The City funded and operated a well-run Warming Center this past winter, but it was not permanent and was not used as a Cooling Center.   W ill you commit to creating and financing a permanent, year-round Center?   If so, what steps will you take first?  In Davis Square, I spoke with Health and Human Services outreach who told me the mobile showers unit is not servicing and the Somerville Homeless Coalition bathroom is no longer public.   I am sick at heart that these operational shortfalls go unnoticed. This questionnaire makes my heart happy. Sincerely, if interest I've shown to support unhoused through the Poor People's Campaign and the Somerville Human Rights Commission has limited impact or efficacy, this is why I am in the race for Councilor At-large. Since the 'Eviction' exhibit at the Armory where the warming center was and then Cummings School building site hosting winter warming center. I will research this proactively. While some w...

A reportback--  I am here in Chelmsford, MA to attend a bail hearing for a man detained by ICE 82 days ago--a week since the co-owner of small business filed my letter of support along with Senator Pat Jehlen's letter. Please donate www.ElectSpicer.com  I raised funds for signage and doorknockers $1800 from 15 donors last Friday. According to Senator Pat Jehlen, new law allows me to put your campaign support to pay for childcare so I can campaign. Thank you in advance! At Finance Committee of the Whole, I spoke up regarding the Mayor’s proposed budget that would cut the Racial and Social Justice Department funds by $200,000 and increase the Police Budget an additional $5-9 million. The Cambridge-Somerville 350.org node organized me, and I spoke to the need to provide environmental justice protections from pollution to impacted neighbors--crediting the pilot project of Ward 1 City Councilor Matt McLaughlin--which would bring air filtration units to homes already most likely to ...

    In Rosa Lee, Washington Post reporter Leon Dash follows the li ves of one family enduring intergenerational trauma and coping with extreme poverty . She sits dignified in a jacket photo, holding a military portrait of a son. “Rosa Lee—that name made me—Wait she’s black. She looks like my mom,” said an unhoused person taking refuge at the Somerville Housing Coalition Engagement Center. The supportive housing search person three times looped back to asking about his housing search, adjusting, acknowledging, offering help right there . He was waiting to hear a definite about the Y. It was just too much, a hundred dollars a day. “Oh, yeah, the hotel,” the Mets fan said . “How long is the wait in Somerville?” Two years. As indicated by the subtitle, Rosa Lee is a mother in urban America. I brought it with me to an appointment with Hannah who had facilitated a conversation in May with Tracy Kidder and Dr. Jim O’Connell of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, the su...

  “We’re upset. We’re not sleeping well” said a woman at last night’s meeting in Davis Square ( GOVTV ). She held a list of 39 names of people who had waited in the hallway in overflow from a 200 capacity crowd hosted by Pastor Lee at the Somerville Community Baptist Church. "The problem isn't homelessness, it's a drug issue. It's people shooting up at 7 in the morning, and having sex on the bench at 8 am." "We've just had Multiple stabbings within weeks," said a 21 year resident who  had witnessed a seachange in the past year. --"How did it get to this point--why was their eye off the ball?" In the past seven weeks, 674 patrols were made in Davis Square area, a 286% increase of police activity in the same period last year. Arrests made after dispute between two known to each other, detained September 26. Then a death in Statue Park on September 30, "So far deemed non-suspicious," said Deputy James Donovan. Followed by another dis...