Homes for All Massachusettsans

Introduction

Housing is a fundamental human need and right, the foundation upon which all other aspects of individual, family, and community wellbeing are built. It is the place where we lay our heads at night, raise our children, celebrate our joys, and weather our sorrows. It is the launchpad for our dreams and aspirations, the sanctuary from a world that can be harsh and unforgiving. And it is the building block of strong, vibrant, sustainable communities and economies, the essential infrastructure of opportunity and social cohesion.

Yet for far too many residents of Massachusetts, this most basic necessity remains painfully out of reach, a distant dream deferred by the cruelties of an unjust and unsustainable housing system. Across our Commonwealth, hundreds of thousands of families and individuals are struggling to keep a roof over their heads in the face of skyrocketing costs, stagnant wages, and a severe shortage of affordable homes. Tens of thousands more are experiencing the trauma and indignity of homelessness, doubled up in overcrowded apartments, or living in substandard and unsafe conditions unfit for human habitation. And behind these harrowing statistics are the incalculable human costs of our housing crisis - the stress and shame of an eviction notice, the desperation of choosing between rent and food or medicine, the lost potential of a child whose health and education are compromised by housing instability.

This is the painful reality that I have witnessed firsthand over more than two decades working on housing issues in North America, as an advocate, researcher, and practitioner. From the hollowed-out mill towns of the Berkshires to the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Boston, from the foreclosure-ravaged cities of Brockton and Springfield to the cash-strapped small towns of Cape Cod and the Islands, I have seen how our housing system is failing our people and our communities, how it is perpetuating and deepening inequities of race, class, and geography, and how it is threatening the very fabric and future of our Commonwealth.

But I have also seen something else in my researches and collaborations across the state - the seeds of resistance and resilience, the sparks of innovation and transformation, the fierce organizing and visionary leadership of those most impacted by housing injustice. In church basements and community centers, in legislative hearing rooms and academic forums, in vacant lots and deteriorating buildings reclaimed for the common good, I have witnessed the power and promise of a different way of conceiving and creating housing - one rooted in equity, sustainability, democracy, and human rights. From the anti-foreclosure activists and homeless unions demanding an end to the commodification of housing, to the tenant associations and community land trusts asserting permanent affordability and collective ownership, to the public housing leaders and progressive planners envisioning green, mixed-income, transit-oriented communities - there is a growing ecosystem of grassroots solutions and policy innovations that point the way to a more just and inclusive housing future.

It is these stories and strategies of transformation that I aim to lift up and amplify in this book, even as I grapple honestly with the deep-rooted challenges and complexities of our current system. Drawing on extensive research, diverse perspectives, and my own experiences in the field, I offer a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the housing landscape in Massachusetts, from the historical legacies of colonization, racism, and extraction that continue to shape inequities today, to the contemporary crises of unaffordability, instability, displacement, and climate vulnerability that are reaching new extremes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I examine the unique housing markets, policies, and community contexts of different regions of our state, and explore the interconnections between housing and other key arenas of opportunity and wellbeing, such as health, education, transportation, economic security, and environmental sustainability.

Most importantly, I center the voices, expertise, and leadership of those most impacted by housing injustice, and share the models and movements they are building to transform our system from the ground up. Each chapter lifts up a different dimension of the housing ecosystem in Massachusetts - from rental assistance and tenant protections to alternative homeownership and community control of land, from ending homelessness and advancing fair housing to building climate resilience and strengthening statewide capacity for change. And in each arena, I highlight the innovative solutions and campaigns that local leaders and organizations are advancing, the opportunities for more equitable and effective policies and investments, and the grassroots partnerships and people power we need to build to achieve a truly just and sustainable housing future.

My aim in this book is not to provide a definitive or technocratic blueprint for solving our housing crisis, but rather to offer an invitation and a provocation to engage in the messy, urgent, hope-filled work of housing justice and systems change. To grapple deeply with the root causes and human faces of our current challenges, and dream boldly about the world we want to build in their place. To learn from and be led by the communities who are forging new pathways to liberation and wellbeing, even against daunting odds. And to come together across differences and silos to build the multi-racial, multi-generational movement for housing and racial justice that this moment demands.

This is no easy task, to be sure. The forces of the status quo are powerful and entrenched, the barriers to transformative change are high, and there will undoubtedly be setbacks and hard choices along the way. But as the COVID-19 pandemic has made more clear than ever, we cannot afford to tinker at the margins or resign ourselves to incremental tweaks of a fundamentally broken system. We need a paradigm shift in how we conceptualize and deliver on the human right to housing, one that rejects the false scarcity and cruel exclusions of the market and embraces the abundant possibilities of a new social contract - where housing is no longer a commodity or a privilege, but a public good and common inheritance, the bedrock of a just and thriving society for all.

We have the resources, the creativity, and the moral imperative to bring this new paradigm into being, if only we have the courage to fight for it. And here in Massachusetts, with our deep legacy of progressive activism and policy innovation, our vibrant tapestry of grassroots leadership and community resilience, and our enduring values of social responsibility and commonwealth, we have a unique opportunity and obligation to lead the nation in modeling a different way forward. To make manifest the truth that housing justice is not only an economic and political necessity, but an ethical and existential call to our highest ideals and aspirations - for racial equity, for shared prosperity, for human dignity, for planetary survival.

This is the world that "Homes for All Massachusettsans" invites us to envision and bring to life, brick by brick and block by block, heart to heart and hand in hand. As you read these pages, I hope you will see yourself and your communities reflected in the stories and struggles they contain. I hope you will find useful data and frameworks to make sense of the housing challenges and opportunities we face, and practical tools and strategies to advance equitable change at the speed and scale our times require. But more than that, I hope you will feel yourself called to awareness and action, to uncomfortable reckonings and audacious reinventions, to deeper solidarity and fiercer love for our neighbors and our Commonwealth. I hope you will join the growing chorus of voices and victories rising up for the right to home, here and everywhere.

As the great civil rights leader and scholar Marian Wright Edelman once declared, "We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee." The work of building a more just and sustainable housing future is long-term and large-scale, but it begins with each of us in our own places and practices - in the local and the personal, the relational and the spiritual, the mundane and the miraculous. It begins with listening deeply to those closest to the crisis and following their leadership, with examining our own histories and healing our inherited traumas, with planting seeds of justice in the cracks of empire and tending the soil of collective struggle. It begins, in other words, with learning to be better kin and co-conspirators, better ancestors and descendants, on this precious planet we call home.

That is the invitation and the imperative of this book - to root ourselves in right relationship, and from that ground, to rise and rebuild our Commonwealth on the cornerstone of housing justice. Our lives and futures depend on it. Let us begin.