Committed to the cause: Amy Anthony has influenced housing policy and preservation efforts

By Donna Kimura, Affordable Housing Finance

BOSTON—ON THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST, federal housing leaders gathered in Chicago to award Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) and the city one of the nation's first Choice Neighborhoods grants.

The $30.5 million award will go toward replacing the troubled 504-unit Grove Parc Plaza housing complex and revitalizing the broader Woodlawn neighborhood.

Receiving the grant—one of only five presented—is the latest milestone for Amy Anthony, president and founder of POAH, a unique Boston-based nonprofit that specializes in rescuing troubled housing developments, many at risk of losing their affordability.

“Through the Choice Neighborhoods grant, we expect to initiate a major revitalization of the Grove Parc/Woodlawn area rooted in the creation of a mix of housing affordable to households at all income levels, both on the original housing site and in the surrounding community,” she says.

Anthony, who has taken on some of the nation's toughest deals as a developer and introduced cutting-edge policies as Massachusetts' housing secretary, leads this year's group of inductees into the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame.

AHEAD OF HER TIME

Before POAH, Anthony served as Massachusetts' top housing official for eight years, beginning in 1983 when Gov. Michael Dukakis appointed her to lead the Executive Office of Communities and Development.

Anthony had led HAP, Inc., a small nonprofit that was formed to test the housing voucher concept in the 1970s in Springfield, Mass. She started her career as the organization's policy director but about nine months later became its executive director.

Although the state post often went to prominent mayors and local government representatives, Dukakis picked Anthony for her housing background.

“She had all the qualities you need to get things done in the public sector,” says Dukakis, who became aware of Anthony when she worked on his gubernatorial campaign. “She's smart, good at building coalitions, and unusually good at working with local communities."

During this time, the state was flying high with unemployment at a stunningly low 2.4 percent, he says, still proud of the large number of jobs created during his watch. But that also meant there was a severe housing shortage, especially on the affordable side.

“The price of housing was going up dramatically, so it was very, very important that we do an exemplary job and provide as much housing as we could,” says Dukakis.

Under Anthony's direction, Massachusetts implemented several innovative programs that produced more than 25,000 homes and have served as models for other states.

At the time, building affordable seniors housing was popular while developing family housing was considered more diffi- cult. When the state was awarding financing to local communities to develop housing, Anthony and her team insisted that towns couldn't just build seniors housing, they also had to provide family housing.

She also helped to launch the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and urged communities around the state to set up local partnerships. These groups engaged business and civic leaders to work on local housing initiatives. About 150 local partnerships were eventually established to advocate for the siting of affordable housing and generate a groundswell of support for projects.

“We went all around the state and encouraged people to participate,” Anthony says. “It made a real impact on getting the local knowledge and local advocacy up around housing issues."

It was a way that affordable housing supporters could overcome the powerful zoning and regulatory authority held by some towns in Massachusetts.

Anthony also worked to defend Massachusetts' longtime “anti-snob” zoning law that allows the state to override local rejections of affordable housing proposals. It can be a divisive law that pits local leaders against state officials.

Amazingly, nearly every community wanted to build affordable housing in the end. “Amy made the case to them," Dukakis says.

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