Lauren Sutter/Spare Change News
Boston has over 26,000 units of public and subsidized housing. Almost 60,000 residents call those units home. It's a huge challenge for the city to keep up the aging buildings and maintain a safe living environment, especially in the face of looming budget cuts.
Spare Change News requested data into resident complaints, hoping to get a sense for what living conditions were like. But getting the information became an ordeal in and of itself.
From the story:
"HUD included no hints as to why its staff had released such a narrow and outdated selection of its complaint database. The packet’s cover letter itself referred to complaints “for the past 10 years.” My saga to liberate basic documentation on affordable housing oversight continued.
Several calls, emails, litigation threats and stern letters later, HUD finally agreed in August to release 3,967 pages of hotline complaint logs in batches over the coming months. It has not provided any timeline for completing this task."