Investing in Change: Michele Cubelli Harris gets a new lease on life, thanks in part to CLF's Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund.

• Date: 22 June 2020
• Author: Morris, Ashira
• Published date: 22 June 2020
• Author: Morris, Ashira

WHEN MICHELE CUBELLI HARRIS FIRST WALKED BY THE HOLMES BEVERLY BUILDING, SHE KNEW SHE WANTED TO LIVE THERE. BUT SHE WASN'T SURE IF SHE COULD AFFORD IT.

The six-story apartment complex on Rantoul Street in Beverly, Massachusetts, looks like a lot of new high-end construction: a sleek gray facade interspersed with brick and large windows. A nice restaurant and supermarket on the ground floor round out its appeal.

Cubelli Harris was looking for an apartment closer to her job in Lynn. With her kids grown, she wanted a home that would be hers alone. She took a picture of the Holmes Beverly leasing sign but worried that the building was out of her price range. She started checking apartments on the state affordable housing website instead.

Massachusetts has two categories for housing priced below the market rate. The first, "affordable" housing, is priced so someone earning 30% to 60% of the area median income could afford to live there; the second, "workforce" housing, is in the 60% to 120% range of median income.

While the State has focused on creating affordable units to counter the sky-high market rates in the greater Boston area, workforce-priced housing is sometimes called "the missing middle." This includes people, like Cubelli Harris, who have jobs that pay enough to disqualify them for affordable units but still struggle to find a home that won't force them to compromise the essentials of a balanced life.

Rarely are new developments like Holmes Beverly priced to fit either category. Yet, as Cubelli Harris continued her affordable housing search, she was shocked to see a listing for a Holmes Beverly unit. She emailed the property manager and learned that a single workforce-priced unit was available.

As of last fall, that unit is her home--and its benefits resonate through every aspect of her life. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, her daily commute had dropped to 20 minutes from more than an hour. She could walk to meet friends for dinner nearby. Now working from home, she has created a workspace in the apartment and takes long walks on her lunch breaks. She can even walk or ride her bike to a nearby beach to bask in the sun and take in the sound of the waves.

"I felt like I'd won the lottery," Cubelli Harris recalls. "It made moving away from my old home exciting and allowed me to embrace this new stage of my life."

Cubelli Harris's story is an unfortunately common one. Massachusetts is experiencing a housing crisis, with luxury development...