Bay State Banner July 2, 2020

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ARTIST DELVES INTO HOME AND FAMILY IN ‘HISTORIAS DE TIERRA Y MAR’ pg 11

City Fresh Foods offers employees ownership stake pg 10

Black artists locked out of NU studio space pg 2

plus Docuseries “And She Could Be Next” pg 11 “Brown Boy Mad” by SekouWrites pg 12 Vol. 55 No. 49 • Thursday, July 2, 2020 • FREE • GREATER BOSTON’S URBAN NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1965

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New funds aimed at wealth disparities Black executives leverage power to help fund community groups

By BRIAN WRIGHT O’CONNOR Black neighborhoods long ignored, overlooked or illegally bypassed for investment may see a surge of new businesses, jobs and development as a result of major commitments from a quartet of public and private funds launched in the wake of massive nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd and other victims of police violence.

The most notable local effort was the launch last week of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund by nearly two dozen executives of color, who committed $20 million in personal and corporate resources to jumpstart a target of $100 million in investment capital. The initial focus will be to support community nonprofits working in the areas of economic empowerment, police and criminal justice reform, health care equity and youth education.

“It’s time to change the narrative on race in Boston,” said Paul Francisco, State Street Corporation’s chief diversity officer, in announcing the fund. “A fund of this nature — for Black and brown communities and

led by Black and brown corporate executives – has never been attempted in Boston before. We firmly believe we can make the lasting and meaningful changes our communities of color so desperately need.”

On a separate front, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA), boosted by a $100,000 private grant, has launched a drive to come up with a $1 billion fund to reduce racial equities over the next decade. The Boston-based nonprofit announced the Black Massachusetts Coalition Project — endorsed by a range of organizations serving communities of color — while releasing a blueprint for social transformation through challenges to the corporate sector, nonprofits, philanthropic entities, and state and local governments. The coalition calls on them to meet a series of ambitious goals, including the creation of a public bank and commitments from venture capital firms and banks to pledge 10% of their capital to businesses owned by Blacks and Indigenous people.

“As Black leaders in our

See FUNDS, page 8

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Youth activists led by the organization For The People march at City Hall Plaza to demand cuts to the police department budget.

Does the mayor’s race agenda go far enough?

Activists push for deeper cuts to police funding

By YAWU MILLER Last week, Mayor Martin Walsh rolled out a new racial equity cabinet position, a racial equity fund aimed at supporting businesses and nonprofits in communities of color, and an amendment to the city’s zoning code that would require that the

city take fair housing laws into account as part of its development review process.

The announcements are part of a wave of reforms the Walsh administration is advancing in the midst of widespread civil unrest stemming from high-profile police killings of Black people across the nation. The demonstrations and growing public

outrage at police abuse of Blacks and the inequities baked into the criminal justice system are driving a push for reforms at the local, state and national level.

In the current moment of reckoning on race issues some see a window opening for progressive police reforms and

See REFORMS, page 8

Districts expecting less state ed. money Cuts likely despite COVID-related costs

By MORGAN C. MULLINGS

PHOTO: ISABEL LEON, MAYOR’S OFFICE

Karilyn Crockett was appointed the city’s chief of equity.

Governor Charlie Baker announced Thursday that Massachusetts schools will reopen in the fall under one of three possible scenarios – a full return with social distancing, partial remote teaching, or fully remote.

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“We are not out of the woods on this virus, so we need to live with it,” said Lieutenant Gov. Karyn Polito at Thursday’s press conference. To the Baker administration, that means making sure that as many students as possible head back to classrooms, and that educators prioritize developing in-person plans.

Educators now grapple with the concern that they may not be ready to teach fully in-person.

Beth Kontos, President of the American Federation of Teachers in Massachusetts, said that things like bus monitors, extra workers to sanitize, extra devices for remote learning, and Wi-Fi for students are costs that school systems are not prepared for. In a roundtable

See EDUCATION FUNDS, page 13

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Black artists locked out of NU studio space

“

So 40 years ago when this program was established, it was with the understanding that artists were a resource for the community. So all of a sudden, they felt, ‘Why should we support this program right now?’”

By MORGAN C. MULLINGS Several artists from the African American Master Artists in Residence Program (AAMARP) gathered in front of a Northeastern University studio space chanting “Give us the keys” on Saturday, as university officials stood inside and watched. Northeastern closed its doors on March 17. All buildings were locked as students were sent home. But AAMARP artists say they were given no prior notice when they lost access to their materials and art due to new locks on the doors.

On Friday, after sending out a press release about the upcoming protest, the artists were notified that they could contact Northeastern security and schedule a 30minute time slot to be escorted into the studio and collect their things.

The AAMARP program began in 1973, started by Boston artist Dana Chandler, whose son Dana Chandler Jr. helped organize the June 27 protest. AAMARP exists as a three-year residency with chances for renewal, where artists can work on and display their art on the fourth and fifth floors of the 40,000-square-foot building, rent-free. Its affiliation with the University has been debated since 2018, when the locks were first changed.

AAMARP artist L’Merchie Frazier, director of education and interpretation at the Museum of African American History in Boston, recalls the city of Boston stepping in as a mediator in August of 2018, after

— Susan Thompson, artist

PHOTO: MORGAN C. MULLINGS

Artists demonstrate outside the Northeastern University building housing the African American Master Artists in Residence Program in Jamaica Plain. the university declared the building “unsafe” for the artists but not others who work in the building.

“Our negotiations became null and void,” Frazier told the Banner.

She found out the building was locked again in the beginning of June 2019 “without any prior notice or communication,” she said.

In a statement to the Banner, Ralph Martin, general counsel at Northeastern, said, “The University’s warehouse at 76 Atherton Street was treated the same as all other University buildings … Only essential employees, including

researchers, have been given key card access to campus buildings.”

In September of 2019, artists were scheduled to move to an alternative space, Martin said, but due to the effects of the pandemic, that was extended to the end of the 2020 calendar year.

“The artists have been occupying space rent-free at Northeastern for more than three decades, largely without any connection to the University,” he wrote.

Frazier says “free space” is a misstatement, given that Northeastern has budgeted for this building

for three decades. She and Chandler also mentioned Northeastern President Joseph Aoun’s six-page open letter on anti-black discrimination as a response to the George Floyd protests.

“They say one thing, and then they do another … Our property is in the building, my father’s legacy, my aunts’ and uncles’ legacy are in the building,” Chandler said.

Susan Thompson, a textile artist with AAMARP, said the program is more affiliated with the community than the university.

“We’re really entrenched with

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this community. And that was our mission. So 40 years ago when this program was established, it was with the understanding that artists were a resource for the community.

So all of a sudden, they felt, ‘Why should we support this program right now?’” Thompson said.

Frazier, Chandler and AAMARP artist Gloretta Baynes have reached out to Northeastern for further negotiations beyond those that began in 2018, demanding to maintain the name and the space to operate.

As of June 29, they have not heard a response, and they will not disclose their financial or official relationship with the University until they can have that meeting.

“We are grateful to the artists — and all in the Northeastern community — for adhering to public health guidance and moving to remote work,” Martin’s statement said. He did not comment on the meeting request.

