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Yea I know how cheap those cities can be. They’re always at the back of my mind. I think having lived in Hartford gave me some perspective because it’s very cheap. But I missed the “buzz” of a larger city/metro. And the general more upscale feel and options/variety. But the prices are legit and always give me considerable pause.
In my Hyde Park/Roxbury/Mattapan/Boston Black Professionals Facebook groups these affordable housing lotteries pop up all the time.
This was the caption this time:
“ Housing lottery alert. These have not been coming up a lot so get your applications in before the 14th. Inbox for guidance.”
You just get these from regular joes, and they share them from either the City of Boston Social media or in this case the original poster was a Haitian realtor in Hyde Park. Both homes are new construction in Dorchester. You find more of these for Boston and its suburbs on Metrolist
Do they have similar options in the cities outside of Boston too? I'm thinking of say Cambridge, Medford, Somerville, Everett, etc.
Do they have similar options in the cities outside of Boston too? I'm thinking of say Cambridge, Medford, Somerville, Everett, etc.
Oh yea. Click the link, it gives you options north west and south of Boston-granted not many. But they're there. Different larger cities have different affordability requirements - for instance, Somerville already requires 20% income-restricted units on new construction.
"It took two hours and three votes, but the City Council unanimously approved a change to the inclusionary zoning ordinance, cutting the percentage of affordable housing units required in residential development projects.
It was an ordinance that had not even been in effect for one year, but one that City officials said was already discouraging developers from bringing large building projects to Everett.
The current proposal had cleared the Planning Board some months ago after much discussion and several changes, with that Board settling on 10 percent across the board affordable requirement for all development.
Under the original ordinance, there was a sliding scale of affordable units required depending upon the size of the residential development. Developments from six to 13 units required 10 percent of the units be affordable, from 13 to 49 units required 15 percent affordable units, and projects of 50 units or more upped the requirement to 20 percent.
The deal finally brokered by the Council calls for any development of more than 10 units to provide 15 percent of those units at affordable rates. However, developers of contaminated sites in the city (those with state Activity and Use Limitations – AULs) only need to provide 5 percent of those units at affordable rates.
Administration officials argued that the inclusionary zoning ordinance put in effect about a year ago has stifled development in the city."
Massachusetts also has a 40B law which requires 10% of the housing in a town to be like workforce housing- its slightly different than affordable housing laws, and geared to slightly higher incomes. By law a town must reach 10% of its housing units under this law. But its not really enforced. Its more used as a tool for developers to create apartment communities that would otherwise be promptly shut down by nimby's. If it helps achieve 40B Zoning law it's very very hard to stop.
"Chapter 40B is a state statute, which enables local Zoning Boards of Appeals to approve affordable housing developments under flexible rules if at least 20-25% of the units have long-term affordability restrictions."
Since its passage in 1969, Chapter 40B has supported almost all affordable housing construction in Massachusetts outside of the Commonwealth's largest cities. Approximately 70,000 total units have been produced under Chapter 40B, of which over 35,000 units are restricted to households making less than 80% of the area median income (AMI).
Chapter 40B promotes regional planning solutions and new housing consistent with local and regional planning needs. The law balances the regional need for affordable housing development with local public health, public safety, design, and environmental welfare needs.
The statute allows eligible affordable housing developments to receive a comprehensive permit, even when projects require waivers of local zoning. In cities and towns that achieve certain affordable housing production goals, zoning boards of appeal may reject 40B proposals without facing an appeal from the developer, giving those communities great discretion over 40B development. Municipalities that have not achieved minimum affordable housing production thresholds have a more limited ability to reject 40B proposals.
40B, satellite cities, universities, affordable housing requirements, welcoming attitude toward refugees, and statewide section 8/affordable housing wait lists are why Massachusetts has people of color and low-income people in just about every corner of the state.
Is Providence really that bad? I can't imagine it being worse than Harrisburg or Newark.
I don't think so. In relation to the forum, it may be a matter of familiarity with the area.
Some of this may be a matter of preference as well. I think at least with Harrisburg and Newark, they have higher black percentages, have solid suburbs with substantial-high percentages as well and they are in close proximity to bigger cities. Those things could come into play.
