Impact Story: Whittier Street, Boston MA

POAH has partnered with the Boston Housing Authority and the Madison Park Development Corp to revitalize a Lower Roxbury neighborhood. The Whittier Street Apartments opened in 1953 as a brand new 200-unit public housing but within ten years of its opening, the surrounding neighborhood had been leveled to make way for two new interstate highway projects.  In the face of intense and well organized community opposition to the proposed highway projects, a moratorium on highway construction was declared but hundreds of homes, businesses and churches had already been demolished in Lower Roxbury.

The existing Whittier Street Apartments will be completely demolished and redeveloped. All 200 units of public housing will be preserved by creating 200 new deeply subsidized units through HUD’s public housing, Section 8, and Rental Assistance Demonstration programs. Replacement housing will be built both at the original Whittier property and off site in the Whittier neighborhood. In addition to the 200 replacement units, 376 new units of moderate-income and market-rate housing will be constructed both on and off site.