The Price Is Wrong, Bitch
Many waltham residents in danger of being forced away by rapidly rising costs
from Daily News Tribune

WALTHAM -- Valerie Pryor, 35, moved here from Florida in October with her 9-year-old daughter, Megan, to be close to family and friends. She moved into an $800 Moody Street studio. That was $200 more than her much bigger Florida apartment, which even had a pool.
The higher rent didn't bother her, though, until her apartment sprouted one problem after another. Now she can't understand how her landlord is charging so much for a cramped studio. She even had to ask the landlord four times to cover up a hole behind the radiator from which mice had run out.
She said her studio still smells like smoke because the landlord didn't clean up enough after the prior tenants, who were heavy smokers. She thinks the cigarette smell and dust billowing from the heating vents agitate her asthma.
It's not the mice or even cigarette smell that bothers her the most, though.
After she cuts her rent check, she's left with little to buy food and clothing. She can't do what she wants to do for her daughter because she spends 60 percent of her $1,300 monthly income on the studio.
"I'm always thinking that I need to have a better place for my daughter," Pryor said. "She needs her own room, her own space. I think parents should think what's best for the child."
Pryor is one of the many Waltham residents who are barely able to afford their rent or mortgage as housing prices continue to rise. As a result, middle-income families grudgingly scrape by or move away while the lowest-income families sometimes lose their home, move in with a relative and become a sub-family.

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In a recent study, the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute found that 6,426 of the 23,207 Waltham households are spending at least 30 percent of their income on housing, which is considered burdensome. The report, "Winners and Losers in the Massachusetts Housing Market," found that 850,000 households in the state spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent.
The study also found that the high housing costs have created a situation in which many people from across the state, including Waltham, have lost their homes or haven't been able to afford a first home.
In Waltham, 28 percent of those who earned $35,000 to $49,000 in 1999, which is in the range of the starting salary for a police officer, spent at least 30 percent of their income on housing.
"People are getting priced out and moving away, mostly out of state and to parts north," Jennifer Van Campen, executive director of Waltham Alliance To Create Housing, or WATCH, said. "A lot of folks we see have a three-bedroom apartment and they rent the rooms to another couple or another person to pay the rent."
The families who do lose their homes often end up living on the street or with relatives and become what is called a sub-family. Either way you cut it, they are homeless.
"One of the key findings was that there was a significant increase in the MetroWest region, and across the state, of families living as sub-families," said Michael Goodman, director of economic and public policy research at the Donahue Institute.
There were 452 sub-families in Waltham in 2000, The Donahue Institute study found. From 1980 to 2000, 384 children became members of a sub-family.
"These folks are clearly facing a burden," Goodman said. "(They are) making difficult choices each month about what bills to pay."
And more Waltham residents might continue to struggle unless there is an increase in the amount of housing. The Donahue Institute study found that housing creation can't keep up with demand. The state would have needed to produce an additional 70,000 units from 1990 through 2000 to match the number of people needing them, the Donahue Institute study found.
The end result is a lower than average vacancy rate. That, in turn, has helped to drive up the demand for, and hence, the cost of housing.
"I think most observers agree that we most likely won't see any decline in housing prices any time soon," Goodman said.
The median sales price of a single-family home in Waltham increased from $161,750 in 1995 to $366,150 in 2003, according to The Warren Group, the Boston-based publisher of the weekly business newspaper Bankers & Tradesman. During the same period, the median sales price of a condo increased from $115,072 to $325,000.
For many Waltham residents a $325,000 condo is unthinkable. They can only dream of buying one. Even the $868 median rent can be too much for some people such as Valerie Pryor, the single-mother living on Moody Street. She and her daughter, Megan, live on a very tight budget.
After Pryor spends 60 percent of her income on rent she has to cap her weekly grocery bill at $35. She can't even buy boots for her daughter, who currently sloshes through the wintry muck without a pair.
Pryor is reminded that she doesn't have enough money to buy her daughter boots whenever she sees a commercial for Pay Less Shoes or sees an advertisement in a store's window.
"I want to buy her boots right now, but boots are not on our list right now," Pryor said. "I'm trying to make sure that we get enough food to eat."

posted by prof_booty | 09:19 AM