Providence isn’t that bad. The issue is there is very minimal professional mobility due to a lack of high end jobs. It has much more of a townie vibe and Much less upscale/pretentious colors dot the Boston area. Most suburbs are very irrelevant and unremarkable. The urban area is heavily Dominican, Cape Verdean, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, Italian, Portuguese, Cambodian, Colombian, Liberian, Laotian, and Haitian. Smaller hints of Irish, English, Jamaican and African American exist. In that order.
It less urban than Boston and it’s urban core with weaker amenities and excitement. It’s more laidback and had more things like 18+ clubs, strip clubs, dive bars, food trucks etc. schools are mediocre/average even by national standards but Providence Public School are VERY bad- like Baltimore Public School bad. Traditional crime in Providence is less concentrated than Boston and drugs are a bigger issue than gang violence. South Providence is very poor but the community has improved a lot in the past 25 years.parts of North Providence are bad too but West and East Providence are better. Some more middle class blacks live in Cranston and Pawtucket but most live on the MA side of the Providence metro.
Providence is wayyyy cheaper than Boston- close to Philly prices.
I have problem who live over here in Providence. This is a mostly black block in Orovidence and I’d say it’s par for the course;
Upside is you’re never more than 30 minutes from a beach and Providence Place is a cool mall. If you value ethnic diversity and youth Providence is wayy up there. Safe and affordable. 3 hours from NYC, 1hr 30 minutes from New Haven, 1 hour from Hartford, 45 minutes form Worcester, 45 min from Boston, 40 minutes from Newport. Easiest major metro access to the Cape/Vineyard. Big food and arts culture, good and diverse festivals. Diversifying quickly. Surprising amount of shows/entertainment.
Downside it snow as much as Boston, it’s skews very young in the city, like under 34. Prices are rising as the share of people commuting to Boston and the Boston had has risen pretty dramatically. Too many dirtbikes. Few black people in high places. small lots all over and old housing. High taxes. Outside of Providence, Central Falls, Cranston, Pawtucket and bit of Warwick, the project of Newport, East and North Providence. The other 31+ other towns of Rhode Island are mindnumbingly white ad oblivious. No notoriety.
Nowhere in the Providence metro is more than 17% black. Ignoring the random rural suburbs of RI- you simply won’t go there, no one does. The diverse and urban areas of the metro don’t have as much black history or clout as in Boston and the feel is typically your 8-25% at any given time. It doesn’t have the thick blocks of blackness you’d find in CT or Springfield or Brockton or Boston- or at this point even Worcester.
Because there so very few AAs I doubt any posters here can speak to Providence more than I have. I do know 1 or 2 Viola Davis-esque ADOS from there but one of them now lives in Boston and has for a long time, drives to Providence every Sunday for church though.
If you watch *Married at first sight* Shawniece and Jephte from the Boston season live in Pawtucket RI. Shawniece owns a salon in Providence, Jephte teaches at a middle school in Massachusetts. Jephte is originally from Middletown NY and Shawniece is originally from Dorchester MA.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 03-02-2022 at 11:08 PM..
Providence isn’t that bad. The issue is there is very minimal professional mobility due to a lack of high end jobs. It has much more of a townie vibe and Much less upscale/pretentious colors dot the Boston area. Most suburbs are very irrelevant and unremarkable. The urban area is heavily Dominican, Cape Verdean, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, Italian, Portuguese, Cambodian, Colombian, Liberian, Laotian, and Haitian. Smaller hints of Irish, English, Jamaican and African American exist. In that order.
It less urban than Boston and it’s urban core with weaker amenities and excitement. It’s more laidback and had more things like 18+ clubs, strip clubs, dive bars, food trucks etc. schools are mediocre/average even by national standards but Providence Public School are VERY bad- like Baltimore Public School bad. Traditional crime in Providence is less concentrated than Boston and drugs are a bigger issue than gang violence. South Providence is very poor but the community has improved a lot in the past 25 years.parts of North Providence are bad too but West and East Providence are better. Some more middle class blacks live in Cranston and Pawtucket but most live on the MA side of the Providence metro.
Providence is wayyyy cheaper than Boston- close to Philly prices.
I have problem who live over here in Providence. This is a mostly black block in Orovidence and I’d say it’s par for the course;
Upside is you’re never more than 30 minutes from a beach and Providence Place is a cool mall. If you value ethnic diversity and youth Providence is wayy up there. Safe and affordable. 3 hours from NYC, 1hr 30 minutes from New Haven, 1 hour from Hartford, 45 minutes form Worcester, 45 min from Boston, 40 minutes from Newport. Easiest major metro access to the Cape/Vineyard. Big food and arts culture, good and diverse festivals. Diversifying quickly. Surprising amount of shows/entertainment.
