Imagine waking up to learn your rent is jumping 16% — not in a year, not over several years, but all at once. For me and my neighbors, this isn’t a thought experiment. It’s reality, it’s been ongoing for years and it happened in my building this week.
A sudden rent hike of this magnitude destabilizes families, workers, and seniors on fixed incomes. Even if a landlord can justify the increase, the ripple effects are profound. But what some people get wrong is not doing anything about it such as supporting the campaign to get rent stabilization on the ballot or supporting the immediate fix — more housing.
Greenfield is already facing a housing crisis: vacancy rates are low, waiting lists for affordable housing stretch on for years, and too many of our neighbors are spending way more than half their income on rent, myself included. When rents rise sharply overnight, we make impossible choices, paying rent or buying groceries, keeping a kid in the same school or move away altogether. We are immediately spun into the reality that we need to uproot and leave the community we love. Our home.
Housing experts have long warned that communities with volatile rent spikes see higher rates of displacement, homelessness, and economic inequality. Greenfield is not immune, renters are severely cost burdened. In fact, sudden rent increases like what we are experiencing only make these pressures worse, eroding the very fabric of a small city that prides itself on community. Stable housing is how we build economic stability, it’s how we start and run businesses and build families. It’s how the city raises revenue!
At the same time, Greenfield faces a critical decision about how to use its limited land. The Hope Street lot, currently city owned and has been declared “surplus land,” meaning the city has the opportunity to decide what gets built there. This is a chance to address our housing shortage head-on, yet many of my neighbors who bought homes generations ago at affordable prices and with low interest rates are screaming “No more housing!”
Do we really want to prioritize parking over people? Cars don’t build community, change policy, clean up our neighborhoods or start businesses. A parking lot provides no permanent jobs, and sits empty much of the time, especially on cold nights. Housing, by contrast, strengthens our tax base, supports local businesses, and brings vibrancy and PEOPLE to downtown. Every new household means more people eating in restaurants, shopping at stores, (shout out to Apt. One, Adam & Eve) and participate in making our community more vibrant. This is not only a moral imperative to build homes for your neighbors who are begging for affordable places to live so we can go to work — it’s an economic development strategy.
Cities across the country are rethinking how land is used, turning underutilized parking lots and buildings into affordable housing, mixed-use, and community spaces. Studies show that every dollar invested in affordable housing generates two to three dollars in local economy. Meanwhile, sprawling parking lots drain resources and depress property values around them.
We can’t control every landlord’s decision to raise rent. But we can set policy and priorities that put residents first by voting “No” on the ballot question to repeal the surplus land decision and supporting a statewide ballot question for rent stabilization. That means protecting tenants from destabilizing rent spikes, expanding affordable housing options, and ensuring that city-owned land is used for the greatest community benefit.
Greenfield’s future depends on the choices we make today. We can’t keep saying NO or Not in my neighborhood. Let’s choose stability over displacement. Let’s choose people over parking.
Emma Sadowski lives in Greenfield.