As rents are on the rise in Worcester, a national nonprofit has released a report with data detailing the city’s affordability, or lack there of.
A Worcester resident looking to rent a two-bedroom apartment in the city would need to earn $59,640 a year to afford it, according to the “Out of Reach” report released annually by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
That would mean a minimum-wage worker would need to work 80 hours a week if they wanted to rent a two-bedroom apartment.
The report lists $14.25 as the minimum wage in Worcester, compared to a mean renter wage of $17.17.
The average rent in the city, according to the report, is $1,103 for a studio apartment, $1,162 for a one-bedroom and $1,491 for a two-bedroom.
The rent affordable for a minimum-wage worker, working full-time, is $741, making all of aforementioned rents “out of reach” for them.
The rise in rents means two things to Acting City Manager Eric Batista.
“It shows there’s a lot of activity, a lot of demand in the city...typically rent increases are because there’s demand for these units and they go pretty fast, sometimes there’s multiple people looking for these units,” Batista said. “So in a sense that’s good.”
But, the rent increase has a negative effect on affordability, Batista said.
“So that’s where strategies like the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, like the inclusionary zoning, give us the tools to try to keep units in a lower rent scale so there’s opportunities that are mixed,” Batista said.
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund was established by former City Manager Edward Augustus with $20 million of ARPA funds. Batista said the money will be used to either construct new affordable housing or establish affordable housing in existing buildings.
The inclusionary zoning ordinance the city is considering would require developers in the city to include a certain percentage of affordable housing in their projects or pay a fee.
Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance CEO Leah Bradley has tied the rise in homelessness in Worcester to the lack of affordable housing.
“The units just really aren’t there,” Bradley told MassLive in June.
At a summit that city held at the beginning of August on housing and community well-being, Bradley told the crowd, “Year over year for individuals that are experiencing homelessness from Feb. of 2021 to Feb. 2022 you see a 45% increase in the number of unaccompanied adults who are experiencing homelessness. If you look at March that goes up to 60%, so what we’re seeing is a rapid rise.”
Many of the panelists and speakers gathered at the summit spoke of the importance of a “Housing First” approach in which finding permanent housing for individuals is prioritized, without requirements like completing certain programs or sobriety.
The city has been discussing a “Housing First” model since 2018, when a 28-member task force on homelessness determined the city needed construct 103 units to address the rise in homelessness it was seeing at that time.
Batista said Wednesday that the projects to create those units are either beginning construction very shortly or in the pipeline. The city is also looking for new affordable housing projects to utilize the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Dr. Matilde Castile, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Health and Human Services, has called the city’s rise in homelessness a public heath crisis.
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