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EDITORIAL

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INSIDE: BUSINESS, 10 • ARTS & CULTURE, 11 • CLASSIFIEDS, 13

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An ill-advised meeting Mayor Martin Walsh has extraorditribalism problem confronting Walsh nary insight and sensitivity to underwhen he decided to ignore the mayor’s stand that “racism is a public health instruction not to meet with U.S. Attorcrisis in Boston.” Blacks have underney General William Barr. After the stood this for some time. Some people execution of George Floyd by the police focus on the insults and the disrespect. in Minneapolis, efforts to constrain the But the man on the corner who has to police became the primary issue of probear the brunt of bigotry simply asserts, testers. One of the most common chants “The racist will shoot you in the leg, became “Defund the police!!” The then criticize you for limping.” police department is a major core of The mayor wants to end the racial power in the Boston Irish community. conflict and ameliorate the physical and The general opinion is that Barr is no psychological injury to the victims. He more than a hit man for Trump, rather understands how racism can lead to than the public servant with primary joblessness or underemresponsibility to assure ployment, inadequate that no one is above the Mayor Walsh is housing, poor health law. Trump has stated individually responsible his profound antagocare and psychological depression. Too often nism to the establishfor the outcome of those looking at the dire ment of any penalties the revisions in the consequences of racism or procedures to restrict role of the police. If then blame the victim police violence. for having failed or being the commissioner Barr’s visit was inadequate. undoubtedly political, is unable to comply By bravely speaking and the mayor has sole with the commands or responsibility for meetup, Walsh has assumed a great responsibility. He directions of the mayor ing with Barr or not. It has not personally crewas pathetically naïve he should resign. ated Boston’s bigotry, but for Gross to meet with he has been unwittingly him, in defiance of the brought up in it. In the mayor’s instruction not early days of the republic, Boston was a to do so. In most corporate environmajor port of entry for immigrants. New ments, Gross would be fired. residents from Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, According to the Boston Globe, Germany, Greece, Cape Verde, the Carib- Gross’ response to criticism was, “I’ll be bean and elsewhere settled in homogedamned if I’m going to hide from a conneous neighborhoods where they shared versation with anyone.” So Gross spoke a common history and often a foreign to Barr “as an African American male.” language. People expected solidarity with Clearly Gross does not understand their neighbors against competition with the chain of command. Mayor Walsh is the “others.” individually responsible for the outThis tribalism intensifies racism. For come of the revisions in the role of the some bigots, it’s not enough that the police. If the commissioner is unable to white person is merely demonstrating comply with the commands or direcfair treatment for a Black citizen, he tions of the mayor, he should resign. must also not be breaking the code of If the citizens are dissatisfied with the solidarity within his tribe. For example, performance of the mayor in coping with when the lawyer Lawrence O’Donnell Sr. the police, there is a remedy for that. It is represented the family of James Bowden, called an election. a Black man killed in a police shooting, To undercut the mayor deteriorates Irish police officers became enraged at his command presence and thereby O’Donnell’s perceived disloyalty to the makes it more difficult for citizens to tribe, even though the police had planted achieve the necessary remedial changes evidence and Bowden was killed when in police practices. The needed improvehe was innocent. ments will not come easily. Everyone will Police Commissioner William Gross look to Mayor Walsh for success, not seems not to have understood the Commissioner Gross.

“Well, it is grossly inefficient to pay any policeman $300,000 a year.”

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Help is on the way for small businesses

Columbus, race pride and racism

By GILLIAN MASON

By SEN. EDWARD J. MARKEY AND FRANK POINDEXTER Walking down a city’s or town’s Main Street often times is a reflection of the place itself. Restaurants, bars, grocery stores, mom-and-pop shops, the local dry cleaner or convenience store come alive along the street. But what happens to a community when those very establishments can no longer afford to keep their doors open?

That’s why a group of Boston business owners have come together to advocate for the city’s Black-owned restaurants and bars. The Boston Black Hospitality Coalition, which includes the owners of District 7 Tavern, Darryl’s Corner Bar and Kitchen, Soleil Restaurant & Catering, Wally’s Café Jazz Club, and Savvor Restaurant & Lounge, works to amplify the issues facing black restaurant and bar owners during the coronavirus pandemic. These businesses hold five of eight Black-owned liquor licenses in the City of Boston, where over 1,200 licenses are distributed. These businesses are neighborhood anchors and pillars, representing a rich legacy of Black-owned business and entrepreneurship that spans 180+ years in the Black community.

Collectively, these businesses have lost a total of $1.2 million in revenue from March to May. Typically, 90 percent of these business’ income comes from onsite consumption that was not possible during the coronavirus emergency. And over 85 percent of the workforce, which is primarily made up of people of color, was laid off, affecting more than 115 households across the city.

Sadly, what we’re seeing is that Black- and minority-owned businesses are being left out and left behind. Minority-owned small businesses have been disproportionally shut out from the existing paycheck protection program (PPP). These businesses that continue to operate during this economic downturn are about 60% less likely to receive 100% of the financing needed to sustain their business.

We cannot allow small business relief to be help for some, and not for all. We cannot afford to leave anyone behind.

This month, Congress passed updates to the PPP program, dropping the payroll expenditure requirement from 75% to 60% and extending the borrower period from eight to 24 weeks. These changes, included to help small businesses bear the burden of this crisis, are just the beginning of the amendments that must be made to protect our business owners.

Legislation introduced by Sen. Markey would carve out $10 billion specifically for minority-owned businesses, ensuring that $5 billion of that funding remains for loans of less than $150,000. The bill also ensures that $2.5 billion of those funds are for loans of less than $75,000. We need to reach the smallest of the small businesses, especially because they employ workers who live in the neighborhoods where the businesses are located.

We need to be intentional about putting the PPP funds into the hands of our minority-business owners. That starts with collecting data on where these funds are being distributed. Sen. Markey sounded the alarm to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in April after finding out that there was no record of whether PPP funds were reaching the hands of Black and minority business owners.

Sen. Markey pushed for this data to be collected and demanded fair and equitable distribution of these funds.

But we also must provide technical assistance to connect small businesses with funding. We have seen how big corporations, and even more-established small businesses, have pre-existing relationships with large lenders which allow them to easily navigate the system. Our Black-owned small businesses need the same assistance from experienced parties to cut through the Small Business Administration (SBA)’s delays and unclear guidance. This is especially true as reopening begins in Massachusetts, leaving Black and minority-owned businesses in a further deficit.

Lastly, we need more grants for these businesses — not loans.

Loans mean debt for these small businesses as we come out on the other side of the crisis. That’s why Sen. Markey is a co-sponsor of Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s and Sen. Kamala Harris’ Saving Our Street (SOS) Act, legislation that provides direct federal support to microbusinesses throughout the country during the pandemic.

So much is being asked of all of us right now. Our friends and neighbors, co-workers and families are struggling in so many ways.

But through all the grief, turmoil, stress and despair, many of our communities have grown stronger together.

We cannot allow small business relief to be help for some, and not for all. We cannot afford to leave anyone behind.

Edward J. Markey is a United States Senator representing Massachusetts. Frank Poindexter is the owner of Wally’s Café Jazz Club and a member of the Boston Black Hospitality Coalition.

For Italian American families like the one I grew up in, recalling our past is a shared obsession. Over endless family dinners, we tell stories about our parents and grandparents and the obstacles they overcame in their early years in the U.S. — arriving here with nothing, speaking a foreign language, working long hours as farmers, garment workers and tradesmen. Like all immigrant communities, pride in our history is the cornerstone of our culture.

