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Boston Globe
03-07-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
A new try at renewal in the old West End
Advertisement Today, the half-century-old superblock is a windswept wasteland, a solemn reminder of what can go wrong when you level a vibrant neighborhood. Related : The six-story Hurley, along Cambridge and Staniford streets, has been emptied of the state labor department employees who once toiled inside. The vastly underused Lindemann, with its M.C. Escher-style staircases, still houses Department of Mental Health patients and facilities who will need to be accommodated in the redevelopment, or nearby. (Both buildings need hundreds of millions of dollars worth of repairs.) Few people use — or are even aware of — the courtyard in the midst of it all, a hidden crown jewel. And a prime spot for open space along Merrimac Street, at the foot of those windy Lindemann stairs, is no more than a makeshift parking lot surrounded by chain-link fencing. Plenty of untapped potential, in the heart of the city. Advertisement The center courtyard at the Lindemann and Hurley complex. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff As Adam Baacke, commissioner of the state's Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance, put it at a community meeting in early June: These two structures were built at a time when the prevalent thinking was about how best to 'defend yourself from a city,' rather than embracing your surroundings the way most urban real estate projects are designed today. This request for proposals — which could go out later this year — would be Seven bids were initially submitted for the site the first time around, with hinged on building a lab tower alongside the Hurley. As the market for new labs cratered, so did the hopes for that Hurley redo. This next attempt will differ in key ways. This time, the Lindemann, considered more architecturally significant than the Hurley, is also part of the project. Bidders will no longer have to accommodate nearly 700 state office workers, who have since decamped for other locations. And the Related : Advertisement It's unclear just how many housing units could go up on the block, either in redeveloped versions of the Hurley or the Lindemann, or in a newly built tower. But the number would likely be hundreds, if not thousands. The site's zoning allows for far more development than what's there today — roughly four times the combined square footage of 570,000 square feet. And a tower could be up to 400 feet high, only modestly shorter than the two that have overtaken the old Government Center Garage next door. DCAMM hopes to pick a developer next year, according to a timeline the agency provided, and start construction in 2029. For land-use lawyer Matthew Kiefer, an attorney at Goulston & Storrs who worked on the Leggat McCall project, the state's new attempt to bring life to this sterile superblock is particularly intriguing. An aerial view of the Charles F. Hurley Building in Boston on April 13, 1973. Ed Jenner/Globe Staff In some ways, Kiefer said, the site is even more promising as a residential project than for office and labs, due to its proximity to stores and restaurants. Plus, North Station is just steps away. A talented design team, he added, could draw out the virtues of the Brutalist architecture to create a unique residential environment. He sees it as a fascinating challenge, but threading this giant block back into the neighborhood is not for everyone. At the June 4 community meeting, held in the West End Museum, with faded photos and artifacts from the old neighborhood hanging on the walls, community members spoke up about what they would like to see take shape around the corner. Shops along the fortress walls to enliven the street. A new public school, to replace the one that was demolished there in the 1960s. Preservation of the two 25-foot-tall murals in the Hurley lobby. More greenery, to break up all the hardscape. And of course, something to commemorate what was lost in the name of progress so many years ago: a memorial, for example, or a new home for the museum. Related : Advertisement Perhaps no testimony was more compelling than that of Quincy's Ron Iacobucci. His first home was on Norman Street, a roadway that no longer exists — disappeared under the Hurley and Lindemann. His grandparents settled in the West End from Italy, and his parents lived there until the Boston Redevelopment Authority took their home, along with the homes of thousands of their neighbors, to make way for a swath of new development from the old Scollay Square to the Charles River. (Iacobucci's mom was friends with arguably the most famous West Ender, actor Leonard Nimoy.) Iacobucci, who was only two when his family was uprooted, pleaded with state officials to give preference in any new affordable housing on the site to displaced West Enders and their descendants. This should be more than a development project, Iacobucci said, it's the chance to write a new chapter to the West End's story, one that's focused on justice and equity. That's asking a lot of any construction project, even a massive one like this. But maybe, finally, the sins of the past can offer a promising opportunity for the neighborhood's future. Jon Chesto can be reached at
Boston Globe
17-06-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
One in three Massachusetts families don't have enough to eat, study finds
