Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | May 16, 2022 | wbjournal.com Finding workers a home BY KATHERINE HAMILTON WBJ Staff Writer I n his first full season as a minor league baseball player, Worcester Red Sox relief pitcher Geoff Hartlieb found out where he'd be playing for the season 24 hours before he le. He arrived in Charleston, W.Va. with no car and no apartment lease. "We saw a 'For Sale' sign on an apartment, not a very nice place, and they let us live there with four guys in there for like $200 bucks apiece," Hartlieb recalled. "We had cardboard boxes on nightstands from our stuff. Not a house, not a living situation." At the time, Hartlieb was making $11,000 in salary a year. Finding stable housing has always been a challenge for low-income earners, but the problem has ballooned in places like Worcester where the average rent is growing about 10 percentage points faster than the average income, according to 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data. e problem is beginning to touch middle-income workers, too, as the average cost of a single-family home in the city surpassed $350,000 in March, according to Peabody real estate data provider e Warren Group. As an increasing number of workers are unable to afford housing, a few employers are taking the extra step to establish housing assistance programs. In November, Major League Baseball announced a new policy providing free, furnished housing to 90% of its minor league players. With Worcester's tight rental market, it was no easy feat to secure housing for the more than 30 players on the WooSox, but it has made a significant difference in many of the players' lives, said WooSox infielder Ryan Fitzgerald. "I made the mistake of signing the seven-year deal at 23. I'm locked in making $2,400 bucks a month until I'm 30," said Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's $2,400 monthly salary is actually twice what it was during the last four seasons he's played, as the MLB's new policy increased salaries between 38% and 72%, along with providing housing. Without the housing assistance, all but $300 of Fitzgerald's monthly paycheck would go toward rent at Chatham Los, where the infielder was placed by the team. e newly built apartment units rent for an average of $2,147, according to the complex's developer, the Menkiti Group of Washington, D.C. "Covering the housing, I mean, the money is one thing, but the stress of having to find a place and then furnish it … I would have just lived in a hotel again," he said, adding he spent up to $100 a night to live out of a hotel in Worcester before the MLB policy was established. Housing & labor While professional baseball has some instability and burdens most other jobs don't, housing that's affordable to local workers touches nearly every industry. Yet, in Worcester, it's becoming an increasingly out-of-reach commodity, said Lindsay Richmond, deputy director of housing counseling at RCAP Solutions, a housing nonprofit based in Worcester. "Now, landlords are putting forth additional requirements to accept new tenants: things like, you need to make three times the rent in income," Richmond said. "Middle-income people are being pushed out of the homeownership market by people who could come in with $500,000, all cash." For both low- and middle-income In a tight rental market, the WooSox found the required free housing for their players, which is an option most employers lack to attempting to tackle the growing crisis Geoff Hartlieb, relief pitcher for the Worcester Red Sox, received free housing this season for the first time in his professional baseball career. PHOTO | MATT WRIGHT

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