WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali costly show. Groucho Marx famously said Home is where you hang your head. And for winters It's also where you spend more than half of your earnings. Today one in four renters spends more than half of his or her paycheck on rent and utilities and this means having. Fewer funds. To spend on food. Transportation. Clothing and emergency expenses. This spike in on affordable rent is due in large part to rising housing costs compounded by an onslaught of apartment dwellers who lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis. It's a trend that places Boston as the fifth most expensive rental market in the country. What's more it's creating a brain drain forcing an emerging workforce to leave the Bay State for more affordable housing elsewhere. Up next the House of Blues going into the red. With rent. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying Libyan rebels are

seen celebrating from inside one market fees main military compound in the capital. But there are conflicting reports on whether the fighters try to overthrow the Libyan dictator are in full control of the site. They stormed the compound after hours of heavy fighting and as NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports heavy bloodshed on the streets. I was just in a neighborhood clinic one of the few operating at the moment and they say they are in desperate need of doctors supplies medicine. As we were there one man who had been shot in the stomach was wheeled in. They had to basically help him as clear as they could. There's more there. One is an awesome ologist Another one was a pediatrician. These are not sort of emergency doctors and so they're trying to do the best they can under a very very strange circumstances and they're extremely tense. They didn't want to tell us use the name of the hospital because they were frightened that Gadhafi forces the target.

NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro the United Nations top human rights body is in favor of setting up a commission of inquiry into possible war crimes in Syria. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports the U.S. welcomes the thirty three to four vote in condemnation of Syria's crackdown on dissent. All four Arab states on the Human Rights Council Jordan Kuwait Qatar and Saudi Arabia voted for the resolution condemning the violence in Syria. It was heavily edited and somewhat watered down. China and Russia were among those voting no. But U.S. officials say the decision to set up a commission of inquiry is a sign that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is isolated. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice says in a statement that the chorus of condemnation has grown louder and more unified. She says the U.S. will pursue further steps in the U.N. Security Council to increase the pressure on Assad. Michele Kelemen NPR News Washington. Forecasters say Hurricane Irene could become a major storm as it churns over the warm waters of the Bahamas. The storm's maximum sustained winds are currently at 100 miles per

hour. Fail Assman with member station reports from Miami the Carolinas are now preparing for the brunt of the storm. Irene is a huge storm with hurricane force winds extending 50 miles from the eye and tropical storm force over 200 miles from the center. The system is expected to strengthen to a Category 3 storm or perhaps for as it buzz saws through the Bahamas. The National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Felton's moving into an environment of very warm water temperatures that light wind shear and that those are pretty good ingredients for intensification. What happens after it rolls through the Bahamas is uncertain but forecast track show Irene curving away from Florida's coast and landing somewhere in the mid Atlantic with North Carolina in the center of the cone by the weekend. For NPR News I'm Phil Laxman in Miami. The Dow is up 238 points or more than 2 percent. This is NPR News. The president of Standard and Poor's is stepping down. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports a company says Devon Sharma was quote ready for new challenges.

The move comes after S&P publicly defended its controversial decision to downgrade the US's credit rating. Meanwhile the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating S&P and its role in developing and enabling mortgage related securities boom that precipitated the financial crisis three years ago. S&P parent company McGraw-Hill split its financial and ratings businesses. Shareholders have also been pushing for a new head of ratings saying S&P needs to burnish its image. But the company says Sharma's departure had been in the works since last year. Citibank chief operating officer Douglas Peterson will replace Sharma. Yuki Noguchi NPR News Washington. A New York City judge has ruled sexual assault charges be dropped against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn but that order is contingent on an appeal by Strauss-Kahn's accuser and her lawyer. Who want to have a special prosecutor appointed to the case saying that the process had been mishandled by the Manhattan district attorney. The initial request was denied. The decision on the alleged accusers appeal is expected later today.

A 24 year old cheerleading coach from Ohio is now the seventh person to die as a result of the stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair 10 days ago. The Marion County Coroner's Office says the woman passed away last night from head injuries on August 13th a sudden powerful wind gust sent the heavy metal and lights of the stage a scaffolding crashing down on a crowd. At the time fans were waiting for the country band Sugarland to perform. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from IBM working to help midsize businesses become the engines of a Smarter Planet. Learn more at IBM dot com slash engines. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. Well if you tried to rent an apartment in Boston recently you don't need any statistical evidence to let you know that rents are through the roof. And guess what. Even if you have the money it's hard to

