Phil Mangano – ‘Mismatch’ exists

In all the recent talk and efforts to create more affordable housing, some maintain that the most needy group seems to have been left out of the discussion.

That’s why advocates for the homeless are hoping this week’s housing conference includes a focus and emphasis on policies that help those with the most severe housing needs: homeless people and families who are at risk of becoming homeless.

The second annual Governor’s Conference on Housing, Success We Can Build On, is sponsored by the state’s housing agencies and will feature sessions on everything from zoning to Chapter 40B to new public housing tools. The conference will take place Thursday at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough.

Phil Mangano, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, said that while zoning and Chapter 40B are critical issues in Massachusetts, the conference must also address how those issues affect the homeless.

To bolster his argument, Mangano pointed to recent research showing that people earning between 0 percent and 30 percent of an area’s median income are the only population segment experiencing a severe housing shortage.

For every 100 households in Massachusetts that fall into that income category there are only about 37 available housing units, according to the research, which was done by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the spring.

Despite that, recent efforts and funding have been spent to creating housing that is affordable to working people earning up to 80 percent of an area’s median income.

Housing policy in Massachusetts has yet to catch up with this study, said Mangano.

Rarely do these resources attend to the housing needs of people who are at the 0 to 30 percent [median-income range], said Mangano.

Mangano said that housing advocates recognize the perceived need for creating more housing that is affordable to municipal, high-tech and all other workers who keep the economy going.

In fact, housing advocates have spent much of the last several years pushing for additional resources by focusing in on working people who can’t afford housing in the country’s major metropolitan areas. In the Greater Boston area, leaders have called for the construction of more housing, including homes that are affordable to teachers, police officers and service industry workers who are critical to a region’s economy.

But what, in fact, the HUD study tells us is that only population where there is a mismatch – between housing units and households – is in the extremely low-income category, said Mangano.

Advocates like Mangano were encouraged at last year’s conference when former Gov. Paul Cellucci acknowledged the plight of the homeless. The former governor noted that the state has lost 96 percent of its single-room occupancy units and lodging houses over the last decade or so. Most of those units have been converted into luxury apartments or condominiums, according to Mangano.

The most important thing – and this was mentioned last year – is for housing policy in Massachusetts to develop inclusivity, meaning that the policy is targeted to all people … who have housing needs, especially those who have the most acute housing needs, he said.

At this year’s conference, Mangano will moderate a session called Moving Out of Homelessness. He and three representatives from the development community will describe ways to provide housing and services to formerly homeless people.

‘Critical’ Situation
Much of the conference – which will feature Gov. Jane Swift, real estate expert and economics professor Karl E. Case and national urban researcher David Rusk – will examine the state’s new programs and how they are being used to create more housing.

The conference will also look at how communities can add more housing units through various methods like zoning.

One session will focus exclusively on inclusionary zoning – a method some communities use to require developers to help pay for and create below-market-rate housing.

Massachusetts Senate leaders passed an inclusionary zoning measure in September as part of their version of housing spending package. The measure allows communities to pass laws requiring developers building 10 houses or more to set aside 10 percent for low- to moderate-income households.

Critics of inclusionary zoning, including the state’s homebuilders, argue that it creates an unfair financial burden on developers and would further hinder the production of affordable housing. Builders say they would be forced to hike prices of the market-rate homes in order to pay for the affordable homes in a development.

Fred Habib, chief of staff at the state Department of Housing and Community Development, a conference sponsor, said DHCD opposes inclusionary zoning tools that do not offer a density bonus. Habib said the agency recognizes that requiring a builder to include below-market-rate units without permitting extra units to absorb the cost of constructing the affordable unit, will only lead to higher housing prices within that development.

Rusk, a national expert on the topic who has studied inclusionary zoning efforts in other cities, will join other experts in discussing how strong zoning laws can be written to create affordable housing and why other proposals have failed in the past.

The Massachusetts Housing Partnership Fund, another conference sponsor, is releasing a report on the successes and failures of inclusionary zoning efforts in December.

Clark Ziegler, MHP’s executive director, said he is supportive of the Senate’s efforts to allow communities to adopt inclusionary zoning. He said the measure is overdue and a sensible and reasonable way of encouraging more affordable housing production.

But Ziegler also said that inclusionary zoning may not be the answer for every community and that it is only one piece of the housing strategy to increase affordable housing.

From our perspective, one size does not fill all. In some places, it [inclusionary zoning] has been a critical piece in producing more affordable housing, he said.

An MHP Fund study of Massachusetts and other New England communities about two years ago found that 118 cities and towns had adopted incentives in their zoning laws to encourage affordable housing production. The incentives had varying degrees of success, according to Ziegler.

We’re trying to help towns and cities that have a commitment to affordable housing to craft zoning provisions that are more effective, said Ziegler.

Ziegler will join MassHousing’s Executive Director Thomas Gleason and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.’s Mike Gondek at this Thursday’s conference to discuss new funding sources and programs for more housing production.

I think the situation around housing production in Massachusetts is probably as critical now as any point in our history, said Ziegler.