That’s why it isn’t surprising that the decapitation of the Christopher Columbus statue in Boston’s North End last week caused a strong reaction from old-guard Italian Americans.

Among the ritual condemnations of the destruction of private property, an old argument re-emerged — the Columbus statue is a symbol, not of genocide, but of our heritage.

But for those of us who have paid attention to our history, the lionization of Columbus represents more of a forgetting than a remembering.

When we characterize Columbus as a hero, we forget the history of the Indigenous people who lived on this land long before it was “discovered.”

Columbus began the systematic murder and rape of native people and the theft of native land, all justified by the logic of white supremacy. That’s a part of our legacy as people of Italian descent. We must confront it and atone for it, not celebrate it.

Also lost to Columbus-worship is much of the history of Italians in the Americas after Columbus.

English protestants completed

the colonial project begun by European explorers, who suspected Italians of being secret agents sent by the Pope to undermine democracy.

By the 19th and early 20th century, that suspicion had evolved into its own iteration of white nationalism. Italians (as well as Irish and Slavs) came to be seen not just as foreigners, but as an inferior race of people. They were exploited at work, forced into tenement housing, excluded from positions of political power and targeted for violence.

opposed busing and stepped over Black and brown people in order to secure a place in the American ruling class.

As Italian Americans, we have a duty to remember that part of our history, but beyond remembering, to act in solidarity with Black and brown people struggling against white supremacy.

While we were not brought to this country in chains or driven from our homelands by colonizers, we have had enough of a taste of American white nationalism in our recent historical past

When we characterize Columbus as a hero, we forget the history of the Indigenous people who lived on this land long before it was “discovered.”

When President Harrison first declared Columbus Day a temporary U.S. holiday in 1892, the gesture was intended to pacify Italian Americans outraged by a recent mob lynching of 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans. For Italian Americans, attaching themselves to Columbus was a way to claim their own white American identity — how could Italians be second-class citizens when they had, in fact, discovered the whole country?

I, like the vast majority of Italian Americans born in the late 20th century, have never had to deal with discrimination on the basis of my ethnicity because my predecessors were so successful in recasting themselves as white.

They assimilated, learned English and internalized the racism that had once been aimed at them.

They supported segregation,

that we should not question the need for resistance. We should unapologetically say that Black Lives Matter and oppose racial inequity in our cities. We should be leading the fight to tear that Columbus statue down permanently and replace it with something that speaks to our roots in the multiracial working class.

As Marty Walsh meets with Italian American leaders to determine the fate of the statue, we have the opportunity to speak up, not just for people of color the statue has harmed, but for all of our ancestors who suffered harm at the hands of racists — because when we erase racism, we erase our own history as well.

And it’s impossible to be proud of that.

Gillian Mason is co-executive director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

IN THE NEWS

KARILYN CROCKETT Karilyn Crockett has been appointed chief of equity for the City of Boston, a cabinet-level position the mayor established last week to embed equity and racial justice into all city planning, operations and work moving forward. Crockett brings to this new role extensive background in urban studies and planning with a lens on addressing inequities, leadership as a published author and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and insight on municipal government from her time as director of economic policy & research, and director of small business development for the City of Boston.

Under Crockett’s leadership, the Office of Equity will be charged with leading the administration’s efforts across departments to embed equity into

all city work, and actively work to dismantle racism by putting an intentional focus on supporting communities of color and marginalized groups across all departments, and building equitable governmental structures to sustain this work. The office will

support cross-department collaborative functions that advance innovative equity and opportunity policies and practices, including the strategies outlined in Imagine Boston 2030. To do this work, the office will utilize and leverage the city’s partnership and collaboration with community residents, nonprofit organizations and business leaders to promote equitable government policies and outcomes.

Crockett most recently worked as a lecturer of Public Policy & Urban Planning at MIT. Prior to that, she worked in the City of Boston’s Office of Economic Development, where she was tasked with creating an equity-driven policy framework for guiding job creation, small business development, neighborhood revitalization and public procurement strategies.

6 • Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER

Building an inclusive STEM pipeline

By SANDRA LARSON When the COVID-19 pandemic caused offices and schools to shut down abruptly, Biogen Community Lab Manager Alazar Ayele worried about the many young people who would miss out on hands-on science opportunities.

Since 2002, the Community Lab at the global biotechnology giant has provided local teens state-of-the-art lab experiences that can open their eyes to science careers.

The Kendall Square facility hosts lab days during the school year through partnerships with Cambridge and Somerville high schools and middle schools, and week-long summer programs serving students from the Greater Boston area. Offered at no cost to families, the programs are targeted especially to female students, students of color and those from low-income households — groups historically underrepresented in science.

“We need to see someone who looks like us teaching the lecture,” said Ayele, who came to the U.S. from Ethiopia as a child and credits his science career partly to his own Community Lab experience as a teen. “We need to be able to see ourselves in these positions.”

This year, the potentially life-changing summer program could not proceed as usual, with

PHOTO: COURTESY OF BIOGEN COMMUNITY LAB

Alazar Ayele (right) manages the Biogen Community Lab’s science education programs for young people students onsite for five days wearing lab coats, conducting experiments in genetic manipulation and interacting with Biogen professionals.

In a quick regrouping, Ayele and his colleagues partnered with Lemelson-MIT to design a virtual program that students

could attend from home, receiving teaching and mentorship from Biogen and MIT scientists.

The partnership helped ensure that all students would be set up with the necessary technology at home. The new curriculum focuses on Parkinson’s Disease.

The budding scientists will have

opportunities to talk virtually with a Parkinson’s patient and learn from an MIT professor about inventions to address the disease’s symptoms.

Early curiosity

For Ayele, a deep curiosity about how things worked emerged

early in life — and sometimes got him into trouble.

“When I was about 6 years old, my mother had a beautiful watch that my father gave her,” he said, speaking in a recent guest appearance on “Manifest Mornings,” a weekly online ideas forum. “As a kid, I was very excited about what watches did. I put it to my ear, and it ticked. One day I saw it on the counter, and I took it out to the yard and smashed it. I needed to know what made it work the way it did.”

While his mother was not pleased (“to put it mildly”) that day, Ayele was fortunate. As he grew older, he could see his mother and father — now a nurse and a cancer research technician, respectively — as models and supporters of scientific inquiry.

Things weren’t always easy, as Ayele’s family immigrated to Malden, Massachusetts when he was 7 and had to build a livelihood anew. Starting out in unskilled jobs from grocery store bagger to parking lot valet and living in public housing, both parents eventually retrained for their current careers.

His parents’ willingness to nourish his curiosity pushed Ayele part of the way toward a science career — but what really hooked him were some welltimed summer science programs,

See STEM, page 7

Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER • 7

PHOTO: COURTESY OF BIOGEN COMMUNITY LAB

A student finds joy in scientific discovery during a 2019 Community Lab summer program.

STEM

continued from page 6 including the very Biogen Community Lab program he now manages.

“At 16, I put my hands on a set of pipettes. I saw cells under a microscope,” said Ayele. “This wasn’t textbook stuff anymore. I was cloning bacteria! At that age, when

you see all that happening, you see your childhood tinkering morph into something else.”

Tackling diversity gaps

Ayele went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biological sciences. He joined Biogen in 2014 and began leading the Community Lab in 2018. Last year, the National Minority Quality Forum named him one of the

2019 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health. And his journey is not finished – he is looking ahead to earning a Ph.D. in anatomy and neurobiology.

