BOSTON — There are many reasons you may give money to a charity: a sense of philanthropy, for instance, or a desire to see better outcomes in society. The majority of U.S. families donate. The average contribution is 2-3 percent of annual income. 
 
But many people could give more — but don't. That's according to a group called Bolder Giving. Its founders, Christopher and Anne Ellinger, live in Arlington and became philanthropists when Christopher came into an unexpected inheritance in his early 20s. They're on Humankind on June 24. Host David Freudberg visited the WGBH studios to talk about the couple's ideas.
 

BOSTON — In this area, it can be hard to find housing you can afford: The city ranks among the most expensive in the country. For seniors, the high cost of housing is especially troubling. If they do have housing, the elderly are often isolated and rarely leave their homes — and as a result, they could suffer from depression. But one unique partnership is making a difference for at least a few.

Names in a hat for housing

Under a noontime sun, a street-corner minister preached to no one in particular in Boston’s Dudley Square, telling inattentive commuters that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Just a parable away, an elderly man, Gregoria Rivera, steered his wheelchair toward the entrance of a brand new apartment building and said he prays that one day he can move here.

“I live across the street over there in that building," he said. "I don’t like it over there. It’s only one room.“

The Dudley House apartment complex is just a few months old and it contrasts with much of the mid–20th-century architecture in this area — and everyone, it seems, wants to live here, said David Morgan, president of the board of directors of Central Boston Elder Services next door.

“There was a lottery — no relationship to the Massachusetts lottery — but there was a lottery and they put 450 names into the hat and drew them out and if they qualified they’re here," he said.

In the community room of the Dudley House — a 56-unit modern building — Jonetta Wiles recalled the moment she got a phone call 3 months ago telling her that her name had been plucked from a drawing for a chance to move into this building in the heart of Roxbury.

“I was shocked, first of all, and then I was really excited. 'Cause when they asked me if I was interested I practically came through the phone. I wanted to move so badly,” she said.

Wiles was joined in the community room by three other local women over 62.

“I saw it being built," said Shirley Hargrow. "I used to come by every day on a school bus cause I worked for the Metco program as a bus monitor. And when they dropped me off to go home I just walked across the street and was inquiring and I was, I guess, proud that I got selected.”

A desire for safety spurred Cynthia Lopes’ move to Dudley House:

“In Dorchester there was a drive-by shooting," she said. "So I knew that I couldn’t stay three anymore. I wasn’t safe. And then to go from that — to this!”

Assessing the need

This is a 7-story building designed by world-class architects. This structure cost millions; the funds came from the City of Boston and also included federal stimulus, tax credits and HUD housing money.
 
The need for rental housing for many of Boston’s 60,000 elderly residents cannot be underestimated. Like most of the residents here, Wiles worked hard her entire life to make ends meet in Boston, but her Mission Hill neighborhood, once an eyesore, became more and more gentrified. Pizza joints were taken over by latte-driven cafes and housing costs soared.

“I had a nice unit but the major concern for me was rent. Over the course of 22 years, of course, the rents would go up every year and finally it got to the point where it was just unsustainable, almost $1200," she said. "I was on Social Security and I was only working part-time and I just couldn’t afford it anymore. So this building is a blessing.”

Boston is the third-most-expensive housing rental market in the country, surpassed only by New York and San Francisco. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment ranges from $1200 to $1600 a month. For a large percentage of elderly people on fixed incomes, paying this amount approaches the impossible.

“I never thought that I would live here,” said Lopes, “ and then when I got the call I talked with my daughter because I didn’t think that I wanted to live in Dudley. But once you get here, people tell me when they come to visit, it’s like going to a luxury condo. I said, ‘Good — That’s fine with me!’ You know, I’ve never lived in a place that was brand new. There wasn’t even any dust."

From homeless to Dudley House

New housing studies suggest that rental pricing is a prime reason why more of the areas elderly are being pushed into the streets. A 2011 Harvard Medical School Study concluded that more than 7,000 men, women and children in the Boston are homeless and that a significant percentage are over 55.
 
Of the 56 people who won the lottery for a chance to live at Dudley House, Morgan said 11 percent were previously homeless.

“There were a few units targeted for the homeless elderly," he said. "There’s supposedly a huge need and I think it’s because of real estate prices and people who though even maybe they have their mortgages paid off taxes are so high.”

