Auchincloss Endorses ‘Legalize Starter Homes’ Question on State Ballot

August 7, 2026
• The Congressional Democrat, who represents Needham, backed the measure during a local event. Needham’s state senator and state representative have not taken a stance.

In advance of November’s election, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss is supporting a ballot initiative to legalize single-family homes on specific lots to enable more housing and homeownership.

During a talk on Wednesday aimed at young professionals, hosted by the Charles River Regional Chamber at Tripadvisor in Needham, the three-term Democrat spoke alongside Andrew Mikula, a proponent of the ballot question.

“If you’re obeying the law, you should be able to buy your own home by the time you’re 30 years old,” Auchincloss said. “Be home by 30.”

Nine ballot questions will appear on Massachusetts voters’ ballots this fall, including Question 7, pertaining to starter homes. It will ask whether residents support allowing single-family homes, in residential zones, on lots of at least 5,000 square feet, with access to public sewer and water and at least 50 feet of frontage.

The initiative, Auchincloss said, would be “a critical part of the housing diversity that we need to make homeownership possible for young Americans.”

The CRRC is endorsing the question, with Founder and CEO Greg Reibman calling it “another option in terms of how we solve the housing crisis.”

“Our employers all consistently tell us that housing is their biggest impediment to their success,” Reibman said in an interview after the talk. “Bringing people into our communities, including into Needham, to shop and support businesses, and to work in the companies and the office parks and everywhere else, really depends on us addressing the housing needs.”

Reibman called on Needham’s state legislators — Sen. Becca Rausch and Rep. Josh Tarsky — to support Question 7. Rausch has publicly shared her vote on four of the ballot questions, but not on Question 7. Tarsky has not released any material on the ballot questions.

The 2025 Boston Indicators housing report found that the required income to buy an entry-level home, considered on the low end of the market, is $162,000. Mikula shared the statistic, adding that it’s difficult to save for a down payment given the steep rent prices most pay in the Boston region.

Mikula said “it’s not just affordability, it’s related to the availability problem.”

“We just don’t have the turnover in the market or the new supply coming online that you would expect in a dynamic economy,” Mikula said, adding that young people are leaving the state.

In a number of recent polls, including one by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce published in April, an increasing number of young Massachusetts residents indicate they plan to move out of the state in the next five years.

The underproduction of housing in the last three decades hurts local businesses and drives employees further away, the CRRC’s Public Policy & Government Affairs Manager Max Woolf said.

At the federal level, Auchincloss said he’s proposed creating a funding stream that would eliminate the mortgage interest tax deduction for second homes, adding that “it’s unfair that we are subsidizing someone’s ability to buy a second home through a tax deduction before we help people buy their first home.”

“That is not in keeping with the American creed,” he said, “which says that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to have the good life and have some upward mobility.”

Auchincloss also spoke about the Affordable Homes Act, a piece of legislation passed in the House of Representatives, and the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which is a comprehensive bill that, in part, calculates grant funding based on how states zone for housing, he said. The MBTA Communities Act contributes to the latter, Auchincloss added.

Needham is in the process of adding nearly 200 new units of housing, enabled by the MBTA Communities Act, at the site of the old Carter building in the Heights. But those units will be rentals, not starter homes.

On Sept. 1, Auchincloss faces his first primary challenge since he was first elected in 2020. Jason Poulos, a progressive Democrat in Sherborn, is running against the incumbent in the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District. Affordable housing reform is one of several issues outlined on Poulos’s campaign website.