find a place. But what you might be surprised about is that even if you are not in the market for a rental property don't need it. The rental crisis impacts all of us in the city both short term and long term. So today we're talking about the high cost of rent in Boston and how this is affecting the city and we're doing it because September 1st is right around the corner and in greater Boston. That's moving day a day we're close to 80 percent of all renters in the area move. And it's not an easy thing especially this year because those vacancy rates are lower than usual. Joining me to talk through all the implications of how this is affecting Greater Boston are Boston city councilor Mike Ross and Barry Bluestone Barry Bluestone is the founding dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. Thank you both for joining today. Joining us today. Good to be there. Barry Bluestone I'm going to start with you you've been studying housing trends in Boston for years and there's a lot to understand about how we got to this particular rental crisis so I want to take it a little bit at a

time and put this on the table for folks. Median rent right now is a little over sixteen hundred dollars a month. And. It's actually higher in some areas of the city like Back Bay where it's over $2000 a month and the reasons aren't as simple as they look. So Barry Bluestone What are the key reasons for high rents. KELLEY There are really three reasons why rents have continued to rise despite the fact that we are still in an economic crisis with over 7 percent unemployment. The first is that we had a lot of households who unfortunately lost their homes to foreclosure. Most of them didn't become homeless. They had to become renters. And they put more pressure on the rental housing market. The second is that normal in normal time. We have young families often when they have their first children going from rental housing to a home buyer ship that's been normal for 30 40 50 years. However this time around because of the uncertainty of the economy and because of the increased difficulty of getting mortgages a lot of those folks are on the sidelines. And

so they continue to rent rather than opening up. I was rental housing for other and then the third is very special to Greater Boston and it suggests why we have the third highest rent in the country only fall only following New York and this and that is we have a huge number of students. And well we actually housed about half of our undergraduate in university and college housing. We only have about 8 percent of our graduate students. And in the last decade we've added 20000 additional graduate students in Greater Boston and most of them are also competing for that same rental housing stock. All right so now these are the key reasons for the high rents. What about the shortage of rental properties. Same reasons are a little bit different. Well we've had a shortage which has lasted a long time we produce very little housing but in the last three or four years we've produced almost none of it except at the very high end and the result is that the supply has been relatively constant that in

man continues to grow actually faster than normal and that's why rents are rising despite the very weak economy. And it should be said that everybody's been touting and Massachusetts you know relatively has weathered the economic storm better than a lot of other states. So we should be better in this area. Well we should be. The problem. In Greater Boston not Boston persay but in many of the communities it's very difficult for developers to build housing particularly affordable housing either because there are a zoning laws that individual communities have that make it very difficult to do that or building codes that are very difficult or it's very difficult to pull together all the sources of funding that you need to build affordable housing. That means that it sometimes takes six or seven years between the time a developer has a concept for a new rental housing project and with that housing project actually is ready to accept renters. It's a slow process. We are in Greater Boston Massachusetts.

And because of that the production of housing has fallen further and further behind demand day. Again during a period of economic you know slowdown we have a vacancy rate in Greater Boston of only about 4 percent the normal rate is 6 percent 6 percent vacancy rate rents rise you know faster than kind of normal inflation as you fall below 6 percent. And the further you are below 6 percent and those they can the rate the faster rents right. Because landlords can go out and say look I have an apartment here if you want to. You can take it. If you don't at this price I've got 12 other people would like it at that. Right. And believe me they're doing that I hear those stories all the time. Mike Ross Boston City Councilor this has been an issue that you've been talking about not just in the last year when we've seen these rentals go really crazily and the shortage as well. But you've been sort of on this talking about this issue for some

time particularly with regard to the grad students. So I want to just focus on that for a while and for people who don't have a sense of what that looks like on the ground can you tell us what are we talking about when we say there is just this you know extra 20000 grad students in town looking for housing. Sure. Well I mean for us to get a great view of what we're talking about I think Barry's report that's produced by the Boston Foundation is the housing report card. It's been produced for many years now I don't know maybe even a decade Barry. And this was the first year to give you a sense of kind of where where the problem is being pinpointed. This is the first year that entire chapter was dedicated just to the housing of graduate and undergraduate students it's not just graduate it's also undergraduate and so you know for a college town of which Boston is we really have needed to have a college housing policy. And you

know it took us a while to get there but we're moving now. The you know the montra was build on campus housing right. That's that's what we told our institutions. And they've been doing that to some extent there's been. About eighty seven hundred new dorm rooms that have been produced in the last 10 years. There's another about 4000 40 100 in the pipeline. Berkeley School of Music was just permitted northeastern is going through its permanent process and the YMCA we've talked about this in the past. So you're going to see about 12000 units being created. The problem is is all of these are undergraduates so they're not housing any of the graduate students. And the you know this isn't even keeping pace with the growth of enrollments of people coming to Boston and schools are getting better. So northeastern which is now a top hundred school is attracting kids from all across