Phil Hyde, whose last residence was a church basement, was one of them.“I spent too much money and I could not afford the rent where I was staying and so I basically was homeless,” he said.

70-year-old Hyde is not your stereotypical picture of a homeless man. He’s a Harvard University graduate. But his situation, in the view of some housing advocates, illustrates how high rents can lead to elder homelessness for even those thought to fall outside the standard rubric of poverty.
 
In recent weeks, instead of starting his day from a Cambridge shelter, he has left his new Dudley House apartment and taken the No. 1 bus to the Back Bay where he attends an Episcopalian Church each Sunday. Hyde waited 14 months for his name to come up in a Boston Housing Authority pool and another few months before he was selected to live in the new building.
 
He counted himself lucky.

“The tragedy, of course, is that it is endless waits — I mean for this list," he said. "The people I was at the shelter with, some of them have been waiting for far over a year for their name to come up on the list.”

Looking at the community level

Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, who represents the Dudley Square area, said the Dudley House should not be the only modern, efficient housing alternative for the elderly, and especially for those who are homeless through no fault of their own. He said the notion of short-term housing was short-sighted.

“It is so much more cost-efficient to house folks in permanent housing rather than spending $100 a day in motels and then coming out at the end of the month with housing costs where you could live in the core of the city of Boston,” he said.

Jackson said the Dudley House has also had another impact as well. Perhaps in a twist of irony, with the new senior housing facility, it is older people that are helping to revitalize Dudley, a once severely run-down neighborhood. Some of the merchants in the area, such as the owners of the 99 Cent Store on Washington Street, said that Dudley House residents are among their best new customers.

It’s all part of what the residents of Dudley House call their expanded community. Said resident Betty Harris, “I know God put us all together for a reason.”

Harris, who walks unsteadily, said this facility has literally helped her get back on her feet. She credited the community of new elderly residents that surround her; friends like Wiles, Lopes and Hargrow.

They take care of her and each other, she said, going for walks twice a day for 10 minutes each. "And then I walk every Saturday," she said. "Right, ladies? I have to walk everyday so that I won’t get blood clots.”

Hargrow said Dudley House provides something that could never be replicated.  "We see each other face to face. On a daily basis we can see each other’s smile. Know each other’s strengths. Know each other’s weaknesses. We can really communicate," she said. "It’s a wonderful feeling. And I think its great that a place like this can be here for the seniors. And I think because we’re a community within a community, we’re all beginning to appreciate how Boston is changing. Especially in Dudley Square.”
 

Part 2:

What comes to mind with you think of Indian slums?

For many Americans, it’s the Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire.”

But for one scholar, India’s mega slums — places so big they could be cities by themselves — represent innovation. Innovation so remarkable that it may have lessons to teach the world.

Guest:

• Bhaskar Chakravorti, senior associate dean, Fletcher School at Tufts University

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — I arranged to meet Helen Bryant at the 1369 Coffee House in Central Square, an independent business in a neighborhood that’s arguably one of the last traces of Cambridge’s less-prosperous past.

A tale of two cities ... in one neighborhood
 
Sandwiched between the Sublime Salon and the Hair Collage on Massachusetts Avenue, the coffee shop is just a few doorways away from Pill Hardware with its flaking and peeling red storefront. Rodney’s used bookstore, ABC Pizza and the divey Cantab Lounge are across the street. On the next block west toward upscale Harvard Square is City Hall, the Cambridge Senior Center and the central post office and Y. East about a block toward the Massachusetts Institute of Technology you’ll run into Starbucks, a café that provoked outcry when it arrived in the mid-90s, and that now seems an early indicator of the changes on the way.
 
The 1369 Coffee House is crowded with students and neighborhood locals. Helen is an attorney in private practice, mostly children and family law. Over a cup of strong coffee, she tells me she was born in Cambridge like her three brothers and her father and, except for college, she’s lived here all her life.

“When I was growing up Central Square was just a square full of little shops that you walked through," Bryant said. She remembers Woolworth’s, and the Harvard Doughnut Shop where Starbucks is. "You knew who would be in these places. You knew who worked there. It was either your friends' parents worked there, or you knew who’d be sitting at the counter at the Harvard Doughnut Shop."
 
That was the story, Bryant said, until the 1990s. Then, "these little family-owned businesses started to disappear and were replaced not with another family-owned business but more likely a big chain.”
 
