Housing affordability is one of the top issues of concern for the people of Massachusetts.
During The Massachusetts 6th Congressional District debate on June 17, Mariah Lancaster talked about how the housing crisis impacts all minority and immigrant communities. A large majority of them are living in redlining communities. The people who live in these areas are experiencing systemic inequities that include discrimination.
What has been done about the housing crisis?
In the summer of 2023, the Emergency Assistance Shelter System, also referred to as EA, began to experience a significant amount of stress as a high volume of insecure families from outside the U.S. began arriving in Massachusetts who needed housing, in addition to the pre-existing affordable housing crisis.
For the past five years, inflation has caused rent and median home prices to increase at an extreme rate which has led college graduates and residents to leave Massachusetts. The crisis got so bad that many families were forced to shelter at the Logan Airport and local hospitals.
As a result, Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency. “She called on the federal government to take urgent action to streamline and expedite work authorizations and increase funding to states to assist in providing shelter and services to families,” her office said in a statement. The federal government ultimately complied with Healy’s request, awarding a $2 million grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency known as FEMA to help Boston and the Commonwealth support shelter services in combination with administrative adjustments to process work permits.
However, the rest of Gov. Healey’s demands were unmet, as she wanted recurring substantial federal backing and broader immigration reforms for the issue. This increased demand for housing caused Massachusetts to activate the National Guard to assist at shelter sites and enact time limits and capacity caps on shelter stays. Healey also appointed Lt. Gen. Scott Rice, who has experience in the Air Force and was a former commander of the Massachusetts National Guard, as the new emergency assistance director in the state.
Currently, emergency shelters are running at full capacity.
Redlining
A large majority of immigrant and minority communities are living in areas where the residue of redlining practices still exist. Redlining is the illegal practice of denying housing services, wealth and neighborhood building opportunities based on skin color.
It all started with the House Ownership Loan Corporation, also known as HOLC, which created residential security color-coded maps based on the “risk” level of an area with “red” being deemed “hazardous” in the 1930s.
74% of neighborhoods HOLC graded as high-risk or “hazardous” eight decades ago are low-to-moderate income communities today. 64% of what HOLC graded as “hazardous” are minority neighborhoods.
According to HOLC ratings, wherever Black families resided, no matter their income, were automatically marked as hazardous. For example, Roxbury was deemed “red” despite their great school and public transit system due to the “infiltration of Negros.”
“There is significantly greater economic inequality in cities where more of the HOLC graded high-risk or ‘hazardous’ areas are currently minority neighborhoods,” according to an analysis by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
Some of the consequences of redlining include disproportional policing, food apartheid and educational disparities in addition to black families being denied the opportunity to build generational wealth to pass along to future generations.
Homeownership is a primary driver of generational wealth in the United States. Black and Brown families were excluded from this as there was a reduction in credit access that led to lower demands for housing and a decrease in housing investment.
In other words, redlining caused less housing to be built in impoverished areas.
How can we improve the housing crisis in Massachusetts?
There is a shortage of construction workers due to the fear of immigrants being deported by ICE as they typically make up about a quarter of the staff.
“Construction workers like José Mário Oliveira check their phones regularly. A single message in a WhatsApp group text that alerts them to federal agents’ presence in a neighborhood can render it a ghost town for the day, leaving construction sites without carpenters, roofers, electricians, drywallers, or other skilled workers,” according to the American Renaissance.
Ultimately, we need to fight the immigration policies President Donald Trump has enforced that has caused ICE to be more aggressive.
The Trump administration’s immigration policies have mandated ICE agents to arrest as many people as possible who they suspect to be noncitizens. In 2025, federal agencies were given the green light to use race as a central factor in enforcement actions due to the “shadow docket” ruling.
Fortunately, Gov. Healey has signed the PROTECT Act that restricts ICE activity and local law enforcement in Massachusetts severely.
Homeownership is the primary driver of generational wealth, so if immigrants and minorities build more homes in their communities, they will build equity and reduce redlining.
In addition, strengthening policies to direct financial resources and target public funding to disadvantaged areas, requiring banks to lend fairly across all areas of their communities, including low-income and minority neighborhoods and reforming property appraisal processes to ensure that a neighborhood’s racial composition, does not negatively impact home values.
This legislation should inform immigrants and minorities they are safe here and improve the shortage of construction workers to build more houses, especially within their own communities.
Featured image: Photo by Mark Olsen on Unsplash
Edited by Abbigail Earl & James Sutton
