Sign MHC’s Housing NOW Petition

Almost overnight, our neighborhoods have become more and more unaffordable. 

WE MUST DO OUR PART.

Massachusetts should build more housing for those who need it and stop the housing crisis by creating more homes and home ownership opportunities. 

WE MUST DO EVERYTHING WE CAN TO MAKE MASSACHUSETTS MORE AFFORDABLE. 

We believe the best place to start is with our housing policies. MHC’s Housing Now Petition begins this movement and demands that:

• State and local leaders should end the broken housing policies brought on by the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) movement

• Our elected officials should stop the zoning practices that benefit the wealthy and that are favored by NIMBYs

• Create housing that is designed around 21st Century needs and that makes our neighborhoods more affordable

WE NEED YOUR VOICE TO MAKE THESE CHANGES A REALITY.

Why Do We Need This Petition?

A massive shortage of housing has caused rents and home prices to skyrocket and residents are struggling to make ends meet. Local businesses face bankruptcies, homeowners face foreclosure, and tenants face evictions – without an end in sight.

WE CANNOT CONTINUE ON THIS PATH. 

WE MUST CHANGE THE UNFAIR POLICIES THAT HAVE CREATE A HOUSING CRISIS IN OUR STATE. NOW.

Join MHC in urging state and local officials to fight for more housing, to end discriminatory zoning practices, stop the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) movement, and provide immediate, meaningful relief for residents and small businesses in Massachusetts.

CLEARLY, THE HOUSING POLICIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY HAVE FAILED US.

We’ve inherited exorbitant home prices and inflated rents from a status quo built and rewarded by a NIMBY mentality that has enabled the outdated policies of the past to justify far fewer homes for the families of today.

We must demand that our communities build more houses and apartments in more neighborhoods to increase affordability and break the cycle of working hard just to live paycheck to paycheck.

THE TIME HAS COME TO FIGHT THE STATUS QUO, CHANGE MASSACHUSETTS FOR THE BETTER, AND BRING OUR CITIES & TOWNS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY.

Our organization advocates for more housing in every corner of the Commonwealth and will finally stop the endless excuses that are used to eliminate or stall badly needed housing. There are innumerable options to create more homes and we believe that communities should do everything they can to build more housing instead of searching for thin justifications to prevent them. 

Why Should I Sign This Petition?

By signing your name, we will show our elected officials that residents will fight for real change. With your support, our petition will:

FIGHT to stop outdated zoning practices and remove housing barriers that exacerbate unaffordable housing conditions 

FIGHT to address housing instability and income inequality to create better opportunities for all residents

FIGHT to create more affordable homes by mandating more housing in all our of neighborhoods

By lending your voice to our movement, we can all speak as one to demand that housing affordability be taken seriously.

HELP FIGHT FOR THE CHANGE WE NEED BY SIGNING YOUR NAME TODAY!

Full Text of the Housing Now Petition

We, the citizens and residents of Massachusetts, petition the Governor, the Great and General Court, and all 351 incorporated municipalities of the Commonwealth to respectfully demand that the Commonwealth and its municipalities deliberate in each of their respective administrative and legislative bodies the following principles and policy changes; determine the method and manner that such principles and policy changes can be implemented within their jurisdiction with all due speed; and make publicly available the results of such deliberations as soon as practicable.

Stop the Legacy of Broken Housing Policies

Throughout the 20th Century our governments, our leaders, and even our own neighbors, successfully wrote exclusionary housing policies into our laws, regulations, and business practices.

This virulent, Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) mentality in Massachusetts has been one of the most harmful movements to our communities. While some resident say they want housing built for those who need it, they actively oppose that housing in their own communities and neighborhoods.

As a result, restrictive and exclusionary zoning laws, regulations, and practices have been put in place to slow down production and has intensified housing inequality and insecurity. We must do better for our residents and for the people that need our laws to work for them, not against them.

This NIMBY mentality must come to an end in Massachusetts. Creating more housing is one of the first steps we need to take in order to have a society free of housing injustice and we must create that housing in every neighborhood in the Commonwealth.

End Exclusionary Zoning Regulations

Our zoning policies are deeply rooted in a philosophy of exclusion, dating back to the early 20th Century. Despite the progress of history, correcting the impact of these policies on housing has never been a public priority, and our present-day crisis demonstrates the inadequacy of our response. We must not let the failed policies of the past dictate our future.