America all across the world. In the past they were just attracting people who could get on in their car or get on the TV and come to Boston so even in schools where enrollments aren't increasing the need for housing for those students is increasing. So we're seeing those pressures. And you know my concern you know where we are and you know we're working with institutions to build more housing. I think we need to be a little more aggressive in the private housing market too to allow for the permanence of more housing. But my concern is that this in the end results in an economic development challenge for our region where if we lose young people to be able if we if we're not retaining those college students in our city which in the past it's been really are our special formulas is our ability to retain young people who come here to college a lot of Bostonians came here because they went to school here. If we're not retaining that that those percentages we're losing out on a future workforce and employers are going to go to where the employees are. And if we do not have employees here they're going to go

to other parts of the country such as to the west and to the south as where these populations are in fact growing. I'm going to get into that more in just a bit but let me just go back to this this montra or this request or whatever to get colleges to build more on campus housing. So we have a situation now where tuition has had to increase. Federal and State funding has been cut for education across the board I imagine some of that must have to do with capital improvements. You know how are institutions to even if they had the money right now they'd be it would take a while to get new housing in place but we're talking about institutions that really are struggling to maintain. What their their true mission is which is just to teach and now to try to raise money to build something it seems almost a pipe dream in these days and times am I wrong. I think you're you're partly wrong because while they do have to finance the construction of these properties they're actually self financing. You know we think

about an apartment building that gets built. There's always a question on whether or not you're going be able to fill that apartment building and how long does it take for that apartment building to fill in the private market. But this is not true for institutions. When you build the institution you know on September 1st that is going to be filled. And that's a predictability that allows you to actually finance those those projects. So it then comes down to a question is can the institution put out a bond to build this versus all the other things it wants to do. And in the event that it cannot it doesn't mean that it shouldn't do that do this it can do that by having a private developer come in and build and that's what the YMCA project for Northeastern is so interesting. This is a Northeastern dormitory that is going to be built by a private developer and it's totally finance level because we know on the first day it opens it will be filled with rent paying students. You know that issue is not simply. As we're discussing here. So I will alert our

listeners that if they want to hear that full discussion they can go to WGBH dot org the callee cross the show and hear our full discussion about the why and the new building development that is proposed there. But on to this very issue. OK. So we've laid out these sort of bleak terms. Young people and they have anywhere to go whether they're grad students or not grad students and undergrads are sucking up a lot of the rental property out here in the world because there's no on campus housing. And what's really underneath us that you're concerned about and we all should be is that these people are leaving Boston with all of their great ideas and talents and skills. This is not going to change. Boston has never been a cheap place to live. I just like to point out how so how do we address this. I have an idea of OK throwing around Cali and I'm starting to get some real interest from the private developers and from a number of builders and it is because we only housed about 8 percent of our graduates and many of our schools

including my own northeastern with the Y building were Boston University Amherst and I've been trying to build undergraduate housing. I've been focusing on how we could get more of those graduates into housing built for them and also allow them to stay in those. Unit after they graduate. Keep them as young professionals and hope the put down rote rote you know put down real roots in the community and become you know part of Red Sox nation right here. The idea behind the multi University graduate student village is that you get a number of universities together northeastern B you often Suffolk Emerson New England Conservatory Berkeley working together with a developer or developers to produce one or more what I call a graduate student village it would be large complex near transit to see where graduate students could come and they would have a range of housing options from small affordable units of four to six hundred square feet

to larger units for people for graduate students can afford them. We have the starving graduate student at one and we have some of our international students coming from oil rich nations who could not only buy the penthouse in one of these villages but probably buy the entire building what we would also have is that would be a village not just a place to live. It would have a common space where we could get together very important if you have these small units it would have cars in the garage so you could take them or many if you're on a date or take a van if you're going to. It would have them in our space and even lecture hall. And it would stay in the private sector develop by private developers and therefore it remains on the tax rolls which is good for Boston. Fortunately we now have a number of developers who have properties that they're giving real consideration to this idea and I think if we could build those add graduate students in from very you know from a number of school engineers from Northeastern rooming next to musicians from the Berklee School

of great in its own way. But then also give them an option of that if they live in those in that village for two years or more it's graduate students. They have the option to stay there for three to five years after they graduate. They find jobs in the Boston area keeping many of those young folks here. This is an idea that I that I hope will get late this year and next it will start being a real movement toward building. OK that's Barry Bluestone with an idea about how we can begin to solve part of the rental crisis is quite innovative and we're going to continue talking about this. We're talking about the shortage of rental apartments in Boston worsened by the ever rising rents and we want to hear from you. We're opening the lines. If you are someone who is struggling to find an apartment and if you're on the hot right now because September 1st is right around the corner we want to hear from you. 8 7 7 3 0 one eighty nine seventy eight 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. We will be right back after this break. Keep your dial on