Downside it snow as much as Boston, it’s skews very young in the city, like under 34. Prices are rising as the share of people commuting to Boston and the Boston had has risen pretty dramatically. Too many dirtbikes. Few black people in high places. small lots all over and old housing. High taxes. Outside of Providence, Central Falls, Cranston, Pawtucket and bit of Warwick, the project of Newport, East and North Providence. The other 31+ other towns of Rhode Island are mindnumbingly white ad oblivious. No notoriety.
Nowhere in the Providence metro is more than 17% black. Ignoring the random rural suburbs of RI- you simply won’t go there, no one does. The diverse and urban areas of the metro don’t have as much black history or clout as in Boston and the feel is typically your 8-25% at any given time. It doesn’t have the thick blocks of blackness you’d find in CT or Springfield or Brockton or Boston- or at this point even Worcester.
Because there so very few AAs I doubt any posters here can speak to Providence more than I have. I do know 1 or 2 Viola Davis-esque ADOS from there but one of them now lives in Boston and has for a long time, drives to Providence every Sunday for church though.
If you watch *Married at first sight* Shawniece and Jephte from the Boston season live in Pawtucket RI. Shawniece owns a salon in Providence, Jephte teaches at a middle school in Massachusetts. Jephte is originally from Middletown NY and Shawniece is originally from Dorchester MA.
I thought that Classical HS was at least regarded as a pretty good school. However, I'm not sure about the others.
I thought that Classical HS was at least regarded as a pretty good school. However, I'm not sure about the others.
Naw folks from Baltimore came up there and we're like "oh sh** this is bad"
Classical is a top 3/4 HS in Rhode island but Rhode Island and a top 200 HS nationally. Its 60-70% low income and 75% black Latin and Asian. The majority of Asians in Providence are Cambodians and not academic achievers, especially in it public schools. but its demography is extremely low-income. It works miracles with its student body. Outside of that? Very bad and currently under state control.
Those are some findings of a scathing review of the city's public schools released Tuesday afternoon.
Angélica Infante-Green, the state’s newly arrived education commissioner, said the city schools are so dysfunctional that she will not send her own two children there. She said she doesn’t know where she will enroll them.
^pretty damning when the State Education Commissioner is that blunt.
The report, by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, revealed miserable conditions and governance issues in the schools that have helped create an environment in which the vast majority of students don’t learn at or even near grade level, and adults and kids feel unsafe in their schools.
One school reported dealing with 70 cases of “suicidal ideation among students” during the 2018-2019 school year, with several suicide attempts.
The teachers said that there was also asbestos on the third floor. A staff member told us that the gym was on the bottom floor, and that there was a leaking raw sewer pipe in the ceiling for over a year. It dripped on the heads of the children as they passed through the threshold, and they had had to dodge the drips and the puddle.
“Students here wanted my [review team member’s] magic wand to fix the ‘crumbling floors;’ they wanted locks on the bathroom stalls; they said that ‘sometimes the water is brown.’”
Teachers also told us there were rodents in the school, and that students had sticky mouse traps stuck to their shoes.
Also reports of constant leaks — one teacher said s/he had 8 buckets in her room all year. Students interviewed in this school told the team they didn’t feel safe — several said “we feel safer at home.” They reported 32 students in a room without enough chairs so they sat on the floor.
In another, our team member noted that “the smell of stale urine in the physical therapy room was so strong that I had to hold my breath.”
Secondary school ELA instruction is extremely weak. On the [Instructional Practice Guide], not a single category of instruction on a 1-4 scale attained an average score across classrooms of more than 1.75. The review team rated instruction in most classrooms at the lowest possible level.
The demographic mismatch between students and teachers is on many people’s minds. One teacher said: “The students feel the teachers live in a different world, and they are right.”
Language barriers. — Teachers and administrators often referenced the large influx of immigrant students. In one school, 72 of 240 members of the graduating cohort were newcomers.
English Language Arts classrooms showed an overall lack of instructional rigor. While approximately two-thirds of observed texts were at an appropriate level, only about half of them met the quality standard for exhibiting craft, thought, or information to build knowledge. Most of the teachers’ questions were impressionistic and general rather than specific.
