5 Key Excerpts From The Latest Greater Boston Housing Report Card

The Boston Foundation has released its 16th annual Greater Boston Housing Report Card, in collaboration with Northeastern's Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, the Massachusetts Housing Partnership Center for Housing Data and UMass' Donahue Institute.

Boston Foundation chief Paul Grogan writes that the report shows "an apparent unwillingness on the part of many cities and towns to participate in developing the diversity of housing we need for our region’s growing population."

See our feature on the report here, and here are five key excerpts:

1. "Multifamily development is increasingly concentrated in cities and towns served by the MBTA subway system but not in communities served by MBTA commuter rail, where stations are typically surrounded by low-density housing."

2. "If the region is able to sustain the peak post-recession permitting levels achieved in 2017, housing production will be sufficient to achieve the governor’s 135,000-unit goal but insufficient to support projected growth in new households. ... The UMass Donahue Institute projects that the Greater Boston region will need to produce approximately 320,000 new units between 2010 and 2025, to bring the total from 1.63 million to 1.95 million units."

3. "Over the past decade, the number of homeless families in Greater Boston increased by 27% and the number of homeless individuals by 45%, with a spike in 2018 driven by an influx of displaced residents of Puerto Rico."

4. "While the region is becoming more diverse, racial segregation remains a persistent challenge. More than 70% of the region’s Latino households and 66% of black households resided in just 10 municipalities in 2017 and Boston remains one of the most segregated of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas."

5. "Among the 25 largest metro areas as of July 2018, Boston’s mid-range home prices (33rd to 66th percentile) rank fifth, behind only the San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Seattle metros. Metro Boston home prices now exceed even the New York City area."