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The latest local news headlines are as close as your smartphone with the new WGBH app with a single tap you can dig deeper into the news of the day from business to arts and culture. Just a free download away at the App Store or at WGBH dot org. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about the high cost of rents in Boston and they're getting even higher. There's also a short of a shortage of apartments. We've opened up the lines we want to hear from you. If you're having a hard time finding a place to rent. We want to hear from you if the high cost of rent is forcing you to move out of the city. And that's why we're talking about this rental crisis today because it's even impacts those of us who may not have a rental crisis in our own lives. Continuing the conversation with me. City Councilor Mike Ross and Barry Bluestone dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. And our number for you callers 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1. Eighty nine seventy and you can send us a tweet

or write to our Facebook page. Before the break Boston city councilor Mike Ross Barry Bluestone. Really described a wonderful I thought idea to solve a lot of problems there was some cooperation call for among a number of educational institutions. But what I really liked about it as someone who was a former student here a college student in the area is that commingling with all the students which is really one of the draws when you think about college and you want to come here you're excited because there's more than 30 colleges and universities in the area. So what do you think of Barry bluestones idea. I think his idea is great. It's a new model graduate housing. It's something we presently don't really have in the city especially in the way that he articulated the idea that you can bring people together and have them stay beyond just their period I mean graduate students make great neighbors. I mean you're talking about. You know future doctors and scientists and engineers and really the the people who will be driving our workforce for years to come.

So I think we have places in our city will graduate housing will work and you know I would absolutely if it was proposed somewhere in my district I would seriously consider and try to support it and try to get the residents of that community to support as well. I think there are other ideas also that we have to consider that we can do immediately. And you know some of those things are fairly simple you know smaller unit size. There's no reason why every unit has to be a thousand square feet. I lived for 11 years and more. More than half of those years while serving in public office in a 400 in 25 35 square foot basement apartment in Beacon Hill. You know part of the Tiny House movement I didn't know at the time. That's right. Right now it's cool. Yeah I live in that right now this is a day I don't know. But at the time you know they called it a garden you know. Yes I had a garden. But you know I'll tell you it really was a great place. I mean I loved it I lived there for 11 years and I could afford to move there because it was so small. We typically are

not permit ing in the city. Smaller units we should. We're also frowning on basement units we should not basement units when done well and when done right and I would argue that the places I lived in was done well and done right. They work great. So those are two areas where we can immediately start working. And then as I said earlier you know there's no reason why all institutions in the city can't start building you know that they need to build on campus housing every time one dorm unit is created. Point to five a quarter of an apartment is freed up. So every four units every door for dormitories that's an entire apartment becomes available. So that's something you know and finally we have to realize that these are not the only drivers of retaining people in our city. I mean look you know look at New York City the prices are higher than Boston. And yet people continue to flock to New York to work there to live there to raise families there. And why is that happening well it's because it's more than just a housing. This is decision for them

right. They're also looking at one of the quality of these neighborhoods where are the jobs and are they available. What other types of amenities and safety issues and quality schools are available and so we should know that. You know as we as we shore up our neighborhoods as each neighborhood in Boston as so many are really become these wonderful destinations I mean from where I live in Mission Hill to across the city you know and we think about crime levels we think about quality elementary schools and things that keep people here and again focus on jobs. I mean we can still be an expensive place to live but a successful city they're not necessarily mutually good. Should we continue to build. Absolutely. Should we embrace some of the newer ideas and maybe some of the older ones. Yes but we also have to realize it's not just a single issue around housing. OK. Let's take a caller candy from Chester New Hampshire. Go ahead please you're on the callee Crossley Show on WGBH Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. I'm going to they have. Two daughters who

live in the Boston area one is a senior at Mass College of Art and one of a graduate student at Boston architectural college. Recently my daughter who is going to be a senior at math is actually moving in with my sister and her husband in Cambridge because the cost of her apartment in Mission Hill is outrageous. Fifteen hundred dollars a month. Pretty absolute. And what aggravates me about the high rents in Boston when you call the landlord. They don't do anything for the kids. If the parent calls then sometimes something will happen. But my husband has actually had to go down to that apartment and make repairs on it so that things like the toilet will flush. So you're not talking about fancy stuff you're just talking about necessities. Yeah at fifteen hundred dollars a month which I think is outrageous and I saw how many square feet can be.

