Housing, Home Ownership, and Connecting With Our Tenants
68 Homes Preservation Project (HPP)
The 68 Homes Preservation Project is a major $42 Million refinancing initiative of our growing small properties portfolio. Already 95 families have been protected from displacement in Hyde Park and Roslindale with help from the City of Boston, partners from Combined Resources Corporation (Jonathan Kaye and Boston Independent Management, Milo Tavoliero) Blue Hub Capital, Property and Casualty Initiative, and the LIFE Initiative, 3 progressive lenders, but these were more short term, 3-5 year “acquisition” loans.
In 2022 we received encouraging letters from MA Development and MA EOHLC (Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities) are preparing for a large application of $42 Million by year end. This $42 Million award will let us do major energy retrofits in our properties, upgrade many capital needs for tired buildings, and provide 15-30 years of stable affordable rentals to over 230 people.
Home Ownership
We have identified 14 empty parcels that would be workable; one private developer has a model that is affordable and attractive; and we took him on a 4-hour driving tour to explore his interest (and to consider some of these sites for future affordable home ownership. He liked an empty church parcel on Hyde Park Ave and a wing of the huge Westinghouse Factory in Readville. So do we. This initial research also broadened our thinking about future affordable home ownership developments in Hyde Park and Roslindale.
Connecting with our tenants
In August we started visiting our tenants at Washington St. in Roslindale for our first “Pizza Party” to get to know them better and also hear problems as well as positive feedback. We had a second outreach held at American Legion Highway. In both cases we met and talked with families and individual renters, who enjoyed the time with their neighbors and us. We hope to get them more involved with their local neighbors and broader Southwest Boston efforts. We will be going to 27 apartments at “Residences at Fairmount Station” (RAFS) soon. Tenants along with staff have enjoyed these pizza parties.