RENTERS T0 SHOULDER THE BURDEN CLVU ORGANIZER SAYS RENT CONTROL AND TENANT ASSOCIATIONS ARE THE ANSWER If an ongoing affordability crisis was not enough, Boston residents have entered the new year to heightened utility bills and increased annual property taxes of 13% for the average single family home.
City Life/Vida Urbana Dorchester Community Organizer Antonio Ennis said the city’s affordability has been detrimental to his neighborhood and that these increases will further destabilize communities city-wide.
The city council and Boston-based state senators supported a home-rule petition that would temporarily shift some of the tax increase to commercial properties. The petition passed the City Council three times and the House of Representatives twice, before being held up in the Senate for over a year only to be thrown away.
He called Healey’s actions a two month bandaid and that the state should instead pursue long-term policy changes to help sustain communities. “That's why we're pushing for rent control as a statewide law,” he said.
“As a result, many homeowners have been left without any substantial relief,” said City Council President Liz Breadon. In her January 23 address, Governor Maura Healey announced that the state would spend $180 million in February and March to reduce residents' gas and electricity bills by 10% and 25%, respectively. The funds will cover an estimated 15% reduction in electric bills, with the remainder deferred into bills throughout the year. Gas bills will be recouped by increases during the off-peak months of May through October.
CLVU has joined other grassroots housing justice groups across Massachusetts to get “An Initiative Petition to Protect Tenants by Limiting Rent Increases,” onto the 2026 ballot. The measure would cap the limit on annual rent increases to either the annual Consumer Price Index increase or 5%, whichever is lower. Exceptions are included for buildings of four or fewer units where the property owner lives on site. A landlord himself, Ennis said the new policy would protect renters and support long term tenancy.
——————— JACOB DOWNEY
Healey said in December that she would not support the rent control initiative and that housing investors have already begun pulling out of Massachusetts due to concerns it may pass. "I don't want to see housing production stopped. We need to have housing production move forward," she said. "I also understand what's driving rent control. I want to work together to do something that's sensible, that creates more homes, builds more homes and lowers costs for people." In the here and now, Ennis recommends communities form tenant associations to pursue their needs collectively. He explained with at least half of residents signed on, an association can exert a great amount of pressure against neglectful
property management. “When we can take those tenant associations and make a statewide association, now you're talking about real power,” he said. He also prioritizes education, noting that it was far easier to collect signatures in western Massachusetts’s more rural, educated communities than folks in Boston who would benefit most. “There has to be some level of higher learning on what rent control is and how it's going to affect you as somebody living in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan that is constantly getting a rent increase every year.”
PAGE LAYOUTS: Adrian Alvarez: p. 6, 8 Kelsey Deemer: p. 1, 4, 5, 7 Abigail Lincks: p. 2, 3
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