The downside of the old community
 
While the small shops and friendly neighbors made growing up here a pleasure, the Square of the past also had a dark side. Minka vanBeuzekom is a newly elected member of the Cambridge City Council.
 
“When I moved into Central Square in 1990 I was walking down the street and I heard a voice behind me say ‘Get out of the way, lady,'“ she recalled. "I turned around and this guy was coming toward me with a gun drawn and there were three policemen chasing after him."
 
Over the 20 years she's lived in the neighborhood, she's had police in her backyard looking for weapons, and known of "shootings and stabbings and lots of not very nice things," she said. But "that activity’s really plummeted.”
 
For vanBeuzekom, the promise of Central Square renewal is long overdue. After all, the square is where the seat of city government lies. It’s a major transportation hub, not just for Cambridge but for the whole metro Boston area. And it’s an astonishing center of activity.
 
“Those are all the pluses," vanBeuzekom said. "And then, if you actually walk around and you see the condition of some of the buildings, the condition of the sidewalks, the condition of the public spaces, how some of the streetscape is being handled, how vital or not vital it is — that’s where the disconnect lies.”

A moment of change
 
Efforts to revitalize Central Square have gone on for decades — and failed. But for vanBeuzekom, the urban renewal stars are aligned as they’ve never been before, thanks to big pharma.
 
“There’s much more of an urgency because of what’s going on at the eastern end of Mass. Ave., closer to MIT where Novartis is expanding," vanBeuzekom said. "It’s going to be a breathtaking building but mind-boggling development that’s happening — especially when you couple that with Pfizer, which is just on the back side of almost that same block, which will be another large building. So I think there’s a new urgency to solve the Central Square problem.”
 
That urgency is being driven by massive new development projects already begun just blocks away. A quarter-mile east down Mass. Ave., Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has already broken ground on a Maya Lin–designed park and tower complex. And right across the street, the two blocks of small shops, restaurants and apartments will be replaced by a 240,000-square-foot MIT research facility.
 
City officials and other community interests see the resulting property tax revenues as a historic opportunity to accomplish what others have chronically failed to achieve in the past.
 
"The solutions that came out of the Red Ribbon Commission were middle-income housing, [a] day care center, public space that could be a year-round arts and crafts or farmers market," vanBeuzekom explained."There’s also an effort led by urban planners who helped with the East Cambridge planning team for Kendall Square. And then there’s a third effort going on simultaneously by Community Development, they’re calling that K2C2. So that’s why it seems like we’re going to solve it this time.”
 
Gentrification?

But area residents and small shop owners who have already seen stores and neighbors pushed out by high-tech expansion don’t have much faith in the good will of institutional encroachers or city planners.  They’ve formed coalitions and committees to make sure their interests are heard. And while most would like to see the neglect apparent in some parts of Central Square remedied, there’s deep concern that gentrification pressures will drive poor and middle-class residents out of a once affordable neighborhood.
 
Tim Love is associate professor at Northeastern University’s School of Architecture and a founder of a firm specializing in complex urban projects.  “It’ll be interesting to see how those real estate pressures effect both the mix of people and the kinds of businesses that survive maybe as rents go up," he said. "That’s the big question.”
 
In an area as unique as Central Square, institutional neighbors, he told me, have a particular obligation. Universities have a different kind of responsibility when they’re building on a public street like Mass. Ave. As a positive example, he cited the MIT Broad Center, which has a gallery on the ground floor that mimics the typical Central Square scale.
 
"I think there are ways to mitigate between the needs of life science companies that need big buildings, and the need for those institutions, of companies, to make and contribute to a kind of healthy sidewalk life, which is what Central Square is about," Love said. "It’s one of the most vital, healthy, interesting, active, sidewalk kind of urban environments in the Boston area.”
 
Forces that keep organizations in the square

Beyond institutional goodwill and efforts to hold MIT and big pharma in check, vanBeuzekom believed the organizations that own property in Central Square, like the YMCA and YWCA, will likely moderate the worst of the gentrification pressures.
 
“The YWCA is just embarking on a big expansion project to increase the number of single residency occupant units. And the YMCA is also going to be improving the housing that they have right there," she said.
 
In addition, the Salvation Army has a shelter that provides services to a low-income population, and many social service organizations own their buildings and thus can't be pushed out by rent pressures. "So I think it’s going to be a very interesting juxtaposition of the eastern end of the Avenue that will have the highest high-tech that you can possibly imagine right next to these service industries that are helping the poor and the disenfranchised,” vanBeuzekom said.
 
