The end of rent control three decades ago helped push many working people out of a Fenway apartment building and out of Boston. Their stories speak to one of the causes of the current housing crisis, and to the increasing demands that rent caps return.
For a time, the case sparked an unusual spate of self-examination in the press. But the questions it raised about how to cover communities of color and about whose stories are valued were never resolved and resonate to this day. So it’s time to reckon with what happened.