Civic Boston

Three-decker Condos: Rebound or Relapse?

2008-07-24T10:17:00.009-05:00

The following post appears as an article in the Dorchester Reporter.

To judge by sale prices for three-decker condominiums in Dorchester, the housing slump is over—at least at a few locations. The prices do have connections to names that repeatedly turn up in foreclosure filings, and they stick out like tree stumps in a flood of declining values, but that hasn’t stopped the flow of credit—whether from small lenders or high-profile companies such as JP Morgan Chase.

One example of a unit with a rising price is a top-floor condominium in a three-decker at 43 Whitfield St, a few blocks west of Codman Square. After selling for $330,000 in February, 2006, the unit would be taken by foreclosure. In April of this year, Fannie Mae let it go for $65,000. Then, after less than two months and a certain amount of improvement, there was a new buyer who put up $339,000, with a 20% down payment.

The last transaction in June also stands out as a turnaround for the seller. This was a company called SRC Investments, whose president and treasurer, Sirewl Cox, figured in nine other transactions that have drawn foreclosure filings since last September. It was a director of the company, Lord Allah, who bought Unit 3 at 43 Whitfield St from Fannie Mae in April. Later the same month, he bought Unit 1, for $45,000. Each time, he turned over the property the very same day to SRC Investments for $100.

Once SRC Investments took title, it received mortgages for both units from a lender based in Jamaica Plain, Capital Trust LLC. Though Capital Trust was lending to a company that had no record of previous borrowing in Suffolk County, the mortgage notes—for loans totaling $72,000--were signed by Cox.

Attempts to reach Cox at phone numbers in Easton, Mass., and a broker’s office listed in Dorchester were unsuccessful. Capital Trust has yet to respond to messages by email and phone asking how it could give mortgages to someone with a paper trail showing several recent bad loans.

On its website, Capital Trust says its approach to lending provides “speed and flexibility that traditional banking environments cannot provide.” The website also says Capital Trust can “provide creative financing options for opportunistic real estate transactions” and “quickly fund loans that make sense.”

But some observers of the real estate market in Dorchester say what doesn’t make sense is the Unit 3 sale price of $339,000. One observer said, even with “top of the line” renovations, the market value would only run as high as $300,000.

Another observer familiar with the market said, “Based on what the current market conditions are, I won’t imagine it would be three-anything.”

When the unit sold June 3, the buyer on the deed was a Christine Hoyte of San Francisco, California. JP Morgan Chase gave her a mortgage of $271,000, on condition that she use the condo as a second home. To complete the transaction, she also gave power of attorney to a stand-in named Larneshia Bryant, whose name appears on the mortgage note.

But other documents show Bryant also has connections to Cox. The two of them were shown as joint tenants of a condo in another three-decker in Dorchester, on Roxton St, where a lender filed to foreclose on the mortgage in February of this year. The unit is listed as being owned by Cox and Larneshia Bryant Alexander.

Over a period of three months earlier this year, there were foreclosure filings against Bryant on seven other properties. Two of the properties were bought from Cox in 2006, less than two months after he acquired them. Two others, also turned around in less than two months, were bought from another seller whose mortgage was signed by Cox with power of attorney.

Bryant has one other tie to Cox, through a business entity called Strategy Investments. The company was organized three years ago, with Cox as president and director, and Bryant as treasurer and secretary. The company bought two properties—one in Dorchester and the other in Roxbury—on which lenders would later file to foreclose.

Strategy Investments is listed on the directory of an office building at 40 Court Street for Suite 700. That’s also the official address for SRC Investments.

The notary who stamped the mortgage note for Unit 3 at 43 Whitefield St, Rebecca Konsevick, was asked whether Bryant was supposed to represent the interest of the buyer.

“That was my understanding,” said Konsevick.

When told about Bryant’s business ties to Cox, the notary was asked which side Bryant was on when she signed the mortgage for Hoyte.

Said Konsevick, “I have no idea.”

* * * * * *

The previous owner who lost all three units to foreclosure at 43 Whitfield St was Tariq Muhammad. He bought these units and another in a three-decker on Wheatland Ave from Iris and Kelvin Sanders. The other two units at Wheatland Ave were bought by Cox, and both also went down the road to foreclosure. Over the past three years, lenders have filed petitions to foreclose on a total of 12 units sold by Iris or Kelvin Sanders—all of them in Dorchester.

Muhammad also bought a three-decker for conversion at 310 Fuller St, with the help of a $120,000 loan from Kelvin Sanders. The house shows signs of repairs. After selling two units last year, each with 5% down payments for $355,000, Muhammad sold a third unit in February of this year for $365,000, with a down payment of 10%.

Just down the street, a realtor at Dorchester Associates, David Cahill, has been working on the sale of a whole three-decker which has been listed on the market for $369,021. When asked about the slightly lower price for a single floor sold in February--$365,000—Cahill called the figure “ridiculous.”

“When I see those prices pop up in the public record, I just shake my head,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”

By way of comparison, Cahill noted the difficulty in selling condos at the new development right next to Ashmont Station, The Carruth. Based on that, Cahill says, it would be harder to sell condos in most other parts of Dorchester, especially if they’re farther away from rapid transit and commercial centers. The condos at 310 Fuller Street are roughly half way between Ashmont Station and the commuter rail stop at Morton Village.

“It’s not an area where people are going to go shopping for condominiums,” said Cahill.

But that didn’t stop Marcus Emile.

He was the buyer at 310 Fuller St who paid $365,000 and signed for a loan of $328,500. The loan was from Dreamhouse Mortgage Corporation. On its website the company says, “Our team of experienced mortgage experts is committed to your success and will go above and beyond traditional means to insure your satisfaction.”

The unit at Fuller St wasn’t the first for Emile. Four weeks earlier, he bought another property, in the St. Mark’s area, a three-decker unit at 15 Santuit Street for $340,000—from Kelvin Sanders. The down payment on the unit was 10% and the loan was from Countrywide Bank.

As with previous three-decker acquisitions by Kelvin and Iris Sanders, there was also a single buyer who took multiple units. In this case, the buyer was John Castodio. One deed shows him as being from Stonington, Connecticut. One of his mortgages for 15 Santuit St requires him to use the unit as a second home. On the other mortgage, the owner-occupancy requirement has been waived.

Cahill says the transactions at high prices make some owners more reluctant to sell at the normal market rate. And if more of the high-priced units go into foreclosure, he warns, there will be more converted three-deckers without active condo owners associations—which might limit the unit’s next sale to cash-only.

“No bank in their right mind’s going to finance it,” he said.

* * * * * *

Less than two years ago, some three-decker condo units in Dorchester, often with freshly made improvements, were selling for as much as $435,000. At least ninety units were sold in conversions—mostly in Dorchester—involving Michael D. Scott (and other variants of the name) and his associates or their business entities. So far, there have been at least eight foreclosure filings on the properties. Some of the units have recently been listed for sale, at prices as low as $174,000, and one unit—on Lafield St—sold June 30 for $190,000. Less than two years earlier, Scott sold the unit to a buyer from Maryland for $375,000.

Some properties bounce from one foreclosure to another. This happened at 24 Gayland St, Dorchester, a conversion in which Scott figured. After the first buyer lost unit 2 to foreclosure, Scott bought the unit and sold it again at a higher price less than two weeks later, in February of last year. The new buyer also has mortgage trouble. A foreclosure petition was filed against her last month.

There have also been repeat foreclosures among Cox and his associates. After he lost a property he originally bought on Claybourne St with Jacquelyn Pittman, Cox bought a property that Pittman lost to foreclosure on Reservation Road in Hyde Park. That purchase led to another foreclosure petition, against Cox.

Pittman also lost a property to foreclosure at 2 Rock Ave in Dorchester. It was purchased in January of last year by Larneshia Bryant. A foreclosure petition was filed against Bryant in March of this year.

www.298fuller.com

Dorchester Day: Passage in Pageantry

2008-06-03T10:29:00.008-05:00

The sun was shining on Dorchester Avenue, but the supersized papier mâché face of Prospero was tossing in the wind and tugging on a piece of wood attached to Shanaen Anderson. Preparing to ride in the Dorchester Day Parade in a flat-bed semi-trailer, she was among the DotArt students who would be mounting puppets to represent characters in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

In the DotArt creation that rolled down the avenue on Sunday afternoon, Shakespeare’s castaways and heirs to Dorchester’s seaborne founders were delivering an ecological message that hearkened back to the first refuge for endangered species, Noah’s ark. Cruising the waters painted along the side of the trailer was an endangered shark missing a fin. Trailing behind were carts bearing an elephant, a giraffe, and DotArt kids needing to get off their feet.

One of the DotArt parents, Ceronne Daly, was ready for the four-mile journey by her 7 year-old daughter, Alexis. She packed four bottles of water, along with carrots and grapes.

