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November 24th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I am not sure how I feel about this one. I do not demonize these people and I feel strongly about providing more funding for the homeless. It is just wrong that there are no beds for them to go to in Lowell. I also can not agree that having a tent community covered in garbage is acceptable. Residents must have been complaining about this? Was this the first and only complaint? This is a tough one and should have been handled differently.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:43 am
“It’s done,” said David Gray, of Kazanjian Enterprises, the project’s general contractor. “It would be a very costly thing to fix now.”
Yes, it will be. Let that be a freaking lesson to you, and everyone else who wants to build in this city.
Please, send the receipts to the DPD, so that they ca can be included can include copies in every future Special Permit they issue. That way, it will be perfectly clear that those things aren’t suggestions.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:54 am
There are several tents cities throughout the city. That is likely where these poor people ended up. It is too cold to be out there and regardless of whether they want to go to the shelter or not it is full, something has to be done.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:40 am
The ‘Lowell Ten’ were last seen packed on the back of a tow truck heading for Tewksbury, I believe. But, on a serious note, if you do a google search for ‘modern day Hoovervilles’ you see that tent cities are sprouting all over the country. For the too young, Hoovervilles, were tent cities that wereeverwhere back in the early 1930s as the country drifted into a serious and long-term depression. They were so named to ‘honor’ the then president Herbert Hoover, the last of three Republican presidents in a row who deregulated the economy, gave tax break after tax break to the wealthy, and as the layoffs mounted believed that churches and YMCAs could meet the crisis.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:53 am
What bothers me even more that the “eviction” of the 10 homeless is the *flagrant* ignoring of regulations imposed by the planning Board by a member of our City Council! Doesn’t a CC have ethics that must be followed as long as he is a councilor? Why is a councilor even allowed to *be* a general contractor on a project that needs approvals from city agencies? Isn’t that an obvious conflict of interest? Oops! I forgot about the “obvious” conflict of interest that occurred without sanction earlier in CC Kazanjian’s term when he did not recuse himself from the case of Dunkin Donuts building on property adjacent to his. I guess CC Kazanjian gets a bye on this conflict too!
November 24th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
What a great post Mimi!
A perfect marraige of my two favorite subjects - homelessness and planning board stuff!
November 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I won’t post all the things I want to say about this state of affairs. All I can say is, it’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen yet from certain folks (and please, if K didn’t call the cops, one of his lackeys did on his behalf to give him plausible deniability, there’s far too much coincidence here. Who else has the motivation to do this?? No one.)
Thanks Mimi for posting this, I was away part of the weekend visiting my grandmother, who got taken to the hospital last week. (Please send good healing thoughts her way!)
November 24th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I believe this project was permitted before AK became a CC. Of course he was on the ZBA but I digress.
There are a lot of people who could have called. There are other homes down there and the Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust has tours down there all the time, maybe someone on the tour called. Probably not…but maybe.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
That camp has been there for at least 3 years. I knew one of the guys who had a little bit of a makeshift cabin (complete with stove) not too far from it. That was a good guy and he was allowed to stay there. This site is scheduled to be part of a trail (the same one that has part of it about to open in Chelmsford, sorry I’m drawing blanks on some pretty basic names). During previous tours the gentleman mentioned above was told he’d be fine (he has since gotten assistance and has moved on). However, the people upstream were told that they would have to keep the place clean or clear out. There have been previous problems with that specific site with regards to trash and noise. Speaking as someone who doesn’t care for Kazanjian at all and as someone who has seen other tent sites destroyed when they shouldn’t have been (Western Ave, VFW Highway, Gorham St), I’m willing to hear more details about this one.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Typo: it was just one guy in the cabin.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
“It’s done,” said David Gray, of Kazanjian Enterprises, the project’s general contractor. “It would be a very costly thing to fix now.”
You think that’s expensive? Wait until we make you rebuild that mill.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
A perfect marraige of my two favorite subjects - homelessness and planning board stuff!
Wrapped up in a GOB burrito, with waterfront-development sauce. You must be in heaven.
;-)
November 24th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
To Joe…laughs, laughs, laughs tee…..
On a more serious note, here is a video from You Tube on an individual who lived down at the Perry St. camp for a couple of years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHkMsqhw8iM
November 24th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
1st: quick apology. I should have read the article rather than just comment in response to the other posts. This reeks of Kaz.
2nd: The video that KRS links to is actually of the other guy who lived near this camp but not on it. Terry was a couple of hundred feet away.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Sorry Link, you’re absolutely correct. His camp was well away from the “other” camps. Terry was eventually driven out..er in, after sustaining several severe beatings and his camp became a shooting gallery. Terry kept the place clean and beleive he was staying on National Grid property. If memory serves me correctly, he had permission from National Grid to stay there as having “someone” on the site, kept the bad folks away.
BTW, Terry is doing well and has moved away from the city and living in his own “home” now.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Irony of ironies would be these folks having to find shelter in one of K-man’s dumpsters and finding a million dollars.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
On the condo project…hasn’t anyone in government seen a pattern of behavior..get approvals for one thing and do something totally differant..project after project after project…
November 25th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Yes, as one example, that pattern applied to the old mill on outer Middlesex street, which according to the initial approval was supposed to be saved and rehabilitated. However, after receiving the project approval and building the adjacent units, it was found to be “cost-prohibitive” to restore the mill so it was leveled.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
at least with the mill on middlesex they went back to the planning board first and held a hearing with the neighbors so people had a chance to talk and the planning board had a chance to vote on demoing the mill before it was done. with this one they just did whatever they wanted.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Send them to Tewksbury Hospital? There isnt any place for them at Tewksbury hospital. There are no inhabitable empty buildings just sitting around waiting for these people. I am at Tewksbury hospital EVERY DAY. There is no place to put them.
Who is Alan Kazanjian to say that Lowells homeless should be moved to the hospital? Maybe he should be more specific as to where these people would go. The “Nerpe Building” ? Nope, its completely uninhabitable. The Stonecroft building? Nope, no windows and very little roof left. The old Nurses quarters? Its all offices on the first and second floors, and the third floor is uninhabitable. Just where the hell does this guy think these people would go?
Some one was quoted as saying that the hospital has “A lot of land”. Sure, we got over 900 acres. What do you want to do, put them in tents in the friggin woods?
Now, dont get me wrong, I hope that they find a nice place for all these needy people. I hope they get lots of food and a warm place to sleep. But when people who dont know what they are talking about throw suggestions like this around, they are delaying any real solution to the problem. I wonder how much time will be wasted on this false hope before they move onto a viable solution. I hope its not long. Its cold out.