Re: I agree Joyce!! Our children and families are traumatized enough ! Don’t let the do it!
Rodney Singleton
Battenfeld: Michelle Wu caves to Maura Healey’s plan to move migrants to Roxbury
While Wu made clear on Monday that she didn’t really support the decision, she didn’t give any indication that she put up a fight to stop it.
The rec center is the lifeblood of the community, serving seniors as well as children. It has an indoor track, classroom space, a connected outdoor pool, athletic courts, and locker rooms.
But starting on Wednesday, Healey – due to her own failure to address the migrant crisis – will be steering dozens of families who were sleeping on concrete floors at the airport to the center on the corner of MLK Jr Boulevard as an “overflow” site for migrants.
For Wu it’s a minor inconvenience to have a few hundred parents lose a place to get their kids exercise. She probably won’t take much flak because her enabling support network is afraid to do it.
“There are no good options,” Wu said when asked about the migrants’ move to Roxbury in her regular appearance on WBUR Radio Boston. “The governor has been doing her very best to manage this. This is a state run building, it is under the jurisdiction of the administration.”
Wu said because the state has control of the rec center there was little she could do.
And she again blamed the federal government for inaction on immigration, at one point throwing Donald Trump in for good measure.
That’s a cop-out. Wu wants to have it both ways. She wants to please the progressives who want to house the migrants, and she wants to be seen as defending her city.
This raises the question, is Wu doing everything she can to stand up and fight for the city? And posing the question of why it’s not in Wellesley or Weston?
No, because Wu is towing the progressive line, even if it means putting them in a community unfortunately that has borne its share of burdens.
Wu could have used her considerable power to argue against the move, and vow to protest it. That likely would have been enough for Healey to back off.
But Wu would rather talk about how the giant clown heads are revitalizing downtown, or her feel-good measures to give Boston school families free passes to the museums, or give allegedly “free” MBTA fares for low-income residents.
She doesn’t appear to want to start a confrontation with her texting buddy the governor over migrants.
So she smiles and does nothing while an already struggling neighborhood is suddenly forced to confront the reality of taking care of dozens of migrant families.
Exterior view of the Melnea Cass Recreation Center which will house migrants this week. (Paul Connors/Boston Herald)‘The outrage you’re seeing is valid’: Shelter for migrant families in Roxbury sparks mixed reactions
The Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex will soon be housing migrant families inside the large building that hosts youth and adult recreational sports for the community.JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFFHealey administration officials said late Monday that the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex will begin serving as a temporary overflow shelter for families starting on Wednesday, with space to hold up to 400 people.
The decision, foreshadowed last week in a community meeting, marks the state’s latest attempt to accommodate the thousands of migrant families that have been arriving in Massachusetts — including scores who have been sleeping at Logan Airport — and have strained the state’s overwhelmed emergency shelter program.
But the decision to convert the Cass Complex marked an inflection point in the growing crisis, which has crowded local hotels, a former courthouse, and other facilities with families but until now, not a busy community center in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Said Hassan Ahmed, a cofounder of Boston United Track and Cross Country, a nonprofit that provides a free track-and-field program to Boston youth, said the move left his program “homeless.”
“We come in [for practice Saturday], and folks at the front desk were like, ‘Just to let you know, today’s your last day.’ . . . We were told that our permit was revoked and we were out,” Ahmed said. The nearby Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center, which the group fought to access last year, is all booked up, he said.
“Reggie Lewis is overloaded. But this space [the Cass] was a space that was built for the community,” he said.
Sprinkling salt on her wooden steps Tuesday morning, Heather Gordon-Gayle said she was surprised to hear the plan to repurpose the center a few hundred feet from her home. She said she had not heard about it before Tuesday morning.
”Out of respect for us who have lived here, maybe we could get a little heads up,” said Gordon-Gayle, 72, who has lived in her current home for 12 years and has been in Roxbury for decades. “We just take what we get, or what’s thrown at us.”
City officials stressed that, as state-owned property, the Cass Complex falls under the control of the Healey administration, leaving the city with little official recourse to stop the plan if it wanted to.
“I feel the concerns of the neighbors, but also understand we have no legal right to stop [the state],” said Erin Murphy, an at-large city councilor.
