Newton’s Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership met on Tuesday, urging the city to prioritize studying and strengthening its existing affordable housing programs before pursuing major policy initiatives, specifically highlighting the importance of building community support within affordable housing initiatives.
“But another part of family housing and also getting support for the housing is making sure that Newton really is welcoming of the families and the children,” said Esther Schlorholtz, a partnership member and the former chair of the Newton Fair Housing Committee.
Members stressed that creating more affordable housing opportunities in Newton would require broad community support and cooperation. Josephine McNeil, the former executive director of Citizens for Affordable Housing in Newton Development Organization, noted that the public’s attitude could play a key role in success.
“This is good for the community,” McNeil said. “This is a welcoming community, and you have something. You may not have the money to bring, but you have something else that we feel is valuable and part of creating a healthy community.”
The Chair of the Newton Housing Trust, Ann Houston, raised an issue with the concentration of companies that own the affordable units. Five companies own the majority of the affordable units in Newton, three of which are nonprofits, she explained, and the two companies that own the most units are the Newton Housing Authority and 2Life.
“Housing Authorities are really challenged by long-term capital and operating underfunding, and that results in inadequate capital and operating reserves,” Houston said. “And you know, I think we all know the Housing Authority properties are not always in the condition we wish they were, and they are striving very hard to cover rehabilitation costs.”
Houston provided a study on Newton’s affordable housing units and the companies that work to keep the units in proper condition. She reported that many of the properties are older, meaning they require rehabilitation efforts. She also noted that many companies want to expand the number of units in conjunction with upgrading the current ones.
“I will say that in terms of preserving an existing affordable inventory, I think the partnership could definitely be proactive and whatever we can add value to these units being preserved,” Houston said.
Houston suggested that forming another task force to study Newton’s approach to homeownership restrictions in-depth would greatly benefit the city in finding the right policies, leading the city to reprioritize or maintain its current approach.
Rather than jumping into immediate further action, Houston advocated for supporting the units that do exist and focusing on reaching a concrete consensus on Newton’s goals for affordable housing policy, especially before pursuing major policy changes.
“First is to encourage developers to build affordable family units and offer deeper affordability,” Houston said. “Second is to evaluate the policies and priorities that inform Newton’s affordable homeownership programs. And third is to expand the supply of middle-income housing.”
McNeil offered insight on potential changes occurring at the federal level that could impact Newton’s affordable housing efforts in the future.
“We need to be paying attention to what’s happening outside of Newton, and we specifically need to be looking at what’s happening at the federal government with respect to housing,” McNeil said. “I don’t know if people know that there is now a proposed rule with respect to mixed-status households, which definitely will impact the Newton Housing Authority.”
McNeil was referring to a newly proposed Department of Housing and Urban Development rule to require proof of citizenship for all residents in federally subsidized housing, even in mixed households, potentially evicting thousands of individuals.
“We should be encouraging the city as an entity, not just the members of this group or any group, but the city as an entity should be, in my opinion, commenting on this,” McNeil said.