Walking in front of another flatbed, for DotOUT, Rosie and Anna had a pail for their Yorkshire terrier companion, Che. DotOUT members on the trailer had an easier time, playing the role of sun-bathers or even getting some shade from the umbrella with rainbow colors. True, they were another cast upon a shore, but the locations posted on signs were clearly in Dorchester: Tenean Beach, Savin Hill Beach, and Pope John Paul II Park.

Following DotOUT was First Baptist Church, just as Union soldiers from the Civil War marched in front of the Dorchester Lacrosse league. Vietnamese war veterans also marched in uniform, while other veterans showed their opposition to war in Iraq. And, as they passed through Fields Corner, one spectator yelled to the anti-war group, “Send ‘em home. Send ‘em all home.”

Elsewhere in the rolling chain were the double Dutch girls with SWIRLS (“Sisters Working for Real Life Solutions”), Estrellas Tropicales, and the St. Ann’s CYO girls’ basketball champs. Vietnamese formations won applause, while rotating shifts of lion dancers ran up to giggling bystanders. When Caribbean carnival dancers approached with their glitter and outspread peacock feathers, the less encumbered bystanders started moving to the music.

As always, there were elected officials and candidates—from the mayor and the governor, to several City Councilors, state legislators, and a Governor’s Councilor. Former City Councilor Albert “Dapper” O’Neil had passed away since the last parade, while the Vietnamese presence he once deplored has become a fixture in the parade and a multi-million dollar investment along the avenue. A year ago, O’Neil made his last appearance, going down the avenue in a 1977 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. But, insubstantial or not, the pageant had a place for him this year, too: a black 2007 Lincoln Town Car, with O’Neil’s name in green and orange, and one more sign: “The Legend Lives On.”

Also: view parade photo essay.

Civic Summit: Getting from Small to Large

2008-05-05T09:41:00.010-05:00

The civic mind begins with small things.

Rough patches left in the pavement in Roslindale by a utility company. The way a precinct in Beacon Hill with low voter turnout in city elections keeps getting redistricted. Or the dissatisfaction by a Grove Hall resident with quality-of-life services: “Things just don’t get done,” she says.

When more than 450 people gathered Saturday for the “civic summit” at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, most of them were from either neighborhood groups or non-profits. Both kinds of groups usually cover a limited territory. For the neighborhood groups, it often means land use or public safety. For non-profits, it’s the economic development project, the social service, or advocacy for a particular need.

But the summit co-chaired by City Council President Maureen Feeney was supposed to help groups move beyond their usual boundaries. Even as participants arrived, they were given stacks of business cards so they could follow up on new contacts from around the city.

Feeney reminded them of a low point in Boston’s civic engagement, the 14% turnout of registered voters in the 2007 election for City Council. But Mayor Thomas Menino and the event’s other co-chair, the executive director of the Mass. Convention Center Authority, Jim Rooney, brought up some high points of civic engagement, from the War to Independence to the opposition that stopped the extension of Route I-95 through Boston.

The morning workshops were closer to the small things: zoning, organization building and resources, political action, and getting out a message through the media. But the people taking on these topics at the workshops were from all around Boston. And the topics themselves often require organizations to think beyond their own territory and natural allies—whether in a dispute over land use or in being portrayed by the media.

At lunchtime, there was a shift toward a larger perspective, in a talk by Dr. Thomas Sander, Executive Director of Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America at the Harvard Kennedy School. Sander compared the recent gains and losses in civic engagement to the beginning of the 20th century, when new groups took shape in response to immigration and the massive population shift from the countryside to the city.

A century later, Sander explained, there have also been dramatic changes. He acknowledged research indicating that racial diversity can make people close ranks more closely among their own kind, while being less trustful of others. But he vouched for the advantages of social capital, even on a small scale. One example: getting to know neighbors is more effective at reducing crime than increasing coverage by police.

“We didn’t think the answer is that we all ought to live in gated communities,” said Sander.

Likewise, during the town meeting after lunch, small things connected to something larger. Participants from Dorchester noted that desirable streets could be only stone’s throw from a “hot spot” for gun violence, just as a student attending a prestigious exam school can ride the same bus route on which another student was fatally shot last year.

When asked to identify the “most important issues” facing Boston, more than three hundred participants put education and youth development in first place, followed by economic development and public safety. They also identified education and youth development as the issue that would benefit the most from civic engagement, followed by public safety and the environment.

Other results from the town meeting showed there was a gap between the turnout at the summit and Boston’s population. Almost three-quarters of those at the summit were white, and two-thirds were at least 45 years old. They listed concerns about youth participation, a disconnect between citizens and government, even feelings of “us vs. them” in community groups.

But, for all the concerns and the demographic mismatch, participants tried to figure out their next move. For the year 2020, their goal was a city with a 100% high school graduation rate and a school system on par with those in the suburbs. For the year ahead, the list began with after-school tutoring, a campaign against litter and graffiti, and more summer jobs.

They were only lists, but the small things had gotten larger.

Crossing the Line from Violence to Peace

2008-05-05T09:24:00.017-05:00

Kai Leigh Harriott and Anthony Warren had spoken to each other before, face to face. It was three years ago, in a courtroom. Warren apologized to the five year-old girl for the gunshot that left her paralyzed two years earlier. Harriott responded by forgiving.

Wednesday morning, at the Dorchester House Multi Center, Warren apologized once more, this time in a statement recorded at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

“She gave me a second chance to really make a difference,” Warren said, “to show people here that forgiveness is good, to work on myself and change my life.”

Appearing on a screen and facing a darkened room, Warren was dressed in a prisoner’s outfit. After Harriott finished watching the videotape and the lights went back on, she responded once again.

“Thank you for making an apology,” she said, “because you can inspire so many people when you say don’t carry guns and don’t do bad things.”

As it was re-enacted, apology crossed boundaries, starting with the one between the offender confined to prison and the survivor confined to a wheelchair.

“Many of us are behind invisible bars,” said Harriot’s mother, Tonya David. For survivors of violence, David explained, the bars were the bitterness and rage trapped inside.

The excerpt shown at Dorchester House was part of a declaration of “peace month” by violence prevention groups, community leaders, and elected officials. The full-length video, with messages from nine inmates, will be shown May 10, at the Teen Empowerment’s “Youth Peace Conference.”

Randy Muhammad, who does prison ministry for Nation of Islam, Muhammad’s Mosque No. 11, said young people usually see violence represented in the glamorization of popular culture, especially in gangsta rap. Speaking at the “peace month” announcement, he said young people need to see the truth in the video or even in visits to prison.

“We have romanticized the idea of violence. Violence is promoted,” he said.

“A lot of the time, these images are glorified,” he said. “That’s not the reality.”

Community leaders also say people who go to prison can speak with the most authority to discourage violence.

“We believe those who are behind the walls are part of the problem,” said William E. Dickerson III, Senior Pastor of Greater Lover Tabernacle Church, “but they can be part of the solution as far as violence on the streets.”

An aide to City Councilor Chuck Turner, Darrin Howell, explained that getting the reality inside the prison on tape was an idea that came from another inmate, Darrell Jones. Howell said one reasons why Jones tried get out a message from behind bars was the death of his 23 year-old son, Darrius, on January 16. He was shot after leaving the funeral of a friend who had been killed.

Before the speakers began their program, 17 year-old Kevin Hurd, Jr. was looking over familiar faces and names on a traveling memorial to victims. He pointed to badges for two of them who were shot on bus rides just a few blocks away from each other in Dorchester.

“I know too many of them—way too many,” said Hurd.

“The majority of people up here, I knew their faces—around the neighborhood, playing basket ball with them,” he recalled. “So many good people.”

And why do bad things happen to good people?

“It’s life,” he said. “People with too much time on their hands do senseless acts.”

Some of the victims have also been described as “known to police.” The label implies the killing wasn’t random, and that people not involved with gangs would be less at risk. But that distinction broke down in 1993, when 15 year-old Louis D. Brown was killed by a stray bullet. He was on the way to a Christmas party held by a violence prevention group for teenagers.

Brown’s mother, and co-founder of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Clementina Chéry, explained that the response to violence has to move beyond assigning blame.

“They’re our children,” she said. “And we have to look at the shame and the pain our children inflict on us and begin to turn that around.”

That happens in the annual Mothers’ Walk for Peace, when the faces of victims reappear as they were known to friends and family. Survivors walk side by side and cross the line from rage to compassion for other survivors. From there it’s only one more step to the exchange between Kai Leigh Harriott and Anthony Warren.

“We shouldn’t be shocked when a child says, ‘I forgive you,’” said Chéry. “That should be the norm.”

* * * * *

• Saturday, May 10, 1-5 p.m., Strand Theatre (543 Columbia Road, Dorchester). Boston Youth Peace Conference, organized by Teen Empowerment.

• Saturday, May 10, 6 p.m. Annual vigil in memory of Bobby and Mathew Mendes, at Dudley and Wendover Streets, Dorchester. Organized by the Bobby Mendes Peace Legacy.

