Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Chairman Keenan, Chairman Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge a favorable report for S.886/H.1378 (An Act enabling local options for tenant protections).
Massachusetts has a lot to offer, but that does little if people can’t afford to live here. The US News & World Report’s annual state rankings put Massachusetts at #48 in affordability. [1] A worker earning minimum wage in Massachusetts would have to work 83 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home at market rate (and 102 hours for a modest two-bedroom). [2]
Clearly, Massachusetts has an affordable housing crisis. This is unsustainable. It has led to expanding economic inequality, increased homelessness, and damage to our economy, as talented workers often leave the state for less expensive regions.
Solving this affordable housing crisis will require us to use every tool in the toolbox. That requires zoning reform that encourages the creation of walkable, sustainable, and inclusive communities. It requires public investment. And it requires strengthening tenant protections that ensure that communities can remain affordable, inclusive, and stable.
However, municipalities across Massachusetts are blocked from taking the necessary steps to address the housing crisis. The misguided statewide ban on rent stabilization policies and a stringent home rule system that prevents municipalities from passing their own laws to govern the basic aspects of civil affairs hamstring municipalities.
S.886/H.1378 provides the appropriate redress. It repeals the outdated and misguided statewide ban on rent stabilization policies and enables cities and towns to pass policies aimed to regulate rents, limit condo conversions, prevent landlords from evicting tenants without just cause (e.g., failure to pay rent, illegal activity), require landlords to inform tenants of their rights, and take other steps to protect tenants and ensure long-term affordability.
We cannot build our way out of the crisis alone because the people at the highest risk for displacement will already be pushed out before they can benefit from any medium to long-term reduction in rents.
The pandemic we have been living through for almost two years, moreover, has underscored the essential role of housing stability to public health: we cannot ask people to stay at home when they are sick or exposed if they do not afford a home to go back to.
There is a lot of fear-mongering around rent control, but I want to make a simple point. If you don’t think a landlord should be able to double or triple someone’s rent in a year after doing no work on the property, you believe in rent control, and the question is just a matter of percentages and exemptions. And the Tenant Protection Act would enable us to debate and answer that question.
On too many issues, Massachusetts is haunted by the ghosts of ill-advised ballot initiatives past. It’s 2022, and we need to act like it.
There is no silver bullet to solving our affordable housing crisis. But if we are to have a chance at solving it, we must empower municipalities to take action. We thus encourage you to give a favorable report to S.886 and H.1378.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity/affordability
[2] http://nlihc.org/oor/massachusetts
(Photo credit: Boston Globe)
