NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The newly established Affordable Housing Trust has spent its first meetings determining its mission, objectives and resources. 

 

What it has to decide is the chicken or the egg — set goals with the purpose of finding funds or getting the funds first and determining the best way to use them. 

 

"I think that funding actually would dictate the projects that we do, rather than come up with we what we want to do, and then find a way to fund it," said Trustee Ross Jacobs last Thursday. "There may be sources we explore that will be successful. Some may not. ...

 

"If we start exploring funding options and get some of these wheels rolling, then we'll have a better idea within six months where some of these are going, and then what we can do."

 

Trustee Nancy Bullett said it may be more of doing both at the same time. 

 

"It's almost simultaneous looking at the projects that are incorporating funding, because your funding is specific to whatever it is that you're doing," she said. "So how do you identify the projects that you want to work on, which then dictates the funding."

 

This will tie into the trust's objectives which could include home rehabilitation, property tax relief, emergency rent or mortgage, or support of projects undertaken by private or public developers like Habitat for Humanity. 

 

Mayor Jennifer Macksey asked what the trust would consider "seed money" and what would it be used for — fixing or buying houses?

 

"I personally think seed money, maybe $100-$150,000, would kind of say we're serious," she said. "In order to get that seed money, I think we would need to define what programs we wanted to support."

 

Jacobs thought $100,000 would be nice round number that could do some good work and lead to visibility and outreach. 

 

"I think also each of these program categories that we're thinking of will necessitate a certain bucket of seed money to be effective, right?" said Trustee Aimee Annichiarico. "But I would say if we had to pick, like, just a starting number overall that would give us a decent shot at getting some programs up and showing."

 

Macksey recalled how after her father had died, her mother was able to get a low-interest revolving loan through the Community Development Office to make home improvements. The other trustees agreed a program like this would improve residents' ability to stay in their homes, especially older residents. 

 

Chair Lillian Zavatsky had provided data the week before from a housing needs assessment done by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission about eight years ago, with some updates made in 2023. 

 

The city's median age has increased from 39 in 2010 to 44, with just over half of seniors 65 and older earning less than $50,000 and 31 percent earning less than $25,000. 

 

The median household income is $48,521 — homeowners are higher at $65,000, and renters lower at $28,000. Some 57 percent of renters are spending more than a third of their income on housing and 24 percent of homeowners. Household size is averaging 2.16 people, with renters even lower at 1.94.

 

The city has 6,833 housing units, a little over half owner occupied, but 82 percent of the housing stock was built before 1970 and 63 percent before 1940. More than two-thirds was assessed below average, and another 577 homes were vacant. 

 

Some of the goals laid out by Zavatsky, based on previous meetings, were to build a foundation for the trust, collect resources and provide education, connect with financial institutions and other housing trusts, explore funding, support affordability and safety, and create new housing. 

 

Annichiarico had previously said the most important points for her was how to help people stay in the homes they have, keep them affordable so that people can continue live in a healthy and safe way.

 

"The fourth thing for me is around trying to reclaim the vacant housing, especially the abandoned properties that we have, or the empty lots that we have after a property is torn down, and how we can, we can reclaim those as opportunities to to build back affordable housing," she said at a recent meeting. 

 

The trust members will create subcommittees to begin exploring options, including how the work other trusts have done can be adapted to North Adams' needs and how they might rely on local financial entities, some of which have housing programs in place.