CBA Awarded State Funds for Recovery Housing
Coalition for a Better Acre CEO, Yun-Ju Choi, Director of Real Estate, Claire Ricker, and Real Estate Project Managers, Thomas Emery, Russell Pandres, and Joseph Boyle attended Governor Baker's Rental Rounds announcement at the Arlington Point project in Lawrence, MA on Thursday, July 15, 2021.
CBA was awarded funding from the state for a critical project right here in the Acre. Support from the Department of Housing and Community Development will be leveraged to build 27 units of affordable, permanent housing for those who are in recovery from a substance abuse disorder. CBA will work in partnership with Lowell House, Inc. to offer housing and support services to enable individuals the safety of a sober environment.
With first floor retail space, the three floor development at 555 Merrimack Street will be built to Passive House standards; a design process that results in ultra-low-energy, efficient buildings and a reduced ecological footprint. Read more about passive housing at https://www.phius.org/what-is-passive-building/passive-house-principles
Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Senator Ed Kennedy, Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy and Housing and Community Development Undersecretary Jennifer Maddox, as well as other local legislators and officials were in Lawrence's Arlington Mills Historic District to announce affordable housing awards for 28 projects in development across 21 communities in Massachusetts.
Undersecretary of Housing and Economic Development, Jennifer Maddox expressed her amazement at the power of housing development, "Since 2015, DHCD has led with the preservation and production of more than 20,000 units through capital funding and tax credit allocations in every region of our Commonwealth".
Coalition for a Better Acre's Office Policy and Community Outreach
Updated: Tuesday, March 17, 2020.
As the Lowell community focuses on keeping each and every one of our members safe from the growing Coronavirus pandemic, CBA is adapting our office policy and increasing outreach services.
CBA is following state recommendations to minimize contact by closing our offices to the public. However, CBA staff are working full time to shift their focus to connecting with our community. Staff will be reaching out by phone to see how community members are feeling and what they may need. We feel strongly that working safely, we will be able to support our neighbors together.
Please call or email CBA staff any time to get connected to resources to support you or your family. Our staff is ready to assist you to ensure all community members feel safe and supported. Contact information below.
Staff contact information is located on our Meet the Team section of our website. While staff are working remotely, they will return calls within 24 hours.
Community Resources are listed in the Resources section of our website, as well as, on social media.
To subscribe to CBA emails, please email our Communications Manager, Rebecca Ludvino at [email protected] with the email subject: Subscribe to Email.
CBA Office - Limited Access March 16-27
A message from CBA’s Executive Director, Yun-Ju Choi:
While the CBA office will remain open, we are asking community members to contact us via phone, email, or our website as much as possible. Over the next two weeks, March 16 – March 27, staff will focus on assisting the community while maintaining physical distance. Specifically, our YES after school program will not meet during this time and the Donuts with Delegates event is postponed indefinitely.
I encourage everyone to practice healthy habits while the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation evolves. CBA is here and ready to connect you with resources.
You can reach CBA’s front desk at 978-452-7523 or [email protected]
Please visit https://www.coalitionforabetteracre.org/meet-the-team for a full list of staff contact information
As always, volunteer, member, and general inquiry forms, are on our website www.coalitionforabetteracre.org /get-involved
Empowering New Leaders
“Next Monday I’m starting at the Lowell Police Academy,” Andeth (Andy) Van announced to her Empower classmates on the evening of their final class to a chorus of gasps, followed by cheers and applause.
Empowering New Leaders
“Next Monday I’m starting at the Lowell Police Academy,” Andeth (Andy) Van announced to her Empower classmates on the evening of their final class to a chorus of gasps, followed by cheers and applause.
“All the skills, the lessons, and techniques I have learned here – the entire time I was thinking ‘how can I apply this to my life’,” she said. “I really want to make an impact in the community, hopefully in a profound way. “
Andy is one of 16 who graduated from Empower on May 17. Empower is a nine-week interactive resident leadership course offered through a partnership between Coalition for a Better Acre and Lowell Alliance. Throughout the nine weeks participants expand their own personal and professional networks while gaining the skills, knowledge and resources needed to lead and create grassroots change in the community.
The guest speaker for this year’s final session was Peter Martin, one of the organizers of last year’s effort to keep Lowell High School downtown, a true grassroots movement that came together quickly and brought together people of all ages, ethnic, political, and socio-economic backgrounds.
