Ethnic struggles

Jamaica Plain, long known for its diversity, is feeling the pressures of gentrification

by Sarah McNaught

Boston housing is on fire. The strong economy has revitalized the city's condo, rental, and residential markets. One year ago, the last vestiges of rent control were let go, further boosting rents (and property values). But the rising prices have a flip side: people with moderate and low incomes are being pushed out.

Research conducted by the community group HOME Coalition shows that funding cutbacks, coupled with the termination of rental protection, are forcing lower-income residents to leave many of Boston's neighborhoods. "The number of calls we receive from people in desperate living situations has almost doubled since last year," says Norma Rosario, a housing coordinator for City Life/Vida Urbana, a low-income-tenant activist group. "Even I had to leave Jamaica Plain and move to Mattapan because of the high rental rates. And, sadly, that is the advice I am forced to give to the people who come to me."

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Losing control
Housing 101

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Throughout the city, the largest low-income population being affected is the elderly. "We are doing all we can, but the volume of elderly people in need of legal assistance [to fight evictions] is staggering," says Jeff Purcell, an attorney for Greater Boston Legal Services.

Yet it is not just the poor and the elderly who are being affected. The hyperventilating market has also hit working families hard. This dynamic has been playing out dramatically in Jamaica Plain, perhaps the city's most economically and ethnically diverse neighborhood.

"When we first moved to Jamaica Plain, there were many houses for sale, but we weren't ready financially [to buy]," says 40-year-old Josefina Pereira, a part-time nurse practitioner who lives with her family in the Hyde/Jackson Square area of JP. "Two months ago, however, we started to look seriously for a house. But the prices are so extremely high. . . . I'm afraid we may have to move away from Jamaica Plain, [even though] we love it here."

"The diversity of the community is in jeopardy," says Kathy Brown, director of City Life/Vida Urbana.

On February 2, City Life/Vida Urbana and the Neighborhood Development Corporation of Jamaica Plain launched what they are calling a Campaign of Conscience. Their goals: to rally for affordable housing funding, and to raise awareness about the less visible, yet highly distressing, effects the new market has had on the city's diversity.

Historically, Jamaica Plain was built up by just the kind of struggling ethnic working families who are now feeling the pressure. Shortly after railroad and streetcar tracks were laid in the Washington Street area, what was once rural Jamaica Plain and Roxbury became a booming industrial community. From 1840 to the turn of the century, a steady stream of German, Irish, and Italian immigrants, attracted by jobs at new factories, moved into the two- and three-family houses that are now a JP trademark. Tanneries, breweries, a large shoe factory, and numerous small trade shops began popping up all over the area.

Between 1941 and 1960, large numbers of African-Americans moved in. Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Latino immigrants followed soon after.

Now, though, there is a new dynamic. More-affluent white residents, themselves priced out of Cambridge and the South End, are moving in. More and more young lesbian and gay professionals are choosing culturally rich Jamaica Plain as their home.

Similarly, college students -- from Massachusetts College of Art, Northeastern University, and even Boston University -- are pushing in, enticed by JP's small-town feel, ample public transportation, and proximity to the universities. And they've found a warm reception from landlords. "It's much easier for landlords to welcome the influx of college students who are willing to pay higher rents and who complain very little about disrepair," says Dawn Belkin-Martinez, a landlord and tenant activist in Jamaica Plain. (See "Housing 101.")

Prices are rising quickly. According to a January 24 study released by the HOME Coalition, the cost of a one-family home in JP climbed 40 percent between 1994 and 1997. In the same time period, two-family-home prices increased 61 percent; three-family homes, common in the neighborhood, have jumped in price by a stunning 72 percent.

The statewide end of rent control has squeezed residents, too. In Jamaica Plain, 1200 units lost rent control in 1994, and an additional 3200 lost vacancy decontrol and eviction protections at the beginning of 1997. The cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in JP has increased 22 percent in the past three years. Two-bedrooms are up 34 percent; the going rate is now $1000, compared to $745 in 1994.

Boston's rental market is showing a meager 1.6 percent vacancy rate, according to the Rental Housing Association.

Average rental prices are still lower in Jamaica Plain ($910) than the citywide average ($1047), but the neighborhood will not stay behind for long. Even now, Urban Edge, a community-development corporation in Jamaica Plain, has a waiting list of 2000 tenants in search of affordable housing.

One of the more unusual developments in JP is that people are actually renting their living rooms or dining rooms to families of two, three, and four members. Norma Rosario, of City Life/Vida Urbana, is currently working on finding homes for 300 displaced Jamaica Plain residents, most of them Latinos. According to Rosario, half her clients are currently renting a room in someone else's apartment.

"The number of people who have to share apartments is definitely increasing with the rising cost of rents," Rosario says.

Luc Jaramillo, a 47-year-old born in Colombia, has experienced this type of uncomfortable living situation firsthand. She is currently living with a Puerto Rican family, sharing a two-room apartment with four adults and two children. She even shares her bed with her landlady and one of the children.

Situations like Jaramillo's, says Rosario, are "very upsetting because many of these families have children, and this type of instability . . . has a serious effect on them."

In response to the housing crunch caused by the demise of rent control, the city is in the process of constructing new affordable-housing units. Boston's budget for the development of rental housing is $9 million for fiscal year 1997, according to Pat Canavan, Mayor Menino's housing adviser. In Jamaica Plain alone, says Canavan, there are 69 rental units and 25 homes either under construction or awaiting approval.

Canavan adds that it's very difficult to create affordable housing because developers profit less from these projects than they would from private contracts.

"It goes back to Congress and what they are willing to support," Canavan says. "Unfortunately, there just is no more money."

Activists participating in the Campaign of Conscience aren't satisfied with that answer, though. They want the government to supply more funding, and they want existing units upgraded. They also want absentee landlords taken to task for providing less-than-adequate living conditions to long-time residents.

The Campaign also has a broader ambition: to educate landlords about the benefits of maintaining a stable residence base in Jamaica Plain.

The message that activists want to send landlords is a simple one. Rental units are looked after not only by the landlords but also by the tenants who live there, and long-term tenants are more caring tenants. "On a more humane level, children able to grow up in a prosperous community will give back to it when they get older," says one Jamaica Plain landlord.

"In my line of work, I see many children with problems related to unstable home lives in which they have been forced to move around," says Belkin-Martinez, who works as a therapist in the department of psychiatry at Children's Hospital. "This campaign presents us with a wonderful opportunity to educate people about the effect family displacement has on the stability of the family."

Belkin-Martinez has been on both sides of the fence. The 38-year-old has lived in Jamaica Plain since 1984 and has owned a triple-decker since 1990. After making the decision to keep her own rents low, she helped launch the Campaign of Conscience, she says, because she believes that with a little education, other landlords will do the right thing.

"I don't think people really think about the dilemma skyrocketing real estate costs have created," Belkin-Martinez says. "They aren't vindictive. They just don't realize that asking market value in this type of market is hurting hard-working people."

"Many people are struggling in today's society, and when you are struggling yourself, it is difficult to have compassion for those who don't work and who live on government assistance," says Josefina Pereira, whose family will probably be leaving the neighborhood it loves. "But that is not the case with us. We are hard-working people who just want to give our daughter a safe place to live and grow."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.