A nearly 100-year-old building in Boston’s Back Bay that has housed a hotel, a theater, a school and more is now home to the state’s largest supportive housing community for people experiencing chronic homelessness.
The building at 140 Clarendon St., steps away from Copley Square, is now home to 210 affordable apartments, 111 of which are reserved for people coming out of homelessness.
Lyndia Downie, president and executive director of Pine Street Inn, which is providing supportive services at the property, said providing housing to these residents makes a profound difference in their lives.
“It makes your life whole. It gives you back your dignity,” Downie said at a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday. “It takes away the stigma of being the person who has nowhere to go, to being the person who has a key and a place to go.”
The 1929 building was originally used by the YWCA to house poor, young single women, but between 2003 and 2006, the organization renovated the building to create 118 apartments and a 66-room budget hotel, according to the city. Boston-based developer Beacon Communities purchased the 13-story building from the nonprofit, now know as YW Boston, in 2021. YW’s administrative offices are still housed there, along with Lyric Stage Company and the Snowden School, a charter high school.
Existing residents were allowed to remain at the property through the renovations, moving into new units as they were completed. Resident Les Miller said Thursday that about halfway through the project, she moved into a “new, beautiful, fully handicap-accessible apartment that (she) just loved.”
“We were a bit apprehensive about the housing-first (formerly homeless) residents moving in, but now that the building is at capacity, I can tell you it has been fairly seamless,” she said.
Miller added that residents have access to a variety of activities and field trips that she has enjoyed, including seeing mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, Boston’s Castle Island, and the holiday Festival of Lights at La Salette Shrine in Attleborough.
Each resident or family is provided with a project-based housing voucher through the Boston Housing Authority, which covers a portion of the rent each month to keep the units affordable. This makes a big difference in Back Bay, one of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods.
Mayor Michelle Wu said recent changes to the way housing vouchers are reimbursed, basing the amount paid per month on zip code rather than larger geographic regions with more diversity of income, have given low-income residents the opportunity to live in more expensive neighborhoods.
“That has completely opened up different geographic areas and the ability to truly welcome residents to every part of the city, not just on paper,” Wu said.
Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus pointed out that the project would benefit not just the more than 200 residents and families currently living there, but thousands of people in the future as the apartments turn over.
Augustus alluded to recent controversies in some suburbs — including Milton — where residents have pushed back against regulations forcing them to change zoning in order to allow the construction of more multifamily housing. He said the state needed to use every tool possible to address the housing crisis.
“It is everybody’s responsibility. It’s every community. It’s every neighborhood. We are in this together,” he said. “We are only going to get out of this if everybody participates in creating the housing that we need so that every single person has a place to call home.”
Financing for the nearly $130 million project came from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, the Boston Department of Neighborhood Development, MassHousing, state and federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and historic tax credits, according to EOHLC.