Along the way, though, he’s met students of color who left engineering studies in part due to frustration at not seeing enough peers there. Science, technology, engineering and math fields — collectively known as STEM

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— have clear race and gender gaps. Studies show that girls’ self-confidence often plummets around middle school, just at the time the seeds for science careers should be planted. With STEM workers earning two-thirds more than other workers, according to the Pew Research Center, lack of diversity is a loss not only to these industries, but to the income and future wealth of individuals and families.

A recent report by Microsoft on closing the STEM gender gap suggests that providing encouragement, role models, information about real-world STEM jobs and hands-on experiences are proven strategies to diversify the pipeline.

The Community Lab is already onto this, it appears. Ayele described its three key tenets: being firmly intentional about recruiting diverse students; providing hands-on science activities; and offering real mentorship, including willingness to “get vulnerable” and share one’s own mistakes along the college and career paths.

Creating next-gen scientists

For adults who want to nurture kids’ STEM skills, Ayele said, remember the simple fact that science and technology are all around us all day, every day.

“The way plants take in sunlight with chlorophyll, the way a door is designed using physics – you just have to open your eyes to it,” he said.

“

It gives me goosebumps knowing we’re making scientists out of students who potentially could have never seen this as an opportunity.”

— Alazar Ayele

A word to parents: Stop saying ‘no’ to curious children.

“It’s really discouraging,” he noted. “Why not shift it to ‘Let’s figure this out’?”

And for young people, so much is about saying ‘yes’ to opportunities.

“Saying yes to science allows you to broaden your perspective on what’s going on around you,” he said. “[In the Boston area], you can walk by a biotech firm and not know anything about it. After you’ve done a summer program, you know about it, and about biotech news you might read.”

While the 2020 summer program is entering uncharted territory, Ayele remains enthusiastic about the potential impact.

“It gives me goosebumps,” he said, “knowing we’re making scientists out of students who potentially could have never seen this as an opportunity.”

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reforms

Other reforms activists have pushed for with little success include dismantling the controversial gang database, ending collaboration with the federal Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and increasing the number of officers and supervisors of color in the police department.

Some of Walsh’s broader changes aimed at increasing racial equity in Boston may sound familiar. His declaration of racism as a public health emergency earlier this month was an idea advanced by City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo in March. The fair housing zoning amendment Walsh advanced last week was proposed in April of last year by Councilor Lydia Edwards.

In the current atmosphere of near-daily protests and heightened sensitivity toward racial inequality, those ideas appear to have more currency in City Hall than they did even three months ago.

Walsh’s latest announcement

last Friday of an equity and inclusion cabinet position harkens back to 2015, when he created the first-ever chief diversity officer position. Two years later, when the NAACP Boston Branch reviewed the Walsh administration for equity and inclusion, the organization issued the city a “C” grade for staffing diversity and questioned whether the diversity officer had set clear goals or made measurable progress.

In another Walsh administration initiative that mirrors existing efforts, during last Friday’s press briefing, Walsh also announced the Boston Racial Equity Fund, aimed at investing in nonprofits that empower Black and brown residents. Walsh set an initial goal of raising $10 million. While Walsh’s announcement came first, a group of 20 black executives went public over the weekend with a New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund, which has already raised $20 million to support local nonprofits.

Segun Idowu, who leads the Boston Economic Council of Massachusetts, said the announcement of Walsh’s initiative appeared to undercut the black executives’ announcement.

“The mayor said two weeks ago that Boston would be a leader in fighting racism and that we should listen to black people, and then he did the opposite,” he told the Banner.

City Council President Kim Janey, who sent Walsh a list of reforms signed by eight of her colleagues as well as members of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus and local civil rights groups, said she remains hopeful the city will continue to make progress on issues of racial equity.

“This is a big agenda and it’s important that we keep applying pressure, that we continue to work with the community and with the mayor,” she said. “If the mayor is saying Boston will be a leader on race, great. I want to see that.”

firms it surveyed were reporting negative impacts of the pandemic.

Nationally, the number of working African American business owners has dropped more than 40% due to the virus, according to a report released in May. Other statistics are equally discouraging: Average Black household wealth in America is one-tenth that of white households; only 44% of Black households own their homes – the most critical component of wealth creation and source of equity for business development — compared to 74% of non-Hispanic white households. Ominously, African American home ownership last year fell to its lowest level since the 1970s, according to an analysis in the Economist.

Joseph D. Feaster Jr., chairman of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, said he hoped the recently launched funds succeed in reversing the Black community’s negative economic trends.

“The only way you can address the wealth gap issue is to strengthen minority businesses,” said Feaster. “Commitments can flow over into educational scholarships, but I favor dollars going to stimulate and support the entrepreneurial spirit in the Black community.”

The former NAACP Boston branch president said he was impressed by the makeup of the New Commonwealth group, comparing it to the “Vault,” the informal group of white powerbrokers who

exerted considerable economic and social clout behind the scenes in Boston up through the 1990s.

“Have we now established a Black Vault?” asked Feaster. “I hope so. Time will tell whether we’re actually able to close the wealth gap. But I applaud the effort.”

Members of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund include Eastern Bank President Quincy Miller; DentaQuest President Myechia Minter-Jordan; Boston Scientific Senior Vice President Desiree Ralls Morrison; Valmo Ventures CEO Valerie Mosley; Converse General Counsel Rodney Pratt; Red Sox Foundation Executive Director Rebekah Splaine Salwasser; Bain Capital Double Impact Director Greg Shell; Rapid7 CEO Corey Thomas; Latham & Watkins Partner BJ Trach; Vertex Pharmaceuticals Chief Risk and Compliance Officer Damian Wilmot; MassMutual Head of Strategic Planning Dominic Blue; former U.S. Sen. Mo Cowan, currently president of General Electric’s government affairs and policy division; Fidelity Investments Senior Vice President Pamela Everhart; Suffolk Construction Vice President Linda Dorcena Forry; Liberty Mutual Senior Vice President Damon Hart; Berkshire Bank Executive Vice President Malia Lazu; Thermo Fisher Senior Vice President Fred Lowery; and Blue Cross Blue Shield Executive Vice President Stephanie Lovell.

continued from page 1 broader reforms aimed at advancing racial equity.

“This moment in public consciousness, born out of tragedy, presents a rare opportunity to accomplish serious changes in public policy,” said state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, who is leading a bipartisan senate advisory group on racial justice.

The push for police reforms is happening across the U.S. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released June 11 found that a majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support police reforms, including mandatory use of body cameras, bans on chokeholds and bans on racial profiling.

A Suffolk University poll of Massachusetts residents echoed the findings of the national poll, including support for policies transferring funding from police departments to local programs for social services.

In Boston, however, an effort to defund the police department hit a wall, with a coalition of activists and a bloc of city councilors of color supporting a 10% overall reduction in the proposed $414 million police department budget and all of the whites on the city council supporting Walsh’s more modest 2.4% reduction in police funding — taken only from the overtime budget.

The move angered youth activists fighting for police reform.

“I think he’s gaslighting us,” said Vikiana Petit-Homme, an organizer with the group For the People. “It was just $12 million of the overtime budget, which they’re free to overspend anyway. It was performative, to get the media off his back.”

The police department budget is the second largest item in the city’s budget, after the Boston Public Schools, and for years has been insulated against budget cuts.

