MEET THE MAKERS
BY THOMAS GILLESPIE
F
or 50 years, East Cambridge –based affordable housing developer Just A Start has been quite literally building space for low-income residents from the ground up. And that’s just one of the ways they’ve been fighting income inequality in the increasingly divided city. Last month, Just A Start purchased a 43,800 square foot property at 52 New St. in North Cambridge. The organization, which hopes to build approximately 100 units at the site, acquired the property in 26 Meet the Makers | scoutcambridge.com
what has become their trademark hands-on approach, says Real Estate Director Noah Sawyer: “We have to hustle, we have to sell people on our mission.” According to Sawyer, 52 New St. had been a development project that didn’t work out. After its plans initially fell through, Just A Start began “aggressively” pursuing the property—working with the City of Cambridge to ensure the nonprofit acquired it, and ultimately receiving a large portion of the financing from
the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust. Competing with luxury developers and deep-pocketed universities and tech companies has forced the organization to pursue a number of creative measures in its search for space to make Cambridge affordable. One new source of benefactors is longtime Cambridge residents, who are looking to preserve Cambridge’s inclusive character; in the last six months, two have approached Just A Start with the intention of handing over their
homes for affordable housing in their wills, according to Executive Director Carl Nagy-Koechlin. Nagy-Koechlin sees these gifts as a fruitful avenue for the organization to create new pockets of affordability throughout the city’s neighborhoods. However, despite the New Street acquisition and Just A Start’s other ongoing projects, he stresses that the affordability crisis in Cambridge continues to grow. “We’re in a prolific phase, with about 215 [units] queued up, but even that’s a drop in the bucket,” he
