Housing News

  Provide your direct input to CHAPA by taking our "Community Survey on CHAPA Policy Priorities"   CHAPA wants your input on our policy work for 2014 so that we can effectively address the biggest barriers to the production and preservation of affordable housing for low and moderate income households.

  CHAPA recently sent a brief questionnaire to all ten candidates for Congress for District 5 in Massachusetts.  A special election for Massachusetts's 5th congressional district will take place on December 10, 2013, due to the resignation of Congressman Ed Markey following his election to the United States Senate.  Primary elections are scheduled for October 15.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has posted a detailed contingency plan for a possible lapse in appropriations on their website. To view the full document please click here. 

Thank you to those who were able to attend the CHAPA Young Professional Group's Brown Bag lunch with Rachel Bratt, " The US Housing Crisis - 5 Years Later," on Wednesday.  Rachel drew a wonderful crowd and we hope everyone enjoyed the presentation.

The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) has issued its 2013 Draft Analysis of Impediments (AI) to Fair Housing Choice and will post information on the public hearing and comment process on its website when it become available.  

STATE UPDATES Housing Bond Bill Heads to Conference Committee

Mayor Thomas M. Menino is proposing a goal of building 30,000 homes in Boston by year 2020. The plan calls for $16.5 billion in public and private investment. Recommended steps include selling large chunks of city property, increasing fees on developers to help fund affordable housing, and approving some of the 3,600 housing units awaiting city permits. Click here for link to the report and further information.

The Roger Williams University (RWU) Community Partnerships Center has issued a Call for Projects with an affordable housing focus in Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  The program is open to non-profits and government agencies and provides student-faculty teams that can provide a wide range of types of project-based assistance.  Applications are due by October 1.

In an editorial on September 5 entitled "Legislature Must Thwart Efforts to Chip Away at Housing Law", the Boston Globe called on the Legislature to respect the will of the voters and the economic needs of the state and reject efforts to weaken the comprehensive permit law.  The editorial describes three provisions inserted in the Housing Bond Bill that are designed to stop specific projects but are likely to

The Non-Defense Discretionary (NDD) Coalition is preparing a report on sequestration that will illustrate the impact on users of NDD programs and highlight the successes of these programs pre-sequestration. The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) serves on the NDD Steering Committee and is working on the chapter on housing programs, and together with the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding, has put together a short survey to capture basic impacts of sequestration of HUD program funding on low income households and organizations.