BEVERLY — As the state’s top housing official, Ed Augustus says all types of housing are needed to solve the state’s shortage. On a trip to Beverly on Friday, he visited a place where two wildly different types are playing out on the same street.
Augustus got a tour of the Beverly Housing Authority’s newly renovated apartment complex on Balch Street for low-income seniors and for people with disabilities. Down the street, Cummings Center is planning to construct a condominium building where the going rate for a two-bedroom condo is expected to be more than $600,000.
The contrast could hardly be bigger. But Augustus said the availability of even high-priced condos can free up houses for young families and create movement in a housing market that has virtually ground to a halt.
“I think every new unit of housing that comes online in Massachusetts is a help,” he said.
Augustus, who was appointed by Gov. Maura Healey last June as the state’s secretary of housing and livable communities, came to Beverly as part of a plan to tour all 240 housing authorities in the state (Beverly was his 28th). Local officials took him to Balch Street, where a nearly $4.9 million renovation of the 25-unit, three-building complex is nearing completion.
“I was impressed,” Augustus said after his tour. “It’s great to see units that were tired be refreshed. Everybody should be able to live in a safe, healthy and dignified place. This project in Beverly is going to make sure the 25 seniors who live in these units get this kind of housing.”
Beverly Housing Authority Executive Director Debra Roy described the project as “kitchen and bath and window and door renovations.” It also includes new fire alarms, sprinklers and heat baseboards. The complex was built in 1959.
The Balch Street apartments have been closed since November 2022, when the project began. Roy said residents moved to other Beverly Housing Authority units during the renovations and can return to Balch Street if they want to. She’s hoping that residents can start moving back in the second week of April.
“I’m thrilled,” Roy said. “It was a long project. We’re glad to see that it’s wrapping up and we can get folks home. It’s beautiful now.”
The Healey administration put a lot of focus on affordable housing in its proposed Affordable Homes Act, including a $1.6 billion investment in public housing over the next five years. The state’s existing stock of 43,000 public housing units is at risk due to a backlog of $4 billion in deferred maintenance, according to a fact sheet provided by his office, Augustus said.
“Imagine where we’d be not having the 43,000 state-owned units,” he said. “These are our most vulnerable people.”
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at [email protected], or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at [email protected], or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
By Paul Leighton | Staff Writer
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