Several officials said they also understood the balancing act facing Healey. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, whose staff has had daily calls with officials in Healey’s administration, said the city would be the “very best partner we can be,” including in making sure residents feel as little disruption as possible.
Healey is scheduled to tour the center Wednesday with Wu, state lawmakers, and other elected officials.
“It’s really critical that we are not meeting the needs of these migrants while abandoning the needs of community,” US Representative Ayanna Pressley, whose district includes Roxbury, told the Globe. “It’s not a matter of ‘or’. It is ‘both and.’”
State officials pledged to hire more staff and begin “renovating facilities” at the Cass complex, which includes a 24,000-square-foot indoor field house, the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s only year-round indoor facility.
Healey also pledged to close the shelter in Roxbury by May 31, in time for the state to reopen the complex, and its pool, to the public by late June.
“The issue with the migrants is hard. There aren’t easy solutions,” Healey told the Globe after an unrelated event in Lincoln on Tuesday. “Everyone is trying as best they can in what is a really challenging situation. But my administration’s commitment to Roxbury is real.”
How much the state will ultimately invest in the center is unclear. Healey said she didn’t have an exact figure, and a spokesperson for DCR did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday. State Senator Liz Miranda, a Roxbury Democrat, said repairs and updates she and others have long asked for to the facility’s bathrooms, floors, and security alone could cost $500,000.
“The outrage you’re seeing is valid. Roxbury has never gotten its fair share out of the city and the state,” Miranda said. But, she added, she also can’t watch women and children sleep in an airport and outside, and understands the difficulty Healey faces in navigating a crisis that demands not just more federal help but assistance from other communities.
“I understand my neighbor’s pain. I’m hoping West Roxbury steps up, I’m hoping Wellesley steps up, other communities that have rich resources,” Miranda said. “Roxbury and communities like Roxbury cannot do this alone.”
The Roxbury site is at least the fourth so-called safety-net site the state has directly created to house those waiting for a spot in the state’s emergency shelter system. The Healey administration in the fall capped the program at 7,500 families, roughly half of whom are migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers.
The crisis has shown few signs of abating since. The system is still at capacity, according to state data, and the demand far outpaces the number of families the state can accommodate at overflow shelters in Quincy, a former courthouse in Cambridge, and elsewhere. The governor’s office said Monday that the state also has opened a safety-net site in Revere.
Even with the Roxbury shelter online, the capacity between the state’s four overflow shelters is roughly 390 families, well below the more than 650 families currently on the state’s waitlist for shelter.
The plan for the state-owned Roxbury center stands out, both for its size — it can hold up to 400 people — and the disruption it will bring to a center the city and neighborhood relies on for a dozen programs, sundry community events, and more. Healey said in a letter to lawmakers that she is “committed to working” with the city and lawmakers to move programs to other sites, though where wasn’t immediately clear.
Domingos DaRosa, president of the Boston Bengals youth athletic organization, which uses the Cass Complex’s pool in the summer, said that while the loss of space is temporary, it may have lasting issues on groups that rely on the center to practice.
“It’s a long-term effect that we’re concerned about. Reengaging these kids might not be as easy as 1-2-3,” DaRosa said Tuesday. Healey’s decision, he said, seemed to be “displacing one community to place another.”
By Tuesday morning, workers could be seen unloading crates of supplies from box trucks, and wheeling them into the main arena entrance off M.L.K. Jr. Boulevard. Sport-utility vehicles from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency sat parked out front.
Others expressed faith in Healey and the state. Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who represents Roxbury, praised the governor in a post on X for her “compassion & leadership” amid the crisis.
“I believe your intentions are sincere,” Anderson wrote. “Looking forward to doing my part for Roxbury.”
The Rev. Miniard Culpepper, senior pastor at the nearby Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church, said housing the migrants at a center named for Melnea Cass, a champion of civil rights, is the right thing to do. If Cass were alive today, he said, she “would be fighting for these migrant workers.”
“The Black community, historically, has been ignored. All the development is downtown,” he said. “I knew, at some point, the migrants issue was coming to the heart of Boston. Here it is.”
Emma Platoff, Niki Griswold, and Tal Kopan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt....@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout. Daniel Kool can be reached at danie...@globe.com. Follow him @dekool01.