A tale of two cities ... in harmony
 
Time will tell. But the promise of a uniquely Central Square solution that serves the needs of industry and the people is an enticing aspiration.
 
"We’re going to have the 99-cent McDonald’s and we’ll have the $5.99 carrot-beet juice with boosters from Life Alive. Both of those things will co-exist in Central Square," vanBeuzekom said, laughing.
 

 
BOSTON — A Massachusetts commission is recommending new restrictions on the use of Electronic Benefits Transfer or EBT cards — the debit cards that have replaced food stamps. Some lawmakers say the proposals don’t go far enough.
 
The eight-member bipartisan panel includes state legislators, the Inspector General and representatives of the retail industry. The group recommended it be made illegal for low-income families to use their EBT cards at strip clubs, tattoo parlors, nail salons, gun shops and casinos.

 
> > READ: How to use an EBT card (mass.gov)
 
And some panel members want additional restrictions. Commission member Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) said welfare recipients could still use their EBT cards at ATMs to get cash, and then buy whatever they want:
 
“What are we going to do about the $415 million a year that we’re giving out to people and we don’t know how it’s being spent?" she asked. "I think we could have gone farther in oversight there.”
 
O’Connell wants to prevent people from using EBT cards to get cash. But those on assistance argue a change like that would make it impossible to pay for some basic needs like laundry, rent and babysitting.
 
The special commission was formed after media reports found that some welfare recipients were using their EBT cards to buy alcohol, cigarettes, scratch tickets and flat-screen televisions.
 
While some lawmakers maintain that EBT card fraud is rampant throughout Massachusetts, state officials say there’s no data to support that.
 
The changes endorsed by the commission would need approval from the Legislature, which voted last year to prohibit the use of EBT cards to buy alcohol, tobacco or lottery tickets.

> > mass.gov: Using the EBT Card

A commission investigating abuses has a reporting deadline of April 1, said state Sen. Bruce Tarr, who accused the governor of slowing the process by delaying naming a beneficiaries' representative to the commission. "A meeting has been tentatively scheduled so fortunately we seem to be moving forward."
 
Tarr and O'Connell have sponsored legislation to close the loopholes.
 
The economy-related increase in the number of EBT recipients makes fixing the system even more crucial, Tarr said. "About 800,000-plus people are using the card. … That's a very large demand on our resources. If they need it, they need it [but] we have to have integrity in the system so we can help people that really need it and not help the people that are abusing it."
 
"We need this money for the people who need it the most," O'Connell agreed.

Check out Charity Navigator's holiday giving guide.

However, Paul Schervish, the director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, raised questions about evaluating charities. He said that in a class he teaches, a student was misled by an organization's low rating: “[She] had one group she was very impressed with. When she looked it up [it was rated only] two stars.”

Schervish said it was because “the director was paid $119,000 relative to the costs and expenses of the organization. This is a place that serves lunches to women with tablecloths.” However, he thought executive compensation shouldn’t be the only determining factor. In this case, the organization serves 50,000 lunches a year, he said, and the director “is doing a lot of work, because the outcome is so valuable and they get their materials so cheaply.”
 
Berger said Charity Navigator — a free web service — uses many different criteria to determine ratings.
 
“Charity Navigator doesn’t rate any organization based on CEO pay. We look at the ratio of expenses in the program area and infrastructure and so forth,” he said.
 
Berger noted that the best way to know whether dollars are being used most effectively is to visit the charity and “eyeball it yourself. Certainly in the case of smaller organizations, the only way to get it is by going there yourself.”

But, Berger acknowledged, “The vast majority of people are not going to do that.”
 
With the holiday season in full swing, time is running out for would-be donors to check up on charities and decide for themselves what is or isn’t a cause worthy of their support. 

BOSTON — New data from the 2010 Census suggest that one in every two Americans has fallen into poverty, or earns wages considered to be low-income.

Making matters worse: Howard Manly, executive editor of The Bay State Banner, said on "The Callie Crossley Show" that the people now considered poor are the ones least likely to seek assistance.

"No one's really proud to get $200 a month in free government cheese," he said. "They want to go out and get jobs — and they in fact have jobs; it's just that it's very difficult to make ends meet."

