While the largest funding increase went to public schools and some funding went to neighborhood initiatives, no new strategies were proposed to develop affordable housing. In fact, there is currently no line item in the budget for affordable housing. The city instead depends upon linkage fees that developers give when they are building a new project here. The city is also funding affordable housing by using some of the proceeds from its sale of city-owned property.

City Councilor-at-Large Peggy Davis Mullen would like to see this policy change. "She would like to see a specific line item devoted to affordable housing needs," Karen Sharma, spokeswoman for Davis-Mullen tells GlobeSt.com. "It's becoming more and more of a dire situation."

Sharma says Davis-Mullen was "shocked" at the lack of funding in the budget for affordable housing. "It's such a critical issue in the lives of working men and women in the city," she notes. "She can't believe the lack of funding that it's given."

A spokesperson for the mayor's office insists the mayor has made a commitment to devote $30 million over the next three years to develop affordable housing. This money, De Wayne Lehman, spokesperson for Menino, tells GlobeSt.com comes from the sale of surplus properties in the city.

"The first $13 million was requested by the mayor last fall," says Lehman, "and it was approved this past December. The city also fully expects the purchase and sale of the former police headquarters to be completed in August and that would give an additional $13 million in appropriations for affordable housing in the city in fiscal year 2002."

According to Lehman, the mayor doesn't have a line item in his budget for affordable housing because these funds don't come from the operational budget, but rather from a reserve account. "The commitment the mayor has made to affordable housing supersedes any commitment made by any large city or even by the state," note Lehman.

According to Sharma, Davis-Mullen, who is considering a run for the mayor in the next election, would like to explore using the city property as housing, rather than selling it. "Let's keep that property and develop it as affordable housing," says Sharma. "We need to say this is a priority and there is a problem in relying on the sale of city property to fund affordable housing."

The City Council needs to approve the mayor's budget before the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1. While they are not allowed to add or take away any line items, they can lobby the mayor to make changes.