CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman was quoted today in the Boston Globe's article "With federal funds in hand, public housing also at play in Mayor Wu’s agenda," which discusses advocates' views on how new Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and her administration can address the affordable housing crisis and improve public housing in Boston.
Wu is "armed with millions of dollars in one-time federal funds, courtesy of Congress’s COVID-relief legislation, and has vowed to pump the cash into big-picture solutions, including supporting home-ownership programs and building housing units," writes Globe reporter Milton J. Valencia, "But the far more difficult question is how to preserve and sustain the existing, dated public housing system, which experts say is a crucial part of any solution to Boston’s dilemma."
Valencia adds that while Wu has committed $50 million for repairs of the Boston Housing Authority's Mildred C. Hailey community in Jamaica Plain, housing advocates counter that these funds are far short of what is needed to fix the Hailey complex and the rest of BHA's portfolio. "We need to have a way to invest in these buildings to serve another generation," says BHA Administrator Kate Bennett.
“Nobody houses vulnerable populations like public housing does,” Sunia Zaterman told the Globe. “There’s no place in the [private] market for them, particularly in a place like Boston,” she said.