In regards to building conditions in the Providence Public School system, "the worst reduced seasoned of the review team [from Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore] to tears."
Anecdotally Rhode Island has a lot of corruption/needless bureaucracy and it hasn't been able to diversify its employees in any arena to match the younger demographic. Older Rhode Islanders are super-duper white where as it seems like the majority of Rhode Island youth are minorities. More so than any state there's a huge demographic divide and in my opinion that leads to a lack of empathy, and a lack of cultural awareness. Like Rhode Island has a weak Black/Latino curriculum relative to CT or MA and virtually no Asian American curriculum is taught at all.
It is next to impossible to recruit African Americans with options and professional skills to Rhode Island. They have to somehow be poached or forced out of the Boston orbit. Maybe it cant be done, and it is to the detriment o fthe African American/Black children in the state.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 03-03-2022 at 09:46 AM..
former Providence Friar and Providence native- David Duke (now with the Brooklyn Nets) at his home court in providence. David Duke attended Classical HS:
^note the massive demographic divide between youth and adults. I'm wondering like- where are these kids' parents. but that's how it often is in New England, especially Rhode Island.
Providence isn’t that bad. The issue is there is very minimal professional mobility due to a lack of high end jobs. It has much more of a townie vibe and Much less upscale/pretentious colors dot the Boston area. Most suburbs are very irrelevant and unremarkable. The urban area is heavily Dominican, Cape Verdean, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, Italian, Portuguese, Cambodian, Colombian, Liberian, Laotian, and Haitian. Smaller hints of Irish, English, Jamaican and African American exist. In that order.
It less urban than Boston and it’s urban core with weaker amenities and excitement. It’s more laidback and had more things like 18+ clubs, strip clubs, dive bars, food trucks etc. schools are mediocre/average even by national standards but Providence Public School are VERY bad- like Baltimore Public School bad. Traditional crime in Providence is less concentrated than Boston and drugs are a bigger issue than gang violence. South Providence is very poor but the community has improved a lot in the past 25 years.parts of North Providence are bad too but West and East Providence are better. Some more middle class blacks live in Cranston and Pawtucket but most live on the MA side of the Providence metro.
Providence is wayyyy cheaper than Boston- close to Philly prices.
I have problem who live over here in Providence. This is a mostly black block in Orovidence and I’d say it’s par for the course;
Upside is you’re never more than 30 minutes from a beach and Providence Place is a cool mall. If you value ethnic diversity and youth Providence is wayy up there. Safe and affordable. 3 hours from NYC, 1hr 30 minutes from New Haven, 1 hour from Hartford, 45 minutes form Worcester, 45 min from Boston, 40 minutes from Newport. Easiest major metro access to the Cape/Vineyard. Big food and arts culture, good and diverse festivals. Diversifying quickly. Surprising amount of shows/entertainment.
Downside it snow as much as Boston, it’s skews very young in the city, like under 34. Prices are rising as the share of people commuting to Boston and the Boston had has risen pretty dramatically. Too many dirtbikes. Few black people in high places. small lots all over and old housing. High taxes. Outside of Providence, Central Falls, Cranston, Pawtucket and bit of Warwick, the project of Newport, East and North Providence. The other 31+ other towns of Rhode Island are mindnumbingly white ad oblivious. No notoriety.
Nowhere in the Providence metro is more than 17% black. Ignoring the random rural suburbs of RI- you simply won’t go there, no one does. The diverse and urban areas of the metro don’t have as much black history or clout as in Boston and the feel is typically your 8-25% at any given time. It doesn’t have the thick blocks of blackness you’d find in CT or Springfield or Brockton or Boston- or at this point even Worcester.
Because there so very few AAs I doubt any posters here can speak to Providence more than I have. I do know 1 or 2 Viola Davis-esque ADOS from there but one of them now lives in Boston and has for a long time, drives to Providence every Sunday for church though.
If you watch *Married at first sight* Shawniece and Jephte from the Boston season live in Pawtucket RI. Shawniece owns a salon in Providence, Jephte teaches at a middle school in Massachusetts. Jephte is originally from Middletown NY and Shawniece is originally from Dorchester MA.
It looks like there are some in East Providence, the Warwicks and a little bit in Middletown and North Providence as well.
Speaking of Providence and the bolded topic, this is a nice park within outer South Providence, as it has the zoo and other activities: https://rwpconservancy.org/
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