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Recharging Boston's neighborhoods is a continuous and
costly process. This week the juice was flowing at 109
Glenway St. in Dorchester, where housing advocates have
transformed an ill-famed rooming house into a handsome
home for three families.
The rehabilitation effort offers a close-up view of the challenges of providing low-cost housing in Boston. In 1999 a judge briefly jailed the property's former owner, Willa Mae Brothers, who routinely ignored safety and building codes when renting rooms on Glenway Street and nearby properties. Inspectors shuttered the rooming house, which had become a source of drug dealing and disruption. The unruly tenants dispersed.
Redeeming the property required direct city and state subsidies, construction loans, bridge loans, and the best efforts of three well-regarded nonprofit groups that specialize in affordable housing developments: the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, or LISC; the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation; and Boston Community Capital. The total development cost came to $465,000. Yet the three-family house sold for $225,000 to an income-eligible, first-time home buyer who is obligated to rent the additional apartments to low-income tenants.
Matthew Thal, senior program director of LISC, is seeking ways to recover more abandoned or substandard units without reliance on such large public subsidies. But it won't be easy, he says. Federal housing regulations require expensive upgrades, such as deleading, even in houses where no children live. And the neighborhood nonprofit groups that develop housing are known more for their high-quality designs than their willingness to find efficiencies.
One promising model is the Hidden Assets program, in which participating banks offer low-interest loans to homeowners to rehabilitate vacant apartments before they fall into serious disrepair. In Boston, the Menino administration boosts the program with long-term loans that are convertible to grants.
The subsidies on Glenway Street should still pay off in important ways. Maxine Chandler-Auguste, cochair of the Greater Glenway Organization, noted that public investment at 109 Glenway St. has already inspired homeowners to upgrade their properties. Neighbors are also organizing to improve the playground at the nearby Greenwood School.
''It's on the upswing,'' says Chandler-Auguste of a street that could have scraped bottom but for public support.
The saving of a school
Careful analysis of education issues replaced political patronage and posturing in 1992 after the Legislature approved a mayorally appointed School Committee for Boston. The prior elected School Committee has not been missed save for one quality - spontaneity. On Wednesday, however, the seven-member committee surprised observers with a rare rejection of a request from school Superintendent Thomas Payzant.
Payzant had sought to phase out the Shaw Middle School in West Roxbury as part of a larger plan for new-school construction and consolidation. Some Shaw parents and teachers resisted passionately. But the steely Payzant was unmoved, anticipating that the committee members would provide their customary backing.
Instead, the committee opted to keep the Shaw intact, or at least ensure that the staff and students will remain together in a new location. Elizabeth Reilinger, chairwoman of the School Committee, explained that members were not convinced that Payzant had provided a sufficient analysis of the educational outcomes of closing the Shaw, especially for special education students.
Anticipated cuts in the school budget are likely to lead to assignment controversies in the fall or even to school closings. The School Committee communicated clearly this week that its members are ready to make hard decisions, but only when they are presented with hard data.
Compound interest
Middle and high school students at the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury learned recently that it is easier to make money than to keep it, especially if they reject traditional banking services in favor of fee-driven check cashing outlets. That and other good lessons came courtesy of an innovative crash course in financial literacy offered by Wainwright Bank & Trust Co.
Tony Robinson, Wainwright's community development officer, pushed the O'Bryant classes beyond the usual introduction to compound interest. He opened a lot of eighth-grade eyes in a morning session when he challenged students to forgo their next pair of sneakers and buy shares in their favorite sneaker company instead. Robinson, a Roxbury native, chided the young people good-naturedly for doing too much consuming and too little saving, planning, and investing.
''The lottery is the inner city's Wall Street,'' he said while pretending to scratch a losing ticket.
Robinson urged the students to shop for interest rates as aggressively as they shop for bargains on clothes. He waved them away from ATM cards with the same passion that a health teacher might warn them about drugs. Then he gently steered them toward the safety of passbook savings accounts.
At-large City Councilor Maura Hennigan wants to expand financial literacy workshops and course offerings to additional schools and community centers. It's a worthy goal considering that predatory lending practices, including high interest rates and prepayment penalties, fall heavily on low-income urban borrowers.
''Money goes to money'' is the old adage. Robinson and Hennigan are helping to illuminate the route.
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