Valley Community Development Corporation

Last winter, Terry “Tree” North was able to leave his tent at an encampment near Texas Road and stay at a Northampton shelter. This year, as the temperature continues to drop, North said he doesn’t know where he will go as shelters are at or are near capacity in Northampton and across the state.

At the same time, as the blanket of falling foliage has revealed the previously unseen tents near some residents’ backyards, a new set of neighbors across the Mill River have added their voices to complain about the encampments on the dead-end street.

Given the complaints, North said he isn’t sure whether he will be forced to leave the encampment, which has been his home-base for around two years.

“I haven’t heard anything from a direct worker and I don’t see any signs up so I’m not sure what’s really going on,” North said. “If they don’t want us staying here, maybe they should give us a place to stay.”

Exclusionary zoning throughout the last century across Massachusetts has led to the modern housing shortage and racial segregation throughout the state, according to a new report out Wednesday from Boston Indicators.

The report, which studied zoning codes from many of the state’s 351 cities and towns and the history of their creation, reveals that many zoning regulations were intended, explicitly or implicitly, to hinder housing growth and prevent lower-class residents and people of color from moving into town.

“In the mid-century, many municipalities were explicit about their use of zoning for social class positioning,” said Amy Dain, the researcher who wrote the report, during a Zoom presentation of the findings Wednesday morning. “Exclusion was not a side effect … it was a purpose.”

The report classifies exclusionary zoning into three categories: fiscal zoning, class zoning and racial zoning.