Related : There's a growing concern that more people will struggle to afford food as Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It all raises the prospect that more families will struggle to consistently access healthy food in the future, said Food for Free director of operations Tim Cavaretta, who was not involved in the food bank report. Advertisement 'It's hard to stay optimistic about the overall outlook of food insecurity getting better anytime soon,' he said. 'We could see this affecting populations that we previously assumed were safe, middle class.' Related : Advertisement The food bank surveyed 3,000 Massachusetts residents from November through March and 37 percent reported being 'food insecure,' defined as having less food than they need to be adequately fed. That's nearly twice the 19 percent the food bank reported in 2019. In the same time period, the share of those who say they've been forced to skip meals has quadrupled, from 6 to 24 percent. Hunger is most prevalent among more vulnerable populations, including Black and Hispanic residents and LGBTQ+ people. It is most common in Western Massachusetts, Suffolk County, and Bristol County, where half of residents are food insecure. The ever-increasing cost of food has forced Jacqui Martinez of Revere into 'constant thinking and rethinking and budgeting' for herself and the 16-year-old granddaughter she raises. The 54-year-old says she is no stranger to stretching the dollar and works full time for the state Department of Mental Health, but the combination of rent, utilities, and health care costs for her diabetes and other chronic conditions is a tough burden to bear. 'Going to the grocery store with $100, you barely come out with two bags of decent food, and then you have to make the choice of whether you're going to buy fresh spinach over canned spinach,' Martinez said. 'Do I buy food, or do I pay the utility bill?' It's a tradeoff that thousands of people across Massachusetts face all the time. Among hungry families in Massachusetts, some 58 percent say they face 'nutrition insecurity,' a measure of access to healthy foods; eight in ten typically buy the cheapest food they can find. More than one-third struggle to pay for heat, housing, transportation, and medical needs. Most would need only $62 more each week to have enough to eat, but instead often purchasing prescriptions or seeing the dentist. Advertisement In that sense, the cost of so many hungry families ultimately lands on the state and taxpayers, said Dr. Lauren Fiechtner, director of nutrition at MassGeneral Hospital for Children. People who report food insecurity were twice as likely to visit a hospital emergency room in the last year as nonhungry people, according to the report, and hospitalizations cost Massachusetts nearly $900 million in Medicaid costs. 'There's this cycle of people having food insecurity, and then you have a dietary cost because you can't afford healthy foods, and then we have the chronic conditions that come from that and very high health care costs,' Fiechtner said. 'But I really believe the state can turn the corner, no matter what happens at the federal level.' Fresh vegetables at the Greater Boston Food Bank warehouse. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff Several key federal antipoverty programs could soon be harder to access. Republicans in Congress are working to tighten eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, for instance. Doing so would save nearly $300 billion over the next decade but translate into reduced monthly benefits for millions of the poorest Americans, an Legislators have similarly looked to Still, locally, there are promising signs. Households struggling with hunger are more likely to visit food banks or other community organizations for help than they were even a year ago, the study found. This year, a 22 percent jump from 2023, while SNAP usage remained steady, and the state's school and summer meals programs continues to serve up to 73 percent of hungry households with children. The report also found that mothers in Massachusetts who are food-insecure have become more likely to breastfeed rather than turn to formula, which the report says can lend itself to improved health outcomes for babies. Advertisement The food bank surveyed 3,000 Massachusetts residents from November through March and 37 percent reported being 'food insecure,' defined as having less food than they need to be adequately fed. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff The next step for the food bank, D'Amato said, is to raise more money and expand its mission, which has already grown rapidly since the COVID-19 pandemic. It's a tall order as the federal support for food assistance shrinks, leaving all states to bear the burden. 'It's going to be extremely harmful to the health of these generations to come,' she said. 'You used to be able to say, I'm gonna go to Massachusetts. They have great benefits, they have health care, they have housing. Now where are you going to turn for SNAP? Every state's going to be the same. It's going to be difficult and uncertain and put pressure on philanthropy and the private sector.' Diti Kohli can be reached at
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Springfield grants $3.5M for 19 preservation projects, rejects 1 housing request
