While I applaud the efforts of Student Government Association (SGA) in encouraging their new “I AM Northeastern” pledge, I do not believe SGA has taken the correct trajectory in tackling off-campus problems. SGA fails to realize that this is not a Northeastern problem – it is an off-campus and community-wide problem which can only be effectively addressed there. Northeastern students are not the only ones living on “The Hill.” The Northeastern community, as well as our neighbors on Mission Hill, Lower Roxbury and the Fenway deserve better than this.
For better or for worse, students will choose their own actions. While SGA tries to address this, they will come up short. The real problem is not the actions of the students: It is the off-campus housing and the landlords who oversee these properties.
Landlords are skirting their duties and dodging city regulations. They illegally and knowingly permit student overcrowding (more than four students in a unit), they rent out units in extremely poor condition, in addition to creating illegal basement apartments rash with health, building and zoning violations. The terrible condition these apartments are found in on move-in day does nothing to stop students from continuing a cycle of disregard for the condition of these properties as well as the neighborhood itself.
The combination of overcrowding, absentee landlords and apartments in appalling condition leads to a dense population of students living in an environment for which they have no attachment to nor any respect for. This combustible situation exacerbates the problems associated with student’s actions in off-campus residencies, rising criminal activity, and neighborhood blight.
These landlords are knowingly reporting incorrect data to the city assessor and the Inspection Services Department, effectively allowing them to dodge portions of their property taxes, which is clear when someone looks up properties through the city’s website.
Meanwhile, landlords are hiking rents on students, attributing it to rising taxes and costs for repairs: Neither of which the landlords are properly addressing in the first place. Instead, the landlords are pocketing this money that should be used on the property itself and the neighborhood at-large.
I support the ordinance authored by Boston City Councilors Maureen Feeney (D3-Dorchester) and Michael Ross (D8-Mission Hill) to require the licensing of landlords that rent in the City of Boston. Similar ordinances have been successfully installed in New Haven, Connecticut; Albany, New York and Oakland, California.
This licensing procedure would require a site visit by the Inspirational Services Department at least every two years. Thus far, the ordinance has only been applied to non-student “problem properties” in Dorchester and Roxbury; however, the city should not stop there.
Thankfully, the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals has been proactive in its opposition to legalizing basement apartments and attempts to increase the population density in Mission Hill (in Allston as well, where residents and students are facing similar issues). However, landlords need to be held accountable for their actions (inactions) by properly paying their taxes and fixing up their properties.
Furthermore, the realty and management companies in the city need to be looped in on this. They act as enablers by overlooking the situation and should be held equally responsible for overcrowding and the dreadful conditions of these residences.
The landlords doing business in this city need to meet the Northeastern community and surrounding neighborhoods halfway.
– James Sutherland is a Ph.D. student and teacher’s assistant in the Department of Political Science.