A Boston Globe analysis found

funds

continued from page 1 respective communities and fields, we are well acquainted with the cycle of grief that strikes the white community when the tragedy of our condition is too public to ignore,” wrote members of the coalition in the project’s blueprint released by Segun Idowu, executive director of the council. “We formed this coalition to guide those individuals and organizations in the private sector, the nonprofit and philanthropy worlds and the halls of government who are attempting right now to determine how they should respond to the constant rage of an oppressed people.”

Boston City Hall’s Racial Equity Fund, announced the same week Mayor Marty Walsh appointed MIT Professor Karilyn Crockett to the newly created cabinet position of equity and inclusion officer, will raise money from corporate and philanthropic sources to support nonprofits working on economic development, education and public health. Walsh hopes the $10 million initial goal of the fund will expand to $50 million over the long term.

“My announcements today advance our work to root out systemic racism and build up racial equity in our city,” said Walsh, restating early commitments to listen to communities suffering the disproportionate impacts of

BANNER PHOTO

Demonstrators calling for a cut in police funding blocked the intersection of Congress and State streets last week. that the average pay for Police Department employees, including civilians, is $127,094, including nearly $30,000 in overtime pay.

While Walsh earns $199,000 a year, more than a quarter of the department’s 2,015 officers earn more than the mayor. One lieutenant racked up $355,538, including $115,361 in overtime pay, in 2019, despite being investigated over the years for numerous payroll abuses.

The council’s budget vote Wednesday exposed fault lines between the city’s white elected officials on one side and elected officials of color and police reform activists on the other.

Those opposed to the mayor’s budget have been pushing for fundamental reforms to the police department over the six years since the Black Lives Matter movement emerged. In view of the more radical demands coming from activists and black and Latino city councilors, many of Walsh’s proposals racism, economic disinvestment and the coronavirus epidemic.

“Today is another day in advancing the work we need to do in the city.

This is a conversation that every community needs to keep at the forefront. It’s a conversation that needs to produce both immediate and ongoing change.”

A little more than a week after a Minneapolis cop knelt on the neck of George Floyd for close to nine minutes, ending his life and sparking national protests, Bank of America pledged to put $1 billion into a four-year commitment to address economic and racial inequities in health, housing, training and small business growth.

Meetings have already been held in Boston to target areas of investment, according to sources participating in the discussions.

In announcing the commitment in early June, Brian Moynihan, the bank’s chief executive officer, referred to stewing disparities that the COVID-19 crisis and the George Floyd protests have put in clear relief, prompting the massive financial institution to take action.

“Underlying economic and social disparities that exist have accelerated and intensified during the global pandemic,” said Moynihan. “The events of the past week have created a sense of true urgency that has arisen across our nation, particularly in view of the racial injustices we have seen in the communities where we work and live. We all need to do more.”

appear as half-measures that generate headlines but often leave substantive reforms off the table.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that a majority of Americans support independent civilian review boards, yet Walsh has consistently opposed calls for such a measure, including such a demand backed by the majority of the City Council. Instead, Walsh announced he would convene a board to strengthen the existing Civilian Ombudsman Oversight Panel (CO-OP), which reviews investigations of misconduct conducted by the Boston Police Department but cannot conduct its own investigations.

CO-OP members themselves in 2015 recommended that Walsh create an independent civilian review board. While Walsh in 2017 said he would increase the number of people on the board, by last year, after one member joined the board of a cannabis business, it dwindled to one member.

COURTESY PHOTO

Paul Francisco The wealth gap between Black and white in Boston targeted in part by the new funds is best epitomized by a Boston Federal Reserve Bank study showing the median wealth of a Black household in Boston at $8, while for whites it was $247,000.

In Massachusetts, people of color own about 90,000 businesses out of close to 600,000 in total. But most minority-owned enterprises employ less than 10 people, are routinely undercapitalized and in constant danger of failing. The COVID crisis has had a further destabilizing effect on Black businesses. BECMA reported in March that 90% of Black

Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER • 9

Council budget vote splits on race lines Councilors of color call for deeper cuts to Boston Police Dept. budget

By YAWU MILLER Boston City Councilors voted eight to five in favor Mayor Martin Walsh’s fiscal year 2021 operating budget last Wednesday after more than two hours of discussion.

The vote came after lobbying on one side from activists and councilors who called for a “no” vote and advocated cutting 10% from the Boston Police Department budget to fund youth services, housing and social services, and on the other side from city officials and nonprofits receiving city funding who argued for a “yes” vote.

The vote broke mostly along racial lines, with most of the body’s Black and Latino members arguing that a “no” vote would advance racial justice, while a “yes” vote would support incremental change. All of the council’s white members voted in support of the budget.

“There is a side to take,” said City Council President Kim Janey, who cast a “no” vote. “And that’s the side of justice. And that’s where I want to stand today.”

Voting against the budget were Janey and councilors Ricardo Arroyo, Andrea Campbell, Julia

Mejia and Michelle Wu. In advance of Wednesday’s vote, much of the Council’s attention was on the competing proposals to adjust police funding. On one side, councilors of color and a coalition of activist groups called for a 10% cut to the BPD budget, with the resulting $40 million in funding going to antiviolence efforts, education and youth programming.

On the other were those who supported the Walsh administration’s call for a $12 million cut, or 2.4%, with funds coming out of the BPD’s overtime budget.

Wu pointed out that Walsh’s proposal to cut the department’s $60 million overtime budget would not necessarily diminish the overtime hours officers work or their pay. Without a clear commitment to reducing overtime, city officials would simply draw on contingency funding to pay for police overtime, Wu said.

“Our budget should represent meaningful change, not empty symbolism & budgetary sleight of hand,” she tweeted.

Councilor Lydia Edwards, the sole Black councilor who voted “yes,” said she received calls from those urging “no” and “yes” votes on the budget. In a statement sent

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Kim Janey to the media, she acknowledged pervasive dissatisfaction with the proposed budget.

“I know that a lot of people are frustrated by the fact that this budget doesn’t answer the cry for systemic change,” Edwards said in a written statement sent to the news media. “I agree. But the system doesn’t allow for that kind of change or even conversation.”

Other councilors who voted in favor of passing the budget cited calls from city workers who were told that the council’s refusal to pass the budget could lead to layoffs.

Councilor Kenzie Bok said the city spends too much on “over-policing” Black and brown communities and argued police spending should come down “on a timeline

“

There is a side to take.

And that’s the side of justice. And that’s where I want to stand today.”

— City Council President Kim Janey

that is urgent” for next-year’s budget. She also called for hearing on how to cut the department’s overtime budget.

Arroyo advocated for greater investments in youth services and

programs that support communities, arguing that coming budget cycles will be too tight to stake out such investments.

Wu also argued for more comprehensive change.

“The bread and butter that spreads structural racism are evasion and procrastination,” she said.

“Passing this budget is a message to those [advocating for change].

It’s a message that they should be satisfied with incremental change.”

Activists with the youth group For The People issued report cards on the councilors, grading them on issues they support, including removing Boston Police officers from schools, abolition of the department’s gang database, support for the department’s cooperation with ICE and police funding. The mock report cards were pasted onto councilors’ homes and posted in public spaces.

“There’s a lot of things being done that aren’t what the people want,” said Arlyn Dionisio, an activist with the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project.

“As an elected officials, you have to respond to what your constituents ask. There’s a big difference between 2% and 10%.”

