We Did ‘Everything Right’ and Still Can’t Afford Newburyport

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My fiancé and I bought our very first home in Newburyport in December 2023, 26 at the time. Only 3% of US homeowners are under the age of 30.

We did everything right.

We didn’t buy coffee, avocados or go out to eat. We worked our asses off through a postgrad world dominated by a pandemic. We are lucky enough to have decent jobs that we can live and save off, but we certainly didn’t have the common experience our peers have had, listlessly looking for work in a world where entry-level requires 2 to 3 years of experience. We got lucky and it got us here. We drive shitbox cars, keep the house at 62, and meal plan around the US poverty budget for groceries ($55 for a woman and $75 for a man a week, if you were wondering) so we can put money away.

We did everything right.

Our costs have increased dramatically every year we’ve been on our own, while our jobs certainly don’t match it. We have a 6.99% rate on a half a million dollar mortgage, which is not only technically an improvement over our $3300 rented 800 sq. ft. in Malden, so close to the train tracks our windows rattled, but low, and rare in this MA housing market. Thrice now, we’ve swallowed our reservations and voted for “the lesser of two evils,” but is there really one when police budgets are increasing, and teacher salaries are decreasing, and 18,000 children under the age of 1 have been killed in Gaza? We were promised cheaper eggs, but instead we got neighbors disappeared by the secret police.

We did everything right.

We’re kids from the North Shore. We grew up here. This is our home, and we fought tooth and nail to stay. We talked about leaving, moving overseas, running away from neighbors who can’t seem to see that their whiteness won’t protect them forever. We stayed because we will fight for our community, for our roles in it, because Newburyport needs some young blood to keep it alive.

We did everything right.

We participated in the local election, listening to debates and keeping up with candidates. We heard what was whispered about Jim in back rooms, opinions he kept just out of sight. Watched our neighbors peddle in human lives, trading one definition of humanity for another that elevates their wants, their causes, their blame. We heard about the issues at city hall with Reardon’s first term, but hey, at least Sean won’t welcome the secret police, right? Right?

We did everything right.

We’ve given up on hope. Hope isn’t a strategy. Every Newburyport community page has people laughing at death vigils and anti-tyranny protests, calling for the kidnapping and prosecution without due process of anyone who doesn’t look like them. You sold our future to the billionaires who really have you so duped that you think the brown lady who cleans the restaurant kitchen downtown is the problem. We’ve begged the people around us to have empathy, protested, fought in family rooms and comment sections, donated money, and refused to look away.

We did everything right.

Every day, we face a world where somebody getting shot for yelling at an ‘officer’ is acceptable. Who gives a shit about a retirement fund when you know you or the baby next door might be next? Who gives a shit about student loans, a mortgage, medical debt, when your future’s been stolen by the very people who promised if you did it right, it’ll be okay. Whether it’s climate change, cancer, ICE, our own government, we did everything right, and it still won’t be enough.

We’ll make the most of it. We’ll share sugar and salt with our neighbors, practice first aid, and grow food. We’ll get married and hold funerals and celebrate while fighting fascism. We’ll keep an emergency bail fund, and teach the kids coming up how to avoid surveillance, recognise AI and what to say if you’re arrested. How to tourniquet a limb wound, and compress a trunk one and what song is the best to keep the right rhythm for CPR.

We’ll go down with this ship, but we’ll go down swinging.

Grace Kelly
Newburyport resident

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