A study released late last week by the Archdiocese of Boston concerning the Boston area’s affordable housing crisis quantified in housing units and dollars what the region needs to ease the problem, but those behind the study say the intangible elements of the solution are just as important as the staggering figures.

The report, titled “A New Paradigm for Housing in Greater Boston” and prepared by Northeastern University’s Center for Urban and Regional Policy and a coalition of community leaders, concluded that in addition to the number of housing units that would normally be created in the next five years, an additional 36,000 units were needed, along with the assistance of $1.5 billion.

The report found that from 1995 to 1999, housing prices rose some 35 percent in the Boston area, while incomes rose just 25 percent, and many residents found themselves facing a severe housing affordability gap as a result.

“We face the equivalent of a natural disaster such as a destructive hurricane or flood,” the report said of the housing crisis. “Thousands of housing units that many families could afford have ‘disappeared’ from the housing stock. Physically, those units are still standing, but for these families they might just as well have been destroyed by wind or flood.”

“It is disturbing now that employment is at an all-time high, people can no longer afford to live in the neighborhoods where they grew up,” said Paul Guzzi, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. He added that despite an unprecedented economic expansion taking place, employers are unable to recruit top talent to the area because of the difficulty in securing housing for those new hires.

“Companies are unable to recruit workers because of the high housing costs, and those companies are forced to expand out of the region because of it,” said Gail Snowden, executive vice president and managing director of FleetBoston’s Community Banking Group. “Our hope is [the study] will inspire others to add creative solutions to the housing effort.”

To no one’s surprise, the report concluded that short of a disastrous economic recession, the affordability gap in the area can only be closed by a significant increase in the housing supply. Unlike other studies that have also identified the problem, those who worked on the study say this report is unique in that it also prescribes a plan of action to help solve it.

“We’ve had enough descriptive studies, we needed a prescriptive study,” said John Moynihan, director of development for the Archdiocese of Boston’s Planning Office for Urban Affairs. The report was prepared in response to a request from Cardinal Bernard Law for a reliable quantification of the area’s housing problem.

“There was a lot of interaction with developers and lenders,” Moynihan said of the study. “This is the first time we have a clear-cut five-year plan of action for housing that everyone can buy into.”

‘Boatload of Work’
As evidence that an affordable housing crisis includes more than just subsidized housing units, the Northeastern study broke down by category how much housing needs to be added to the region’s stock. While there is a call for an additional 15,000 units of subsidized housing in the next five years, the report found that 13,500 more market-rate units on top of what would normally be constructed is also required. Finally, 7,500 additional units of student housing are suggested to ease the crunch affecting Boston’s university population.

The study says in order to achieve the goal of 36,000 units, there is a need to look beyond current ways of building and maintaining housing at all levels.

“The vitality of a free society at any level depends on all levels working together for the common good,” Law said. “We recognize together that there is a problem, and we’re committed to working together to find a solution.”

At the building level, the study proposes that at least half of all new production in the region consist of various types of multifamily housing, rather than traditional single-family units. At the community level, support for affordable housing needs to be leveraged, especially in suburban areas where zoning restrictions and attitudes about affordable housing have stood in the way of new housing units.

At the municipal level, the study calls for better understanding of the financial burden that developments place on a city or town, as well as ways the state could help alleviate those concerns. Some suggestions included a “Good Neighbor Municipal Housing Bonus” for towns that have demonstrated a good-faith effort at producing affordable housing.

The report says at the state level policies must be adopted to make it easier for housing to be constructed, including regulatory reforms and new financing mechanisms. Suggestions include an endowment for the state Housing Trust Fund and increasing the share of general revenues dedicated to housing programs. Currently the state spends 0.8 percent of total revenues on affordable housing, according to the report.

The federal government also needs to determine the best financial and administrative structure for encouraging and guiding new housing. The study suggests increasing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and improving the state’s borrowing capacity to leverage funds for housing development. It also advocates the creation of a national housing trust fund.

“Finally, at the level of civil society, we need to recognize that the solution to the housing crisis does not lie in any one institution,” the study said. “All of us must accept responsibility to ensure that everyone in the commonwealth has a decent, affordable home.”

The study’s organizers plan to look at the progress made in the housing arena yearly, and adjust their figures for the amount of new units and money that is needed as the economy fluctuates over the next five years.

“The plan will have to be evolutionary, because housing markets are evolutionary,” said House Speaker Thomas Finneran, D-Mattapan.

“We have a boatload of work ahead of us,” Finneran said, hinting at potential conflicts as the housing plan progresses.

“I can hardly wait for Boston College or Boston University to propose thousands of new student housing units and appear before the Newton Zoning Board of Appeals or the Allston-Brighton Civic Association and see how the people react,” he said.

Nicolas Retsinas, director for the Joint Center on Housing Studies at Harvard University, said now that the community has a comprehensive document to work with, action needs to be taken.

“We can well document [the housing crisis] into the afternoon, into the evening, into the next day and the next day, but unless we do something about it, that’s all that it will be,” he said.

“We need to concentrate our effort on boosting the supply of housing,” said Barry Bluestone, director for Northeastern’s Center for Urban and Regional Policy and principal author of the study. “Who’s going to do this? The answer is all of us.

“It is my hope that what we put down on paper will be rewarded by converting these ideas into bricks and mortar.”