Boston

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh Announces Plan to Create More Affordable Housing

The old Knights of Columbus Hall in the North End is one of ten affordable housing projects in the works

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has announced a new plan to create more affordable housing in the city.

Walsh made the announcement Wednesday morning at the old Knights of Columbus Hall in the North End, which will be turned into 24 units of elderly housing.

"This is a great reuse of a beautiful building. And the North End is a beautiful neighborhood," said Boston City Housing Chief Sheila Dillon.

The building is one of 10 affordable housing projects that has been given the green light in Boston. The total cost for all of them is $26 million.

The funding for all the projects comes from a number of different sources, including increased payments to the city from developers as well as the Community Preservation Act.

Most of the new housing will be targeted towards low and middle-income families, as well as senior citizens.

Walsh said affordable housing is a big priority for his administration.

"We came up with an ambitious plan of 53,000 units of new housing units by the year 2030. It's one unit at a time. We want to build more than one unit at a time, but sometimes it's one unit at a time," said Walsh. "For whatever reason. Whether it's getting the right partners at the table, finding the right funding sources at the table, making sure the community is OK with the projects. These are all the challenges that we have every single day.

All of the projects must go to the state for approval first.

"It takes us all. It takes the entire village to create this kind of housing and we're not going to stop," said Walsh.

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