Left In Lowell

Tonight’s Tuesday City Council blogging will be from City Hall this time, as I will be joining the affordable housing rally in front of City Hall and then going to the meeting to listen to the speakers who will be talking about the City and the Lowell Housing Authority’s unfulfilled obligations to former residents of the destroyed Julian D. Steele public housing units on Shaughnessy Ter. in Lowell, and their promise to replace those 284 units. We are building a tent city, “Steeleville,” to represent the displaced residents. The rally starts in front of City Hall at 5pm, and we will have refreshments. Then we will attend the City Hall meeting at 6:30 where there will be speakers. Anyone is welcome to join us for the rally or the meeting, or come early and help us set up!

The Julian D. Steele housing units were built in 1950. Named after a public housing activist, the state financed these affordable homes. Prior to their eviction, residents of “Shaughnessy” (as the locals knew it) had a median income of just $11,715, and most families were wage earners. Contrary to the argument of public officials at the time, former residents say the 20-acre neighborhood was not a crime-ridden dangerous place, but a neighborhood with people who cared and watched out for each other.

In 1995-96, the City of Lowell funded the Lowell Housing Authority (LHA) in a plan for demolishing Julian Steele. Apparently, the city used federal CDBG (Community Development Block Grant), which are meant to be used for addressing the causes of poverty.

The next year, the LHA proposed the demolition to the Mass Dept of Housing and Community Development. DHCD refused to approve this destruction of perfectly good, albeit run-down affordable housing and offered Lowell $7M to repair and improve the property for the residents.

Instead, the City launched a lobbying campaign for a Home-Rule bill and got the Julian Steele Act passed at the state level. This Act allowed the demolition of the units, replacing 284 units with only 180, 99 of which would be available to households with incomes of up to $300,000. Just 18 units would be available to households with incomes of $33,000 or less (and remember, the median income prior was roughly $11,000). The Act also required for building 63 market-rate units and 157 “affordable” (under $33K) at other sites. In total, even if the City lived up to this Act, Lowell would lose 46 units of affordable housing, and the housing that would supposedly replace the public units at Julian Steele are not “affordable” to wage earners at the former residents’ median income.

Now, what was Julian Steele stands empty and barren. The developers, after Lowell spent $1M to demolish the affordable units, backed out because they wouldn’t earn enough profit to make it worth their while to build on the property.

We’re going to the City Council to demand they at least fulfill their promise to the residents both of Julian Steele and of the City: rebuild the truly affordable housing, take care of the residents you displaced, and stop loaning and giving money to developers to build luxury housing until the time comes when you have done so.