I am not sure it's tiny. I mean you barely turn around and bump into something. And then my other daughter has an apartment in that Ferd and she's leaving. September 1 to move up to Portland Maine because she's done with their masters and she's had it with the high cost of living in Boston and taken out. Jobs are scarce and run their high so she's off to me. So I think Boston really needs to do something to that about the rent and the team dition which these apartments aren't really be changing. STUDENT Thank you very much for the call candy Berry you've heard this story before over and over and over again. You know there's certainly a role for the city through its inspection services to make sure that this thing is safe and is kept up. You shouldn't have to have parents calling I have a freshman in college myself and I don't want to have to deal with housing if I don't have to but I think

what Candy is suggesting is exactly what Mike Ross and I are talking about. We do like to keep young people here. An exciting city to live in but we have to have a housing stock including small units at affordable prices that are kept in good condition for young people to stay here at least as many as we want them to. The Candy's got it exactly right. He's touched on both of the problems that is having unit that are decent and affordable and also keeping our young folks here at home. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH an online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley. We're talking about the rental market in Boston the scarcity of apartments and the high cost of rent. With Boston city councilor Mike Ross and Barry Bluestone dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. If you're thinking about leaving Boston because you can't find an apartment or because it's too expensive as candies kids have decided. We're at 8 7 7 3 a one eighty nine seventy if you're in the middle

of your apartment and are coming up empty. Call us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Oh yes can I just respond to your auntie's calls as it's a go on. You know each neighborhood of the city of Boston is experiencing a different set of circumstances which you know depending on who they live next to so can a kid who goes to the I think is mass College of one went to mass College of Art and another one was at the architecture architecture like the one who lives in Mission Hill. She's also living next to Northeastern University which only has housed half their students. So no matter how the whatever all housing market is going to play out in Boston until northeastern houses more than half of its students maybe they're up to 60 percent today till they get to 75 80 percent. Neighborhoods like Mission Hill will never have landlords will never have an incentive to put out a better product because the competition for apartments is so. Fierce I actually before I came here I drew a graph of which you can't see because we're on

radio. But if if if viewers can can and magine a 45 degree angle on a graph and what that is. That is students living in the two zip codes closest to Northeastern. And it's not just northeastern it's all the schools in that area. I'm not picking on northeastern they're actually trying to build housing right now. It just shows this this rampant increase in these in these two zip codes that I isolated it shows approx me a thirteen hundred person increase of students living in those two areas just in the last five years and that are actually correct that a two and a half years. And that is while they're building. So you know there is a real challenge here but it depends on which neighborhood you're even talking about. Well I thought if I could add Cali I could have talked about this and I again I'm at Northeastern University part of the problem is working with our neighbor to allow us to build the kind of housing that students

can live in. Often particularly when it comes to undergraduates the neighborhoods don't want to have undergraduates close to them. Unfortunately when you look at a campus like northeastern or Boston University there is an awful lot of land left in those campuses where you can build housing right on them and therefore you have to build off the edge of the campus and that's when we run into trouble and that's when we think years and years and years trying to come to an agreement with the community to allow us to build a kind of housing that student could live in quote unquote on campus. All right let's take Dan from Boston. Dan go ahead please you're on the callee Crossley Show on WGBH. Yeah i be part of the big problem also with the apartment going to pay a fee first class dirty and my wife and I we we live at the Beacon Hill. We got a kind of expensive we couldn't we couldn't afford to move. It was sixty four hundred dollars just to get into any place to get and all of that

you know all the apartments are going to get smaller and smaller and you know and the fees are getting higher and higher. Yeah I think you're absolutely right. And yet they're not doing anything with those fees to fix up the apartments. Many times Boston city councilor Mike Ross. Yeah. I mean you know it's early in the supermarket in know in the more professional markets the units are getting smaller I mean one of the problems we're facing in the West End which is the other side of my district is there's a lack of three bedroom housing was being created which means it's going to be a lack of families moving through those neighborhoods. And one of the very real discussions we're having right now is expanding the sizes of those units as they're going through even new Permatang to build another building that if you want to build a building here than we'd like to see more three family I mean three bedroom units to allow for families to move into these neighborhoods. But the caller's right instead I think it it's becoming more economical for them to have smaller units and to house just professionals and we

