How a tweak to a popular rental voucher program is reshaping where people live in Boston - The Boston Globe

Three years ago, Boston asked the feds to make rental vouchers worth more in pricier neighborhoods, and the results have been striking.

T he Brookline apartment is white and well lit. Jayzena Hernandez positioned a plush sectional in the living room, below a framed certificate from her parenting classes. Translucent curtains hang in both bedrooms: purple for Hernandez, pink for her 4-year-old daughter, Kassandra. Atop the fridge, trash bags and Oreos. This place is smaller — “cozier,” Hernandez says — than her old home in Mattapan. But the nine-story building near Boston University is unlike anywhere she has lived, with yellow chrysanthemums by the door and a security guard in the lobby. Here, Hernandez doesn’t have to worry a

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