First-time Boston At-Large City Council candidate, Alejandra St. Guillen, demanded that college students and policy makers start holding universities accountable for neighborhood stabilization when candidates were questioned about their policies to require higher-education institutions to provide economic support for Boston communities at the Youth Voter Forum on Oct. 29.
The event, organized by Northeastern University College Democrats, sought to dissolve barriers between college voters and their municipal politicians in Boston by opening the floor to questions of students’ needs.
Demands for proposals to resolve the lack of affordable housing for students in the greater Boston area dominated the panel discussion with average rent prices rising above $3.5 thousand per month.
Joseph Molloy, full-time student at Northeastern University, said he works three part-time jobs throughout the semester in order to meet the costs of living in the city. With the stresses of coursework, passion projects, and extracurriculars, many students feel overwhelmed by the added financial pressures of unaffordable rent, according to Molloy.
“My paycheck is spent on rent and student loans before I even get paid,” Molloy said during an interview. “It’s luckily my last year, so I’m planning to move to Austin [Texas] and find a cheaper place.”
Many graduates, like Molloy, make the decision to relocate. College students constitute 20 percent of the population in the city of Boston but, due to the housing crisis, an average of 46 percent of students relocate after graduation. This migration of skilled, highly-educated workers, donned by the “Brain Drain” by Boston Redevelopment Authority, has a significant effect on the city economy.
“The technological and occupational deficit that comes along with our students not being able to afford to live should be a priority,” David Halbert, another first-time at-large candidate, said during an interview. “In addition to enacting sweeping rent control legislation across the board, we need to also ensure that our students are not living in substandard housing.”
The two At-Large incumbents, Michael Flaherty and Annissa Essaibi-George, both of whom oppose rent control legislation, said that the most effective way to remedy unaffordable housing for students is through Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) fulfillments from universities across the city.
The City of Boston implemented the PILOT program in 2012 in hopes of prompting the city’s 47 property-tax exempt institutions to provide fiscal support for local projects. However, a lack of oversight and little enthusiasm from colleges has accounted for $77.8 million in unfulfilled PILOT requests, Flaherty said.
Essaibi-George says that the high property costs complied with high property taxes raise the cost of living exponentially for students in Boston. With the supplemental PILOTs from surrounding universities, property taxes, especially for small landlords, would decrease and drive down the cost of living for the 70,000 college students competing for affordable housing in the city, according to a study by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
“We can no longer allow the higher-education powerhouses play a passive position in our community,” Essaibi-George said. “With their help, not only our students, but Boston as a whole will be able to flourish.”
Of the various pressing issues, like transportation and climate change, on the ballot for the Boston City Council elections on Nov. 5, affordable housing and equity in education are most important for city voters, according to a poll conducted by the Boston Globe.
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