The Cambridge Housing Shortage, or, Why Has My Rent Doubled In the Past Six Years?

FIVE or six years ago apartments went vacant in Cambridge. The "perennial" housing shortage is that recent. In the past six years, the median rent in Cambridge has doubled. And although the demand for additional housing is intense, hardly any appears.

A housing shortage has developed for various reasons, one of which is the attraction of new industries and business to the area. It may have taken the lead from NASA, which began to move into Cambridge in August of 1962. The '60's saw an increase in the number of new Cambridge-located research and development enterprises, new industries such as National Information Services, and greatly increased employee needs at Harvard.

Over a third of the total Harvard University student population-4020 persons-is now living off-campus. Landlords have recently developed a willingness to exclude family units by holding rents at levels which groups of students can afford to pay. While the national average for units of "unrelated individuals" living together is 18 per cent, in Cambridge 33.3 per cent of the housing is occupied by such groups.

Not counting the thousands of regular Harvard employees, there are close to 9000 students and Corporation appointees (administrators, professors, teaching fellows) occupying Cambridge housing. That alone is nine per cent of the total city population.

Another addition to Cambridge's housing market in recent years is Puerto Rican immigrants and people migrating from small towns in New Hampshire and Maine. With job cutbacks, many new arrivals are forced to turn to welfare programs.

Low to moderate income people suffer most from any bad economic situation. While 16 per cent of the Cambridge population is above the $15,000 income level, another 15 per cent falls below the poverty level. With 85 per cent of Cambridge rents higher than $100 a month, it is almost impossible for a family of moderate means to live in Cambridge.

Elderly people, most of whom have fixed incomes of less than $4000, are hardest hit by rising rent and by dislocation. The greater number of over-65's have roots here, and many have been forced out of their neighborhoods. Those who remain in their communities pay an average of 35 per cent (a comfortable amount is 20-25 per cent) of their income in rent alone.

WHAT is being done about the housing shortage in Cambridge?

There is too much talk, too many committees and proposals. Large-scale planning for the city doesn't exist. Responsibility for an overall housing polices plan lies with the Planning and Development Board, an arm of City Hall, which produced its last master plan for Cambridge in 1958. A new proposal is due sometime this year; and current judgments on zoning changes are done on an ad hoc basis. In order to maneuver, City officials and committees fail into compromise agreement which rarely result in action. Michael Rosenberg of the Planning Board terms making a master plan "an attempt at a rational decision process in the midst of an irrational political system."

Although there have been endless proposals launched, new housing has not kept up with demand in Cambridge. And with property values rising every day, there isn't much money to be made in low-to-moderate income housing, the level most sorely needed. Only the wealthiest of resources can acquire property and permission to build.

The largest (and richest) developer in Cambridge is Max Wasserman of Wasserman Development Corporation, who recently acquired the immense $51/2 million Bertha Cohen estate. He has numerous holdings in Boston and in Harvard and Putnam Squares.

Wasserman built the twin high-rise (22-story) buildings in Fresh Pond which house 500 moderate-to-low-income elderly and families. There is a waiting list for apartments in these eye-scrapers, where rent is proportionate to income and the elderly receive government subsidies. Having bought the land very cheap years ago. Wasserman profits well from the two Rindge buildings.

Although the new units do help to ease the tight housing market, less than half the residents are formerly from Cambridge, so the City's population is increased.

The Rindge buildings have problems inherent in that kind of sky-high living condition. Family units tend to become isolated from each other, and children don't come into contact with peers in the neighborhood area. They become restless, lacking direct access to the outdoors or companions. Wasserman neglected to install any sort of recreational facility which might alleviate some of the tensions of life in a non-neighborhood. The crime rate in the buildings has been very high. Another problem with Rindge is the inaccessibility of schools, which are over a mile away.

"I fear the sociological implications of such building," one housing expert said. "Those buildings are not for human beings."

There are different motivations for building housing. An institution such as Harvard or M. I. T. builds in the surrounding community to improve its image, and in response to criticism for not fulfilling its "obligations to the community."

Harvard's current (and first) community effort is the Putnam Square Apartment for the elderly, located at Mt. Auburn St. and Putnam Ave. The twelve-story tower will contain 94 low-income living units, plus community space on the first and twelfth floors. Plans to build family housing at Blair Pond have been forestalled by local neighborhood opposition. This opposition, not unlike that encountered by many housing planners, is basically racism clothed in ecological terms.

THE Wilson Committee Report (1969) expressed for the first time an interest in expanding Harvard's realm of "responsibility" to include the outside community. Harvard's negligence toward Cambridge was an issue during the 1969 occupation of University Hall; and the Riverside neighborhood (around Mather House) has been a vocal opponent of Harvard's ivory tower policies. The concept of "institutional integrity" -of the University as self-containing and autonomous-has been rejected by all but the most elitist members of the community. Morality has been imposed on the University.

M. I. T. has plans for building a number of units for elderly people. And the Cambridge Corporation-a nonprofit organization started by Harvard and M. I. T.- is active throughout the city in preparations for building "housing for people." Model Cities also has concrete plans for construction.

In fact, close to 2200 apartment units are well into the planning stage. Of these, 1400 are for elderly people, who indicate need for only 400 units of public housing. Because communities are more willing to accept housing for elderly people than for families, many more buildings for the over-65's are finding neighborhood support. And since housing decisions are ad hoc, the overall balance may remain uneven, though the problems will (if all this building takes place) be different.

Overcrowding is an issue in every city, a hazard for growth. Expansion beyond the employment base is a real waste of the city's resources, and painful for the jobless. Building new housing inevitably brings outsiders in; and regardless of the condition of the vacated apartments, they are rented again. Additional units do act as a leveller on rents, and there is no question that Cambridge is in need of at least some new housing.

What is at stake in Cambridge is the quality of living. Many old Cambridge neighborhoods are threatened by rising rents. People find themselves having to relocate because they can't afford to live at "home" anymore.

A rent supplement program administered by the Cambridge Housing Authority helps to ease some of the tensions of the tight housing market. For those fortunate enough to make use of the program, the Housing Authority rents apartments from landlords and leases them at 22 per cent of the family's total income-and thus "eats" the difference.

The lease program enables people to remain in their natural neighborhoods, and helps modify the trend toward class stratification-so middle income as well as rich and poor remain in Cambridge.

The next few years will see some new low and moderate income housing built in Cambridge. There is a definite need for additional living space. How much Cambridge should have, for its size (six square miles) and its employment base, is undeterminable. Psychological factors, such as crowding and loss of neighborhood are even less predictable. What housing is built should and can be planned for people, not "tenants." For example, three-story buildings with access to the ground are costlier but possible.

That the actual housing shortage will be modified is certain. The lingering question, for Cambridge and other growing cities, is how to deal with the sociological problems which grow out of haphazard solutions.