Join us for a rally and press conference highlighting the affordability crisis in Boston and across the country, as we release the Homes for All report called- Can’t Afford, Can’t Wait: The Rise of the Renter Nation.  The event will be hosted by Right to the City Boston and the Boston Tenant Coalition with participating member groups Chinese Progressive Association, City Life/Vida Urbana, Neighbors United for a Better East Boston, New England United for Justice, Boston Workers’ Alliance.  If you are unsure of the location, you can also meet at CPA’s office at 11AM.

Boston is now the most rapidly gentrifying city in America, according to a recent study by the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank. As Mayor Walsh prepares his municipal housing plan and the state considers an increase in the minimum wage, Boston tenants and community activists will rally at the site of a formerly foreclosed home to say, Up with the Wages, Down with the Rents! Low wage workers from different Boston neighborhoods will speak to the local affordable housing crisis and highlight potential solutions included in the national report.

WHY WE CAN’T WAIT:

•  Between 2006 and 2012, there have been over 4,500 families that have been foreclosed just in the City of Boston. The vast majority of these families have been displaced and pushed into the rental market.
• Many cannot afford market-rate apartments, leading to homelessness. As of March 2014, there are about 4,400 families with children and pregnant women in Massachusetts Emergency Assistance Shelter Program, half of which are sheltered in motels.
• More than 31,000 Boston households that make $50,000 or less pay over half of their income in rent.
• According to January MLS data, the average residential real estate rental price for a one-bedroom unit in Boston is presently $2,400, which requires an income of at least $96,000 to afford. Median household income for Boston renters is $38,000.
• In Boston, 61% of low-price census tracts saw gentrification, making it among the most quickly gentrifying city in the nation.
• Annual rent appreciation is increasing in East Boston by 12%, in Roxbury by 7.4%, and the Chinatown zip code now has the highest percentage of households with incomes over $100,000 in the city.