It’s a simple belief: every family in Massachusetts — and especially the essential workers who power our economy — should be able to afford a roof over their heads. But right now, out-of-control housing costs are making it impossible for hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents to make ends meet.
As the leaders of two community organizations in Lowell, we see the impact of our state’s housing crisis every day.
We hear from hard-working residents who have to choose between paying the rent or putting food on the table for their children. We meet college students who leave the state after graduation because they can’t find an affordable place to live, and young professionals who leave because they can’t save enough for a down payment to buy a home.
And because state law sets no limit on the amount landlords can increase rents each year, we hear from families and seniors who are displaced from their homes when out-of-town real estate investors hike the rent by hundreds of dollars overnight.
From 2004 to 2019, according to research from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, nearly a third of all homes sold in Lowell were bought by investors – not homeowners. In Lowell and communities across the state, corporate real estate investors are increasingly buying homes and hiking rents astronomically, raising the price of housing for everyone. In Lowell, median rents increased by 59.5% between 2015 and 2023, according to US census data.
One Lowell resident, who lives in a converted mill building downtown that is owned by a large real estate corporation, had the rent on his one-bedroom apartment rise from $1,500 to $2,000 in June. The rent will increase again — by an additional $300 — in September. That’s more than a 50% increase in just four months. Many of his neighbors have moved out because they can no longer afford to live there.
These skyrocketing rents are one of the leading causes of homelessness and housing instability. When rents rise faster than wages, families are forced to spend the majority of their income on housing, leaving them one emergency away from eviction or displacement. Research shows that for every $100 increase in median rent, homelessness rises significantly, with sharp increases in both shelter populations and unsheltered homelessness.
In Lowell, approximately 55% of renters are considered rent burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs. Without stable, affordable housing, more families are pushed into shelters, overcrowded apartments, or the streets — making clear that tackling rising rents is essential to preventing homelessness.
A crisis this large, and this crucial to people’s lives and our state’s economy, calls for every possible option to be on the table. There are no silver bullets to our housing crisis, and we’ll need multiple good ideas to fix it.
That means building more housing to address decades of housing shortages. It means building more subsidized, affordable housing for seniors, low-income families, and others who can’t afford market rate housing. It means more support for first-time homebuyers.
And it means passing rent stabilization, a policy — sometimes referred to as rent control — which may be on the ballot for voters to decide next fall.
While the idea of rent control might bring back memories of the 20th century, the policy on the table today is not your grandfather’s rent control. It wouldn’t place a hard cap on rents, or create a new bureaucracy to regulate rents one unit at a time. It would merely keep the rising cost of rent to an affordable, predictable pace — limiting annual rent increases in Massachusetts to the cost of living, with a cap at 5%.
The proposed rent stabilization ballot initiative contains key exemptions to ensure that the policy does not discourage new housing development. New apartments would be exempt for a building’s first 10 years — enough time for developers to make a decent return on their investment. Owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units would be exempt as well, as these ‘mom-and-pop’ landlords aren’t the source of our housing crisis, but part of the solution.
This is a modern, moderate rent stabilization policy that will protect tenants from big corporate investors who rig the rules and unreasonably increase rents, while allowing decent landlords to earn a reasonable profit and enabling new construction to address housing shortages.
Cities and states that have adopted similar policies find that they are successful at stabilizing rents, without hindering new housing development. In New Jersey, for example, multiple studies have found no negative impact on construction rates. Other factors like zoning and interest rates have much more influence on housing production.
Stabilizing rents will protect the essential workers that support our entire economy, and keep rent costs reasonable and predictable so that renters can save and have a fair shot at the dream of owning a home.
Modern rent stabilization is a smart, well-designed policy, and it’s long past time for Massachusetts to adopt it.
Nancy Coan is Director of Lowell Alliance. Dan Rivera is CEO of the Coalition for a Better Acre.