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It was a year of grim revelations about New Bedford’s housing crisis.
Studies released in 2024 made it abundantly clear that more and more people can’t afford to live here, citing eye-popping statistics on the rise in prices and calling for urgent action.
2024 in Review
Action is happening. The city has made progress on the goals in its 2023 housing plan. And dozens of new homes are in the pipeline.
But it can take years to put new units on the market. While the city waits for sorely needed homes, local leaders have considered more immediate measures to control spreading homelessness and spiraling costs.
These were the biggest developments in New Bedford’s housing crisis in 2024:
A landmark report called for a drastic increase in housing production
Greater New Bedford needs to build 8,700 new homes by the end of the decade. That was a key finding in a January report by the New Bedford Economic Development Council and MassINC, the most comprehensive look at the city’s housing market to date.
New construction has not kept up with population growth in the region, researchers found. The shortage of housing drove a 27% increase in rents in a single year.
But, nearly a year after the report came out, the city has not announced formal plans to implement its “near-term” recommendations. Leaders met for a summit in April, yet they didn’t act on the report’s recommendation that they should use that summit to create a regional housing task force.
Roughly 1 in 10 New Bedford Public Schools students was homeless last school year
At least 1,277 students in New Bedford Public Schools had experienced homelessness by January of the last school year, district data showed. Most of them were “doubled up,” temporarily living with friends or family.
Students in New Bedford were four times more likely to be homeless than students in Massachusetts overall, The Light reported in February.
A snapshot from December 2024 shows that approximately 9% of the city’s students were experiencing homelessness, but that does not account for students who were homeless earlier in the school year.
New Bedford made progress on its 2023 housing plan
The city has shown progress on nearly every goal of the Building New Bedford plan, the city’s comprehensive housing strategy launched in spring 2023.
One year after the launch, the housing officials had met with 60 developers and counted over 700 housing units in various stages of the city’s pipeline. The city hadn’t yet proposed the zoning reforms it promised in the plan when The Light reviewed the city’s progress in April, but later this year planners started bringing the proposals to the City Council.
Also this year, city officials scaled back their plans to expand homeownership programs. Allocations of pandemic relief money for the city’s first-time homebuyer and home repair program expansions were cut from $750,000 each to $500,000 each because officials were concerned that they couldn’t spend all the money by federal deadlines.
Demonstration at City Hall for more aggressive housing policies
In June, dozens of people wrote letters to the mayor and held a demonstration at City Hall demanding that the city do more to curb crushing housing costs.
Demonstrators with United Interfaith Action wanted the city to pass inclusionary zoning, which would guarantee that a certain number of units are set aside for low-income households in every new development. They also wanted the city to allocate more money for affordable housing.
Leaders from the group met with Mayor Jon Mitchell in August. They were disappointed that the mayor didn’t support inclusionary zoning, but they said they appreciated other measures the city was taking, such as zoning reforms.
New zoning could make it easier to build more housing
The city is rolling out a series of ordinances to cut red tape for new housing developments.
The City Council voted in November to create a “transit-oriented development” zoning district in the Kings Highway area, near the new Church Street MBTA station. It also passed a new, more streamlined project approval process.
More reforms are on the way. The city plans to reduce the minimum lot size and parking space requirements for new developments, but the city hasn’t brought proposals to the council yet.
A review called for more shelter beds and supportive housing
New Bedford’s homeless services system is “overwhelmed, under-resourced, and lacking support services,” a city consultant wrote in a review released in September.
The review found that the city could reduce its unsheltered homeless population to as few as 15 people by 2030 if it adds more shelter beds, supportive housing, and other services. But the expansion will require the city’s service providers to expand their funding sources beyond the federal dollars they currently rely on.
New Bedford has one of the tightest housing markets in the state, a report found
The city experienced a 7.9% increase in home values in a single year, more than any other gateway city, according to a new report by MassINC. The Gateway Cities Housing Monitor followed in the footsteps of January’s Housing for All report, revealing how New Bedford compares to its peers.
The in-depth analysis showed that New Bedford has relatively low rents compared to the rest of the state — but that doesn’t mean housing is affordable here. The city’s lopsided housing market generally benefits affluent renters as low-income renters feel the squeeze, the report showed.
A new series highlighted the drivers and impacts of New Bedford’s housing crisis
As the year drew to a close, The Light took a step back to explore the broader dynamics underlying the city’s housing crisis.
The Housing in Distress series compared the housing plans of New Bedford’s suburbs, which lag behind the city in building affordable housing. It dove into the complicated economics of building new housing in this tough market. And it told the stories of three people struggling to afford housing in the city.
2024: The year in review
The Light’s reporters dig into the top stories of 2024, noting what the developments could mean for the coming year.
- Thursday, Dec. 26: Grace Ferguson examines the housing crisis and New Bedford’s response to the critical need for affordable shelter.
