A New Boston Development Is Prioritizing First-Generation Home Buyers. It Could Help Close the Racial Wealth Gap.
According to Boston.com, the units in the Brookley Flats housing development in Jamaica Plain appear about as cookie-cutter as most of the new, high-end houses and condominiums cropping up throughout Boston. There’s the crisp white walls, light gray cabinetry, and shiny tile bathroom floors. Although the appliances were not yet installed on a recent Monday evening tour of one of the condos, those will be stainless steel.
But there is a notable difference between the units in this building and the ones elsewhere that look like them: About half of the 45 condos in the affordable housing complex are set aside for applicants whose parents have never owned a home in the United States — or first-generation home buyers.
The forthcoming Brookley Flats complex is the city’s first affordable homeownership community for such home buyers, selecting residents based on their parents’ status as renters or homeowners. It’s an effort that, Brookley Flats’ proponents say, could help close the region’s staggering racial wealth gap by helping Black and Latino residents — who are less likely than their white counterparts to have parents that are homeowners — become homeowners themselves.
“When families were not allowed to or couldn’t purchase homes, their lives were very different,” said Sheila Dillon, Boston’s chief of housing. “It’s really time for us to look at historic patterns in what has happened in this city and country, and be very intentional in our efforts to right past wrongs.”
Brookley Flats will offer 45 units for city residents making no more than 100 percent of the area median income, or $163,200 for a family of four. Twenty of the income-restricted homes have a preference for first-generation buyers. Applicants are currently undergoing an extensive lottery process.