• Sunday, May 11 (registration begins 7 a.m.), starting from Town Field, Dorchester. Mothers’ Walk for Peace. Proceeds to benefit outreach to survivors and elementary school program to aid in prevention and healing.

Barney Frank on Politics of the Mortgage Crisis

2008-04-29T10:05:00.005-05:00

To explain the mortgage crisis that became a global credit crisis, US Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) started by putting the blame on the party politics of Ronald Reagan. Instead of borrowers, brokers, financial markets or even the Federal Reserve Bank, the current chair of the House Committee on Financial Services went back twenty years to the former president’s philosophy of government.

“Reagan’s central idea,” said Frank, “was ‘Government is not the answer to our problems—government is the problem.’ His philosophy is why we’re here today.”

Frank was speaking Monday in a forum at the John F. Kennedy Library, but he was also in Dorchester, the heart of the mortgage crisis in Boston. According to an article appearing the same day in Banker & Tradesman, housing foreclosures in Dorchester had more than tripled in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period in 2007, to a total of 171. That was more than half the total for whole city.

When it came to assigning blame, Frank included everyone from champions of deregulation in financial services to prominent Republicans in Congress, and even the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan.

Frank had praise for Greenspan’s monetary policy—keeping interest rates low when some believed employment levels were high enough to be inflationary. But he faulted Greenspan with a “rigid ideological distrust” of deregulation. Most of the foreclosures currently being tracked in Boston were made by mortgage companies, which were usually much less regulated than banks. Once the loans were made, they were recombined and sold in financial markets, where high risk was often outweighed by high returns and high ratings for investors.

When prompted by the moderator, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Frank rejected explanations of the mortgage crisis as being caused by low interest rates, cycles in the real estate market, or requirements of the Community Reinvestment Act.

“It was not just the housing bubble,” said Frank. “People made housing loans that shouldn’t have been made.”

Also contradicted were the arguments by lenders (including those attributed to former chair of Countrywide Financial Corporation, Angelo Mozilo) that it was wrong to equate higher-interest subprime lending with predatory lending, and that subprime loans actually expanded home ownership opportunities for people of color. Frank took the side of UMass. Boston researcher James Campen, who showed a disproportionate concentration of subprime loans in the Boston area among people of color—even those with higher income.

“It’s not that in a fair situation they would have gotten zero loans,” said Frank. “In a fair situation, they would have gotten prime loans.”

But Frank also extended blame for the ensuing mortgage meltdown to a way of thinking that resembled a policy theme of President Bush: the “ownership society.”

“We made a mistake,” said Frank, “when we equated providing decent housing for everyone with giving everyone the right to own a home.”

To place lenders and mortgage originators under the same regulation as banks, the Committee on Financial Services approved legislation last November. The bill would set a standard for a borrower’s ability to repay a loan, and there would be an extension of liability to the investors who buy loans in the secondary market.

Opponents of the legislation say it will make loans even more expensive and make it difficult for owners of small businesses to get mortgages on the basis of stated income. High-interest subprime loans based on income statements that were erroneous or falsified have been blamed for many of the mortgages that would end up in foreclosure.

Frank credited the current Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke with being “useful” by favoring the kind of regulatory powers allowed by Congress in 1994. Those were powers that Frank said Greenspan “explicitly refused” to impose on mortgage companies.

“What we have now are people afraid to buy things,” said Frank.

“Good regulation,” he argued, “is an important part of bringing the market back.”

Another of Frank’s ideas for bringing back the housing market is a compromise on the part of subprime lenders. Instead of trying to recapture the full paper value of bad loans, the companies holding the mortgages would allow refinancing by the Federal Home Loan Bank at lower interest rates. The new mortgages would then be sold in the secondary market. Frank says this could “avert many hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.”

“Housing prices would still go down—as they should,” he said, “but at a less dizzying rate.”

After the forum, Frank emphasized the refinancing would only be available for properties used by owners as their primary residence. That would exclude much of the housing that has been faced with foreclosure in Boston, where it’s not unusual to find a single owner defaulting on mortgages in multiple units. To help neighborhoods hard hit by foreclosures of these units, the legislative proposal Frank announced in March with US Senator Christopher Dodd would also provide $10 billion for acquisition and repair of vacant properties. The money could be used by public agencies or community-based non-profits.

“We want to give the money to the cities to buy these properties,” said Frank.

The outcome on response to the mortgage crisis by Congress also depends on the election in November. Frank positioned himself much closer to the Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Though he said Clinton’s call for a foreclosure moratorium was “unworkable,” he contrasted the Democrats with the backing for John McCain from a supporter of deregulation and foe of the Community Reinvestment Act, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm. For Frank, it was one more piece of the argument that, for all its disrepute, party politics makes a difference.

Long Struggle Ahead for School Budget

2008-03-31T07:17:00.003-05:00

Thanks to a one-time infusion of $10 million from the city’s reserve funds, the Boston School Committee approved an $827.5 million budget with words of relief and praise for Mayor Thomas Menino. Despite requiring some cut-backs and new cost-savings, the budget figure for the next school year was still higher than the current figure by 5.7%. While budget-watchers see the potential for more savings in facilities and transportation, new plans to help students—sometimes by expanding services—are up against the growing pressure expected in coming years to hold the line on spending.

School officials say more than half the budget increase over the coming year is for personnel costs and other non-discretionary costs such as utilities. Almost one-quarter of the increase is for the cost of programs originally funded by other sources, such as paraprofessionals in kindergarten, family and community outreach, and the summer school transition program. A smaller portion of the increase is for new spending and expansion in areas such as K1, K-8 schools, advanced placement, “international Baccalaureate,” and dropout prevention and recovery.

Because student enrollment has declined over the last five years by close to 10%, the Boston schools are getting less money from the largest source of federal funding, the Title I program. Over the last two years the decrease was $7.8 million, and next year’s reduction is expected to be $3.6 million. For the coming year, officials expect a slight increase in the state’s Chapter 70 funding, to about $173.4 million.

The School Dept. acknowledges that some of the drop in enrollment is because of families choosing other options, such as charter schools. But officials also cite a change in Boston’s population mix—up in recent years by 30,000, though with a decrease in the total number of school-aged children. What officials say has not changed is the share of the city’s school-aged children attending the Boston Public Schools—about75%.

At the March 26 School Committee meeting when the budget was approved, Supt. Carol R. Johnson said there was “excess capacity” in elementary and middle grades, and that officials would have to look at consolidating services.

“The budget challenge we’re facing tonight is not a one-year challenge,” she said. “It is a multi-year challenge where we will be forced to look at savings in the future.”

The decrease in Title I funding and student enrollment was noted last year by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.

“They’ve got buildings that are underutilized, underperforming, and yet resources are going into them,” said Municipal Research Bureau President Samuel R. Tyler.

“If they don’t go forward and make the kind of changes they have to make,” he said, “the next time around it’s not going to get any easier.”

In his state of the city address in January, Menino strongly urged cost-saving in transportation. Though he promised to maintain service to students with special needs, he said the School Dept. could “save significant money on the majority of transportation costs,” or else see them increase by 50% over the next five years.

But decision-makers are also concerned with other numbers, starting with dropout figures. In 2006-07, the Boston schools had 1,659 dropouts, with an annual rate of 8.9%. That was better than the figure for the year before, 9.9%, but still only down to the second highest figure since 2000-01. Last year’s figures from Boston show continuing disparities by race and gender, with a dropout rate for Hispanic students at 11.9%, black students at 8.7%, white students at 6.9%, and Asian at 3.3%.

In her memorandum to the School Committee on January 30, Johnson drew attention to other sub-categories—the graduation rates for the two largest groups of male students in the Boston Schools: 45% for Latinos and 48% for African-Americans. Another challenging figure is the almost 20% of the students in special education. Johnson maintains one part of that total is caused by an “over-referral” of students of color. And special needs students, according to statewide figures, are also the most likely to drop out.

The state’s second highest category of dropouts is English Language Learners (ELL), and in Boston they account for 18% of the students.

“There is not an adequate range of programs for ELL students, and there is not enough support for these students in their schools,” Johnson wrote. “Exacerbating the problem is a shortage of qualified, certified English as a Second Language teachers. Finally, families are often confused or uninformed about the choices available to them, resulting in their children not receiving appropriate language services.”

Johnson’s memorandum also drew attention to the call for quality in the schools, and it follows a request for proposals to set up more innovative pilot schools. And, as her message to the School Committee noted, her agenda depends on new revenue and collaborations.

After the budget vote, Johnson spoke of budget needs and the importance of keeping students engaged.

“I don’t think we can get the kind of excellent opportunities for all children that everybody wants,” she said, “without some added resources.”

Carney Recommendation Stirs Opposition

2008-03-06T17:11:00.018-05:00

State Attorney General Martha Coakley is meeting with strong community opposition to the call for an end to acute care at Carney Hospital in Dorchester.

