of developments and $14.6 million of the funding announced Tuesday need both a formal recommendation from the Community Preservation Committee, then a formal approval from the Boston City Council.
The mayor's office said construction timelines for each of the projects will be established following approval.
The projects and funding awards are:
- $4.8 million to the Community Builders for redeveloping the 96 income-restricted units at the Armory Street Public Housing campus in Jamaica Plain.
- $4.5 million to Urbanica for the development of 49 income-restricted homeownership units in Nubian Square.
- $4.5 million to Trinity Financial and Madison Park Neighborhood Development Corporation for 32 market-rate homeownership units and 64 income-restricted apartments in Roxbury.
- $4.5 million to B'nai B'rith Housing for 63 units of senior housing in Hyde Park.
- $3.9 million to the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation and Traggorth Companies to create 45 income-restricted homes in Jamaica Plain.
- $3.5 million to Beacon Communities & Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) for developing 85 mixed-income units in Chinatown.
- $2.5 million to VietAID for the construction of 36 senior housing apartments in Dorchester.
- $2.5 million to The NHP Foundation's development of 60 income-restricted rental units in Roxbury.
- $2.4 million to Windale Development for the development of 24 homeownership units in Roxbury.
- $2.1 million to Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation for the creation of 42 income-restricted apartments in Dorchester.
- $2 million to Nuestra Comunidad for the development of 44 income-restricted apartments in Roxbury.
- $1 million to Nubian Ascends Partners for the development of 15 homeownership units in Roxbury.
- $601,527 to Cruz Development for four units, reserved for clients of the Department of Mental Health on the Harvard Commons campus in Dorchester.
- $885,818 to the Affordable Housing & Services Collaborative for preserving units in Dorchester.