The new data raised the question, Manly said, of whether the government should do more during tough economic times, especially for middle- and working-class families who are technically "impoverished" but don't qualify for assistance. 

The low-income threshold is roughly $45,000 for a family of four. Children were most likely to be poor or low-income — about 57 percent — followed by seniors over 65. However, some news outlets have raised questions about the data.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Iraqi women make candles for Prosperity Candle, a Western-Mass.-based company that gives its producers a share in the company (Courtesy Prosperity Candle)

Many developmental economists believe that poverty can be conquered — but how? Some believe governance, security and the help of multilateral institutions are key; others look to ground-up, free-market initiatives.

We invite panelists who represent a spectrum of innovations to combat global poverty — one big initiative, or one tiny step, at a time.

Guests:

• Bish Sanyal, Ford International Professor, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

• Michael Fairbanks, founder, Seven Fund; fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard

• Jessica Thompson Somol, director, development and partnerships, Containers2Clinics

• Ted Barber, founder, Prosperity Candle

Part 2:

Local networks and communities, like the Mattapan Library, where two young men are seen job-searching last year, are considered an important tool in fighting poverty. (Jess Bidgood/WGBH)

In a tough economic climate, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has gotten wider. In Boston where the cost of living has risen 70% over the past two decades, poverty is on the rise too. In some areas of the city, 42 percent of children are impoverished.

We talk to innovators aiming to break that cycle, organizations that are taking homeless people off the streets and investing in families. Each organization has a different mission, but they share the tactic of helping the poor by empowering them.

Guests:

• Tiziana Dearing, CEO, Boston Rising

• Jesus Gerena, director, Family Independence Initative, Boston

• Lyndia Downie, president and executive director, Pine Street Inn

Click the players above to hear the conversation.

 
BOSTON — Not one but two new reports from Massachusetts think tanks confirm that Occupy Boston's chief grievance — growing income inequality — is a growing problem in the region.

A very different 30 years
 
Despite the state's technology, medical and educational centers, incomes are now distributed less equitably in greater Boston than in 85 percent of the metro areas in the U.S., Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) executive director Marc Draisin said on “The Emily Rooney Show” on Dec. 13. And the gulf between the haves and have-nots is growing wider.

“In 1979, a person in the top 20 percent earned about 6 or 7 times what a person in the bottom 20 percent earned. Today, they earn about 10 times as much,” Draisin said. “The bottom 80 percent, their income in inflation-adjusted dollars has remained about the same — in some cases even gone down. The top 20 percent, they’ve had a great 30 years! Their incomes have been going up and up.”
 
The poorest fifth of the region’s population currently earns a median income of roughly $20,000 while the richest fifth earn about $212,000 per year, according to the MAPC report.

The last, lost decade

The MassINC report, released on Dec. 14, focuses on the last 10 years, which it calls a "lost decade."

That report also found rising income inequality, coupled with growing underemployment. That, MassINC research director Ben Forman told WGBH News' Jordan Weinstein, is of particular concern.

"A lot of people with college degrees aren't in jobs that require college degrees," Forman said. Overall, about one in four workers in Massachusetts is un- or underemployed. That's in spite of the fact that academic achievement keeps rising, a paradox Forman called "stunning."

"We have the nation's most educated workforce," Forman said — for instance, the number of people in the state with master's degrees doubled in the last decade — but in that time, "only six states had slower job growth than we had."  

That's led to increasing pessimism in the state about the "American Dream," an issue WGBH News explored this November in its "Where We Live" series.

Some other key findings

- Massachusetts’ poorest families pay more than twice as much of their income on taxes as do the state’s richest families. (MAPC)
- Half the region’s renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. (MAPC)
- The number of employed residents under age 55 has dropped by 12 percent. (MassINC)
- Over one-third of the state's teens (age 16–19) and over one-quarter of young adults (age 20–24) were un- or underemployed in 2010. (MassINC)
 
Further reading

- MAPC report: State of Equity in Greater Boston
- MassINC report: Meeting the Challenges of the Bay State's Lost Decade

BOSTON — At 5:45 a.m. on Nov. 22, while the sun was still idling in twilight, employees were starting their shifts inside the Greater Boston Food Bank in Dorchester. The smell of ripe produce hung in the air as men transported frozen turkeys, potatoes and onions on electric-powered pallet jacks to a 48-foot tractor-trailer at the loading dock.
 
