Protecting the rights of property owners and advocating for sensible housing policy since 1987
SPOA represents small landlords and their rights in Massachusetts
We are a diverse group of small landlords that came together in 1987 after struggling under a stringent rent control system first put in place in Cambridge MA in 1969. We asked for reforms and got none. As a result, we sponsored a statewide referendum -- and won! This ended 25 years of rent control in Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge. The referendum also prohibited any other community from implementing rent control in Massachusetts.
Since then, we have continued to advocate for small property owners to ensure that Massachusetts residents have an affordable and ample supply of rental housing.
Who are small property owners? We are small business owners who provide over 60 percent of the rental housing in Boston and Massachusetts. We manage our properties in a more hands-on way, making us directly available to our tenants in the process of making them feel at home.
We often refer to ourselves as ‘SPOA,’ pronounced ‘SPO-uh.’ We do not spell out our initials. Almost everybody knows us by this one-word name.
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History of SPOA
SPOA began as the well-known group of small landlords in Cambridge, Massachusetts who fought to outlaw rent control in Massachusetts.
Starting with a dozen members in 1987, we grew fast under an extremely oppressive rent control system. In 1994, SPOA launched a statewide ballot referendum known as “Question 9.” The entire state had heard horror stories of grave harm to small landlords and of all the well-off tenants living in rent-controlled units. The vote was close, but the entire state voted to end rent control.
That huge victory, the first time in the nation that rent control was ever voted out, made us a major statewide organization, and we have grown ever since.
SPOA has successfully stopped all subsequent efforts to bring rent control back, primarily in Boston and Cambridge.
In 2003, Cambridge voters defeated a rent control proposal in a citywide referendum. SPOA’s vigorous campaign convinced a landslide 61% of Cambridge residents to vote NO. The very city that once believed fervently in rent control, was convinced by SPOA that rent control would harm the city and all its residential owners in one way or another. Rent control also did not help tenants, as the neediest were steadily pushed out when well-off tenants monopolized their cheap digs. Meanwhile, the rent-controlled stock was steadily deteriorating under very low rents.
