by SAL GIARRATANI
Over 40 years ago when I was a board member of the Charleston Economic Development Corporation, I was working with like-minded advocates of providing affordable housing for both renters and budding homebuyers. Boston neighborhoods were already then feeling the housing crisis that has metastasized into a full blown crisis today.
Still advocating for more rural housing for folks in need of housing affordability, the future remain s as bleak as ever if not worse as we head toward the new year of 2025. I now live in East Boston but like Charlestown back in younger days, the housing issue goes unsolved and many think it will never be solved because there is big money to be made by developers of high-end housing. “Luxury” is seemingly preferred to non-luxury housing which most of us reading this know to be true.
Back seven years ago when writing a commentary for the Charlestown Patriot Bridge I penned a piece on the then ongoing housing problem that just seemed to grow and matistize from one Boston neighborhood to another.
In that piece , I stated,”When I was living on Salutation Street in Boston’s North End, my parents paid $25 per month for a 2-bedroom apartment. It was a small apartment but big enough for the four of us…Back in 1955, rents were reasonable and created housing stability for working families…
…that is now history. Check out apartment rates in Boston neighborhoods today. When politicians talk about new housing springing up, that is only half the story.”
The other half of this story may never be told because no good news is yet in sight as new generations find themselves in the same position I found myself in back when I was 30-something. I am lucky to still be alive today and ,most of all, to still be able to afford a great studio or “man cave” as I call it in Jeffries Point into my 70-something years today.
The struggle continues.
Sal Giarratani, a columnist for the Post-Gazette, is a frequent contributor to EastBoston.com.