can't just be a city of professionals. You know you need to have that balance and you need to do what the market's willing to do. I mean Equity Residential and in this case is who I'm referring to as the developer. You know they're going to put out what they can put out what they can get financed and what they can sell. And you know if if we won't let them build these units and you know are they going to walk I mean when there is that tug and we'll get back to the earlier conversation what Barry was talking about the length of time it takes to permit in the city of Boston. The conversation I just had with you that just you know that's a six month you know DeLay right there. So you have to find that balance and we have to build but we want to build what people want. And it's a real balance. All right right now the demographics may come. Come to our aid we've got a huge number of baby boomers my age who are going to be retiring or at least they're going to be empty nesters and looking for smaller places to live. But they'd like to stay close to where

they currently live because that's where their friends are their community organizations and so forth. So part of what we need to do is make sure that we're building housing for older folks who will then give up their three and four bedroom homes or apartments for the family. The other thing I think we should really stress and we hardly hear any talk about anymore is Boston invented the most the greatest housing invention of all time the triple decker. And we did that during the end of the 19th early 20th century when we had huge numbers of immigrants coming to Boston from Italy from Ireland and elsewhere. And that allowed recent immigrant who had gotten their you know feet on the ground to get one of these fairly inexpensive triple deckers own the first floor and rent two units to other family. Great man living in Cambridge of the triple decker I wish we could find a way to build more housing like that. Me too. I've lived in one of those triple deckers and they're kind of interesting unless you have someone who stomps over

you. That's another story. We got better sound insulation. We're going to break now but when we come back we're going to be talking to a guy who's at the nexus of innovation and at the same time the housing crisis and trying to stop the brain drain. Travis McCready will join us executive director of the Kendall Square Association. We are talking about the high cost of rent. September 1st is right around the corner. Moving Day in Boston we're close to 80 percent of all people who rent move into their new homes. Call us if you have a story to tell about trying to find out or paying for it. 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. We'll be back after this break. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the Joan and James Vernon Cancer

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coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. The program you're enjoying right now is primarily paid for by listener support. And thousands of WGBH supporters double the impact of their gifts by having their matched dollar for dollar by their employees. To find out if your employer was someone who knew. He supported the government to be a radio and television visit WGBH dot org slash matching gifts. Now if he were going to make a little judgment here the adjustment is that we're giving Terry Gross Fridays off the rest of the summer. Really. So we can make room for Public Radio's hottest show Radiolab Fridays it to here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. We're talking about the rental situation in Boston. They're getting higher they're also fewer apartments to rent. And this is hurting Boston because an

emerging workforce a generation of young professionals is packing up and moving on to more affordable sites. We've heard that already from some of the callers this morning. And it's one of the reasons that my guest Travis McCready has joined us on the line now is working so hard to try to figure out a plan in Cambridge that takes into account those folks that he would like to maintain in Boston and Cambridge area and also. How we can house them so it won't be a problem for them to stay and live here. Before I get to travels to weigh in on this. If you are thinking of moving because the rent is too high call us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 and if you're having a hard time finding a place to rent call us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. So finally Travis MCCREADY I know you hate the word innovation I used it because Kendall Square is kind of the Innovation District in Cambridge. Kelly thanks for having me.

Yes so tell us what you're doing along the lines of trying to change something so there is housing. Cambridge has a lot of colleges and universities. And also to retain those young people after they've graduated. Sure absolutely First of all hi mike i Barry agree with most everything that these gentlemen have said already. We have an incredibly acute situation going on here in Kendall Square. We have as most people know more technology and biotechnology companies per square mile than anywhere else in the planet. So we have an incredibly robust. Commercial district and we need to balance that with the ability to have our young people the brains that are fueling all of these tech and biotech companies living here or nearby within the general vicinity to get to you to generate the kind of innovation that are fueling our marketplace. So we're in the midst of a we

Kendall Square central square and the City of Cambridge we're in the midst of a long term study to determine how to solve that problem. Where is where are there are housing opportunities. How do we answer the perennial question in mature urban neighborhoods about density and how do we balance that question of density with being on the. Having neighbors right next door in the East Cambridge area for their hoods where there already is a dense residential single family homes that are butting up against the Kendall Square commercial district. Well interesting situation. Yeah and you add of the thousand housing units in the past five years. Are they all full already. You still need more and we still need more. 1000 units that's a mixture of both condominium and rental right here in the core of Kendall Square within a five minute

walk of the Kendall Square TV station. There are approximately another 500 units in the pipeline being planned and potentially going to be developed in the next five to 10 years and still the community and by that community I mean the entire community building institutions of higher education. The residential Post who is living here in the Kendall Square area of the business says we all feel like the greater Boston area needs more housing to be able to satiate this incredible demand for talent that Kendall Square is generating. OK so we know that Kendall Square is the place where a lot of high tech people are going. And we also what we also know maybe everybody doesn't know is that there's a great theater there art theater. There are really many interesting restaurants there just booming. So a lot of the things that City Councillor Mike Ross says people want to have as part of their decision making and staying in a town already exists there. But they

