BY JORDAN FRIAS
POSTED ON JANUARY 23, 2013
On May 29, the City Council passed a resolution for David Parker, owner of Rutland Housing, to work with tenants to find some common ground on preserving low income housing in the apartment complex.
Since then, Parker has refused to meet with them.
Parker, who wasn’t present during the City Council hearing for affordable housing held that day, said he would have been more than happy to attend if he didn’t receive a “ghost invitation.”
By ghost invitation, Parker means that he did not know about the meeting until the morning of, saying that it was not well organized.
Kane, a proponent of affordable housing, says that Parker was “outside in his SUV” of Saint Steven’s Episcopal Church in the South End when the hearing was held. The hearing took place in that church, the location where the Rutland Housing Tenant Organization held its biweekly meetings.
When asked if he would support mixed income housing, a question that tenants and Kane have for him, he said he already does.
To Kane, this question refers to the Project Based Vouchers (PBVs) that would allow a portion of the building to remain compliant to the project based Section 8 contract, low income. But Parker doesn’t see it that way.
Kane and members of the Rutland House Tenant Organization have sent multiple letters to Parker saying that they would support him if he wanted to move forward with this proposal.
The vouchers could be transferred to the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development Office to guarantee that a portion of the future tenants will be low income while the other would pay market value.
When asked if he was willing to consider that option in an interview this week, a question that Kane and the tenants haven’t had answered, he said he would not.
“I don’t see how this would happen,” Parker said. “There would be two bureaucracies, two groups to manage—that would be an administrative nightmare!”
Parker stressed that the current community will not be evicted from their apartments, but also said that “probably 20 years from now” Rutland Housing will become a market rate housing complex, a fear that tenants have for the future of diversity in the South End.
Parker says that the “city has improved” because of the actions of people like him who partnered up with the government 40 years ago to finance affordable housing.
He feels no need to bust in terms of considering to preserve low income units in his apartment building and doesn’t want to be pressured to do so by other special interest groups.
“The U.S. government should be held accountable to their obligation,” Parker said, which is to allow owners to do whatever they please with their property after the section 8 contract expires.
Parker hasn’t heard much from “the two tenants and Michael Kane,” who he says make up the Rutland Housing Tenant Organization. The last correspondence he received from them was about three to four months ago.
Councilor Tito Jackson, who tried to mediate discussion between Parker and the organization after the hearing in May, hasn’t returned any of Parker’s recent calls on other issues.
Kane is waiting to hear back from Sheila Dillon, the Chief of Housing and Director of the Department of Neighborhood Development for Mayor Menino, to discuss owner legislation.
Housed in Boston 