Instead of inhibiting construction, zoning ordinances should allow housing to thrive by making it an economically viable and sustainable model for public, non-profit, as well as private interests. Unfortunately, developers, homeowners, and even municipalities often choose the path of least resistance during the local approval process in order to reduce their exposure to increased project costs and construction delays.

For instance, renovations of existing properties for market rate housing carry few regulatory barriers, as opposed to new construction of units, whose zoning changes face unpredictable timelines and numerous additional regulatory hurdles - not to mention the typical NIMBY opposition. This ultimately creates an unintended incentive for the rehabilitation of existing housing to be sold at substantially higher prices, without expanding the amount of homes that are available.

Preserving the status quo in current zoning ordinances is what is preventing or own progress in increasing available homes and reducing housing costs. There are several ways that we can break through the status quo, and we place particular value on a model that initiates the proper development where affordability is prioritized, and project incentives are repeatable throughout the Commonwealth so that others can engage similarly in the future. 

Cities and towns in Massachusetts that are attempting to do the right thing and allow more housing are being thwarted by outdated laws that require a supermajority vote of their governing bodies to approve zoning changes. Governor Baker’s Housing Choice Bill requires a simple majority to pass changes to local zoning – an incremental step that Massachusetts must take to loosen the decades-old Not In My Backyard mentality that drives up costs and reduces the availability of housing. 

When it comes to zoning, we must resolve to get out of our own way. Of course, regulations should exist for the protection of the rights of abutters, however, overly restrictive barriers to success should be eliminated for the sake of increasing desperately needed housing stock. We must reduce the uncertainty in local processes in order to reduce the eventual costs passed along to residents. The longer it takes to develop housing units increases the cost of production and therefore the cost of each unit - exacerbating our housing crisis.

Mitigate Tenant & Landlord Disputes

Many tenants, through no fault of their own, are struggling with rising rents, poor conditions, and irresponsible landlords. There are bad actors in our real estate market and we must find the resources to enforce fairness and penalize those landlords who cause unnecessary and unfair hardship. We believe that Massachusetts must implement a system that can actively mitigate tenant and landlord disputes and modify unsustainable rent increases based on need.

Fairness must be our first principle. For too long, Massachusetts has allowed the benefits of housing to flow to those who can afford it the most. Throughout the 20th Century, the advantages of homeownership and rental relief overwhelmingly favored the well-connected, young, white, college-educated residents who did not need the benefit of scarce government resources. Those who did need those resources were left out. It’s time to bring our relief efforts into the twenty-first century and leave behind these unfair and unjust practices.

Tenant protections and assistance should go directly to the neediest among us first. There is no room in our housing policies for allowing those of means to skip to the front of the line and obtain relief ahead of others. Tenants should be protected from not just bad landlords, but from the institutional and political bias that would cause them to be forgotten when other tenants of higher means enter into disputes.  

Build, Build, Build

We believe that the next decade in Massachusetts is crucial to creating housing that can be available to all who need it. Without reasonable changes to state and local housing regulations, we risk runaway price increases, limited options to build in areas convenient to job opportunities, and little, if any, housing availability even for those who can afford it today.

We are calling for the Commonwealth to double-down on its commitment to build housing throughout the state by creating 400,000 new units of housing by 2030.

There are numerous options for housing units where market forces have created areas unreachable or unwelcoming to affordable, workforce and even market-rate housing. We must address this inequality head on, understanding that Not In My Backyard (NIMBY)-ism will be a powerful lobby against inclusionary construction in nearly every area of our cities and towns.

Many housing construction methods are underutilized or largely ignored in the housing debate, partially because current zoning creates insurmountable barriers and unpredictable timelines. It is time to look at these types of developments in a new light and with a renewed sense of urgency. Infill projects, for example, are under-valued. These projects would not just be revitalizing old units, but also adding new ones, which all goes back to the creation of new homes in order to lower prices. Additionally, focusing on Transit Oriented Development would allow more homes in a wider range of neighborhoods, access to reliable transit and job opportunities, while also lowering carbon emissions.

Brand new units – affordable, workforce and market rate – should be prioritized in every corner of the Commonwealth with the intention of bringing an end to the excuse that the ‘character of a neighborhood’ should stop residents from moving in. With countless ways to create new homes, Massachusetts communities should default to building housing units, instead of searching for thin justifications to prevent them.