SPRINGFIELD — The city will help replace leaking roofs on five historic buildings, fix the Buckingham Fountain that has been dry for years and make Marshall Roy playground handicap accessible, but will not assist an affordable housing project with units earmarked for people with mental illness. The City Council approved spending $3.5 million in Community Preservation Act funding to be divided among 19 projects to help preserve historic churches, build affordable housing, and boost open space and recreation. This year, the act raised more than $2.5 million from a surcharge of 1.5% that has been added to taxpayers' bills since voters adopted the law in 2016. In addition, the state is expected to match the contributions with nearly $400,000, and there were additional funds from interest and money allocated but not used from last year from projects that were not done or came in under budget, said Robert McCarroll, chairman of the Community Preservation Committee. 'It was a very difficult year for the committee,' McCarroll said, about the body that vets the projects and recommends them to the City Council. 'Although we had $3.5 million to recommend to you, we had 35 projects — the most we have ever had — asking for more than $8 million.' About half the grants recommended were less than the amount requested, but those organizations can return next year for additional funds, McCarroll said. The City Council passed 19 of the recommendations without a concern but narrowly rejected a proposal to continue to support the efforts to convert the historic Kavanaugh building on State Street into 35 affordable housing units, some of which will be leased to clients of the Department of Mental Health. 'The location is just about on the front lawn of (the High School of) Commerce, and I don't think it is an appropriate location,' said City Councilor Sean Curran, who has opposed the project in the past. In addition, he argued that the city granted developer Donald Mitchell, owner of Renaissance Development LLC, $2.8 million in federal pandemic money, and the Community Preservation Committee awarded him $210,000 for the project in past years. 'I think that is a significant contribution to this project and to come back tonight for an additional $300,000 of additional taxpayer's dollars, I think is a bridge too far,' Curran said. City Councilor Malo Brown agreed, saying he does not want to put more money into a project that has stalled and added that the building has been sitting vacant with no activity for some time. Mitchell said there were some design flaws in the $10 million project that caused him to part ways with the original architect. The company now has a new designer on board and hopes to begin construction in the fall. To speed up the time when people can move in, his company has now decided to do the work in two phases, so 25 apartments will be built and occupied first, and the remaining 10 will be completed later. In responding to Curran's concerns, Mitchell said he did talk to officials at the High School of Commerce when proposing the project, and the educators did not object to it. Other councilors said they did support the project, especially since Springfield faces a shortage of affordable housing and lacks apartments for people with mental health illnesses. 'I think it addresses many needs (for) the city of Springfield, and I'm not in favor of having another empty building on State Street,' City Councilor Kateri Walsh said. 'It will help a lot of people.' There were no objections to the remaining projects. City Councilor Jose Delgado called the proposals a good mix of improvements that will affect 10 different neighborhoods. He said he was happy that several other projects will help the city address the affordable housing crisis. Among the grants is one for $250,000 that will be given to Habitat for Humanity to help build a home for a low- or moderate-income first-time homebuyer on Hancock Street. The committee also continued its annual contributions to a program that helps first-time homeowners with down payment assistance and another that helps residents improve historic homes. 'We had many applications this year for (a) leaky roof and, of course, the worst thing for a historic building is water penetration,' McCarroll said. The committee recommended assisting the new owners of the historic Paramount Theater and Massasoit House with their $1.2 million project to replace the roof with a $300,000 grant. It also awarded the Ecumenical Church on Eastern Avenue $151,000 and Daniel's New Bethel Church $94,000 each for roof replacement. The historic Ames House on Maple Street, owned by Commonwealth Academy, also will receive a grant to replace the roof. 'This is one of the still-damaged historic homes on Maple Street from the 2011 tornado. We are recommending $155,000 … to rebuild the roof to the appearance it had prior to the tornado.' Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stitt appoints interim commissioner of mental health agency after previous leader's firing
A familiar face to embattled state agencies is taking on his latest assignment as interim commissioner for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, days after lawmakers ousted the agency's previous leader. Greg Slavonic was placed in temporary charge of the financially troubled mental health agency by Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday, June 3. Slavonic will be tasked with turning around a state agency riddled with drama after an audit report on the mental health department released in May revealed that its staff was made to sign nondisclosure agreements and were discouraged from cooperating with investigators from the state auditor's office, which was trying to understand why the agency faced a $30 million budget hole. Allie Friesen, the agency's former commissioner, was removed from her position after lawmakers voted to oust her on May 29. It was the culmination of a monthlong legislative investigation into the agency's money troubles. Legislators were forced to make a special appropriation for the agency to complete the current fiscal year. Still, another appropriation to the agency might be needed at the beginning of the next legislative session. It will be the second time in as many years that Slavonic takes over an agency under similar circumstances. Stitt appointed Slavonic as interim executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs in March 2023 after the agency's former director, Joel Kinstel, was removed for revolting against the agency's commission. Slavonic was elevated to permanent leadership in the agency five months later, before he left in July 2024. Stitt, who called Friesen's removal "a politically motivated witch hunt," said he was grateful Slavonic was willing "to set another Oklahoma agency on the right course." In an apparent reference to lawmakers' oversight of the mental health agency, Stitt said it would be imperative that Slavonic be allowed to work "without political interference." "There are brighter days ahead for this department and those that rely on its services," the governor said in a statement. More: Legislature passes resolution seeking to oust Oklahoma mental health commissioner In a statement, Slavonic thanked Stitt for his focus on rooting out corruption and ensuring the government is working for its citizens. "The Department of Mental Health brings much needed services to many Oklahomans, and I look forward to ensuring that they have the tools needed to provide those services," he said. House Majority Leader Mark Lawson, R-Sapulpa, who served as the chair of the select committee tasked with examining the agency's operations and budget, responded to Slavonic's appointment and said it's important that the mental health agency's next director works to restore the department's stability and trust to provide critical services. Lawson said he looked forward to working with Slavonic "as he endeavors to right the ship with this agency." The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of appointing a permanent commissioner to the agency, who would need to be confirmed by the Senate. Slavonic held several roles in Washington, D.C., before working under Stitt. After retiring from the U.S. Navy as a rear admiral, Slavonic had a brief stint in the private sector before he served as chief of staff for U.S. Sen. James Lankford. He then went on to high-level civilian roles in the Department of the Navy, eventually being appointed acting undersecretary of the Navy during President Donald Trump's first term. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Gov. Stitt appoints Greg Slavonic to lead Oklahoma mental health agency
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Interim Oklahoma mental health commissioner named
Gov. Kevin Stitt, pictured March 12 speaking at a rally outside the state Capitol, named an inteirm commissioner for the Oklahoma mental health department Tuesday. (Photo by Emma Murphy/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Kevin Stitt named an interim commissioner of the Oklahoma mental health department Tuesday, following the Legislature's vote to fire the previous agency head last week. Retired Rear Admiral Gregory Slavonic was appointed by Stitt. He previously led the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs, which had been 'plagued' by financial mismanagement, according to a news release. Former Commissioner Allie Friesen had served in the role since her January 2024 appointment, but her time as the agency's leader was marred by financial disarray, investigations and audits. Friesen blamed prior administrations for the financial situation that required a cash infusion from lawmakers. The Oklahoma Legislature overwhelmingly voted to fire her in a late-night vote Thursday. Lawmakers said they had 'lost confidence' in her ability to lead the department and removed her, effective immediately. Stitt continued to stand by Friesen throughout her time as commissioner amid calls to fire her and said she was 'shining a light on an agency that has operated in darkness for far too long.' He called the Legislature's move to fire her a 'politically motivated witch hunt.' 'It is no secret that the Department of Mental Health has long been in need of reform,' Stitt said in a statement. 'It is imperative that Admiral Slavonic is allowed to do the hard work needed to remove corruption and conflicts of interest without political interference. There are brighter days ahead for this department and those that rely on its services. I'm grateful to Admiral Slavonic for his willingness to set another Oklahoma agency on the right course.' Slavonic served in the U.S. Navy for over three decades, including as deputy and principal assistant to the secretary of the Navy, and as chief operating officer and chief management officer for the Department of the Navy. He also served as assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower and reserve affairs as an appointee of President Donald Trump during his first term. 'I'm grateful that Gov. Stitt is so keenly focused on rooting out corruption and ensuring that government is working first and foremost for the citizens we are tasked with serving,' Slavonic said in a statement. 'The Department of Mental Health brings much needed services to many Oklahomans, and I look forward to ensuring that they have the tools needed to provide those services. I thank Gov. Stitt for trusting me with this effort.' Slavonic graduated from Oklahoma State University with bachelor's degree and from University of Central Oklahoma with a master's degree. Rep. Mark Lawson, R-Sapulpa, leads a select committee investigating the mental health department's finances and said he looks forward to working with Slavonic. 'It is imperative that the next director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services work to restore stability, confidence and trust in the agency and its ability to provide critical services to Oklahomans while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars,' he said in a statement Tuesday. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
