The Housing Needs of Boston Immigrants Boston, known for centuries as a welcoming port of entry for peoples from all over the world, is rich in ethnic diversity. Like many immigrant cities, Boston contains numerous small neighborhoods that offer housing, ethnic markets, churches, and a central community to incoming immigrants. Many immigrant communities approach these challenges with a pragmatic wisdom, accumulated through years of experience in their home countries where the opportunity for change was much more limited. The result is a lively presence of immigrant involvement in Boston's civic life, and the commitment to making the city a permanent home. One of the major problems Boston immigrants face is the city's high cost of housing.
Rents are extremely high, and homes are also priced beyond the middle-class range.
Doreen Treacy, from the Boston Home Center, a city agency committed to helping low-income residents purchase their own homes, reports that Boston has one of the lowest homeowner populations in the country. Adapting the Curriculum Teachers who participated in our project work with students who are low-income and have lived in the U.S. for at least three years. Most students, of course, rent apartments in Boston. While many students were interested in the idea of homeownership, they were aware that buying a home in the United States is very difficult. Teachers felt that the FannieMae curriculum should not be used as a substitute for the comprehensive first-time homeownership courses offered in Boston.