have to have someplace to put their potted plants. That's right Mike's absolutely right. This is not just a business decision about where you want to work. This is what we are experiencing here in Kendall Square what we know is that this is about business about cultural This is about a quality of life. By the end of this year we'll have 60 new restaurants that will have opening. Bill square we have a great independent theater. The remaining independent movie theater for our house shows in Boston. Great restaurant scene. Great theater see a little bit more of a music scene starting to crop up in bees. There are the types of men these type of feel in an urban area that young people in particular and the baby boomer generation thank you they want to be your favorite part of your project. That's true.

Yeah this is that kind of new urban area. People want to live it. And as you said give to give the people what they want. And the great thing about what's going on right now the renaissance we're experiencing is that there is that level of vibrancy and that level of cooperation all levels to be able to provide those amenities. But it's simply not easy not fast enough to be able to stay she ate all that the band that exists here and the boss there. All right well thank you very much for your insight Travis McCready. Candle square Association we're going to keep an eye on what you're doing there. And thanks for joining us. Oh you're very welcome thank you for having me. All right right now I want to go to Jen in Brighton. You're on the callee Crossley Show WGBH Cali. Thanks for taking my call. You're welcome. Yeah I live in Brighton on the third floor of a triple decker and our third

roommate is moving out. So we decided we should get our own our own place so one or two bedroom and the rent is almost the same as our three bedroom. I've been looking on Craigslist and I e-mailed just over 35 listening over the last two or three months and I've heard back from two of them both of them saying that they would take me. Wow. Were you looking at that whole I expanded out to looking in Brighton almost in Cambridge Somerville and Brookline. That was city counselor Mike Ross What's your price range. We were I was hoping to get that under fourteen hundred. You know a lot of the realtors the city is at least 700 just for them. If you're going to take that apartment I've been trying to do directly with the owners. But their response rate has been pretty.

Justin Jim this is a sad story that's being repeated. I don't know if you heard the early part of the show but the average rent now in Boston is sixteen hundred. I actually carry over how many bedrooms right. I actually have some data that just came out. The cost here in the last three months in Boston in Greater Boston. Is it worse Go ahead. One bedroom is now averaging almost sixteen hundred dollars. That's a one bedroom one thousand five hundred eighty three dollars a studio or efficiency about twelve hundred. The kind of unit that Jen is looking for a two bedroom unit now averages eighteen hundred and eighty seven dollars a month in Greater Boston. And don't even think about a three bedroom that's twenty five hundred dollars. Wow. Yeah there are three bedrooms that we renew our lease. So I think you can see I don't think when we gave it up we knew. We had it good.

You had a great deal there relative to these other prices. All right well General going to cross our fingers for you. That's I think you've expressed a lot of anxiety that are being felt by many people who are looking out here it's really crystallizes the real on the ground situation. Thank you Frank. Yeah. OK so Barry I mean you list these incredible rates at this time 15 over 15 hundred for a one bedroom a studio twelve hundred two bedroom almost 2000. And we've talked about some of the innovative ideas that are on the books. What do you do right now. Well right now meaning that temper first Unfortunately there's not much anybody can do except keep looking and looking and looking like Ken is doing. But I think what this tells us is that we need to have an extra effort. All institutions universities by the city by private developers. By individual builders to increase the supply of housing

the demand is not going away. If anything we hope they'll be even more younger people here meaning the demand even stronger. So the big question. And as an economist the thing is you have got to increase supply. That's why I'd love to see us move forward on the multi-universe the graduate student village. Let's start with one I hope we can get three or four of them. Let's make sure that we keep pressure on our universities to work with the community work with the city to build more residence halls for undergraduates. Let's see what we can do to build housing for baby boomers who will be retiring and looking for smaller units. And let's make sure we can afford though so at every point and for every demographic group there is a supply decision that has to be made and a set of supply conditions have to be a stablished that will allow developers to quickly. Build new housing without taking what turns off to be a five to seven year period

between conception and actual housing units being occupied. That's just too long it's money longer than in most other cities. We also have to make sure as Mike Ross was thing that for certain people that small unit makes a lot of sense. Then we have to make sure that those small units to be made can be built that the building codes favor them. I think we also have to look at some of the building codes and see if we have problems with the codes and how they affect the ability to build affordable housing. There's a lot we can do on the supply side. Let's get on with it. I have to ask Mike Ross and two things coming out of what Barry Bluestone just said of North Eastern University First of all to shorten up the time period between conceptualizing these things and making it happen. It's all about political will now you're here having expressed you know your great interest and you've been following this for some years and pushing for more than one of you though to make this happen. I mean there has to be it seems to be at the