The council voted unanimously in support of the Walsh administration’s capital budget and school budget. This year, the administration has increased the $1.2 billion Boston Public Schools budget by $80 million, the largest increase in recent years.

10 • Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER

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Firm seeks employee investors City Fresh Foods looks to give employees an ownership stake

By MORGAN C. MULLINGS On Juneteenth, City Fresh Foods celebrated more than one kind of freedom. While the June 19 holiday commemorates final emancipation of African slaves, this Roxbury company was also “freed” from its shareholders, buying them out and becoming fully minority-owned for the first time since opening in 1994.

The new shareholders will be the employees, CEO Sheldon Lloyd hopes, through his new employee shareholder program.

City Fresh Foods provides family-style and individual meal catering for schools, community centers, child care facilities, seniors facilities and Meals on Wheels programs. The firm employs 130 people and normally produces 15,000 meals a day. During the current COVID pandemic, City

Fresh Foods is producing closer to 20,000 meals a day. The company is truly local, with 95% of its clients in Boston, and the majority of its employees Boston residents, many from Roxbury.

“

We know that equity is everything. So this would enable people to have a stake in what they’re building.”

— CEO Sheldon Lloyd

“We have people who have been here almost 20 years, [and] multiple people in their teens, from drivers to people packing meals,” Lloyd tells the Banner. No matter

PHOTO: MORGAN C. MULLINGS

City Fresh foods employees put together meals in the firm’s Newmarket facility. how the economy turned, he says, they’ve never had trouble finding people, due to so many family referrals.

Lloyd is clear about the reason why he wants employees to buy

Codman is incredibly grateful to Off Their Plate, its partner restaurants, and other donors for sponsoring over 10,000 meals for our front-line staff over the past few months.

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stock in the company: to address the wealth gap in the community.

“We know that equity is everything. So this would enable people to have a stake in what they’re building,” he says.

COVID-19 got in the way of his first announcement of the program, so now Lloyd is spending time drumming up interest with employees, who can start buying stock within a few months. After the minimum share price is decided, employees can buy up to a 5% share with a small deposit. In addition to getting dividends and receiving the appreciated value of the stock upon the time they leave or retire, if employees buy enough (up to about 40%), they would elect two seats on City Fresh’s board of directors – giving them not only profit-sharing power but decision-making power outside of managing, cooking and packing food.

This reorganization comes at a time where demand for prepared meals is high. During the COVID pandemic, Lloyd has made several

changes to meet the emergency demand for meals while making sure workers are safe and healthy when they return home. Workers split into two shifts, so the kitchen is less crowded, and Lloyd even found himself driving the trucks to distribute meals.

As likely the only minority-owned company in the area that is in what Lloyd refers to as the “community feeding business,” there is pressure to do better than competitors, and possibly sell the company to one.

But Lloyd believes establishing employee ownership is the right choice.

“It’s not the biggest bang for the buck,” compared to selling to outsiders, he says, “but it’s right … You lay the groundwork for what the future will be. Because you’ve been working together, and [the employees] understand the mission better than anyone else.”

ON THE WEB City Fresh Foods: cityfresh.com

Abe Menzin

THANK YOU!

637 Washington Street, Dorchester, MA 02124 | 617-822-8271 | codman.org

PHOTO: MORGAN C. MULLINGS

City Fresh Foods CEO, Sheldon Lloyd.

Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER • 11

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Missing the motherland

‘And She Could Be Next’

Photographer grapples with family history and immigrant identity

Docuseries explores how women of color are changing the political landscape

By COLETTE GREENSTEIN

by Celina Colby

Artist

Claudia Ruiz Gustafson came to Boston from Peru to experience the United States for a summer.

Twenty years later, she’s still here. Though Gustafson has built a home and a family here, she often thinks of her childhood in Peru and longs for an intimate connection to the motherland she left behind. Her show at Cambridge’s Multicultural Arts Center, “Historias de Tierra y Mar,” on view online through August 28, explores the push and pull of that cultural split.

“This project is a product of nostalgia. The more I stay here, the more I long for and the more I value and the more I treasure everything that I left,” says Gustafson. “I decided to make this visual journal to remember and to honor family members and also my own identity as an immigrant.”

“Historias” is split into three sections: “Historias Fragmentadas,” which delves into her split history in Peru and the United States; “Poet of the Lake,” an exploration of the poetic great-uncle Gustafson never knew; and “Maria,” a reimagining of the life of her family’s live-in maid.

“Maria” strikes a particularly interesting chord. Here Gustafson tells the untold story of an unofficial family member who, despite not being documented in family photos, was an important part of their lives. Gustafson hired a model and shot a photo series in the family home in Peru reimagining Maria’s life. This series makes up about two-thirds of the show. It begs the question, who is not accounted for in family histories?

Though photography is an essential part of her work, to categorize Gustafson as a photographer only is to sell her short. Her collage-style creations mix old and new photographs with recipes, letters, yarn, appliques and other mementos to create beautiful, multi-dimensional works. Like our memories, only snippets of moments and people are retained, and every person who encounters them may see them differently.

While “Maria” explores a past that existed but wasn’t documented, “Historias Fragmentadas” delves into a history unclouded as family secrets are revealed. Gustafson was devastated when she missed her grandparents’ death and funeral in Peru. When she did arrive, she found that the grandparents her family had just buried were perhaps different people than she knew. “I learned a lot of secrets when my grandmother died that she had never told us.”

For example, her grandmother had two IDs. In order to marry Gustafson’s grandfather, who was younger than her, she lied about her age her entire life. Facts like these don’t change the strong bonds in Gustafson’s family, but they fill in more of the painting that is her legacy.

Though the stories in “Historias de Tierra y Mar” are deeply personal to Gustafson, they resonate with all viewers who have delved into their family histories, and with all immigrants who have felt split between two countries and two identities.

“This project is a product of nostalgia.

The more I stay here, the more I long for and the more I value and the more I treasure everything that I left.”

Claudia Ruiz Gustafson

On the web

View the virtual exhibition through August 28 at: www.multiculturalartscenter.org

COURTESY PHOTOS

(top) Los que se fueron (Those who Left), Archival Pigment Print. (bottom) La estampita (Prayer card), Archival Pigment Print.

The two-part documentary series “And She Could Be Next” is a powerful testament to the collaboration and strength of women of color who are transforming American politics from the ground up.

Directed and produced by Peabody Award-winner Grace Lee (“American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs”) and Iranian documentary filmmaker Marjan Safinia (“Seeds”), the docuseries was filmed from 2018 through 2019. It follows several candidates around the country, including change agents Stacey Abrams of Georgia, Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, Michigan, and Bushra Amiwala, a Pa-

The timely and very relevant documentary centers on race and gender amid the growing “New American Majority” — a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multigenerational coalition of Americans who represent the changing face of America. kistani American college student from Skokie, Illinois, who first ran for a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners at age 19. The documentary also features organizers such as Nse Ufot, the powerhouse lawyer-turned-CEO of the New Georgia Project, who continues to be a force behind disrupting the political landscape in Georgia.

