Ending the Housing Shortage

Cambridge is caught in a desperate housing shortage, for which Harvard and M.I.T. must accept some blame. Increasing numbers of graduate students, faculty members, and others tied to the universities are entering the City and flooding its housing market. They are willing to pay higher rents to get the available apartments in the area, and their rents force up rents in general. According to Mayor Daniel J. Hayes Jr., temporary residents force 1000 permanent Cambridge families to move elsewhere each year. This malignant situation is even more critical when coupled with the proposed Inner Belt's threat to displace an estimated 1500 families.

Harvard and M.I.T. have admitted limited culpability; now they each must decide what to do in solving the problem. A first step came last Spring when the two schools fathered the Cambridge Corporation, an independent agency designed to aid future City housing projects. But more must be done, and direct action by the two Cambridge giants is called for.

Already, there have been two meetings between university and City officials on the housing dilemma. Specific results from them have not been announced, though it is known that the possibility of the universities' sponsoring non-university housing projects was under discussion. The question is how far both Harvard and M.I.T. will go in seeing these and other necessary housing proposals to fruition.

It is not enough for Harvard and M.I.T. to loan their planning officers and architecture professors to Cambridge in advisory roles. Speed is essential and in this case speed means money. To hurry housing construction, both schools have several options: they could provide "seed money" to finance construction, that is, an initial investment from their endowments which would be pulled out as soon as outside investment had come; they could donate some of their widespread land holdings as construction sites or sell them at below market-level costs; they could even construct non-university housing themselves and donate it or sell it cheaply to Cambridge afterwards, just as Harvard is doing with the Cambridge St. underpass. Variations on these suggestions for direct action by the schools are limitless, and there are other options. It is up to Harvard and M.I.T. to choose one or more which will accomplish the most as quickly as possible.

It would not be philanthropy pure and simple. Harvard is deeply concerned about losing potential faculty members who cannot find sufficient housing in Cambridge at reasonable prices. The University also suffers when current faculty members find it necessary to live in Winchester and other out-lying Boston suburbs, rather than near the campus.

Beyond this immediate concern is the question of Harvard's responsibility to Cambridge. Cambridge has made many concessions to Harvard and M.I.T. over the years. Just allowing itself to be nibbled away is ample concession in itself. If Harvard and M.I.T. want to repay Cambridge, there could be no better way than this. Housing is what the City needs, and housing is something the two schools can support if they want to.