bottom of this. There really is about the political will of the city to move this stuff faster. And then the second part of that in terms of just supply. You know for those of us who drive past and see these boarded up houses I'm not talking about foreclosures now I'm just talking about old houses that just have sort of been let go to seed. That's that stuff that could be rehabbed in some way right now it seems to me to be used as rental property. Yeah and you know missing from this entire conversation are some of the excellent successes that the city of Boston and Department of Labor development and the mayor's housing policies have yielded. I mean the reality is Boston is one of the lowest if not the lowest foreclosure city in America. We have programs to quickly flip and create new housing for our foreclosed properties and we have policies to even handled foreclosed properties while they're foreclosed. So you know I have to put a plug in for the mayor's housing team where they are doing a great job in a whole host of areas. Unfortunately many of these conversations

do result in a neighborhood by neighborhood approach and so you know I put my money where my mouth is in the in the neighborhoods I represent. I was on your show not too long ago. That's true. Fending for and fighting for a controversial. Development project knowing that we have to do it and I suppose too often the reaction in charged you know neighborhood battle is to is to simply support what what the neighbors the existing neighbors are saying and while that's definitely a part of my job to know what the neighbors are saying and hear them fully and and by you know there are going to be right they live there at least right in the feelings they hold. It is also my job to bridge that and to try and create successes and create housing as a district city councilor I know that many of my colleagues whether the state reps or district councillors do that on a regular basis. But often tough fights are they're easier to walk away from than they are to really get in and that everything can be a battle. So these everything we've talked about today comes down

to a neighbor on neighbor discussion and whether or not you want x to be built next door to you. And sometimes it makes sense to do so and other times it doesn't. But these are conversations we need to have. Well you don't have a built in you going to have 15 people in an apartment because that's the only way they can afford to stay someplace I mean listening to these most recent figure rental figures are Barry Bluestone. That's right I mean one way or the other this situation is resolving itself and what we really should try to do is resolve in a way with favors good public policy as opposed to ignoring the problem and hoping that it goes away because it won't and this is this and this is a good problem to have. Boston is. You know the greatest one of the greatest cities in the country people want to be here they even even with our cold winters. We need to find ways to keep them here. And it's not again it's not just housing I really appreciate what Travis McCready has done in Kendall Square he really is making a great place over there. But we have to ask ourselves you know Massachusetts is the number one

was called in investment venture capital in per capita in the entire country perhaps in the entire world. We beat California per capita and yet half of those dollars leave Massachusetts to go elsewhere I mean look at Facebook. Facebook started here. Where is it now it's in California. We have to know why those companies are growing outside of Massachusetts that is not a housing policy I mean that could even be a regulatory policy around non-compete agreements. I mean there's a lot that goes into what keeps someone here. And we have to we have to attack all these issues at the same time. So Barry Bluestone you with the bad statistics how would this change in the next let's say two years I'm not going to even go out to five. Well I think what we're going to be is greater pressure to build housing for undergraduate graduates and the new resident at Northeastern at the possibility of developers coming forward to build that university graduate student

village will have a down payment on a long term problem. It's going to take everybody working together to stop. Well if not then City Councillor Mike Ross you might get some competition from the guy from New York from the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. I just want you to know the man who just announced he's running for president had to write him a mic Melon this is what he had to say 2010 gubernatorial debate. I represent the Rent Is Too Damn High Party people were going to get out today and bought out and we can sum up our job well and can afford to take the children to be the children breakfast lunch and dinner. My main job bought a roof over your head food on the table the money in your pocket. Isn't politics as you planned a silly game it is not going to happen to get my movement of people here to represent can't afford to pay the rent. They're being laid off right now as I speak. There you go. That's what we have to look forward to if this doesn't get resolved I'm glad to have talked with the

two of you though at least have some concrete problems maybe a little bit better than New York than Jimmy McMillan is suggesting there. Thanks to both of you for coming in to talk on this really important subject. And my heart goes out to all of the people who are searching for apartments leading up to September the 1st. We've been talking about the rental situation in Boston really the rental crisis with Boston city councilor Mike Ross and Barry Bluestone dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Cal across Lee follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Alan Mathis produced by Chelsea Myers will Rose left and Abbey Ruzicka are in turn is Sarah Ward. We are a production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station or news and culture.