By Thomas Callahan and Symone Crawford

On campuses across the nation, an impressive combination of guidance and financial assistance has sprung up to support first-generation college students. Academic institutions – big and small as well as public and private – have recognized the importance of giving first-gen students a leg up.

When it comes to homeownership, first generation buyers are left to compete with better resourced peers, many who can lean on family for advice and money.

As Richard Rothstein writes in The Color of Law, “until the last quarter of the twentieth century, racially explicit policies of federal, state and local governments defined where whites and African Americans should live. Today’s residential segregation…is not the unintended consequence of individual choices and of otherwise well-meaning law or regulation but of unhidden public policy that explicitly segregated every metropolitan area in the United States.”

In Massachusetts, those policies have a sordid legacy. White households in Massachusetts have a 70% homeownership rate. 7 out of 10. For Black households, it is 32% and for Hispanic households it is 26%. We have the dubious distinction of having one of the widest gaps in the country, according to Prosperity Now.

We see the impact of this history every day. Many white buyers, even those entering the market for the first time, have a distinct advantage over those without a family history of homeownership.

Many of those entering college as freshman too easily dismiss the advantage they have if their parents attended college. The combined value of that advice, expectation and financial wherewithal can be a game-changer for incoming first-years.

First-gen homebuyers have no such advantage. They often search for that elusive trusted advisor that be leaned on with the experience of having been there before. They don’t have the “bank of mom and dad” for loans or gifts. And some become inviting targets of unscrupulous actors in the real estate market.

Earlier this year, we launched a new first-gen program called STASH – Savings Toward Affordable and Sustainable Homeownership. Together with Boston Children’s Hospital and Wells Fargo Foundation, we are targeting first-generation homebuyers (and homebuyers whose parents were victims of a foreclosure) with added support and a match of savings.

It was explicit government action that prevented Black families from taking advantage of the VA and FHA mortgages that helped build the white American middle-class. Public housing developments were restricted just for white residents. And thousands of zoning decisions were made in communities throughout Massachusetts, and across the U.S., to ensure that our suburbs remained “exclusionary”.

Today, we need to be every bit as intentional if we are to have any hope in closing our yawning racial wealth gap. Owning a home is still the path most Americans follow to build assets in our country and unless we set out to close the gap, the intergenerational transfer of wealth of those already owning homes will make it impossible to make progress.

We have seen it work for people like Florence Hagins who grew up in the Whittier public housing projects and was able to buy her first home as a single mother at the age of 46. Today, her daughter is also a homeowner. And Esther Dupie, an immigrant from Barbados, who came to the U.S. and bought a home in 2004 and saw her adult daughter follow her lead only five years later and become of homeowner as well. Esther’s grandchildren are growing up only knowing a home of their own.

We have many future success storied enrolling in STASH now. Our federal, state and local governments need to examine how best they can advantage first-generation homebuyers with targeted resources that will help close our racial homeownership gap.

Thomas Callahan and Symone Crawford are the Executive Director and Director of Homeownership Education, respectively, of the Dorchester-based Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance.

A version of this column appeared online in Commonwealth Magazine on March 29, 2019.

 

I’m voting for Mike Zullas and Nora Harrington on September 8th.

Maybe it’s because I, like both candidates, grew up somewhere other than Milton – Nora in the Bronx and Mike in Brockton. Maybe its because of the Berkshire County connection. Both Nora and Mike are Williams College graduates and I grew up minutes away in North Adams and have always had a great deal of respect for that institution of higher learning. But it is largely because I agree with them on the issues and have confidence that they will represent Milton well at the State House.

Nora is running to succeed Brian Joyce as state senator. And while we are on this subject, can we all just agree that Brian produced at an extraordinarily high level for Milton year after year AND engaged in some unbelievably unwise actions that caused him to not seek re-election? Both can be true. For now, let’s agree that he made some choices that are difficult for even his staunchest supporters to defend.

Nora, of course, is taking on Milton’s own Walter Timilty for the senate seat. Walter has served nearly 18 years as state representative from Milton and Randolph and is looking to move up to join his cousin, James Timilty, in the state senate. His campaign for higher office has been a Milton version of the Rose Garden strategy – engaging voters one-on-one at the doors but avoiding any direct interaction from his opponent. That’s just not good enough when you are asking voters for a promotion. It’s also not good when #whereswalter becomes a thing. Nora’s campaign has been hard-hitting, the kind you don’t often see in a local race. But her criticisms of his conservative voting record, his disappointing record of producing for our town, and his failure to debate are fair and completely above board. Her views and her campaign have earned my vote. She will be a strong, progressive voice for Milton.

