Past Five Years Marks Significant Accomplishments for Affordable Housing Trust

Housing is the number one challenge facing our community. Year after year, our resident survey identifies affordable housing as by far the single most important issue for the City. We remain one of the most expensive cities in the state and country, and it’s critical that Cambridge remains accessible to everyone, from working families to older adults, residents with disabilities, and people transitioning out of homelessness.

The Affordable Housing Trust has been one of our most powerful tools for preserving and expanding affordable housing.  As a City, we have made unprecedented funding commitments with more than $40 million now budgeted each year – a significant increase from the less than $15 million per year before Fiscal Year 2020. The City Council has also taken critical steps, increasing commercial development fees that go toward affordable housing and passing the Affordable Housing Overlay that has made it possible for 100% affordable projects to build more units faster.  Over the past five years, the City has invested more than $181 million in City funds in affordable housing. The last five years of policy reform and investment has worked. During this time, the City has preserved or created more than 900 affordable housing units, and also financed the purchase of 14 properties to develop as new affordable housing. The City is currently working with affordable housing partners to create or preserve more than 1,000 affordable units, including more than 900 new affordable units in the City's development pipeline, with more to come as proposals for recently acquired properties are developed.

Read more in the Affordable Housing Trust FY21-FY25 Report.