After almost four years of organizing and court action, residents of 6 Humphreys Place and their allies have transformed a threat of displacement into a victory for affordable housing.

Instead of being faced with steep rent increases or even redevelopment, residents of the six-unit building near Uphams Corner will live under a form of ownership with community control, in cooperation with the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust.

The turn of events started almost four years ago, when a previous owner tried to clear the building before its sale in March of 2018 for $850,000. The new owner was a limited liability corporation sharing the same address as Riverfront Realtors, a firm described by its Instagram account as “Specializing in luxury apartment rentals and condo sales.” The LLC’s resident manager was Gregory McCarthy, who declined comment on the status of the property.

One of the building’s residents, 56-year-old Eric Boyd, said he learned about the 2018 transaction when he got an eviction letter. This was his second time being faced with displacement, after a rent increase that made him leave his apartment in the South End thirty years ago.

Located just a short walk from a commuter rail stop, the building on Humphreys Place is surrounded by a neighborhood that has been gradually recovering from disinvestment since the 1980s. The location also lies along the Fairmount rail corridor, where developers have recently been adding transit-oriented housing all the way from South Bay to Readville. The projects include new housing a few blocks from Humphreys Place, on the site of a former box factory, with three-bedroom units being marketed for as much as $2,300 a month.

A Humphreys Place resident for 14 years, Boyd was paying $1,250 a month for a three-bedroom unit he currently shares with his teenage daughter. Even before the sale, Boyd said, some units in the building were being subdivided, with additional rooms to increase rents.

A real estate posting after McCarthy bought the property touted a potential for rents at $2,500 month, or sales from condo conversion fetching as much as $3 million. The posting called the property an “Investors and Developers Dream” [sic], with a promise in capital letters to deliver vacant. Another potential scenario was redevelopment of the parcel with as many as 20 units, which the posting described as an “Amazing opportunity for Cash Cow or huge returns on Condo Conversion.”

When another resident of the building, Jean Paul Doh, got his eviction letter, he pursued legal action. Explained Doh, a 65-year-old licensed real estate agent originally from the Ivory Coast: “I cannot get out like a zombie. Give me a letter so I can go to court.”

On his first visit to Boston Housing Court, Doh learned about the organizers at City Life/Vida Urbana, which led to additional help from the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. In November 2019, after multiple court appearances—and what Boyd called “a lot of long nights and days” – residents won a jury decision that awarded damages. They parlayed the award into a contract that would keep rents affordable for five years, with payments due once problems identified in the building were corrected.

The deputy faculty director for the Legal Aid Bureau, Eloise Lawrence, said owners would have had the right to evict, except for the property’s “terrible conditions. They bought a distressed property on purpose, so they can buy low and sell high. But what they don’t realize is they need to have it in good condition before they can do the evictions. And that’s often misunderstood by the ‘flippers.’”

Two months before the court decision, McCarthy also faced resistance to his attempt to redevelop a vacant lot nearby, at the corner of Humphreys and Dudley streets. He was trying to get city approval for 26 condos, with market units selling in the “high $400,000” range, but there was pushback from renters at Humphreys Place and other neighborhood residents. According to the Boston Planning & Development Agency, the project remains under review.

During the legal action, Boyd and Doh also tried to persuade some of their fellow renters to hang in, instead of taking offers of money to clear out.

“It takes a lot to get people to turn to the other side, you know, unless there’s progress,” said Boyd. “That’s when people started to say, ‘Hey, this is working.’”

Lawrence said the legal action was “only a small part” of the resulting victory. “But for City Life organizing, the land trust, all these things,” she said, “the tenants might never achieve true victory and achieve real benefit in the real world.”

Along with his work in the food sector and showing up for his daughter’s participation in school sports, Boyd also helped City Life/Vida Urbana with organizing at other properties. Asked why he continues to work as part of the group’s Dorchester organizing committee, Boyd said, “It’s complete strangers that came to my aid to help me.”

The Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust (BNCLT) was formed as the successor to a coalition of grassroots organizations and public agencies that tried to help renters and homeowners affected by the surge in foreclosures during the real estate crash of 2008. By 2014, efforts included a pilot program to prevent displacement and repair properties in Dorchester’s Four Corners neighborhood. Unlike many other housing nonprofits, the BNCLT and other community trusts in Greater Boston concentrate on occupied properties.

The BNCLT’s executive director, Meridith Levy, characterized its acquisition of 6 Humphreys Place as a way to break the speculative cycle driving up the cost of housing. “It’s about community benefit,” she said. “We want to make sure that we are creating a new haven for people to be able to live in forever if they want.” And, because residents had already been asked to leave, she described 6 Humphreys Place as a “perfect alignment” for an effort to avoid displacement.

The trust acquired the property on Dec. 23 for $1,825,000, a figure that, according to Levy, also reflected improvements already begun by the previous owner. The transfer includes an agreement for six income-restricted units—2 for moderate income and 4 for low income.

Unlike many other properties targeted for intervention, 6 Humphreys Place has been used, at least in part, as a rooming house. Lawrence says that means including renters with fewer options.

“There are lots of people who are effectively locked out of our traditional housing market, and these buildings definitely provide that housing,” she said. “And they’re also a symbol of, basically, how broken our system is.”

Levy said the BNCLT’s acquisition is being supported by funds from the city and other help with the cost of financing. She said there would also be tools to keep rents affordable, such as rental subsidy vouchers.

According to Sheila Dillon, Boston’s chief of Housing and director of the Department of Neighborhood Development, the city is contributing “just shy of a million dollars” from the Neighborhood Housing Trust Fund.

“It might sound like a lot for six units,” she said, “but then we will have those units. They’ll become part of our affordable housing inventory for decades to come.”

Dillon said support for occupied units was also “a reasonable, very efficient” approach, and quicker than developing new units over the course of three or four years. “It’s very important that we supported the tenants,” she said, along with “creating more affordable housing in an area that’s becoming increasingly expensive.”

The acquisition changes the form of ownership, with the BNCLT controlled by a board with seats for residents of its properties and surrounding neighborhoods and “resource” members. Levy says the structure allows for a strong community voice in decisions such as choosing property managers.

Despite changes in the housing market, 6 Humphreys Street continues to be overshadowed by an adjacent boarded-up, seven-story warehouse property known as the Leon Electric Building. Located next to the Uphams Corner rail station, the property has long been viewed as an eyesore, but also as a potential site for redevelopment. Levy says the acquisition of Humphreys Place could increase community influence over future development, with “moral site control” exerted by the BNCLT and other community organizations.

“It opens the gate for us to think more creatively,” she added.

And Boyd says the new model would be a change from the earlier progression toward a rooming house, which he described as getting “a little crazy. I think with the land trust, it’ll be more of a community-based thing,” he said. “We will be somewhat closer than before, and I don’t think the turnover rate would be like that anymore.”

“It’s not just about long-term affordability,” Levy noted. “It’s a whole model of community governance, where they are the stewards of our whole organization.”

Doh says the trust will make more progress on repairs and affect how residents feel about each other. “Now, when you start that program, we are working together,” he said. “We are friends.”

Boyd still fondly recalls his years in the South End: Three generations of family weddings at Holy Cross Cathedral, relatives who knew Mel King even before his campaign for mayor of Boston, the stores and businesses that gave way to redevelopment or gentrification.

“We lived like that,” he said. “We were a community, we knew each other.”

After having been “disrespected” by an eviction letter addressed to “John Doe” at 6 Humphreys Place, Boyd sees himself as a kind of leader for residents who “feel more at home. “When we fight, we win,” he said. “Don’t give up your neighborhood. This is coming from a guy who grew up in Boston’s South End.”