Key worker housing : a demographic analysis of working families in eastern Massachusetts

As housing costs have soared nationwide, many policy makers have grown increasingly aware of working families' housing needs. Currently, having a full-time job does not guarantee decent and affordable housing. Many housing advocates have speculated that working families have had to move far from their jobs enduring long commutes, less time at home and increased traffic congestion. More specifically, housing advocates worry that key community workers who build and sustain strong communities, like teachers, nurses, firefighters and police officers, cannot live in the communities they serve. This thesis intends to substantiate these claims as they relate to Eastern Massachusetts' "key workers" through a rigorous demographic profiling of a sample of key worker households of those key workers employed in 165 communities. We analyze the key worker household rather than the key worker as an individual through the use of microdata from the 2000 Census. This approach results in an analysis of total household income rather than individual wages when studying housing affordability for key workers employed in Eastern Massachusetts. Our unique analysis produces results and conclusions that vary significantly from previous workforce housing studies.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Wagner, Margaret Fitzgerald

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Henry O. Pollakowski.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33191

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33191