Bob Hurley, the director of warehousing and logistics, explained that a lot of planning goes in the night before.
 
“As we pick our orders, we’ll pick them the night before, and stage them because we got some product that needs to be in the freezer and some in coolers,” he said. “So everything is staged and ready to go in its normal warehousing location, and then we’ll load the truck in the order with which we want to take it off because the site is a little constricted.”
 
The site Hurley is talking about is in Charlestown. The Greater Boston Food Bank has partnered up with the Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services to have a mobile food pantry at Bunker Hill Community College. On this morning, they were giving out Thanksgiving food staples to veterans and veterans’ families just in time for the holiday.

Clients arrive early looking for food
 
At 6:30 a.m., the fully packed truck headed out to Charlestown. Upon arrival, thousands of pounds of food were unloaded and brought to their designated spots outside the college’s health and wellness center.
 
By 8:00 a.m., employees and volunteers had set up a row of tables lined with various produce, with bags of turkey at the end. Though the staffers were an hour ahead of schedule, early birds were already at the scene.
 
One of those early birds was Vietnam veteran Eileen Locke of Charlestown. It was her first time at a mobile food pantry, she said, and every little bit helped.
 
“We get our Social Security check. It’s the same amount every month. We’re satisfied. Then we go to the supermarket, and some things have actually doubled in price. So our check is not going as far as it used to,” she said.  “Something like the food bank is a blessing. But it’s sad we had to come to this. This was a prosperous country.”

Unemployment's connection to hunger
 
Jobs, or the lack of them, are at the core of the growing demand for food and assistance in the veteran community. The unemployment rate for post–9/11 veterans in Massachusetts is 12 percent, significantly higher than the statewide jobless rate of 7.3 percent. Women veterans have the highest unemployment rate at 15 percent.
 
Secretary of Veterans’ Services Coleman Nee said the poor economy was just one of the reasons veterans were struggling.
 
“We know many of the young women and men coming back today, particularly guards and reservists, they have either left jobs or did not work long enough or have not been in the career path for a while because they have been deployed multiple times,” he said. “And it can be a challenge when they come back — not only to reintegrate into society and deal with some of the wounds they may have incurred overseas, but also [to] reintegrate back into the workplace.”
 
This is the first mobile food pantry targeted at veterans, and the Greater Boston Food Bank plans on having more. They’ve seen a 23 percent increase in demand in the past 5 years.
 
Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of the Food Bank, said people were often surprised to find that veterans were part of that increased demand.
 
“The fact that [veterans] are homeless, or that they don’t have enough to eat — they’re a really good example of how our society is sort of imbalanced in terms of ‘What are we doing for those that are in need?’” D’Amato said.

Low on green and greens
 
By 9:30 a.m., the line of people at Bunker Hill Community College had grown. A veteran named Jeff who came in from Cambridge was trying to decide whether he needed a head of cabbage.
 
“The only reason I’m here is because I’m kind of broke, and I’ve run into a financial crisis, along with some medical issues and things, and conditions and situations have placed me here,” he said.
 
He appreciated the assistance, he said, but…
 
“In the bigger picture, it’s only a grain of sand. It’s the bigger picture we’re looking at. But I guess for one day, it’s OK,” he said.

BOSTON — The “We Shall Not Be Moved” exhibit by photographer Kelly Creedon documents the human impact of the foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts. The exhibit is traveling to the hardest-hit cities and its next stop is downtown Springfield, where volunteers will partner with No One Leaves/Nadie Se Mude Nov. 19–20 to transform a vacant commercial space on Worthington Street into an installation. The exhibit will be on display there through Dec. 18. (Event info.)

Creedon and her subject David Dunwell, a homeowner dealing with foreclosure, appeared on "The Callie Crossley Show" on Nov. 15. 

Creedon started the project in 2008. She didn’t expect it — or the crisis — to extend all the way through 2011.
 
“One of the things that inspired me to start telling some of these stories was this series of eviction blockades that had been happening in Boston in 2008. And I sort of felt like I was catching the tail end of this sort of series of really moving actions, and recognizing at the same time that I'm not an economist and I wasn't in a position to be predicting where we were going to go as a country at that point, obviously. But I wasn't hearing people anticipating that 3 years down the line we would still be looking at another however many years — we’re at this point talking about 10 to 12 million families that we anticipate will be impacted by foreclosure, directly impacted, by the time we can find some recovery. So, I wasn't anticipating to still see our country and these communities so entrenched in this crisis, 3 years down the line.”
 
