MassBenchmarks

UMass Donahue Institute Housing Poll Executive Summary

(December, 2004)

The UMass Donahue Institute has released a poll conducted for the Citizen's Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA) on the state of affordable housing in Massachusetts. Residents statewide were polled, along with residents of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts. Among the findings for this poll are that nearly half of all respondents reported that they or members of their immediate family are seriously considering leaving Massachusetts because of rising housing costs.

During the last two weeks of December 2004 the Massachusetts residents were asked a series of questions about housing issues in Massachusetts. Statewide, 509 residents across the Commonwealth were sampled. Additionally, 460 residents of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts were surveyed. Due to the size of the sample for this poll, the margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percent for the statewide sample and plus or minus 4. 7 percent for the MetroWest sample.

The report found that nearly 46 percent of Massachusetts residents are seriously considering moving out of state. The number of respondents considering moving out of Massachusetts in a December 1999 UMass poll was only 11 percent. Fifty-six percent of Massachusetts residents and 51 percent of MetroWest residents cited themselves as "very concerned" about the cost of housing in their area. Not surprisingly, over 53 percent of statewide and 52 percent of MetroWest respondents report that the amount of their monthly housing payment makes it hard to make ends meet. According to recent census population data, Massachusetts was the only state in the nation to lose residents in the last year. This poll was taken as a part of CHAPA's home@last campaign. For more information about the campaign, please visit http://www.chapa.org/home-at-last/.

The full text of the report and the press release are available at http://www.chapa.org/.