“And She Could Be Next,” which is POV’s first miniseries, made its world premiere last month on PBS, and is a co-production of POV and ITVS in association with the Center for Asian American Media and Latino Public Broadcasting, and a co-presentation of Black Public Media and the Center for Asian American Media. The series is also executive-produced by Ava DuVernay (“When They See Us”

See DOCUMENTARY page 12

12 • Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER

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Art springs eternal Roxbury native playwright addresses microaggressions, racism

By CELINA COLBY While the COVID-19 pandemic has been a dormant time for some artists, Roxbury native SekouWrites has been spurred into action with his revitalized choreopoem, “Brown Boy Mad.” The New York City-based journalist and author rewrote and enhanced a former work to make the 50-minute production in collaboration with students at Fisk University in Nashville and staged it on campus. The first performance was on February 26 — the same month and day that Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012, he notes — and the second was on March 15. It was the last on-campus event before the school shut down.

In the early 2000s, SekouWrites wrote the first iteration

of the piece. At the time it was called “Dear White Man” and it was a short choreopoem for a spoken-word event. In 2019, he began to revisit the piece in a writing workshop with Blackboard Plays, but it was when he began his residency at Fisk University that the play really bloomed.

“The play changed a lot. I was working with the drama department, number one, but I was also working with an entirely different generation,” says SekouWrites.

“Ideas were coming so fast based on my interactions with them.”

Significant content was added to the show, as was a song at the beginning, also written by SekouWrites. He’d like eventually to add dance and potentially film to make it truly a multimedia experience.

One pivotal scene pulled from his Roxbury past, when

PHOTO: COURTESY OF SEKOUWRITES

SekouWrites developing “Brown Boy Mad” with Fisk University students.

SekouWrites narrowly avoided police assault when he was found sitting in a car he owned listening to music. The moment was terrifying, but the music choice ended up building a bridge between his experience and those of his students. The original script had him listening to “Be Thankful for What You Got” by William DeVaughn. His students complained about it being an old song, he says. Now the scene has the protagonist start off listening to “Be Thankful for What You Got” and progress through the years all the way up to “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. “I changed that section … to bridge the gap in terms of experience between what I experienced as a 19-year-old and what they experience as 19-year-olds. Because there is no real difference,” says SekouWrites. “It tracks progress musically that hasn’t happened for us in terms of racism and microaggressions. Music has moved forward, but we have essentially remained the same.”

“Brown Boy Mad” is right on the cusp of greatness, and SekouWrites hopes it will become what he calls a “franchise,” meaning that every student or community group who performs it will be able to use their own experiences to shape the piece.

In the meantime, an unexpected and powerful side project has sprung up from “Brown Boy Mad.” Viewers who were affected by the piece began sending SekouWrites stories of their own experiences with racism. He has turned those stories into videos that are available on the Brown Boy Mad Instagram page (@ brownboymad). He says he’d like to see that video series, dubbed “Unmasked,” eventually grow to incorporate women, children and

documentary continued from page 11

and “Selma”) and co-produced

by James Costa, a dear friend and colleague of Safinia, who had served many years with her on the board of the International Documentary Association.

Costa says that when Safinia pitched him the project, he felt she needed to do this. “I knew that she would tell the story the way it needed to be told,” he says.

“I didn’t want to let her down because I like investing in stories and filmmakers that I believe in, that are going to tell it in a way with integrity and have impact.”

The timely and very relevant documentary centers on race and gender amid the growing “New American Majority” — a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational coalition of Americans who represent the changing face of America.

For directors Safinia and Lee, the making of the film was about more than just telling the story of a campaign. They wanted “women who were rooted in the

COURTESY PHOTO

Former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams is featured in the docuseries. movement, rooted in their communities,” explains Safinia, in a recent conversation with the Banner. “These are women who have been deeply involved in the movement for social justice and inclusion their whole careers, and now this next step to governance is the logical evolution of their pathway, of really claiming power.”

In addition to the film being

fronted by women of color, Safinia says, “It was really important to build a team that were all women of color that had close ties and shared experience with the women whose stories that they were going to show and tell.

Internally, it was our own little political campaign to push back against some of the norms in our industry, where more women of color need to lead as well.”

PHOTO: COURTESY OF SEKOUWRITES

SekouWrites with the Fisk University cast of “Brown Boy Mad.”

“

I was working with the drama department ... but I was also working with an entirely different generation. Ideas were coming so fast based on my interactions with them.”

— SekouWrites

other storytellers.

At the moment, the recording of the Fisk University performance of “Brown Boy Mad” is being shared in live watch parties.

It can also be found on YouTube.

SekouWrites says sharing the work is the most important thing at this stage, though community members can support the project financially by purchasing products from his website.

Bringing the show to Boston is high on SekouWrites’ priority list.

While visiting the city recently for Father’s Day, the artist says he was reminded that many of his

formative experiences with race happened in this city.

“It’s full circle for me in a number of ways, not just creatively, but in terms of this being the place where I had that incident buying my first car and that piece became the centerpiece of what is now a choreopoem,” he says. “I want to put a period at the end of that sentence.”

ON THE WEB Read more about SekouWrites’ choreopoem at: sekouwrites.com/product/brown-boy-

mad-the-movie

In episode one, the docuseries goes behind-the scenes at local rallies, war rooms and church basements, where candidates and organizers embark on the campaign trail. Episode two focuses on the weeks leading up to election day and on how organizers combat voter suppression in their own communities.

The making of “And She Could Be Next” is profoundly personal for Marjan, Lee and everyone on the team. “The story we were telling is also our story. We are also the New American Majority,” she says. “We also understand what it’s like to be discredited or not believed in or unable to raise the big dollars because we don’t look like the kinds of people that people feel comfortable handing over big dollars to.”

WATCH Search for POV in your TV listings or visit PBS.org to find your local station and broadcast time. Episodes are also available for free streaming starting at 9 p.m. each night (and for 60 days thereafter) at www.andshecouldbenext.com/watch or on pbs.org/pov/shecouldbenext.

COURTESY PHOTOS

Directors Marjan Safinia (top) and Grace Lee.

Study finds higher eviction rates in black communities Authors urge caution as eviction ban scheduled to end in August

By MORGAN C. MULLINGS While 18% of Boston renters currently live in majority-black neighborhoods, about 37% of evictions occur in those neighborhoods, according to a study undertaken by researchers at MIT and the Boston tenants’ rights group City Life/Vida Urbana.

City Life/Vida Urbana worked with the MIT researchers, compiling court records, census data and property data from 20142016 to reveal where evictions occur the most and to whom they most often happen.

The data is divided geographically, showing that the highest eviction rates occur in Mattapan and Roxbury, historically black neighborhoods. This is seven

times the rate in Allston and Brighton, and about six times the rate in South Boston. As for East Boston and Chinatown, the official numbers are low, but housing organizers told researchers the reality is more dire.

“Legal aid lawyers … see a lot of evictions and displacement in these communities. And so, it points to the potential that our data set may be undercounting evictions that don’t actually go through courts, particularly in the neighborhoods with large immigrant populations,” said David Robinson, MIT researcher in the urban studies and planning department.

City Life/Vida Urbana maintains that current housing policy treats housing as “a commodity, not a basic human right,” and is

publishing the findings in an attempt to find and eradicate the predictors of eviction in these neighborhoods.

On April 20, Gov. Charlie Baker signed an eviction and foreclosure moratorium into law, protecting renters from most “no cause” or “no fault” evictions. This lasts until August 18, 2020, or until 45 days after the emergency is fully over.

The researchers then revisited the 2014-2016 data and applied it to the current pandemic, and found that eviction filings were disproportionately affecting communities of color in the early period of the spread.

