2024 Homelessness Task Force Forum @ BPL

The Housing Affordability Crisis

The housing affordability crisis continues throughout the country, threatening to increase the population of vulnerable people living outside. Massachusetts is particularly at risk, because its real estate and rental costs are among the most expensive in the country.

Please join NABB for our annual Homelessness Task Force (HTF) Forum at the Rabb Auditorium of the Copley Branch of the Boston Public Library:

Ensuring Everyone Has a Home in MA: Bold City and State Initiatives

You will learn about new innovative strategies and new bold investments by our city and our state to increase affordable and supportive housing and reach the diversity of affected individuals and families with the goal of providing housing for all who need it and eliminating street homelessness.

Moderator: Jenifer McKim, WGBH

Panelists include:

• Dr Howard Koh, Professor of Public Health and Director of the Initiative on Health and Homelessness at Harvard SPH, will provide an overview with real life examples of how people fall into homelessness, and discuss how we need to all work together: Academia, Government, the Business Community, & Neighborhoods/Residents, to address this problem.
• Kenzie Bok, Administrator of the Boston Housing Authority, will explain how BHA is Boston’s largest affordable housing provider, providing homes to more than 34,000 individuals and families through access to public housing and subsidized voucher programs. She will explain how landlords can help by accepting vouchers and receiving market rates rents from low- income tenants. She will explain how Boston communities are moving beyond NIMBYism to ensure an adequate housing supply and reduce street homelessness
• Joshua Cuddy, Director of Interagency Coordination at EOHLC, will review historic data on housing production and how it led to the affordable housing shortage crisis. He will discuss the challenges of MA as a sanctuary state and how migrant families are being assimilated. He will outline how the state’s new $5 billion bond bill will increase housing affordability and policies to keep people housed and reduce homelessness throughout the state.