Boston City Council addresses issues of community stability, neighborhood preservation

Boston City Council gathered Monday for a hearing to address the issues of displacement, community stability and neighborhood preservation in low-income neighborhoods around Boston.

City Councilor Tito Jackson called for the hearing, where panelists and residents of Boston testified about particular instances when they faced challenges with City Realty Group, a real-estate company that has been expanding into lower income neighborhoods and increasing rent to the point where renters can no longer afford to live in their homes or maintain small businesses.

“[Because of] the stagnant wages, the escalating the cost of rent and raising the cost of living, we are at a crisis,” said City Councilor Ayanna Pressley. “Everyone deserves to have a home. Everyone deserves the right to be safe.”

Julia Ryan, a Jamaica Plain resident, said in her testimony that City Realty refused to address a rodent issue in the ceiling of her home. City Realty sent Ryan an eviction notice and a threatening email when she refused to pay rent.

“City Realty has been a repeat offender,” Pressley said. “You can’t cut a cancer out if you don’t know where it is.”

City Realty owns 600 units and 73 limited liability companies, in which LLC’s allow the company to conceal what it is doing and quietly expand its business, said City Councilor Matt O’Malley.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Jackson said to the City Realty panelists. “You must respect these neighborhoods. You must respect this community.”

Large companies are gentrifying low-income communities in Boston, said Heather Gordon-Gayle, a resident of Jamaica Plain and member of the City Life Vida Urbana, a grassroots organization dedicated to building justice and equality by strengthening working class power.

“The Jackson Square Neighborhood, which is Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, was the pariah of the whole city of Boston,” she said. “Nobody wanted to live there. And the people who are there now, who are being forced out, were the same people who stood by and stayed [in these neighborhoods].”

Displacement evicts homeowners and forces small businesses to close, causing lack of diversity, and rent control is the solution to the problem, Gordon-Gayle said.

Chinatown has been particularly affected by gentrification, said Henry Yee, a member of the Chinese Progressive Association.

Chinatown is a place for Chinese immigrants to adjust to life in America while connecting to people in their own neighborhood, Yee said.

“How do you call it affordable housing when it’s not affordable to the public?” he asked.

Debby Rios, 34, of Dorchester, and member of New England United for Justice, said she struggles to support her family as a single mother, but is optimistic that housing will improve now that the issue has been addressed by the City Council.

“So far, from what I see today, I like the way they are handling everything,” she said. “Hopefully, we got the answer we were looking for.”