--I understand your point. However, our kids are using a recreation center at a time when they are in crisis. Every teacher thst I know in Boston schools has been in the middle of fights and acts of violence that Boston Public Schools does not allow them to report to the police. Girls are constantly fighting in the train and bus stations.There was a stabbing at the Burke today. Also the city would not think of putting them in a facility in a more affluent district cause the would'nt get elected.It is nice to have compassion for new folks, but what about the kids of parents paying their taxes that don't get the same services.What about telling those in Congress who are sending our funds to corrupt regimes and dictators causing folks to flee those countries to stop sending. Tell them to actually do some work besides trying to get some sound bites on tv.JoyceSent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device-------- Original message --------From: Mandy Townsend <mand...@gmail.com>Date: 1/30/24 1:38 PM (GMT-05:00)Subject: Re: I agree Joyce!! Our children and families are traumatized enough ! Don’t let the do it!Hi neighbors,
I couldn’t sleep last night debating whether I wanted to add my thoughts to this email chain. This listserv has gotten to a place, speaking only from my perspective, where it can be very scary to put out an opposing idea, so much so that many times I have considered unsubscribing. But then I thought about why I wanted to write and it gave me courage.
Courage is the thing that these new and temporary community members showed when they left their home country or left a domestic violence situation happening in our very community/city, with their children, to set out into a very unsafe and unknown situation with no guarantees. This is obvious, but to state it clearly, families who are homeless are not choosing that life for themselves and their children. They have just had the courage to hope, to hope for a better future for their kids if they cross a river, leave an abusive partner, try to set a new and safer course for themselves.
This situation is far from ideal – for anyone involved. Roxbury has historically been underserved and overlooked and elders and wiser generations before me had to fight for every inch. I, and everyone living here are beneficiaries of that. And that can’t be recognized enough. At the same time, in my mind, two realities can exist in duality, running parallel to one another.
Roxbury can be deserving and should receive equitable treatment after years of historical marginalization. AND, we can also realize that we are lucky enough to have a beautiful and large enough space in our midst that can welcome the strange and show our humanity. I have learned, and will never fully appreciate, the fight that it took to get that space. I also realize the inconvenience to our youth, including children from my son’s and many neighbor’s local school – the Nathan Hale. I can’t begin to imagine the temporary changes in our lives that having 300 new folks in our community will cause. I personally still choose to stand ready to help.
We never know when we might find ourselves in a situation that our country faces at this moment. I hope that if I ever find myself there, I choose courage like these homeless families and I hope I have a welcoming reception that gives me a glimpse of what a stable future might look like.
I find listservs to be extremely impersonal and would welcome an in-person chat or coffee to discuss counter viewpoints. I appreciate the fabric of this neighborhood so much and I know we will rise to whatever occasion we face – together.
Thanks for the time to read,
Mandy
On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 9:08 PM Paula D Coar <paul...@gmail.com> wrote:It’s too much for Roxbury ! We need the money for our children, our people ! Maybe they can be bussed in to use the cass / shelborn facilities when they are free ! Living there ? No ! They can be bused in to use the churches too ! Money can flow that way! Let cass be a spill over shelter for our homeless in Nubian Square! Give them blankets, food, shelter, training and jobs! Food vendors , transportation companies, cleaning companies , fOod trucks can be used too!Peace and love always! Our children and our families matter first!On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 8:32 PM Joyce Stanley <joyce.st...@gmail.com> wrote:They need to put them in that West Roxbury facility they want to put the O' Bryant in.On Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 4:55 PM Rodney Singleton <rodne...@gmail.com> wrote:FYI from Dianne Wilkerson....---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dianne Wilkerson <newda...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 3:45 PM
Subject:Beloved Community:Last evening, the Friends of the Cass (FOC) had an emergency virtual meeting to discuss what is happening at the Melnea Cass Facility. Shortly after, we met with the Governor's representatives to discuss their plans. It is clear that this plan has been underway for some time. Our state electeds have been discussing with the Gov. and it has only been shared with us since last Friday. We should all be concerned about the level of preparedness for an anticipated Wednesday project commencement date. We promised an update today and we will be joining Councilor Tonia Fernandes Anderson in her scheduled update at 6 pm. Please join us. You will want to hear this. See you at 6:00 PM!Dianne WilkersonVice ChairSHARE! SHARE! SHARE!------
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GaoYuan Chang
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