Outpricing the population: Lawrence film exhibit shines light on gentrification

Oct. 3—LAWRENCE — A film exhibit that loops South Boston-set movie scenes from the past 50 years illustrates real-world gentrification in Irish neighborhoods and sets the stage for a community forum on Lawrence's own mounting housing squeeze.

The forum starts at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Lawrence Library auditorium. It will include open dialogue and thoughts from filmmaker Jared Katsiane, Lawrence city Planning Director Pedro Soto and Lawrence Community Works Director Jessica Andors.

Andors will talk about how the surging demand for affordable housing in the Immigrant City far outpaces availability.

Four years ago, Andors, who lives in Lawrence and has been with the Community Development Corporation for two decades, thought it would be a long time before she would need to be worried about gentrification — the displacement of low-income people — here.

"I don't think that so much anymore," she said.

"I think that now we really have to make moves to preserve affordability and accessibility for current families. We have to make more moves and more investments to preserve," she continued, "... and increase it."

Lawrence is home to a growing population of 89,143. That's 17% more than its 76,377 residents a decade ago and the most it has had in 90 years. About 81% of residents are Hispanic, according to the 2020 Census.

At only 7 square miles, Lawrence is one of the most densely populated cities in Massachusetts, sixth among 243 municipalities, with about 13,000 people per square mile.

Single-family homes account for less than 20% of Lawrence's housing stock, making it, as it has been throughout its history, a renter's city, says Community Works Deputy Director Juan Bonilla.

And Lawrence rents are no longer bottom dwellers among 19 Boston metro cities. Median rents remain below Boston's, some of the priciest in the country, but Lawrence has lessened the gap with Cambridge and Boston and has now topped nearby cities Haverhill and Lowell, which as recently as 2018 were more expensive than Lawrence.

Not any longer. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Lawrence was listed as $1,840 on Sept. 1, according to the real estate website zumper.com. The rents have climbed by more than 10% in the past year, according to the website.

Following the forum is a 7 p.m. reception for the filmmaker, Katsiane. His split-screen production "Southie Then and Now — A Neighborhood Transformed" is the library's first exhibit since it reopened June 15.

It presents a powerful message and timely topic for discussion, says library director Jessica Vilas Novas.

"The issue of housing and affordable housing piques my interest, knowing that in my community we struggle to find housing and that often multiple families live in difficult crowded conditions," said Novas, who was born and raised in Lawrence.

The exhibit

Katsiane's film is a cautionary tale, a warning about the role that escalating home prices and rents can play in displacing residents and scrubbing culture.

The exhibit opened Sept. 1 and continues through Oct. 14. It's on the library's second floor, where two comfortable chairs face a large flat screen.

There is no popcorn but plenty of food for thought. The split display runs six minutes, constantly streaming, on one side, clips from nine movies shot in South Boston from 1968 to 2015, and, on the other side, clips of what those locations look like today.

The clips come from movies including "Good Will Hunting" in 1997 and "Black Mass" and "Spotlight" in 2015, as well as Katsiane's movie "Solace' from 1998.

Roseli Gonzalez, of dustyfruit.com, did the exhibit prep and graphic design.

On a canvas next to the screen, viewers are invited to write responses to questions, posed in English and Spanish: "What community changes have you seen in Lawrence and what would you like to see?

As of Wednesday, most people had stated only what they would like to see — cleaner streets, less violence, better education and more affordable housing.

But at the top left of the canvas someone had responded to both questions by way of a comic-strip.

The drawing was two houses in red, one of them upside down with money strewn on the lawn by a "for sale" sign. To the right was written, in blue marker, "I'd like to see more affordable subsidized housing," followed by the words, in purple, "and less scummy landlords."

The word between "less" and "scummy" was blacked out and below it was written in red, "rated r," with an arrow pointing to the redacted word.

Katsiane hopes his exhibition gets people thinking about the positives and negatives tied to gentrification, and encourages them to act.

"Residents can come together and voice their concerns to the city's Urban Planning Department, so that any future community changes derive from their needs, not only developers' visions," he said.

Katsiane, born in Boston's South End, moved to Andover when he was 7. He started taking photographs at age 12 and in his early teens had an internship at The Eagle-Tribune, learning from photo staff including Wendy Maeda.

He received a scholarship to Phillips Andover Academy and graduated in 1983, then attended UMass Boston. Katsiane moved to South Boston in 1986 and later to the South End.

He has taught media literacy and filmmaking. Since 1998 he has made short films including "Solace," a documentary about challenges youth face in South Boston.

Andors and Bonilla say Lawrence's housing environment and pressures are complex, and exert a variety of forces with respect to gentrification risks.

Quest for affordable housing

Competition for affordable housing has been vigorous for years.

When Lawrence Community Works brought 73 affordable residential units on line at the Duck Mill back in 2016 it received 800 applicants, over 90% of whom were Lawrence residents.

LCW has 230 units of affordable housing, and now is building 40 more.

Affordable rent, including utilities, is defined as less than 30% of a person's income, and those who qualify for it are charged according to how their income aligns with the area median income, at anywhere from 30% to 80%. Rents range from $900 to $1,300 for one- to three-bedroom units.

In the early 2000s, its rents were slightly below fair-market value, but now they are well below it, sitting at two-thirds of the $1,800 to $2,000 fair market rent.

"It is going up and up," Andors said.

Meanwhile, the new downtown housing created near the Merrimack River and canal, which came from once vacant or underutilized mills, is not displacing existing residents since most of the occupants of the new units come from outside the city or are city people who have prospered, Andors said.

About 1,700 new units have been built in these downtown mill buildings, with a majority of them listed at market rate.

Andors is not averse to there being some market-rate units, but she is concerned about the considerable percentage of them that are market rate, and charging between $2,000 and $3,000 for two and three bedroom apartments.

The high-end rents can exert pressure on the overall market, in some cases enticing landlords away from the mills to raise their rent just because they can get it.

To make ends meet, these renters might take in boarders, often family, leading to multiple families living in one unit, which can be stressful, unhealthy and pose an increased fire risk.

"People are doubling up and tripling up in Lawrence and that is a common thing in the city of Lawrence because there aren't enough units for the number of people in the city." Bonilla said.

Another variable that is now part of the housing equation is the flow of investment capital into Lawrence. Vast wealth being accumulated by the nation's richest people is finding its way into real estate in places such as Lawrence.

"Ten years ago you would never have had a company like Berkeley Investments coming to Lawrence," Andors said.

Now, Berkeley, one of the biggest real estate investment firms in the state, just dropped $99 million on Canal Street mill buildings, three residential and two smaller industrial spaces.

The return on investment is contingent on high rents. and those higher rents have some people wondering how they will afford to stay in Lawrence or whether they will have to live in crowded conditions here.

If you go:

What: Community forum on housing and reception for Jared Katsiane's film "Southie Then and Now — A Neighborhood Transformed"

When: Thursday, Oct. 7, 6 p.m.

Where: Lawrence Public Library, 51 Lawrence St., Lawrence

How much: Free

More information: 978-620-3600