The recommendation was part of a report for the Attorney General on providers affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in the Caritas Christi Health Care System. The 197-bed community teaching hospital has been serving Dorchester and surrounding areas since 1863. Long a fixture among the mostly Irish-American population in Dorchester and surrounding communities, the Carney has increasingly been used by the current local population, much of it people of color and immigrants.

The Carney has also for many years been one of Boston’s leading providers of care to needy patients and the uninsured. The consultants for the Attorney General, Health Strategies & Solutions, say the Carney Hospital has “a long history of poor financial performance financial problems, low inpatient occupancy, and an aging and out of date physical plant with pent-up capital needs.”

In her letter accompanying the report, Coakley wrote, “Carney’s future should be based on current community need, not on historical service lines. Accordingly, acute medical-surgical inpatient hospital care may not be the appropriate future for Carney. The growth areas of health care are almost universally found in ambulatory settings and Greater Boston has no shortage of medical-surgical inpatient beds.” Coakley also wrote that the Carney’s dependence on state funding was of “significant concern.”

A director of the Health Reform Program at the Boston University School of Public Health, Alan Sager, calls the recommendation for the Carney “shocking.”

“There’s not another hospital in the city of Boston whose removal would tear more of a gaping hole—geographically—in the fabric of care,” said Sager.

“The Carney serves people who, if displaced, would be vulnerable to deprivation of needed care,” he said.

Sager says the effect on other hospitals could be destabilizing.

"If the Carney closes," he said, "the financial problems associated with its patient mix will migrate to other hospitals."

The recommendation is also meeting with strong opposition from administrators of Dorchester community health centers. They say the change would disrupt care for patients served by health center physicians with admitting privileges at the Carney.

“If the Carney closes, we would have to re-route a significant part of our patients,” said the president and CEO of Harbor Health Services, Daniel J. Driscoll.

He says the Carney is important for patients with chronic disease and substance abuse problems who occasionally need hospitalization.

“This is not the time to be cutting back on a low-cost community hospital that has both an emergency room and an inpatient psychiatric unit,” said Driscoll.

“Hospitals, doctors and patients live in a very complex ecology, and uprooting one of the three components disrupts the other two very badly,” said Sager.

“This is a great blow,” said Driscoll, “to the ability of Dorchester’s community health centers to care for the community in an effective and cost-efficient manner.”

Sager says the end of acute care at the Carney would force patients to use other teaching hospitals that are more expensive, thus increasing pressure on the costs to HMOs.

“If the Carney is closed as an acute care hospital,” said Sager, “people in our state will be propelled farther and faster toward unaffordable hospital care.”

Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney says the recommendation adds to uncertainty faced by hospital staff and the community. Feeney also represents the part of Dorchester where the hospital is located.

Coakley noted there could be more need for inpatient specialties that could provide the Carney with more fiscal and operational stability. She also said any long term plan for the Carney would have to address the availability of emergency services and include “substantial input from the Dorchester community.”

But Feeney says making the Carney a behavioral health services facility would be a “disservice to the community.”

“There is little doubt that Carney faces challenges,” Feeney said in a statement issued today. “I recognize that continuing to operate as is and under the current structure of Caritas is not a viable option. However, I am unconvinced that the future of Carney does not include acute care. It is clear to me and our local elected leadership, that this community needs the services that Carney provides. I believe that we do need a complete and comprehensive community needs assessment to more fully understand the ways in which Carney can continue serving the communities of Dorchester and the wider metro Boston area.”

Consultants also recommend that governance of the entire Caritas system have more independence from the Archdiocese of Boston. They say strategic, operational, and financial matters should be controlled by an independent board of governors, with matters of religious direction left to the Archdiocese.

Consultants also recommended that St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton should continue realignment as a community teaching hospital competing in two or three service areas.

Also see coverage in the Dorchester Reporter.

Home Searches for Guns Meet Resistance

2008-03-02T15:52:00.028-05:00

When she got up to speak at a “town hall meeting” February 21 in Dorchester, Isaura Mendes didn’t have to mention that two of her sons had been murdered.

“If you have little children, before they go to school—search their bag,” she told a packed room of more than one hundred people at the headquarters of the Mass. Assn. of Minority Law Enforcement Officers.

“If they have a little room,” she said, “then don’t let them lock their door.”

The words could have been advice to the family of LaQuarrie Jefferson, the 8 year-old boy who was accidentally shot at home in Roxbury last June, while playing with a 7 year-old cousin.

The boy’s death led to a fierce public debate, with elected officials and community leaders decrying the easy access to illegal guns. On the other side of the debate were the commentators who blamed adults in the family. Aside from having criminal records, some family members even tried to mislead the police by initially reporting the boy’s death as the result of a home invasion.

For Boston Police officials, the death of Liquarry Jefferson is a reason to move forward with a search program known as the “Safe Homes Initiative.” The initiative is partially based on a program in St. Louis that is credited with extracting 510 guns over 18 months during the mid-1990s. But, after months of planning and discussion with the community, the program still faces strong criticism from most of Boston’s African-American elected officials.

As described by the Police Dept., the searches would be done with the consent of parents. Homes would be chosen for visits on the basis of referrals from schools, community organizations, parents, clergy, or anonymous tips. Police making the home visits would be officers assigned to the Boston Public Schools. There would also be follow-up visits to help families with needs for social services. Officials say any gun found in a teenager’s room would not result in illegal weapons charges, since their aim is get guns off the streets.

At the community meeting in Dorchester most of the panelists were raising concerns about the program. They warned about the effect on relationships between parents and children, the possibility of legal problems, and the potential for information to be shared with other authorities.

“When we let the police officers into our house, it creates a problem with the parents,” said Mendes.

Also getting up to criticize the program at the meeting were four of the city’s seven African-American elected officials.

“If you snitch on your son, you’ve got to live with that baby,” warned State Rep. Gloria Fox.

“If the parent calls the police,” she said, “and if they don’t refer her to the wrap-around services she needs for her son, what will she have done?”

“This is not about us turning our children over to the police,” said State Senator Dianne Wilkerson.

“It’s not supposed to be where they start,” she said. “It’s supposed to be where they end up when everything else fails.”

According to a description of the initiative by the Boston Police Dept., parents can refuse a search, limit the areas of the search in the home, or call for a stop at any time. But legal experts and elected officials at the meeting said parents would feel pressured.

“Is that a situation in which they can make a free and clear and intelligent decision?” asked City Councilor Chuck Turner. “I would say ‘No.’”

A staff attorney with the Mass. American Civil Liberties Union, Sarah Wunsch, called the searches “inherently intimidating and coercive.”

“The only reason to show up on someone’s doorstep is that it’s intimidating,” said Wunsch, “and people are likely to open the door and allow a search.”

Councilor Charles Yancey said no program should go into effect “without the full support of this community.”

“We should not support this program of having police coming unannounced to investigate what’s going on in your son or your daughter’s bedroom,” he said.

A panelist at the meeting who strongly advised against giving consent to home searches was defense attorney and civil rights activist James S. Dilday.

“The problem is this, ladies and gentlemen: you as the parents, as adults, cannot think if you allow a police officer to come in and search your child’s room that everything is going to be fine,” he said.

“All I’m telling you, ladies and gentlemen, is--don’t give up your rights,” said Dilday. “Do I like what some of these little assholes are doing? No. Do I think it’s worth giving up some of your constitutional rights? Absolutely not.”

The Boston Police Dept. has a long history of conflict with the black community over searches. There was the stop-and-frisk campaign seven years ago that many community leaders said was applied too indiscriminately. There was the misdirected drug raid that led to the death of a 75 year-old minister, Rev. Accelyne Williams, in 1994. There was also the search in 1989 for the black suspect falsely accused in the murder of Carol Stuart by her husband and likely killer, Charles Stuart.

“If you don’t have a relationship, a positive relationship with people in the community,” said Turner, “you’re not going to be able to solve crimes.”

But police say the search program will expand positive relationships by directing families to social services. One of the leading planners of the “Safe Homes Initiative,” Deputy Supt. Gary French, says consenting to search of a room could also help families avoid legal problems. He cites a recent case of a parent who called about a gun kept by her 15 year-old son. After police arrived, they eventually found the gun in his possession, leaving him to face criminal charges and a criminal record.

“It’s the type of situation when that program would have been ideal for that particular family,” said French, in an interview on Neighborhood Network News. “It would have gotten the gun out of the street, provided some services into the family, and would have stopped the situation from developing to where now the kid is under arrest—he’s looking at a severe sentence.”

Supporters of the program say it could also deter older, hardened criminals from storing guns with juveniles. A juvenile caught with a gun would face less serious charges. But an older person with a gun might be more reluctant to pass it on, if it seemed more likely a juvenile’s room would be searched.

