Olga Valiente left Guatemala after a gang threatened to kidnap her children. She’s lived in Lynn, Massachusetts for nine years - and in a modest apartment just off Lynn Common for three. The location is ideal, near her church, the kids’ schools and their grocery store. What’s more, they’ve been able to pay for it - until now.
This spring, Olga’s landlord told her the rent was increasing from $1900 to $2100 a month. That’s still below the current median for a Lynn three bedroom. But Olga says for her family - it’s just not doable long term.
“We can barely make it to $1900,” she said. “Imagine when I have to pay all that increase.”
Valiente’s landlord, Rosa Martinez, told GBH News that she, too, is an immigrant, and that she tries to keep the units she and her husband own affordable for tenants like Valiente, who she calls “my people.”
But Martinez also said that given the realities of the real-estate market, there are limits to how accommodating she can afford to be.
“I can’t rent that apartment for $1800 or $1900,” said Martinez, who owns 28 units in the area. “It’s impossible. The money has to come from somewhere to pay those mortgages. … Rent is so expensive because property is so expensive.”
The value of a single-family home in Lynn increased 157% between 2011 and 2021, according to Warren Group data provided to GBH News. Immigrant-rich communities across the state have seen similar home value increases - including Everett, Revere, Brockton and Lawrence.
Valiente’s predicament is a reminder that - for the most economically vulnerable Massachusetts residents - even small increases in the cost of living can be catastrophic, no matter how reasonable their bottom line might look from the outside.
Her situation also casts doubt on the notion that production alone can solve the housing crisis in Massachusetts. A multitude of new housing developments are currently sprouting up in and around Lynn’s urban core, but they tend to feature smaller, more expensive units that seem to exist in a different universe than the one Valiente and her family occupy.
Case in point: the Caldwell, which towers over the Salvation Army thrift store downtown. It boasts a fitness center, a game room, a Skydeck with a pool, coworking space, and a pet spa - but no three-bedroom apartments. The Caldwell’s two-bedrooms units start at about $3,000.
The socioeconomic texture of Lynn development may be changing in the near future.
Later this year, Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson plans to unveil a proposed requirement that developers building in the city create new affordable housing, either on site or elsewhere, including units that are within reach of Lynn’s poorest residents.
“It’s certainly a top priority,” Nicholson said. “And it’s one of the most pressing issues in the city.”
But Nicholson’s plan comes with a caveat. It’s crucial, he says, that the new policy not be so demanding that developers currently interested in Lynn simply decide to go elsewhere.
“You want to strike the right balance,” he said, “where you’re doing right by the residents who are struggling with affordable housing, doing right by the community - but also allowing investors to make a return.”
Perhaps, in a few years, Olga Valiente and her children will benefit from whatever steps the city takes next to keep Lynn affordable for people like them.
For now, though, Valiente is pessimistic about the future - and at a genuine loss about where she’ll go if she can’t remain in her current home.
“On the mountains, or under the bridge - I had a conversation with my children, and that’s where we always say we’re going to end up,”
Competition for housing has driven up home prices to record levels across Massachusetts. Some of the biggest gains have happened in communities where residents can least afford to pay more.
GBH news is exploring the impact in the series Priced Out: The fight for housing in Massachusetts: www.wgbh.org/n...
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