Boston Awards $64M To Create, Preserve 600 Affordable Housing Units
In an effort to grow and maintain the city's affordable housing stock, Boston leaders are providing tens of millions of dollars in new funding.

The Mayor's Office of Housing announced Wednesday it will provide $64.2M in new funding to create and preserve affordable housing in eight Boston neighborhoods. The funding will help support 12 projects with a total of 637 units of mixed-income housing.
"These funding awards will continue the work that Mayor Wu started when she took office," Boston Chief of Housing Sheila Dillon said at the Harvard Ed Portal in Allston. "In the past three years, we've built more affordable housing and made more resources available for affordable housing than in the past 25 years."
The units will help provide housing for families, older adults and homeless people. The awards were funded through the federal Home Investment Partnership and Community Development Block Grant as well as through the local Inclusionary Development Policy, Community Preservation Act and Linkage Fees.
The Mayor's Office of Housing put out a request for proposals in the fall for projects, and of the 21 submitted, 12 were selected to receive funding. The projects are located in Allston Brighton, Chinatown/South End, Dorchester, Fenway, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, Mattapan and Roxbury.
"Affordable homeownership is not just about building houses," DVM Housing Partners founder Dariela Villon-Maga said at the event announcing the awards. "It's about building wealth and opportunity. It's about giving families a chance to build equity, invest in their future and pass on those assets to future generations."
Villon-Maga won funding for her firm's 48-unit affordable homeownership project in Mission Hill that would also include open space and urban farming opportunities for residents.
Other award winners include Urbanica, Allston Brighton Community Development Corp., Beacon Communities, Samuels & Associates and the New Boston Fund.
In March, Mayor Michelle Wu announced $69M for over 800 units of mixed-income housing at 14 developments.
The Wu administration oversaw more than 17,000 units built or in development, including 12,000 income-restricted units in its first three years, according to the city. The city has also used more than 1.7M SF of city-owned land to develop housing and conversion projects.
Overall multifamily development has slowed in Boston over the last two years as thousands of units approved by the Boston Planning Department are still waiting to start, an issue that industry executives attribute to macroeconomic headwinds and local policies.