“We’re interested in getting that child with a young age,” said French, “a kid who’s not a fringe player in a gang, but maybe thinking about getting involved in a gang, or maybe holding a firearm for a gang member, getting that gun away from the child, and protecting and helping him out.”

Also in dispute is whether information connected with a search could be shared with other authorities. The Police Dept. says school or public housing authorities would get information about recovery of a weapon only if were “necessary to protect public safety.”

“This is a confidential program,” said French. “The records are going to be kept in the School Dept., in the School Police office. It’s not going to be shared with the individual headmasters. We have no interest in notifying (immigration authorities) or any other agency. What we are interested in doing is getting the firearm off the street and pumping services into that family.”

But Wunsch emphasizes the possibility of information being shared.

“They’re hanging on to the right to inform school officials about what they find in the home,” she said.

The Police Dept. has been planning to introduce the initiative in four neighborhoods which have been affected by gun violence in recent years: Bowdoin-Geneva and Franklin Field-Franklin Hill in Dorchester, Grove Hall, and Egleston Square and “5W’s” in Roxbury. The populations in these areas are primarily black, Latino, or Cape Verdean. Community leaders criticizing the initiative say the target areas are another example of racial profiling. But even they acknowledge that public agencies and people in the community should be able to identify a family that needs some kind of intervention to prevent violence.

While there’s agreement on all sides that Boston needs something more than another gun buyback program, some question whether intervention should take the form of a house call by police.

“All they really need to do,” said Wunsch, “is publicize a phone number to call and a person to call.”

French says weapons recovery requires expertise.

“We prefer to recover those guns for public safety purposes,” he said.

Even without the search program in affect last year, the Boston Police recovered 800 firearms. In 2006, the total was 805. And critics of the initiative argue that it concentrates on only a small part of a much larger problem.

“This would be like trying to fix a leak in your sink by putting a bucket there to catch the water,” said Wilkerson.

“We have to have a working, effective law enforcement authority in this city,” she said. “It’s not their job to be raising our children.”

And Turner says the problem of violence in Boston goes beyond “just a few thugs.”

“If you have 11,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are out of school and out of work, you’re going to have crime and violence,” said Turner.

"The only way to begin to solve it,” he said, “is to create a relationship with those young people who are out of work and out of school first.”

One speaker at the meeting who brought up the case of LaQuarrie Jefferson was retired Boston Police Superintendent Bobby Johnson.

“We do have to think about the civil rights of our kids, but sometimes we have to go one step further,” he said.

“I would think that if this panel could blow up the plan that Gary French has,” he added, “they can go one step further and craft a plan that’s good for the community.”

Also: see video report on "Safe Homes Initiative" by NNN reporter Joe Rowland.

Mapping Foreclosure: By Waves, By Dots

2008-02-28T08:57:00.012-05:00

From a distance, the Boston housing market looks more like a wave, or one of many troughs in a receding tide. Some parts of the city are further down than others, just as some tidemarks around the country stretch farther out to sea. Up close, the steps backward or forward are small, like the fitful trudge of horseshoe crabs.

At a meeting of Mayor Menino’s Foreclosure Intervention Team Wednesday morning, there were some steps forward to report from an especially beleaguered area around Hendry Street in Dorchester. A tenant facing eviction from a house recently in mortgage trouble was about to sign a one-year lease. The city was offering to buy five three-decker condos that were taken by foreclosure. There was an offer to buy a three-decker beset with mortgage trouble and a legal dispute. And the city was in discussions with the US Dept. of Housing & Urban Development over a vacant property around the corner on Coleman Street. Buyers had agreements to buy two other houses on Hendry Street and Clarkson Street. And one more three-decker on Hendry Street would soon be up for auction.

The Hendry Street area was also getting attention from the police, as well as outreach to property owners and tenants. And, to help break the deadlock on foreclosed housing throughout Boston, the Mayor’s administration had also filed a home rule petition to impose a surtax of 10%.

The rest was putting the numbers in perspective.

“We’re not as bad as ’93 and ’94, but we never want to get there,” said the mayor. “And all the predictions we get are the worst is yet to come.”

Officials say one sign that more trouble is on the way is that only 30% of the adjustable-rate mortgages they’re concerned about have jumped to a higher interest rate.

“Nine hundred eighty-two loans have already reset,” said mayoral advisor Pat Canavan. “We’re anticipating in the next few months, through April of ’08, 750. So, we’re not at the peak of this issue yet.”

Also growing is the percentage of properties for which banks fail to find a new buyer. That means the party holding the mortgage takes title, dotting the city’s map (above) with one more “Real Estate Owned Property” or “REO.” According to the Dept. of Neighborhood Development (DND), in 2005, 48% of the foreclosures in Boston ended up as REOs. In 2006, it was 81%. Last year, the figure was 93%. Currently, the city has 565 REO properties.

DND figures put the number of foreclosure petitions on Residential property in Boston at 2432, which is up from the 2006 total by 75%. There were 703 foreclosure deeds, which is up from the 2006 figure by 169%. According to DND’s Deputy Director, William Cotter, the totals are evenly split between property owned by occupants and investors.

Cotter says 76% of the foreclosed properties are in four parts of Boston: Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan and Hyde Park. In parts of those areas with concentrations of subprime lending and foreclosures, he explained, property values fell last year by 10-15%.

“There are other neighborhoods in our city that are not affected in any way,” he added, “but this value is directly related to the problem.”

City officials say their prevention programs reduced the number of potential foreclosures by 30%.

“This effort today,” said Cotter, “and the effort of the mayor is to stay ahead of those things—stay ahead of the REO properties and the abandoned and vacant property, so that we can minimize the overall impact. If we can do that, the decline may not be as low, and we can help the market recover more quickly.”

As in years of decline during the early 1990’s, early 1980’s and much of the 1970’s, a small amount of time could make the difference between a house fit to market and a house damaged by vandals or plundered for materials such as copper pipes.

Even if worse things have yet to strike the Boston housing market, it’s still possible to go from foreclosure sale to profitable investment in a single day, even when a property’s losing value. Records show that’s what happened January 31 with a three-decker on Armandine Street in Dorchester. One buyer purchased the three units from three different lenders for a total of $299,000. Then, in what might be called a condo deconversion, the whole house was sold the same day to a pair of buyers for $450,000, with a 10% down payment. The same three units sold in 2006 for a total of $810,000.

Hendry Street Foreclosures: Fluke or Portent?

2008-02-21T10:34:00.006-05:00

When it comes to property owners around Hendry St in Dorchester, Leonard Habiyakare, Jr. is an exception. While some have sold out over the past few years, and others succumbed to foreclosure, Habiyakare has been struggling to keep his three-family house, which is at the end of the street. With help from ACORN, he managed to get his mortgage modified, but he still has trouble finding tenants.

“It is very—I have to say—very strange,” he said in a recent interview on Neighborhood Network News, “because you walk down the street, and there’s no neighbors. Actually, I only have two neighbors—like down the street. I have two houses next to me, and the others all have plywood.”

When Mayor Thomas Menino announced a foreclosure intervention plan for Hendry Street last Thursday, things were still going downhill. Officials at the announcement stood in front of four three-deckers in a row that were vacant and boarded up. The house across the street—though still occupied—had a “for sale” sign. And, before the announcement was over, a tenant in Habiyakare’s house, Donia Jefferson, came out to say the company servicing the mortgage wanted her out by Tuesday.

To break the chain of foreclosures on Hendry, Coleman and Clarkson Streets, the city plans to invest in fixing up buildings and take legal action. During most of Menino’s tenure, the city’s housing strategy has mainly been to use a modest public investment for leveraging more units in private ownership, preferably with owner occupants. The strategy on Hendry Street is dramatically different: a heavy public investment, with outside ownership likely for what officials can only hope will be the short term. The city’s plan includes taking at least five properties for back taxes.

“This is a special project are for us,” said Menino, “and we’re going to work to make this neighborhood what it was four years ago, where people wanted to live and raise their children.”

But even the best of times on Hendry Street are part of a long, troubled history. The street has been periodically infamous for crime problems, going back at least to the anti-drug campaigns led by Georgette Watson in the mid-1980s. And the rash of foreclosures—at least 12 properties on Hendry, Clarkson, and Coleman Streets counted by city officials—quickly spread through an area dominated by absentee ownership, much of it by a trust for one family.

The family trust sold a home to Habiyakare in April, 2005. By early October, 2006, the trust sold three other properties on Hendry and Clarkson streets to a single owner. Within little more than one year, two of those properties had filings for foreclosure, as would another property purchased from the same trust on Ridgewood Street, Dorchester, in December 2006. A property sold by the trust nearby on Quincy Street would be taken by foreclosure in January of 2007, after yet another change of ownership.

