Housing Headlines

WORCESTER --- "Phenomenal" is a word being used to describe the turnaround at the Albion, Worcester's most notorious boarding house. Since landlord Michael O'Rourke acquired the rooming house in 2016, city code violations have dropped from 84 to zero and the number of opioid overdoses dropped from 11 in 2017 to one last year.

PEABODY --- Owners who want to turn their chemical factory into 48 downtown apartments or condominiums may face stiff headwinds as the city councilor for the district seems lukewarm at best while the area has a history of not wanting to change the zoning to allow housing. The proposal has received an OK from the planning board but still needs approval by the city council.

As National Grid reaches tentative deal with gas workers who have been locked out since June, a real estate group says the backlog of projects waiting for gas hookups is "a crisis" that could take two years to address unless measures are put into place to speed up the work.

FALMOUTH --- A coalition of nine Falmouth congregations is now in its fourth year of providing shelter for the homeless, renting out two homes from owners who are away for the winter and providing shelter for up to 12 individuals. The goal of the effort - called Belonging to Each Other - is to provide temporary housing so the homeless don't freeze to death and work with them toward finding permanent housing.

HAVERHILL --- At least three city councilors who voted against a non-profit's bid to develop 80 to 113 units of city-owned land along the Merrimack River say their decision was based in part on knowledge that the for-profit Princeton Properties was also interested, even though it did not respond to the city's Request for Proposals.

WORCESTER --- In the last of its comprehensive eight-part series on Worcester's neighborhoods, reporter Brad Petrishen takes an in-depth, quote-filled look at the challenges and progress in Main South, and how nonprofits like Main South and Worcester Common Ground have worked with entities like Clark University to make the neighborhood a better place than it was in the 1980s.