“I have been involved in a lot of campaigns, but never one that caught fire so quickly and had so much energy,” he said, adding they collected 800 signatures in four days to present to the City Council in favor of keeping the high school downtown.
Martin spoke of the darkest point in the movement – the night in June when the City Council voted 5-4 to move the high school to the Cawley Stadium site. But, he said, the activists who had already put in so much work and knew there was close to 65 percent pro-downtown support among the city’s voters, did not give up.
“Sometimes you have to lose to win,” Martin told the class. “We had to lose to really wake people up.”
The campaign split into two groups – LHS Downtown, focused on supporting pro-downtown City Council and School Committee candidates and Save Lowell High, focused on collecting the 7,000 certified voter signatures required for a ballot initiative.
They formed alliances, stretched outside their comfort zones, knocked doors and really listened to people.
Martin said he looked to Lowell’s mill girls, who attempted strikes several times in the 1830’s, for lessons in leadership and perseverance.
“They got absolutely crushed the first two times they did it, but they kept at it,” he said.
In the end, LHS Downtown and Save Lowell High won, as voters chose seven pro-downtown councilors and five pro-downtown School Committee members. The ballot question seeking support for keeping the high school downtown prevailed with 61 percent of the vote.
“There is no substitute for putting in the work,” Martin said.
Empower graduates not only learn the skills and strategies to become catalysts for change in the community, they put them into action, choosing two student-conceived projects to work on over the next several months.
Six well-formulated and thoughtful ideas were pitched including Mana Kheang’s mobile library cart for immigrants; Dave Richmond’s plan to learn and share unknown and often dark history stories of how the U.S. has been involved in the politics of developing nations; Pamela Andrews’ desire to hold a big touch-a-truck event coupled with a resource fair and goods drive; and Hope Anderson & Tiffaney Ross’ campaign to promote voter and candidate education.
Once the pitches were done and votes counted, the class chose two projects on which to collaborate.
The first, proposed by Emily McDermott, is to support the proposed ban on plastic bags for stores 3,000 sq. feet or larger, in Lowell, as well as obtain and distribute reusable shopping bags to low-income residents. The group is planning to attend the May 29 Lowell City Council public hearing in support of the ban. Seventy-seven other communities in the Commonwealth have already taken the step to ban plastic bags.
The second group will work on Pam Larocque’s plan to organize Lowell Play Day on the last weekend of August, an event where organizations who serve the city’s youth can provide games and activities for kids, educational workshops for parents, food, resources and more, promoting the importance of play to a child’s development.
Look for our Empower graduates as they work on these projects this summer.
Lowell Officials Confident in Success of the Acre Working Cities Challenge Grant
LOWELL -- A group of city officials and various agencies have been meeting each week over several months to solidify a plan for helping residents of The Acre find sustainable jobs and move out of subsidized housing, and for children to be adequately prepared for school.
Lowell Officials Confident in Success of the Acre Working Cities Challenge Grant
By Grant Welker, [email protected]
UPDATED: 04/20/2016 10:14:00 AM EDT
LOWELL -- A group of city officials and various agencies have been meeting each week over several months to solidify a plan for helping residents of The Acre find sustainable jobs and move out of subsidized housing, and for children to be adequately prepared for school.
The Acre, among the poorest areas of the city, is in need of help.
The neighborhood -- roughly between City Hall, North Common, the Merrimack Canal and Father Morissette Boulevard -- has a poverty rate that is four times higher than the state, according to data compiled by the city. About one-fourth of adults have not received a high school diploma.
Of the nearly 1,600 households in the neighborhood, more than 1,100 are subsidized.
Many children growing up in The Acre are unprepared for kindergarten when they enter school, those planning the new aid program have found.
"They're just not ready," Connie Martin, a member of the School Committee, said Tuesday, "and there's a good deal of time spent catching up."
City officials are confident they'll find out in June that they'll be awarded a $475,000 grant from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to help conduct the program. Those funds will be matched by $95,000 from agencies and private businesses in the city.
Lowell is one of about 10 cities competing in the Working Cities Challenge program, with three or four expected to receive funding.
Those involved in the Lowell application say they are confident because of the broad range of agencies and officials supporting the plan. A meeting on Tuesday included City Manager Kevin Murphy, City Councilors Corey Belanger and Bill Samaras, and state Sen. Eileen Donoghue, among others.
