Boston city councillors add voices to latest rent control push

Published in the Dorchester Reporter

Four Boston city councillors Wednesday endorsed a rent control measure that supporters hope to get on the 2026 Massachusetts ballot.

The “Keep Massachusetts Home” initiative would limit annual rent increases to the cost of living, with a 5 percent cap.

Councillors Henry Santana, Julia Mejia, Liz Breadon and Enrique Pepén stood beside community members outside City Hall Plaza on Wednesday morning speaking about the pressures of rent increases in Boston.

Advocates said high rent is not just a city issue but a statewide one. Many advocates spoke about the negative effects of costly rents, such as the number of homeless students in Boston Public Schools.

“This is about making sure that everyone is able to keep a roof over their head where rent prices are increasing,” Pepén, who represents District 5, which includes Hyde Park, Readville, and parts of Roslindale and Mattapan, said after the event.

Pepén said he grew up in public housing. Now he’s a renter and hears how “impossible” it is for some people to make rent.

At-large city councillor Santana said young professionals, families and seniors are being pushed out of Boston. Last month he drafted a resolution alongside Councillor Benjamin Weber from District 6, urging the city council to support the ballot question. The resolution was referred for further review.

“We're in the midst of a housing crisis, and again, we don't want to lose our people,” Santana said during the event.

District 9 councillor Breadon, who serves Allston and Brighton, said 80 percent of her constituents are renters. The number one issue for her is the cost of housing.

“Working families are competing with students to rent housing, and that's an unfair and very uneven playing field,” Breadon said.

Mejia, an at-large councillor, invited other council members to sign the ballot measure and “get rent under control.”

Carolyn Chou, executive director of Homes for All Massachusetts, a coalition of tenant organizing groups across the state, said the group supports rent control in Massachusetts and is working with others to organize tenants across the state.

On top of working to collect the 75,000 signatures needed for a ballot question, the group also has a statewide rent control bill at the State House, Chou said.

“This is happening from Springfield to Boston to Lynn to Brockton to Worcester,” Chou said, “and we are working with groups that organize tenants across the state who are all seeing this crisis of displacement, of high rent increases.”

This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.