Expanding the housing supply through conversions of the existing stock

A large share of households remain poorly housed in the United States despite the steady improvement in overall housing conditions throughout the postwar period. Households that face the greatest difficulty in gaining access to suitable housing are those with low-income, i.e. those in the market for low-cost rental housing. These households have difficulty in gaining access to suitable housing because of the mismatch between the demand for such housing and the available supply. We examine conversions of existing multifamily housing as a way of expanding the housing supply at sub markets which directly serve low-income households. It is assumed that by expanding these sub markets, the barriers against access to suitable housing would be reduced for low-income households. We focus on the City of Boston as well as on two specific conversion projects to illustrate some of the merits and limitations of multifamily housing conversions as a means of expanding the housing supply at low-income submarkets.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1990

Author dc:creator

• Pogharian, Sevag V. (Sevag Vasken)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Nabeel Hamdi.

• 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/1721.1/69261

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/69261