The race for state representative to replace Walter has attracted a large field. If signs could vote (and any political consultant will tell you, they don’t), Tony Farrington, Bill Driscoll, and Mike Zullas would be neck and neck with Kerby Roberson, Denny Swenson, and James Burgess running in the second tier.

Mike has my vote because of his leadership on Milton’s School Committee. He has been a smart, thoughtful voice on that body and quickly earned the confidence of his colleagues by being elected vice-chair after only one year in office and chair the following year. His service as a Warrant Committee member has given Mike an understanding of the fiscal challenges facing Milton.

Bill Driscoll and Tony Farrington seem like upstanding members of the community and have impressive bios filled with a lifetime of service to others. Denny Swenson is campaigning as the candidate of “no” having risen to some degree of notoriety as the leader of the fight to block a Chapter 40B affordable housing development in her back yard. Her literature promises to empower other neighborhoods to say no to development. Unfortunately, Kerby Roberson and James Burgess

don’t seem to have the campaign resources needed to make their case effectively across the district.

As a town meeting member I’m definitely biased, but I prefer my state representative to be well-versed in the ways of Milton politics and town government and be willing to make hard, sometimes unpopular, choices on difficult issues. For me, Mike Zullas is the only candidate that fits that criterion.

One last comment. The title of this blog post is a double entendre – Mike and Nora would both be a welcome change in our town’s representation and it is meant as a reminder that we go to the polls this year on Thursday, September 8th. Don’t forget to vote.

New York came into Boston in May and swept the Red Sox at home. Boston is in last place in the AL East while New York is at the top of the standings. Tomorrow night, the ancient rivals will begin another three-game series at Fenway Park.

Unfortunately for Boston’s beleaguered renters and homebuyers, New York is threatening to beat Boston on the affordable housing front as well. Last week, Boston 2024 released its so-called “Bid 2.0,” which included an ambitious plan for an Athletes’ Village at Columbia Point. The updated plan calls for 2,950 units in addition to another 2,700 beds that will serve as dorms for UMass Boston.

Exactly 385 of those spaces will be affordable and, apparently, all will be rental. That figure is 13 percent of the total and that is what is called for in the city’s Inclusionary Development Program. It is also what the developers at DotBlock have planned for their project at the intersection of Hancock DStreet and Dorchester Avenue. In fact, it is what all developers in Boston plan to do because they have to follow the existing standard set by the mayor’s office.

But it is disappointing to see Boston 2024 set the bar so low. Olympic organizers have promised long-term benefits to area residents from hosting the Games. One of those benefits should be more moderately priced housing in a city that desperately needs to retain its working-class residents.

Let’s look at the plan. First the benefits: It creates a new neighborhood in Dorchester with easy access to downtown, the beach, and the existing attractions on the Point. It also calls for a badly needed overhaul of Kosciuszko Circle and dorms for UMass. And it creates a neighborhood with upscale amenities that is designed to attract young professionals who have already been priced out of the South End or Jamaica Plain.

On the downside, it dramatically up-zones an already busy corner of the city and it fails to deliver much in the way of affordability for existing residents who want to stay in the neighborhood.

If we look 200 miles to the south, we can learn a lot from the experience in New York when the city made a bid to host the 2012 Games. Hudson Yards on the West Side of Manhattan was chosen to be the site for the Olympic stadium. When the bid came up short, Hudson Yards was turned into the site of a new neighborhood where New York hopes to build 20,000 housing units with nearly 5,000 of them being affordable.

The turnaround is also a cautionary tale because reports show that just 16 percent of the units already built are affordable. With increased pressure from Mayor de Blasio, both developers and advocates agree that the 25 percent figure is attainable. Still, the bar in New York is set almost twice as high as the one laid out by Boston 2024.

We may be resigned to the Red Sox finishing behind New York for second year in a row but we shouldn’t accept the same status in an Olympics competition. Boston 2024 should aim higher and show residents that permanently affordable housing, and not increased gentrification, can be a true legacy of our bid to host the Olympics in 2024.

This commentary appeared in the 7/9/15 edition of the Dorchester Reporter.