Moving to Boston

My first thought after learning I had been accepted into City Year, once my joyous, incoherent shouts had died down, was how am I going to move to, much less live in, this city? After all, living in Boston ain't cheap, and I had never had to rent an apartment before.

I knew I was going to get an apartment and share it with a number of roommates, probably 2-5 other people who were all City Year Corps Members. While City Year does not help you with rent or housing directly, they will get you in touch with other incoming corps members through their Beloved Online Community website. I found the BOC was a good starting point for contacting potential roommates.

Unfortunately, I quickly ran into what I have deemed the roommate/apartment paradox. My plan was to get three other roommates to agree to live with me, and then we would lease an apartment together. However, whenever I got two or three roommates together, one of them would bail when another corps member offered them a room in his or her apartment. I felt like I needed an apartment to secure roommates, but I was not comfortable signing the lease on an apartment before I had enough roommates to make the rent. It was a catch-22!

The conflict resolved when I contacted my City Year Buddy. A Buddy is a current, outgoing corps member assigned to you to answer questions about your year of service. I asked her for apartment advice, and she informed me that some current corps members had a place they needed to get rid of when their lease expired. My remaining roommate and I called them up and secured the four bedroom apartment through their realtor. We has little trouble finding two more roommates through the BOC.

Our third-story apartment is within walking distance of the Orange Line and is priced at a reasonable, by Boston standards, $1650 per month. That's $412.5 per person, a bit under the $450 maximum my buddy recommended individual corps members should pay, excluding utilities.

If you are new to living on your own or leasing an apartment, the easiest thing to do is to secure roommates through the BOC website and get an apartment by contacting current corps members. You are more likely to pay realtor's fees (typically 1/2 the first month's rent) and may be forced to lease a month before you would like to move in, but you get convenience and peace of mind. Of course, you can try finding an apartment on your own, using a broker or through Boston Criagslist.


No matter what you do, it helps to have a friend or relative who can scope out places for you, especially if you are moving from out of state or otherwise cannot visit the apartment before you lease it. Do not even bother with Craigslist unless you or someone you know can visit the apartment beforehand. My roommate and I encountered at least one scam on Craigslist, but other corps members were able to find decent places using the website with no problems. Caveat emptor, I guess.


In addition to the BOC and your City Year Buddy, at some point CYB should email you an invite to join their Google Group. Do it. The Google Group is a great forum to communicate with your fellow corps members and CY staff, and you can find useful information ranging from health care forms to fun Boston activities. As of this writing, people are still posting last-minute housing and roommate offers, which help if you are accepted to the program late in the year.

Your living arrangement securing experience may differ from mine, but hope this post has at least helped you on your journey.