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Housing developers alarmed by new state voucher plan. (proposal to cut Massachusetts' housing subsidies)
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Thomas Finneran's radical proposal to cut state housing subsidies in half next year threatens the solvency of mixed-income housing developments that contain about one-third of the state's 17,000 subsidized rental units, according to private and nonprofit developers.
The House budget proposal would replace the state's Chapter 707 rent certificates, under which tenants pay 30 percent of their income toward rent and the state pays the rest, with housing vouchers worth $200 per month.
Since the state now contributes an average of $550 per month for Chapter 707 certificates, the switch to vouchers would create a $350-per-month gap between what tenants currently pay and what landlords now accept for rent. That's a gap that neither low-income tenants nor their landlords will be able to make up, opponents say.
"All of our projects are going …
