Baker Administration Announces First CommonWealth Builder Program Awards

On June 17, the Baker-Polito Administration and MassHousing announced the first awards under the CommonWealth Builder program, a new $60 million program to create homeownership opportunities and build generational wealth in communities of color. MassHousing is committing $3.35 million to four projects, located in Boston, Everett, and Haverhill, which will support the creation of 33 new mixed-income homes, including 23 CommonWealth Builder homes.

Governor Baker and MassHousing launched the CommonWealth Builder program in July 2019, as the centerpiece of an $86 million state investment in moderate-income housing. The program provides subsidies to support the construction of new, moderately priced single-family homes and condominiums in the state’s 26 Gateway Cities, the City of Boston, and Qualified Census Tracts throughout the Commonwealth. The program subsidizes the production and purchase of homes restricted to moderate-income first-time homebuyers with income restrictions set anywhere between 70 percent to 120 percent of their Area Median Income.

The initial round of project commitments by MassHousing will support the creation of fourteen new mixed-income condominiums in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, seven new affordable homes in Haverhill and six new affordable townhomes in Everett. MassHousing is also funding the creation of two new CommonWealth Builder homes in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, as part of a broader eight-unit affordable homeownership development. Additional project commitments will follow in the coming months.

Massachusetts has the sixth-largest racial homeownership gap in the United States. The homeownership gap between white and nonwhite residents in Massachusetts has helped drive significant disparities in household wealth. A 2015 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that US-born black residents in the Boston area had a median net wealth of $8.

In 2018, MassHousing established the Racial Equity Advisory Council for Homeownership (REACH), a public-private working group that seeks to narrow the racial homeownership gap through demand-side interventions, including down payment assistance, homebuyer training, and marketing of high-quality mortgage products. The work of REACH led MassHousing to engage on this topic with Governor Baker and the state Legislature’s Black and Latino Caucus. The $60 million CommonWealth Builder program is a result of that ongoing dialogue.

The Commonwealth Builder program will grow the state’s stock of moderately priced starter homes, and advance intergenerational wealth-building in underserved communities. MassHousing has set a goal of creating roughly 500 new affordable homes through this new initiative.

MassHousing’s Homeownership Division will support the CommonWealth Builder program through a combination of mortgage financing for homebuyers, down payment assistance loans, mortgage insurance with job-loss protection at no added cost, and targeted marketing in the Gateway Cities to ensure that borrowers of color are made aware of this new opportunity for homeownership.

As of June, 2021, MassHousing had 27 projects in its CommonWealth Builder pipeline, representing $76.5 million in financing demand.

Committed CommonWealth Builder Projects:
 
2147 Washington Street, Boston
2147 Washington Street is a mixed-income, mixed-use building to be constructed in Boston’s Nubian Square. The project is being developed jointly by New Atlantic Development and DREAM Development, with support from Haley House and Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development.
 
When complete, 2147 Washington Street will transform a city-owned parking lot and an adjoining lot controlled by Haley House into 12 new mixed-income condominiums, 62 affordable and workforce rental units, and commercial and maker space. MassHousing is contributing $1.2 million in CommonWealth Builder funds to support the creation of 8 affordable condominium units, four of which will be sold to households at or below 70 percent of the Area Median Income, and four of which will be sold to households at or below 100 percent of AMI. The remaining four condominiums will be sold at market rates. The City of Boston contributed $1.3 million to project’s homeownership component.
 
The project’s rental component will be built utilizing resources from MassHousing, the Department of Housing and Community Development, and the City of Boston. Construction will begin this fall.
 
Call Carolina, Boston
Call Carolina is an eight-unit condominium townhouse development built by the non-profit Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC). The project will construct family-sized townhomes along the Southwest Corridor Park. The site includes a parcel that was originally cleared as part of the Southwest Expressway highway expansion project and subsequently acquired by JPNDC from MassDOT in 2018.
 
MassHousing is contributing $300,000 to the project, to support the creation and sale of two moderate-income units affordable to first-time homebuyers; the remaining six units will be affordable to homebuyers earning up to 80 percent of AMI, in accordance with the terms of sale from MassDOT. The City of Boston contributed $1.3 million in affordable housing funding, and MassDevelopment contributed $120,000 in brownfields funding. The MassHousing funding allowed JPNDC to create a fully affordable homeownership project, with more units for sale than would have otherwise been possible. Construction is underway and home sales will begin later this year.
 
Saint Therese Townhomes, Everett
The Saint Therese Townhomes project will create six new affordable homeownership opportunities in Everett. The sponsor is the non-profit The Neighborhood Developers, Inc. (TND). TND is constructing the St. Therese Townhomes in conjunction with a 77-unit affordable rental development, and pursued homeownership at the site as the result of community input. Three of the family-sized townhomes will be affordable to moderate-income households earning up to 80 percent of AMI, and three will be affordable to middle-income households earning up to 120 percent of AMI.
 
MassHousing is committing a total of $900,000 in CommonWealth Builder funds to the project. Other funding sources include $410,000 in HOME funds from city of Everett, through the North Suburban HOME Consortium, and a $250,000 Housing Choice grant from the Commonwealth. TND began construction in the spring of 2021.
 
Mount Washington, Haverhill
Mount Washington will transform a formerly blighted church property into seven new affordable townhomes for first-time homebuyers. The sponsor, Bread and Roses Housing, is a nonprofit housing developer and community land trust operator based in Lawrence. Two units will be restricted to buyers earning up to 70 percent of AMI, and five units restricted at 120 percent of AMI. The community land trust model, which separates land costs from the cost of homeownership, will allow Bread and Roses Housing to create deep and lasting affordability: Homes at Mt. Washington will sell between $150,000 and $225,000.
 
MassHousing is committing a total of $950,000 to the project. Other funding sources include HOME funds from the City of Haverhill and private philanthropic funds. Home sales commenced in the spring of 2021.