The path to the foreclosure process was also quick at 19 and 21 Hendry Street. Both three-deckers were converted by the same buyers. The units for each building sold on the same day—in March and September 2006—and for the same price: $299,000. They were all on the way to foreclosure by the fall of 2007. And the last owner before the filing for foreclosure on 17 Hendry Street was involved in the conversion of a three-decker on Draper St, Dorchester. That conversion resulted in foreclosure filings on two units.

“You superimpose the housing stuff on top of all the rest of it, and that’s a recipe made for disaster,” said Davida Andelman, a community health organizer for the Bowdoin Street Health Center.

A neighborhood resident for 23 years, Andelman says it was difficult to organize Hendry St residents because fear and intimidation were “outrageous.”

“It really is crying out for owner-occupancy of the houses,” she said. “That would go a long way.”

City officials and people familiar with times of trouble for housing in Dorchester agree it will take more than market forces to fill vacancies around Hendry Street. Just across Hendry St from the four vacant three-deckers in a row is a block with 8 homes, all but two of them vacant. Still at least partially occupied is the two-family house at 27-29 Hendry St. A lender filed for foreclosure on the property more than a year ago, and the owner is also faced with foreclosure on another property in Dorchester, on Carlos St.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like this neighborhood, where in such a small geographic area there’s such a concentration of foreclosures,” said mayoral advisor Pat Canavan, in an interview on Neighborhood Network News.

Canavan said there will probably be two buyers salvaging the foreclosed houses, possibly as rental property until the neighborhood around Hendry St is stabilized.

“This is one situation where we think the private market will not work,” said Canavan. “Across the city, we don’t anticipate a whole lot of city involvement on foreclosed properties because we think the private market will take care of it.”

One observer who has been rehabilitating distressed properties in Dorchester since the late 1970’s, Patrick Cooke, agrees that it’s too soon to expect new owner-occupants to take on a home around Hendry St.

“Whoever buys it has got to be in for the long haul,” said Cooke, “and be prepared to lose money for several years.”

Though Cooke says the density and lack of open space around Hendy St would always make the area a challenge, he says the sharp rise and fall of the real estate market has also left other neighborhoods in Dorchester vulnerable.

“There are a whole lot more streets that will be as problematic as Hendry St,” he predicted.

While few streets in Dorchester have the same concentration of boarded-up buildings, signs of financial distress can be found as far away as Ashmont Street in Neponset and in the St. Mark’s area. In a conversion at 11 St. Mark’s Rd, three units that sold in 2006 for at least $325,000 apiece were all at least in foreclosure process by January of this year. And a condo in a three-decker on Ashmont St that sold less than three years ago for more than $400,000—with hardwood floors, marble countertops and Jacuzzi—is currently on the market for $250,000.

The transactions leading to foreclosure around Hendry Street also took place near the peak of a real estate market, when prices soared as multi-family houses were converted into condominiums. Though the market left many other properties noticeably improved, the flood of financing around Hendry St only made it possible for sellers to walk away before the next buyers defaulted.

“We went through a period in basically four years in which it made no sense to buy a three-decker as a three-decker. The people who bought three-deckers were in the market for a conversion,” said Cooke.

“If we don’t change the way of mortgage lending now,” he said, “this will be a way of life.”

For more coverage on foreclosures in Dorchester, visit the Dorchester Reporter.

Primary Impressions from Boston

2008-02-06T17:11:00.000-05:00

There are two less than enchanted views of the Democratic presidential primary vote in Boston and across Massachusetts. One is that Barack Obama should have done better, and that his charisma and high-profile endorsements failed to meet expectations for votes. The other view is that Hillary Clinton’s advantage among Massachusetts Democrats was less about her appeal as a public figure than about campaign spending and organization.

There were 116,024 votes cast from Boston in the Democratic primary alone. That’s more than twice the number cast in a primary contest 8 years ago between Bill Bradley and a heavily favored vice president, Al Gore. The number of Boston votes in all parties yesterday was also about 70% of the total vote for president in November of 2000. Both comparisons are unfair, though they place the turnout roughly half-way between a typical Mass. presidential primary and a tightly contested final vote for President.

Obama’s win in Boston (with almost 53% of the vote) was as expected as Clinton’s win in Massachusetts. It was hardly surprising that Clinton carried South Boston, West Roxbury, Brighton, and (by a small margin) Dorchester’s Ward 16 (Neponset, Cedar Grove), along with the Savin Hill area (Ward 13, Precinct 10). She also carried the main precinct in Chinatown (Ward 3, Precinct 8) with more than 60% of the vote. Citywide, Clinton got a little over 44% of the vote.

Obama, as expected, had a decisive edge in Boston’s African-American community, in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. He carried the Back Bay, the Fenway, Jamaica Plain, and Mission Hill. He won some precincts in the South End, Roslindale (between Fallon Field and the Arnold Arboretum, and the Washington-Beech public housing and former High Point Village developments) and Hyde Park (mostly between the Neponset River and Hyde Park Avenue, north of Cleary Square; along with Sunnyside and Stony Brook areas, and neighboring Georgetowne). But Clinton won in other sections of Ward 18—Fairmount, Readville, and Clarendon Hills.

State Rep. Michael Moran said he was somewhat surprised by the breadth of support for Clinton in Charlestown. “She won the ‘Townie’ vote,” said Moran. “But the ‘Toonie’ vote went her way, too.” And Moran attributes Clinton’s win in East Boston to a combination of the older base of Italian-Americans and the newer base of Latinos, many of them recent immigrants. Clinton has enjoyed a solid advantage from Latinos in other states, especially California, but the advantage was less apparent from returns in Jamaica Plain, where all but a few precincts (such as Jamaica Hills’ Ward 19, Precinct 2) were carried by Obama.

To be sure, one factor in the Boston vote was the organizational help from Clinton supporters such as Mayor Thomas Menino and House Speaker Sal DiMasi. If it isn't necessarily fair to see Obama's win in Boston as a sign of weakness for Menino, the same goes for how Clinton's statewide victory reflects on prominent Obama supporters. Obama's margin of victory in Boston was much smaller than Deval Patrick's in 2006, but no one could say Kerry Healey's appeal to voters across the board in Boston was anything near the appeal of Hillary Clinton among the city's Democrats.

The total number of Republican votes from Boston in the presidential primary was less than the total for 2000. That could mean a drop in support for the party, though it also be the response to John McCain’s clear nationwide advantage over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But in the figures from Boston, the race was tighter than it was for the Democrats: McCain with 46%, Romney with 44%, then Ron Paul finishing 3rd with a little more than 4%. McCain did noticeably better in the Back Bay than in South Boston. That might be explained by a difference in reaction to Romney’s more persistent call for tougher control of immigration. The immigration issue might also explain McCain’s strong showing in Chinatown’s Ward 3, Precinct 8, where Republicans gave him 75% of the vote.

To invoke another unfair comparison, McCain got a bigger local share of the primary vote in 2000. That year, there were no other Republican candidates with anything like Romney's connection to Massachusetts, but there was George W. Bush. In the Boston total for 2000, McCain got 66.4% of the vote, while Bush got 27.7%. In South Boston the margin was even more lopsided, with McCain getting 72.1% of the vote and Bush, 24.1%. In the 2008 Republican primary vote from South Boston, Romney outpolled McCain by a count of 901 to 874. The difference between McCain results in the two Massachusetts primaries is partly about geography, but also about the relative discomfort with some of McCain's positions--a discomfort that could be rechanneled in November.

Road to Choice Through Community Learning?

2008-01-22T20:58:00.000-05:00

When the Jeremiah Burke High School reopens in Grove Hall, students will come back to more than renovated classrooms. In addition to a new gym, there will be a new branch library, and a new community center, all in one setting.

The executive director of Project RIGHT in Grove Hall, Jorge Martinez, says he remembers when supporters of the library were nervous about giving up a safe haven on Crawford Street. More than a year after the groundbreaking for the $42 million project, says Martinez, the library’s friends group is enlisting members to share a new safe haven with students.

Martinez calls the arrangement a “support network” that will provide students with “wrap-around services.” It’s also a change in the map of education, where the pursuit of quality and equity has often taken students outside their neighborhoods or outside the city.

“Adults need structure, but children even more so,” says Martinez. “If you provide the structure, plug in wonderful people who can be teachers, who can be mentors, you reach that equity piece pretty quick.”

In the State of the City address last week at the Strand Theatre, Mayor Thomas Menino referred to the same combination of services as “Community Learning.”

“Imagine if these facilities, their programming, and their personnel were all aligned, so that curriculum and after-school programming could be seamlessly delivered from morning to evening,” said Menino. “Imagine if your children had not just a teacher or two to push their progress, but a whole network of caring adults in a series of sites throughout your neighborhood.”

Combining schools with community centers in Boston goes back at least as far as the 1970s. More recent are some of the widely accepted ideas of what’s needed for quality education: longer school days, after-school programs run by public agencies or community-based non-profits, and stronger ties between schools and their students’ families. The innovations have also been reinforced by results from some of Boston’s charter schools, pilot schools, and district schools with extra time for learning.

