1826 & 1840 Massachusetts Avenue

Just A Start is a nonprofit organization with a mission to promote equity by creating access to stable housing and building pathways to economic opportunity. Founded in 1968 as a youth training program, our current programs include affordable housing, education and job training, and comprehensive support services, spanning Cambridge and beyond.

We currently preserve and maintain more than 600 affordable apartments across Cambridge that are home to 1,500 residents, and we are in the process of developing another 450 homes in our current pipeline.

As a community development corporation and nonprofit developer of affordable housing, Just A Start is committed to creating high-quality, appealing, and sustainable properties that benefit our residents and our broader community. We pursue these goals with a variety of public and private partners, including funders, investors, and City and state agencies.

At these sites, we are aiming to provide about 100 affordable rental apartments in Porter Square. The exact number of units and unit mix will depend on a variety of factors that we are considering, including the uses at the ground level, amount of open space, building height, and construction materials.

Please sign up for our email list to receive project updates using this contact form. 

Yes, Just A Start is focused on delivering affordable family housing and we expect any project we pursue on the sites to be made up entirely of affordable units.

We anticipate that many of the units will be restricted to households at or below 60% of Area Median Income as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. To see what this would look like in 2025, please see this table provided by the City of Cambridge’s Housing Department, which shows income limits by household size. For apartments restricted to 60% of Area Median Income, households making the listed total income amount or less would be eligible to rent a unit.

Please see below for examples of what these income requirements look like in practice:

• 30% AMI:  A single person with a full-time job at minimum wage.
• 30% AMI:  A retiree relying on Social Security as their primary source of income.
• 60% AMI:  A 3-person household with a single parent working as a teacher or nurse with two kids.
• 60% AMI:  A 4-person household with two adults working as a preschool teacher and a lab tech and two kids.
• 60% AMI:  A 4-person household with a firefighter, stay at home spouse and two kids.
• 80% AMI:  A 4-person household with two adults working as teachers and two kids.

As we are still in the early phases of the design process, the exact unit mix and income limits for any future development have not yet been determined.

Cambridge’s Affordable Housing Overlay does not require parking at either 1826 or 1840 Mass Ave for affordable housing development. We have not yet determined the building designs, which will affect how much parking can be provided.

We are still in the very early stages of the design process and we have not yet determined building designs for the project.

Near the end of construction, Just A Start will publish an application for a housing lottery which will be used to select eligible residents for the building. The lottery application will include income verification info which will be used to determine that applicants are eligible for the income-restricted affordable units.

We hosted our first community meet-and-greet on October 14 and are in the process of scheduling more community events throughout winter 2025 and spring 2026. Upcoming events will be announced once their dates and times are finalized. Community members are also welcome to provide comments or ask questions through this online form.