Dunwell talked about the hardest part of being foreclosed on:

“One of the main reasons we moved out to Springfield was to be able to have our own home and be able to show our children the way of life that was better than we had. We moved to Springfield because all the houses in the Boston area were elevated out of our price range. It was really tough and humbling to be able to present to our children this dream that we had is now lost. That we have no home now. That was really, really tough, compounded by the fact that I lost my job a year and a half prior — that was heart-wrenching.”

But when thinking about the future, Dunwell was more optimistic, despite the fact that Springfield had the most foreclosures in the state in 2010, he said:

“I’ve definitely found a home. I don’t think this is the end of my dream… I am in no way dismayed. I know that I will stand — if I don't get to keep my own house, I’ll stand again, and I'll show my own children that this dream is possible within Springfield, within Massachusetts, within the United States of America.”

See more photos.

BOSTON — Greater Boston received exclusive access to research conducted by independent think tank MassINC about whether or not Massachusetts residents believe the American Dream is still attainable.

MassINC's report indicated that as many as one in three Mass. residents feel they are in danger of falling out of the middle class. The data shows that while the American dream is still attainable by some, others are finding it increasingly difficult to do the things that have historically symbolized success in the US, including owning a home, paying for college and saving enough money for retirement.

The news isn't all bad though. Mass. does fare better than most states in some areas. More residents are covered by health insurance, more students are going to college and more are graduating with a four-year degree.

Greater Boston ventured out to hear from Mass. residents about one benchmark of the American Dream: whether they feel they are better off today than their parents were. Then, MassINC researchers explained how they came to their conclusions and dug deeper into the findings.

BOSTON — November 1 marks the start of the annual federal winter fuel assistance program for low-income residents — usually. For the first time in 30 years, the funding didn’t go through, said Susan Cooperstein, vice president for external affairs at Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD). That makes it impossible for her organization to issue fuel supports to its low-income clients.
 
She said the Obama administration has been dragging its feet on issuing the funding even though it was authorized by Congress and signed into law as part of Washington’s continuing resolution.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has not yet guaranteed the disbursements, Cooperstein said.

 
BOSTON — It's harder than ever to find an affordable place to live in greater Boston — and a research institute chalks it up partly to growing income inequality.

The Dukakis Center’s ninth annual Greater Boston Housing Report Card, released October 25, confirmed what many locals already thought: Rents are the highest they’ve ever been. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Boston area in 2010 was $1,583. 
 
It’s classic supply and demand, study co-author Barry Bluestone of Northeastern University said in an interview. The number of renters has gone up: graduate students flocked to the area, many young people are continuing to rent instead of buying and foreclosed owners are back in the rental market.
 
At the same time, housing production has slowed to a crawl. According to the report, greater Boston has been on a six-year path toward ever-lower production levels. If rates continue, developers will pull permits for fewer than 4,500 new units of housing in 2011. That would be the lowest number in two decades.

Compounding the affordability issue, the limited housing growth that does exist has occurred “primarily among luxury units,” Bluestone said.

Anyone who’s checked the real estate ads has seen plentiful loft-style condos, brand-new kitchens, cathedral ceilings and other fancy features — for a premium. In 2010 this reporter walked into a house for sale to see the owner installing a new marble kitchen countertop in the hopes, he said, that it would increase the sale price.
 
Somerville’s Maxwell’s Green development, for instance, is creating 184 new rental apartments in a complex that will include a yoga studio, theater room, wireless workspace and a club suite with chef’s kitchen. In a January 2011 presentation, the developer said rents would start at $1500 for a studio.
 
Bluestone attributed the trend towards high-end housing to “the dramatic increase in income and wealth inequality.” He pointed to a new Congressional Budget Office report that found the upper economic echelons controlled a larger share of the country’s wealth in 2007 than in 1979.
 
In the greater Boston housing world, that means the wealthy are “about the only folks who have the wherewithal to consume, and they’re buying bigger units, more luxurious units with more amenities, “ Bluestone said. “And developers of course are responding to that demand.”
 
To help stabilize rental prices, the Northeastern researchers recommend creating multi-unit housing “villages” for graduate students and turning bank-owned foreclosed units into rental housing, among other suggestions. 

Check out the Greater Boston Housing Report Card buzz on social media.