Also changing is the use of the word “integration.” In the 1970s, the word usually meant relocation, whether through busing, or moving to a more affluent community. A long-time activist and Dean Emeritus of the Boston University School of Social Work, Hubie Jones, has been trying to close the gap between schools and human services since the 1980s. For him, “integration” means alignment between classroom learning and other kinds of help, whether social services or after-school tutoring.

“Everything we know,” says Jones, “tells us kids who are at risk--who’ve been traumatized--they and their parents have to have very good support services if they’re going to take advantage of the education that’s offered to them.”

Jones acknowledges this kind of integration “would make more sense if it was in your neighborhood.” And, in the same address last Tuesday, Mayor Menino spoke about exploring ways to at least slow down the rising cost of student transportation. He said that cost will increase by 50% in the next five years.

“I guarantee you,” said the mayor, “that we absolutely will continue to provide choice, but I believe that we can rethink our school assignment zones, continue providing children in every neighborhood with access to high-performing schools, and save up to ten million dollars of transportation costs.”

The mayor also called for rethinking student transportation four years ago. After a series of neighborhood forums, there were, aside from creation of more schools for grades K through eight, only minor changes in the assignment process. In his speech last week, Menino said Boston now has more high-performing schools, and he called for more programs to attract high-performing students. But some members of the City Council question whether Boston has enough options for quality to allow for a significant savings on busing.

In recent years, new options have sprung up in areas where many public school students live--in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan. But the state currently ranks 95 of Boston’s 145 district schools as needing improvement, corrective action, or restructuring. And the chair of the Council’s Education Committee, Chuck Turner, says the mayor should have been more explicit in calling for changes that would avoid a racial gap in access to quality schools.

“Yes, I want to see a plan that moves forward, that saves us money, that fits in with what we’re trying to do,” Turner said in a interview on Neighborhood Network News. “But that plan has to be fair for all.”

More receptive to the mayor’s remarks was a long-time supporter of walk-to schools, Council President Maureen Feeney.

“We must, at all costs, maintain choice for our parents and ensure that all of our schools meet the highest standards of quality education,” said Feeney, in a statement released by her office. “But having schools and children rooted in the same neighborhood contributes to the overall vitality of the community and enhances the overall educational experience.”

Councilor at-large Michael Flaherty says, under the current process, many students are assigned by lottery and forced to commute within a school zone for as much as three hours a day.

“Thousands of parents are not getting their choice,” said Flaherty. “And, technically, that may involve building more schools.”

Jones says Boston has a chance to get more funding for “Community Learning” from the state and federal government, as well as foundations. “The question is,” he added, “is the capacity there in terms of money and personnel.”

In his address, Mayor Menino promised the “Community Learning” endeavor would get $1 million this year from the city. A senior project director with Mass. Advocates for Children, John Mudd, says, given the amount of money so far, and the number of options for quality schools, it’s too soon for that many dramatic changes in student transportation.

One million dollars, said Mudd, said “could create some small models, but it’s not going to get wholesale change.”

Rocky Ride Ahead for City Leaders

2008-01-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

Boston City Councilors began 2008 last Monday with memories of Albert “Dapper” O’Neil, Weepin’ Willie Robinson, and the most anemic local election in several years.

In her inaugural address, Council President Maureen Feeney brought up the low turnout last November as one reason for having a citywide forum of community groups. The forum would take place in April, at the Mass. Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston.

“It is incumbent upon this body to do our part to increase our citizens’ civic engagement,” said Feeney, in an address beginning her second term as Council president.

Feeney said she wanted the forum to “start a conversation about the city’s civic health and vitality.” Along with providing training and support for activists, she said, she wants an event that “raises people’s expectations and understanding of their government.”

If her idea had some logic, the timing was less than ideal, coming midway between high turnout competitions for President in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mayor Thomas Menino has greeted the idea of the forum with skepticism, though not without trying to influence the agenda. Right after Feeney’s address, Menino said there should be talk about the city’s need for new revenue and the obstacles to local option taxes posed by the State House.

“I think it’s a very gloomy future,” said Menino, “when it comes to revenue for our city.”

What the mayor did not say was that the forum would fail to stir interest. With a large presidential turnout expected in November, even a modest springtime surge in civic engagement is hard to rule out. But so is a voter backlash in the fall, especially if a high turnout in Massachusetts also gets a chance to vote on abolishing the state income tax.

The past year brought about some improvements in public safety and the Boston Public Schools, and the improvements came with higher spending. Both areas continue to have serious problems (starting with gun violence and the dropout rate), and no elected official denies the need for even more improvement.

But city and state officials also warn that meeting expectations this year will become more difficult. To begin with, the United States is all but certain to experience a recession. While worse in some other parts of the country, the subprime mortgage meltdown has taken a severe toll on parts of Boston, with prices down from peak levels in some neighborhoods by as much as 31% for single-family homes and 9% for condominiums. Even if the figures reflect more volatility than value, they’re certainly cause for worry.

Any decrease in state revenue will affect cities and towns when it comes to local aid and money for education, not to mention the state’s new health program. And, as the Boston Municipal Research Bureau warns, declining enrollment in the Boston Public Schools will result in less money from the federal government’s Title I reading program.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign to abolish the state income tax will be on the ballot, let alone prevail. But this year’s campaign has already met its first signature goal. When the measure was on the ballot in 2002, abolition received 45% of the vote, despite a campaign with a low budget and low profile.

There’s no question that the result of abolishing the income tax--cutting the state budget by 39%--will, in different quarters, meet with either fervent opposition or fervent support. The task for leaders on either side of the question is to win over the many other people with mixed feelings: people who know they get something of value from the public sector, but who are also financially stretched and sometimes infuriated by certain spending decisions. Rather than embrace or reject a fully developed tax policy, many of these voters in the middle will simply send a message.

It was during the presidential election year of 1980 when voters approved the limits on local property taxes in Proposition 2½. This was the same election in which Massachusetts favored Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. This year, the unpopular incumbent happens to be a Republican, but he’s not on the ballot. If this year’s economic downturn somehow stops short of a recession, it will hardly be much better than the mix of stagnation and higher prices in 1980. And even if most of the recent growth in the tax burden (especially as a percentage of income) is from the property tax, that hardly takes the income tax off the hook.

If voters do abolish the income tax, the changes in the short term will be more dramatic, since Proposition 2½ only put the brakes on tax growth. State legislators and Governor Patrick could always fill some gaps by introducing or increasing other levies, though it’s much too early to say what these would mean for revenue amounts or distribution of the tax burden.

Another lesson from 1980 is that voters who send messages react to messages from elected officials. Two years earlier, Governor Michael Dukakis had campaigned for re-election with a growing budget surplus, part of which he used to increase local aid. None of that increase went into lower property taxes for people in Boston, and Dukakis lost the Democratic primary to Ed King (who supported the forerunner of Proposition 2½, California's Propositon 13). Intended as such or not, there was a message from Dukakis and Boston Mayor Kevin White. White won his fourth straight term in 1979, but when it came time to vote on Proposition 2½, some of its supporters in Boston included public employees and civically engaged people who depended on government programs they really valued.

After Proposition 2½, there were cutbacks, whether measured in MBTA service (partially funded by cities and towns) or in the closing of schools, police stations, and firehouses. There were layoffs and plenty of acrimony. More than a quarter of a century later, it’s possible to say some of the cutbacks were justified. Even the local budget constraints have been offset—more than Proposition 2½ opponents predicted--by periods of growth in the real estate market and the state budget. And no one’s trying to have Proposition 2½ repealed.

It’s even possible that adjusting to abolition of the state income tax will be no more difficult. If leaders—whether the elected or the civically engaged—have any doubts about that, the time to send a message has arrived.

Chalking up a New Year in Boston: 2008

2008-01-01T03:22:00.000-05:00

Hometowners and visitors crossed paths in Boston for the annual "First Night" celebrations. These were a chance for mingling between people from different walks of life, and for crossing the line from spectator to participant. In photo, left, Henry McPherson signs in for the new year at invitation of Sidewalk Sam.
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City and Youth Try to Butt Out Cigarette Ads

2007-12-23T22:36:00.002-05:00

On the outside of one convenience store in Dorchester, at the corner of Adams Street and Centre Street, they spread like a rash: 23 ads for 8 brands of cigarettes. The ads run from doors to windows, and around the corner to the side of the building. There are even ads partially blocked by other ads.

For Mohamed Chibou, a compliance officer in the City of Boston Tobacco Control Program, the sight is fairly common among convenience stores in areas such as Dorchester and Roxbury.

“As you look at the advertising in front, it’s mostly tobacco ads,” he said, “and there’s a reason for it to be there.”

Youth activists from Mission Hill, Dorchester, and other neighborhoods say the reason is to get more young people started on smoking. And, Thursday, city officials stood with them to announce tougher enforcement of city regulations on advertising.