- Friday, Dec. 27: Columnist Jack Spillane revisits the Club Madeirense S.S. Sacramento’s vote to allow female “festeiras” after more than a century of excluding women from planning roles.
- Monday, Dec. 30: Anastasia E. Lennon details the triumphs and setbacks in the offshore wind industry.
- Tuesday, Dec. 31: Education reporter Colin Hogan digs into the top developments in public schools and higher education.
- Wednesday, Jan. 1: Reporter Arthur Hirsch notes the changes voters brought, from new state legislators to President Donald Trump’s second term.
- Thursday, Jan. 2: Environmental reporter Adam Goldstein chronicles the effects of climate change and environmental developments in 2024.
Education reporter Colin Hogan contributed to this report.
Email housing reporter Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
After reading this latest report on “More Affordable Housing” demands from low income residents, combined with the breaking news in the past two days of the significant increase of New Bedford property tax rates, it looks like property owners have earned the right to assemble, and protest the latest annual, never ending property tax increase for every type of property, including residential, commercial, and industrial properties. Based on this significant tax hike combined with the new increase in water and sewer rates, and sharp increase in property insurance rates in 2024, and higher auto & property insurance rates already announced through fewer insurance companies as several have already stopped writing new policies, and cancelling high risk areas like Florida, and surrounding coastal states, and others dropping CA due to wild fires, drought history, etc., etc.
With all those annual cost increases, and so much uncertainty in multiple aspects of the housing market including the US Treasury taking much more time to lower interest rates/borrowing costs than most financial experts predicted, with higher mortgage rates making ALL homes much more expensive for more first time home buyers, and larger homes harder to sell for older couples to downsize when their children are adults. With all that financial insecurity preventing everyone from home builders, to mortgage brokers, banks, insurance companies, contractors, and people who want to buy a home, I can’t imagine how anyone can expect to find lower rent prices for apartments, lower home rents, or lower cost monthly, or lower annual lease prices, and if that’s the outcome, how can a building contractor, large or small find any way to build affordable housing anywhere?
Other than a 100% Non-Profit builder like “Habitat for Humanity” run by the second worst President in US history, Jimmy Carter with 100% of the building materials, and 100% of the labor were volunteers working for free on the summer off, and a few weeks of spring breakers could make that possible. The only other realistic option would be to relocate to a state in the south, Alabama, Kentucky, with really low cost of living.
Well Stated Mr. Payer, I’m so tired of hearing that the reason housing prices are so high is due to greedy landlords maximizing profit.
What I don’t understand is who is coming up with the statistics. Why does New Bedford really need 8500 more housing units? “If you build it they will come” once the 8500 units get built we’ll need 5 more schools
2 more hospitals and another 8500 units to house all the people associated with these new facilities. Will it ever end? Go down to New York City and spend some time in the Bronx and you’ll see a great example of what overdeveloped and high density subsidized housing looks like.
Thank you Anonymous, I agree with you, and although the 8,700 new housing in the greater New Bedford area, including homes of different value, and apartment units with 25% proposed as “low income” residents, you’re right about the additional schools, and hospitals, just look at South Coast Hospital, and Hawthorn Medical Associates facilities throughout Dartmouth, as they expand, the lines of patients expand as well, with fewer primary care physicians, and emergency room visits taking anywhere between 3 to 6+ hours depending on the severity of illness or their injury.
As housing is expanded, particularly low income housing, it’s going to attract more low income residents, and increased taxes due to additional police officers & vehicles even though 40+ officers can’t be found or hired. Additional vehicles and additional fire fighters will also be needed with increased populations, meanwhile New Bedford has closed fire stations over the past 20 years, and existing fire stations are outdated, and beyond repair, and cost improvements and new stations increase taxes which many property owners can’t afford without increasing rental prices for residents and business tax or rent prices for business occupants.
It’s impossible to avoid, New York is a great comparison, and southern California is another, the only people moving into NYC & CA are wealthy millionaires buying homes for $800,000+ at the lowest, and the reasons are the same in larger cities as in small cities like New Bedford, Dartmouth, Lakeville, etc.
While my property value has increased like everyone else, if you try to sell or rent a single family home in the city and interested buyers/renters do any research, they’re not going to buy a house and have children while living a few blocks, or a few homes from low income renters, they’re not all bad people or criminals, but there are enough to make you research them with W-2 forms, current income, and a FICO score over 700, because evicting people in this market, with or without children is nearly impossible, and extremely expensive, and things like property taxes, water & sewer, rates, maintenance costs, appliance costs far outpace the rental increases low income tenants can’t, or won’t pay, but that’s not a conversation people demanding rent price controls, and low income hosing want to have. I don’t care if 10 trains are coming to New Bedford, as home prices rise low income prices rise also, that’s a fact.