Massachusetts has a booming innovation economy that continues to grow, but we are facing a multi-dimensional housing crisis. That crisis is eroding our middle class, deepening our income inequality and exacerbating existing racial inequity which threatens the sustainability of that growth. Many housing leaders are working on these issues in impactful ways, yet we know our current solutions are inadequate.
Through the Next Level Housing Solutions initiative, LISC and partners The Boston Foundation and CHAPA seek to facilitate conversations that dovetail with and support all of these efforts while calling upon us, together, to build the solutions and coalitions that are needed to meaningfully address the known crisis. With this, we aim to collectively take our responses to the next level and unlock the potential our community has to meet this crisis head-on.
Please join us for a Next Level conversation on building political will for housing policies that meet our many housing needs, ranging from affordable rental housing and homeownership opportunities that address the racial homeownership gap to affordable, walkable neighborhoods near transit to addressing displacement. There are many policy solutions that could have an impact, but their success is challenged by the lack of urgency, political will, and agreement on which strategies should be pursued as well as by a need to engage audiences who do not currently view housing affordability or housing stability as their concern.
How do we move forward?
New Date: January 8, 2020, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
In an op-ed for the Boston Globe, Karen E. Kelleher, LISC Boston’s executive director, and Paul S. Grogan, CEO of the Boston Foundation and former LISC CEO, sound an urgent call to action to tackle their city's affordable housing crisis.