Housing Justice

Choosing affordable housing as our primary campaign

In 2020, ECCO decided to use a Participatory Action Research Model to choose a primary campaign that addressed the biggest issues facing people of color on the North Shore. Guided by our Core Strategy Team, in 2021, ECCO leaders of color designed and collected hundreds of surveys to learn the most pressing issues facing people of color in our communities. What we discovered was that affordable housing was the most salient issue on the hearts of our Black, Latinx, and Cambodian communities.

We then brought these disparate communities together around this common challenge, and listening to testimonies from within our communities and gaining knowledge from local partners like the New Lynn Coalition, Lynn United for Change, North Shore CDC, and Harborlight Community Partners. Together, we learned that lack of affordable housing has been a key driver of racial inequality for generations. We discovered the presence of racist housing policies in our very own towns, including the existance of “sundown” towns where Blacks and Jews were advised to keep out after dark up until the 1980s!

Since then, ECCO has been working to advance affordable housing policy on the North Shore in Essex County through eight local teams. We strive not only to create more housing in our towns, but to do so in a way that lifts up affordable housing as an ugant racial justice issue, strengthens civil engagement and public accountability, and fosters relationship-building and community healing.

Our Three Prong Strategy 

1.   Pass rent stabilization measures to confront the skyrocketing cost of rent, especially in the cities of Lynn and Salem.

2.   Ensure allocation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds from the Federal Government towards the creation of affordable housing in local cities and towns.  Where possible, we are also advocating not only that ARPA funds go toward affordable housing, but also that directly-affected community members get a voice in how those affordable housing funds are spent.

3.   Win zoning changes in local cities and towns to make the creation of more affordable housing possible, including winning local approval of the Housing Choice Act.  While the Housing Choice Act makes it easier to create zones for affordable housing near local MBTA stations, each city and town has to vote to adopt the zoning change in order for it to take effect. 

Our Affordable Housing Successes So Far

We have already begun to see successes in our affordable housing campaign. On zoning, we are working to advance the Housing Choice Act in all eight regions of Essex county, and so far have passed it in Rockport.  In Lynn and Salem, where the cities already meet the minimum requirements for the Housing Choice Act, we have been working to strengthen inclusionary zoning laws. In Lynn, we recently helped win the passage of an inclusionary zoning law that requires developers to allocate 10-20% of the cost of new construction into a community-guided affordable housing trust.

In Rockport and Marblehead, we have advocated for the towns to permit homeowners to establish accessory dwelling units (ADUs) by taking part of their property and turning it into a rental unit, which affordable housing experts argue drives down the cost of housing overall by increasing available units.  In Rockport, our leaders successfully passed an ADU zoning law, turning out dozens of supporters to the Town Meeting.

On rent stabilization, so far we were able to get the city of Lynn to create a program that will incentivize landlords in low-income neighborhoods to keep rents stable in return for micro grants for rental property improvement. This allows landlords to keep rents affordable for those struggling the hardest to pay for rent.  We also were awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to hire Latinx leaders to research the behaviors of immigrant landlords in hopes of organizing them to work with ECCO to get cities to support affordable housing in ways that also benefit small landlords.

On our campaign to direct federal ARPA funds toward local affordable housing, we were able to convince the city of Lynn to allocate $15 million to affordable housing- $5 million of which will be allocated by community leaders.  In Salem, ECCO Latinx leaders persuaded city leaders to increase the allocation for affordable housing from $2 to $9 million. And in Gloucester, where affordable housing was not being prioritized at all, ECCO leaders organized to get the city to allocate $1.5 million to affordable housing.  We are now working to allocate similar percentages of funding in other Essex County cities and towns

For more information on our Lynn affordable housing campaign, including how to take action now, click here!

The history of american racism in housing: a legacy of policies

We are our history: our history in America as well as our state and local history. Our research revealed that the seeds of contemporary racial inequities were cemented by the direct discriminatory policies that affect the generations of African American communities in America. Furthermore, housing inequity is not an accident or the result of personal prejudice, realtor discrimination, or income differences. Housing inequity is the direct result of explicit 20th century government policies on the federal, state, and local levels.

In America, prior to World War II, most urban neighborhoods were integrated by Whites and Blacks. The New Deal, however, created separate housing projects for Whites and Blacks. In the late 40’s and 50’s, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guaranteed loans to suburban subdivisions like Levittown, on the explicit condition that Black families be prohibited from living there. In 1968, the Fair Housing Act prohibited future housing discrimination. However, it did nothing to redress the previous 35 years of government-imposed housing segregation. Even though Blacks could have afforded FHA subsidized mortgages, they were excluded from getting them. Consequently, Blacks remained as renters. In contrast, Whites with the same average incomes as Blacks were able to buy houses in the suburbs and gained $300,000 in equity on average in subsequent years. All of these policies exacerbated the racial wealth gap, whose legacy we still see today.

housing disparities IN MA

Locally in MA, FHA-supported loans and racial redlines defined the boundaries of our communities for 40 years. Even once the Fair Housing Act passed, predominantly White cities and towns maintained racial segregation through zoning policies that only allow single family housing and often minimum lot requirements, made it harder for working class families to move in. Further, neighborhood associations got to choose who was “the right fit” for their communities, and were rarely scrutinized. As a result, according to a 2015 study of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 80% of White families in MA own homes, while less than one-third of Black families do. 

changing the narrative

Across our housing work, our hope is to engage our communities in a conversation about race and affordable housing that will reverberate beyond the individuals that gain actual housing units, creating the opportunity for more affordable housing and desegregation throughout the county.  Through our conversations, workshops, and prayer vigils, marches, and protests, we hope to engage 5000 people toward greater commitment to affordable housing and racial justice.

In pursuing these goals, we are committed not only to improving possibilities for affordable housing, but also to developing the leadership and solidarity needed to allow directly-affected people to continue working for bigger change even as we meet our campaign goals.  In order to truly strengthen civic engagement, public participation, and government accountability, we know it is not enough to pass policies alone. We must also train local leaders to build relationships within and across their communities.And we must teach them to develop other leaders to work for positive change as well, spreading the message that they must vote, organize, and hold their public officials accountable if they want their communities to reflect the world they want to live in. 

Get Involved!

To find out how YOU can join our housing justice efforts, contact Aviva Herr-Welber at aviva@eccoaction.org.

To sign the Lynn Affordable Housing Petition, click here!