At a packed BC Law panel, researchers, lawyers, and policy experts mapped a path for Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities: preserve naturally affordable homes, build strategically, and stop displacement before it starts.
Professor Lisa Alexander, faculty director of BC Law’s housing and property rights program, opened the panel by defining the issue at hand. “Many of these cities were historically home to industries that provided steady jobs in a period of industrialization and stable housing,” she explained. “But during periods of de-industrialization, many of the gateway cities face common challenges of disinvestment and are in need of revitalization.”
Alexander continued by asking how to revitalize these cities, create more housing, but create it in a way that is affordable and sustainable and that benefits the original residents rather than displaces them. She emphasized that the event aimed to highlight new strategies beyond traditional development models. “What’s clearly true,” she said, “is there’s a disconnect between the demand for housing and the supply of housing, and insufficient housing at all different income levels for all people of all different races.”
Elise Raposa, senior research associate at MassINC, provided the data foundation for the conversation by presenting findings from the center’s annual Gateway Cities Housing Monitor. “Because of new data from the Housing Navigator,” she explained, “we can measure the stock of what we call deed-restricted affordable housing and naturally occurring affordable housing.”
Raposa clarified that the affordability of many Gateway Cities comes not from subsidies but from older buildings with low market rents. “Part of the reason they’re so affordable is because that’s where all the naturally occurring affordable housing is located,” she said. “They have about the same amount of deed-restricted housing as other places in the state, but much more naturally occurring affordable housing.”
Her data showed rents rising fastest in Worcester and New Bedford, accompanied by higher eviction rates. “Actually,” she noted, “the places where rents are rising the fastest are also the places with the highest rate of no-cause evictions.” Raposa concluded with a warning: “We need housing at all levels. What [Gateway Cities] really need is housing for extremely low-income people, people making less than 30 percent of area median income. .”
Attorney Ann Jochnick of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute brought the statistics to life with a case study from Ayer, Massachusetts. “Devon’s Crest Apartments was home to 110 working families, seniors, and people with disabilities,” she said. “It was owned by the same family for over 50 years, rents were kept low… and then in 2021 it was purchased by out-of-state investors.”
According to Jochnick, the new owners’ plan was straightforward: “They began no-fault eviction cases against the residents… their plan was to move all the residents out, renovate the units, and double the rents.” Many tenants left rather than risk eviction records; others organized. “They didn’t want to be moved out,” she recalled. “They organized a tenant association… partnered with many lawyers, legislators, and a development consultant to try to buy back their homes.” After years of legal defense, media pressure, and community advocacy, the tenants reached a deal. “The state is awarding funding and we’re hoping to close later this year,” Nik said. “Under that result… 114 units will be preserved as affordable for 99 years.”
David Abromowitz, senior policy advisor for the BC Law’s Initiative on Land, Housing, and Property Rights (ILHPR) and of counsel at Goulston & Storrs, used that story to illustrate a systemic gap. “Devon’s Crest shows what happens if public policy is forever chasing the market and lagging behind,” he said. “If we had policies in place to acquire naturally affordable property that’s already on the market, we could have gotten Devon’s Crest for about a third of what we’re going to end up spending.”
Abromowitz presented the Mixed-Income Neighborhood Trust (MINT) model as one solution. “It’s a legally somewhat complicated strategy that addresses a common challenge, how to get ahead of gentrification and the other forces that make neighborhoods unaffordable,” he explained. Describing the East Boston pilot, he noted that it was a $53 million transaction, $33 million of which was from a conventional mortgage, $12 million from the city, and $8 million from private investors willing to take a long-term, slightly below-market return. The model’s key innovation, he said, is that the trust is set up for the benefit of a defined neighborhood. Community members define how they want their neighborhood managed and stabilized over time.
Joining virtually from Washington, Michael Neal, research director for ILHPR and senior fellow at the Urban Institute, offered national context. “I’m not a lawyer by background, I’m an economist,” he began. “So, I tend to think about the world in terms of supply side—expanding affordable housing—but also the demand side and system change strategies.”
He described programs like Invest Newark in New Jersey, which repurposes vacant and foreclosed properties to promote homeownership, and Milwaukee’s WORTH Alliance, which expands housing through preservation, tax-foreclosure acquisition, and manufactured housing. “They really did this across three key dimensions,” Neal said. “Preservation, acquisition, and supporting off-site construction.”
On the demand side, he highlighted St. Louis’s Rooted initiative, which provides direct grants to Black households facing displacement. “They give $2,000 to address short-term credit issues and another $20,000 to build wealth,” he said, emphasizing that “wraparound services and financial planning help create a virtuous cycle, affordable housing tied to wealth-building.”
As the panel opened for questions from the audience, and the topic turned to Greater Boston, Raposa observed that the challenge there is more severe. “Outside of Greater Boston, you’re trying to stop the bleeding and preserve what you have,” she said. “In Greater Boston, it’s pretty much already all gone.” Abromowitz agreed that stewards of affordable housing need capital ready at hand to compete with investors, whereas Nik pointed to Tenant Opportunity to Purchase policies as a proven way to level the playing field.
Professor Alexander closed the event with a clear takeaway: “There’s a lot of faith that if we just fix zoning, the market will sort this out,” she said. “History suggests otherwise. If we want affordable homes and anti-displacement, we need proactive tools—and we need them before the values spike.”
Photograph by Andres Leiva ’26