According to a survey by the youth group Sociedad Latina, the neighborhood with the highest percentage of store ads promoting tobacco products was Dorchester, with more than 49%. The figures were almost as high for Mattapan, South Boston, and Mission Hill.

“You go to Centre St in West Roxbury, you won’t see these signs,” said Mayor Thomas Menino.

“What we notice with a lot of stores in Dorchester and Roxbury,” said Chibou, “is that pretty much the whole front of the store is covered in tobacco advertising, and much of it at eye-level for children.” Even some stores with fewer ads visible from outside have several bunched together around their checkout areas, where they’re hard to miss.

Youth activists have been campaigning for ad restrictions for the last four years. They say the store ads often appeal to the young by design and their eye-level.

“They see the advertisements and they think it’s cool, it’s colorful,” said Shanaya Coke, a member of BOLD (“Breath of Life Dorchester”) Teens.

The survey by Sociedad Latina also shows that more than one-third of the tobacco ads were in stores near a school, community center, or playground.

“A lot of kids between the ages of 4 and 8 are going to see these advertisements, not adults,” said 15 year-old Jonathan Ondrejko, a member of the Healthy Roslindale Coalition, at a City Council hearing on storefront ads earlier this month.

Tobacco companies agreed to restrict marketing to youth under a legal settlement with 46 states in 1998. Lorillard, which makes Newport cigarettes, has a youth smoking prevention program. The makers of Kool cigarettes, RJ Reynolds, say on their website that their standards include minimizing “exposure of minors to tobacco advertising.” But another corporate standard says that communication with adult smokers regarding their brand choices “is essential for effective competition.”

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tobacco companies increased their marketing budgets in the first three years after the settlement by two-thirds. “Most of the increase,” says the campaign website, “was in retail store marketing, which is highly effective at reaching kids.”

Officials and advocates also put some of the blame for smoking by young people on magazine advertising and earlier cutbacks in prevention programs by the state. But the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids notes that studies show 75% of teens shop at convenience stores at least once a week.

“Those signs are not just for business inside the store,” said City Councilor Mike Ross. “I think those signs on the front are driving business outside the store for future cigarette purchases.”

City regulations restrict advertising by volume and placement. They limit ads to only 30% of the area in windows, and ads displayed more than 15 days require a permit. At a City Council hearing chaired by Ross earlier this month, officials talked about possibly changing the regulations. But it’s expected any attempt to ban ads for one type of product such as cigarettes would trigger a legal challenge.

Even supporters of restrictions acknowledge there will be a financial price for storeowners who get paid to display tobacco ads.

“There needs to be responsibility in advertising. I don’t think anybody disagrees with that,” said the executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, Barbara Ferrer. “And some of the responsibility should be borne by storeowners as well.”

Officials announced their call for limiting ads at Tropic Food Market, a family-owned convenience on Blue Hill Ave, in Dorchester. The store sells cigarettes and displays some advertising inside, but no ads are visible from the street.

“Our concern is for the teens, young kids around here, what they’re exposed to,” said co-owner Karen Wint.

Wint says there’s also opposition to smoking at her church.

“We have three kids at home,” she said. “We don’t want them to get involved with these ads.”

Foreclosure Rescue Vs. the Contractor Special

2007-12-09T19:34:00.000-05:00

If there’s anything too hopeless for President Bush’s foreclosure prevention plan, it's the “contractor special” near Codman Square in Dorchester. Located in a three-decker (photo, right) on Whitfield Street, the condo is one reason why some believe the President’s plan falls short. And it helps explain why, as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino pointed out, the resetting of adjustable mortgages to higher interest rates is only one link in the subprime chain-reaction.

"The Bush administration's proposal is simply not enough,” the mayor said in a statement issued Thursday. “An astounding 80% of the City of Boston's foreclosure prevention clients in adjustable rate mortgages never even made it to the first rate reset. I hope that Congress understands that solving the nation's foreclosure problems is going to take a lot more than a little tweaking around the edges of the mortgage industry. We need Federal assistance to help save the working class neighborhoods across the nation that are being ravaged by the greed of the lending industry over the last decade."

Like Menino, others familiar with subprime lending in Boston agree the proposal announced November 6 by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is too limited. It would only apply to adjustable subprime mortgages starting from between January 2005 and June 2007, with resets scheduled for three years later. The five-year freeze on interest rates would be voluntary. And the result could still be a net gain overall for lenders and investors, since the diminished returns on interest might still be greater than proceeds from sales after foreclosure.

“The limited scope of the announcement will be disappointing for the millions of homeowners at risk of foreclosure,” said a statement from the CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA), Bruce Marks. “President Bush is abandoning the approximately one million homeowners already on the brink of foreclosure.”

But Marks credits the plan with setting a “new standard for government intervention,” comparing the interest rate freeze to the wage and price controls imposed by President Nixon in 1971. Those controls led to short-term relief, only to be followed by double-digit inflation less than three years later. If the current spasm of tight credit were to ease up and the housing market to reverse its downslide, then the comparison with Nixon’s strategy would seem more flattering.

Marks also credits Bush with avoiding a repetition of the government’s bailout of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s. But, while Marks emphasizes an influential step toward widespread relief on mortgage interest rates, the executive director of Americans for Fairness in Lending, James Campen, sees more obstacles.

“The plan, as it seems,” said Campen, “is going to involve a lot of individual processing to see if people meet the criteria.”

Even when a mortgage meets the criteria in the President’s plan, the property owner would have to ask for help. And to get help, the owner would have to live in the property that secured the mortgage. Real estate analyst John Anderson says that’s why the plan will have limited ability to stall foreclosures and their ripple effect on hard-hit markets such as Dorchester.

“Keeping mortgage rates fixed for 3 or 4 years is not going to have any effect,” he says. “It’s going to have no effect on a condo in Dorchester that nobody moved into.” Or at least where the owner on paper might not have a principal residence.

Which brings up the case of the three-decker with the “contractor special.” After its conversion to condos, all three units were sold to a single buyer in February, 2006, each for $330,000, and each with a mortgage from a different lender. On paper, the buyer was committed to using two of the units as his principal residence. On a third unit, the lender waived the occupancy requirement. Within 19 months, there were petitions to foreclose on all three units.

By October the “contractor special,” unit 3 at 43 Whitfield St, was on the market for $77,000. An ad says the unit has been gutted, with the start of a rehab and “some great extras,” including “the start of a marble bathroom,” not to mention a jacuzzi tub and “some new cabinets.”

At least unit 3 might be better than unit 1, which is on the market for only $63,000, and which an ad says is only “partially gutted.” Also mentioned in the ad: “There is no kitchen and no working bathroom.”

How could the price have fallen so much in less than two years? Was it wear and tear from the occupants? Were the units way overpriced (and over-appraised) when they sold in 2006? What’s more definite is that the seller in 2006 made more than half a million dollars, minus anything that might have been spent on improvements. The million-dollar three-decker might be an aberration, but sales prices were real enough to feed comparisons by appraisers, even for transactions in which the buyer was an owner-occupant who kept up mortgage payments. Now those buyers could once again find their property values affected by figures from 43 Whitfield St, though in the opposite way.

“You put these prices into ‘comps,’” said Anderson, “you’ll have prices dropping off the end of the table.”

“The problem is not the fraud,” he said. “It’s the people who buy the houses predicated on the fraud.”

Until the market started going downhill, there was always the possibility that even the worst case of a foreclosure could be followed by resale at a higher price. “The whole thing,” said Campen, “was based on being able to get refinanced.” And, as Campen notes, loans that went bad for buyers and investors still made money for another party, as may very well have been the case at 43 Whitfield Street.

The idea of a reprieve on ill-advised loans has also met with some backlash, since there would be a price passed on, at least to some investors. It’s possible the price of foreclosures avoided or deferred might be smaller than a loss of revenue from interest payments, but Anderson says the best way for a market to recover is to let prices fall as abruptly as possible.

“I’m a market person,” he says. “The quicker it crashes, and the quicker you get it over with, the better.”

But Anderson and Campen agree about the need for better regulation, even if it does little for people who’ve already borrowed trouble.

“Markets do work, as long as you have standards,” said Anderson.

And the tight credit that’s currently blamed for stifling demand has been equated with a loss of trust in financial markets. Lenders modifying loans on a large scale could be even one more reason for distrust by investors needed to replenish capital for mortgages.

“You can’t run an advanced market on trust. You have to have regulations,” said Campen.

The regulations that still apply to banks have largely been sidestepped by mortgage companies in the subprime debacle. That greater freedom to innovate did in a way expand home-buying opportunity, but innovation has also meant banks losing money as investors on mortgages they would have shunned as lenders. To make that less likely, Campen says the federal government should impose regulation on mortgage companies and appraisers.

“What really has dried up the market,” said Campen, “is a lack of regulation.”