The Coalition for a Better Acre, Jeanne D'Arc Credit Union, Lowell Community Health Center, the Lowell Plan and others have been involved in Lowell's planning process. Those involved say The Acre is especially important because of its location between downtown and UMass Lowell.
Residents will have a last chance to give input in a meeting scheduled for the Senior Center on April 27 at 6 p.m. Lowell's application will be submitted by May 5.
The Federal Reserve grant, which will be spread out over three years, would allow Lowell to hire a full-time director to oversee the program. The plan would include providing families with early-education programs and career training, and attracting businesses to open in the neighborhood.
The city received a $15,000 grant from the Fed last fall to help with the planning process.
Follow Grant Welker on Twitter and Tout @SunGrantWelker.
Read more: http://www.lowellsun.com/news/ci_29789790/lowell-officials-confident-success-acre-grant#ixzz46qsujMRa
Lowell House Inc. Facility in the Works Near City Hall
LOWELL -- Lowell House Inc., one of the city's two addiction-treatment programs, is embarking on an ambitious expansion plan that will include building a $9 million clinical and sober-living facility at its current site near City Hall
Lowell House Inc. Facility in the Works Near City Hall
Lowell Sun article
By Dennis Shaughnessey, [email protected] Article Launched: 10/13/2008 12:12:49 PM EDT
LOWELL -- Lowell House Inc., one of the city's two addiction-treatment programs, is embarking on an ambitious expansion plan that will include building a $9 million clinical and sober-living facility at its current site near City Hall.
The proposed Merrimack Street project, which is a partnership with the Coalition for a Better Acre, would be the crown jewel of a plan that includes moving Lowell House's residential treatment program on Appleton Street to an expanded building at Tewksbury State Hospital, and building a separate sober-living home for men at a yet-to-be-determined location in the city.
"We don't want to say we're the fourth-worst (community) in the state for opiate overdoses and deaths -- we want to say we're the first for finding solutions," said Bill Garr, CEO of Lowell House.
The first floor of the facility would include a 10,000-square-foot clinical facility to house all outpatient counseling programs and administrative offices that currently sit on the site. It could also include community space for anything from group meetings to yoga classes.
Above that would be 23 sober-living apartments, complete with full kitchens, bathrooms and other amenities. Unlike most sober homes, where residents share communal kitchens and living spaces, the apartments will create environments where residents in recovery can live with their families at a slightly reduced price, Garr said.
Lowell House needs to raise $1.
5 million in donations for its portion of the project -- the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation has already promised $250,000 -- while the CBA will be responsible for securing competitive low-income housing tax credits from the state and city grants for the remaining $7.5 million.
"This could really transform that area," said Yun-Ju Choi, executive director of the CBA. "Currently, that building that Lowell House is in is not the most attractive on Merrimack Street. With all the opioid crisis going on in this area, I think this is something the state will be supporting," she added. "... There's a lot of need in the Acre for people recovering from substance abuse."
Some city leaders, however, are skeptical about the location.
"This particular project -- I have concerns about the environment," said City Councilor Corey Belanger, who chairs the council's substance-abuse subcommittee. "How is this location conducive to recovery with a (liquor) store right at ground level and drugs readily available" on nearby streets?
He is not necessarily opposed to the new facility, Belanger said, but he wants to hear a strong explanation from Lowell House officials.
The location holds several benefits for the project, however, because Lowell House already owns the property. Finding another location would almost certainly delay the partnership's timeline -- they hope to break ground in 2018 and possibly open by the end of that year -- and could potentially increase the cost.
"Our experience with sober houses is that once people are in, they're very concerned with maintaining their sobriety. ... They monitor it as peers," Garr said, adding that it is important to Lowell House and the CBA that the new facility be a symbol of a resurgent neighborhood.
"We want this owned by the community and for it to feel that this is open to them and have this, really, be a beacon to recovery," he said.
The partnership is now focused on finalizing the building specifications, securing zoning approval, and applying for state tax credits.
The application process for the state's Low Income Housing Tax Credit program begins this fall. If the project gets wait-listed in the next round of credits, CBA will apply for the following cycle, Choi said.
Meanwhile, Lowell House is soliciting donors for its remaining $1.25 million share of the project. Given the positive feedback he has already received, and the support community organizations have given to similar projects in the area, Garr said he is confident.
"I don't think we'll have a problem," he said. "I think we'll be able to do it."
Follow Todd Feathers on Twitter and Tout @ToddFeathers.