Carl Hedman – Rappaport

Organization

Rappaport Institute at Greater Boston

Program

Rappaport Public Policy Fellow

Year

2019

Rappaport Public Policy Fellows spend 10 weeks each summer serving within the highest levels of state and municipal governments in the Greater Boston Area. The program includes students from graduate and professional programs at local universities.

Graduate School
MIT

Undergraduate School
Reed College

Mentor
Tim Warren, The Warren Group and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member

Agency
City of Boston, Department of Neighborhood Development

Supervisor
Jessica Boatright, Deputy Director for Neighborhood Housing Development

Description of Fellowship
Carl Hedman worked for the Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development in the Neighborhood Housing Division, the team that oversees the City’s investment in affordable housing development and preservation. Rising costs to build affordable housing are making it increasingly challenging to meet the needs of a City in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. With this in mind, Carl’s first task was to research cost containment guidelines for affordable housing development in Boston. Drawing on this work, he developed a series of recommendations for the City’s fiscal year 2020 funding awards aimed at maximizing the number of affordable units funded and incentivizing deeper affordability. Carl also supported work to revise and expand the Acquisition Opportunity Program, the City’s primary tool for meeting it’s 2030 goal of preserving 1,000 naturally affordable units from private market speculation and deed restricting them. In that work, He developed a set of recommendations with the goal of making the program more responsive to market conditions and encouraging greater program participation.