To qualify as needy, one's annual income must be no more than $32,150 per year, a figure calculated using guidelines established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Some 1500 families living in Cambridge's 14,415 rent-controlled units in Cambridge qualified for protected status. They will pay only 30 percent of their monthly income as rent.

Holding the Line

Kathy A. Speigelman, president of Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE), sets rents for the 700 units owned by Harvard University.

"Last year, rent increased by 10 percent for regular tenants and 5 percent for those with protected status," Speigelman says.

She says that Harvard will continue to make "only moderate increases."

Cambridge City Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 has criticized recent rent hikes by HPRE. But Turk says, "So far, [HPRE is doing] all right by me."

SPOA President Lenore M. Schloming '59, who is also a landlord, says she does not "have the heart to raise rents" on existing tenants.

Schloming adds, however, that she upgrades her apartment units and raises rents when older tenants move out.

But by comparison, a CTU study of 600 tenants throughout Cambridge, Boston and Brookline shows an average rent increase of 75.6 percent between Jan. 1 and Sept. 1, 1995.

Linda P. Cohen, office manager of Cambridge's Century 21-Avon says that the abolition of rent control has resulted in "a class of first-time buyers."

"Former tenants who do have the ability to purchase are realizing that it's cheaper to buy [in the long run]," she says.

Tenants Nervous

Tenants' associations overwhelmingly believe that the abolition of rent control will burden the poor and the elderly.

Property owners, however, claim that Cambridge will finally be following the free-market system used in virtually every other city in America.