Reacting to an influx of Boston University students renting off-campus apartments in areas surrounding BU, the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation commissioned a series of renovations on Glenville Avenue designed to provide additional housing for low-income residents forced to compete with college students.
The ABCDC is currently remodeling apartment buildings at 48-52 Glenville Ave. which will be rented out to families who make less than $23,832 — sixty percent of the annual median income in the Boston area, according to John Woods, director of housing development for the ABCDC. Woods said the group will also be constructing units for families who make as little as $5,958, 15 percent of the annual median income.
According to Woods, ABCDC purchased properties around the area and either renovated old structures or built new ones. The group finished renovation on the apartments at 114-118 Glenville Ave in October 2004, and today these units provide 59 families with affordable housing.
“Affordable housing brings stability, economic diversity and improves the physical quality of the neighborhood,” Woods said.
With so many colleges in the area, those who cannot afford to pay for housing often lose out to students, Woods continued.
“It’s difficult for low-income residents to compete with college students when it comes to housing,” he said. “Let’s say you have four college students living in an apartment, each paying $400 a month. Compare that to low-income households that can’t afford to pay $1,200 a month for housing.”
Woods added that colleges should build more dormitories as the number of students attending area schools increases.
“As enrollment in universities increases, the student population puts pressure on the housing demand in the Allston-Brighton area,” Woods said. “Universities have a responsibility to proportionally increase on-campus housing as the student population grows.”
BU administrators are aware of this increase and plan to construct a second Student Village dormitory, scheduled for completion by Fall 2008, to house an additional 900 undergraduate students, said Marc Robillard, director of housing at BU.
Although BU guarantees housing for all student, there is not always enough space to house everyone. In those situations BU temporarily moves students into area hotels, Robillard said.
“Boston University is housing more students than we ever have in the history of the university,” Robillard said, adding that BU housed 540 students in hotels in addition to on-campus housing last year.
Robillard said the university is not currently looking to purchase additional buildings to convert into student housing in the Allston-Brighton area, but are instead focusing on the completion of the Student Village project.
The ABCDC is supported by the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits, a program set up by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help states purchase, remodel or build new housing for low-income families around the country.
Woods said the ABCDC hopes to duplicate the Glenville model several times in their effort to provide low-income housing for Allston-Brighton residents.