“We pulled eviction records from when the pandemic first hit Boston [on] March 1 to April 20, when the eviction moratorium in Massachusetts was signed by the governor, and we found that 78% of these evictions that were filed, occurred in communities of color,” Robinson said.

Lisa Owens, executive director of City Life/Vida Urbana, said that several factors of public policy and

education funds continued from page 1

with Representative David LeBoeuf of Worcester, she said, “The bathrooms are not up to speed. Is the water always at 100 degrees?

No. Do we always have enough soap? No, we don’t. And it’s all funding. And that was before pandemic.”

Kontos urged education officials to think about the amount of time that will be allocated to hygiene that wasn’t before. She also added that schools in Boston specifically do not look like schools in towns with more state funding, and personal protective equipment (PPE) is still not easily accessible. They don’t all have outdoor spaces, or enough square footage to distance all of the desks three-to-six feet apart.

Brian Allan, CFO of Worcester Public Schools added, “We have half of our schools with classrooms in the basement. Some have windows and good air flow, but others may not.”

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While a reduction in expected state education funding has many districts worried, Boston Public Schools are not expecting budget cuts this year.

Kontos says that at this point the responsibility is at the state and federal level – but school districts in Massachusetts are left in the dark without a state budget for fiscal year 2021. The Student Opportunity Act, signed into law November 2019, promised $1.5 billion to school districts, resulting

in a projected budget increase of 35% or more for Boston schools by 2026. That funding now hangs in the balance as legislators wait on possible federal relief for COVID19-related costs.

“The conversation now is, we need to protect education funding, and the plan is to insulate and

Thursday, July July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER • 13 Thursday, 13

“

We pulled eviction records from when the pandemic first hit Boston [on] March 1 to April 20, when the eviction moratorium in Massachusetts was signed by the governor, and we found that 78% of these evictions that were filed, occurred in communities of color.”

— David Robinson

private action historically have had the effect of siphoning wealth out of the black community, and “into white middle class communities in the surrounding suburbs,” including urban renewal, white flight, redlining, housing discrimination, and predatory lending and foreclosure.

“And at the same time, it’s important to highlight the movements of resistance against oppression that black communities and other communities of color led hold harmless Chapter 70 funding,” said Sen. Adam Hinds last week. Leaving school funding flat in order to protect it would be contrary to the Student Opportunity Act. The Student Opportunity Act is still the law, but as that funding sits in limbo for the next month or so, BPS may struggle to accommodate an unprecedented school semester in the fall.

“We shouldn’t keep passing the buck,” said Colin Jones, senior policy analyst at Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. “It makes no sense for individual districts and child care providers to be going into a completely out-ofcontrol market for PPE and equipment individually.”

In 2017, BPS reported that their state aid has been decreasing annually. Since 2008, it has decreased by about $180 million.

“Despite the State adding over $850 million since FY08, Boston’s Chapter 70 aid is down by $2 million,” the 2017 report states.

In fiscal year 2016, the city spent $157 million more than required, and they reported an increased

all along the way,” she said.

Ruby James, a Boston resident, faced an increase in rent by $700 in 2018 after her landlord sold to a new owner. After protesting at his home and taking him to court, she was able to secure a threeyear lease with just a 3% rent increase each year, she said.“So this could have been avoided if he wanted to be a person to sit down and negotiate, and not just want to put people out of their home.”

Another Boston resident, Annie Borden, was hit with increased rent in 2019.

“But with the help of City Life … we learned in my community that we have rights and that we as tenants [can] form a tenants association and fight this,” Borden said.

Both James and Borden fully support a return to rent control in Boston, which City Life/Vida Urbana lists as one of several viable policy options. Other options include a requirement of just cause for eviction, more legal representation for low-income renters, a tax on large real estate transfers and right-of-first-refusal for renters to purchase their homes.

ON THE WEB Download the report at bostonevictions.org

reliance on property tax revenue to fund schools.

BPS officials are aware of the discussions happening at the state level.

“There are several decisions that may have a negative impact in the short and medium term for Boston,” a BPS spokesperson said in a statement sent to the Banner.

“We are collaborating with our city partners, determining how to mitigate any potential negative budget impacts to ensure adequate support for our students and families. We are working to develop plans in response to the state’s recently released fall reopening guidance, and continue to evaluate how to best allocate resources due to the extenuating circumstances presented by the coronavirus emergency.”

The spokesperson noted that Boston’s fiscal year 2021 budget includes a substantial increase in the district’s $1.2 billion budget.

While other districts face layoffs, “the transformative BPS budget is an $80 million increase from the current year.”

BANNER CLASSIFIEDS

SUFFOLK Division

LEGAL

LEGAL

LEGAL

Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Trial Court Probate and Family Court Department

IMPORTANT NOTICE

the Court. You have a right to object to this proceeding. To do so, you or your attorney must file a written appearance and objection at this Court before 10:00 a.m. on the return day of 07/20/2020. This is NOT a hearing date, but a deadline by which you must file a written appearance and objection if you object to this proceeding. If you fail to file a timely written appearance and objection followed by an Affidavit of Objections within thirty (30) days of the return day, action may be taken without further notice to you.

Docket No. SU20P0331GD

Citation Giving Notice of Petition for Appointment of Guardian for Incapacitated Person Pursuant to G.L. c. 190B, §5-304 In the matter of: King Warner Of Boston, MA RESPONDENT Alleged Incapacitated Person

The outcome of this proceeding may limit or completely take away the above-named person’s right to make decisions about personal affairs or financial affairs or both. The above-named person has the right to ask for a lawyer. Anyone may make this request on behalf of the above-named person.

If the above-named person cannot afford a lawyer, one may be appointed at State expense.

WITNESS, Hon. Brian J. Dunn, First Justice of this Court.

Date: June 17, 2020

To the named Respondent and all other interested persons, a petition has been filed by Department of Mental Retardation of Boston, MA in the above captioned matter alleging that King Warner is in need of a Guardian and requesting that (or some other suitable person) be appointed as Guardian to serve on the bond.

The petition asks the court to determine that the Respondent is incapacitated, that the appointment of a Guardian is necessary, that the proposed Guardian is appropriate. The petition is on file with this court and may contain a request for certain specific authority.

You have the right to object to this proceeding. If you wish to do so, you or your attorney must file a written appearance at this court on or before 10:00 A.M. on the return date of 07/15/2020. This day is NOT a hearing date, but a deadline date by which you have to file the written appearance if you object to the petition. If you fail to file the written appearance by the return date, action may be taken in this matter without further notice to you. In addition to filing the written appearance, you or your attorney must file a written affidavit stating the specific facts and grounds of your objection within 30 days after the return date.

Felix D. Arroyo Register of Probate

Commonwealth of Massachusetts The Trial Court Probate and Family Court Department SUFFOLK Division

Docket No. SU20P0930EA

UNSUPERVISED ADMINISTRATION UNDER THE MASSACHUSETTS UNIFORM PROBATE CODE (MUPC) A Personal Representative appointed under the MUPC in an unsupervised administration is not required to file an inventory or annual accounts with the Court. Persons interested in the estate are entitled to notice regarding the administration directly from the Personal Representative and may petition the Court in any matter relating to the estate, including distribution of assets and expenses of administration.

WITNESS, Hon. Brian J. Dunn, First Justice of this Court.

Date: June 16, 2020

Citation on Petition for Formal Adjudication Estate of: Bekele Alemu Date of Death: 04/05/2013 A Petition for Late and Limited Formal Testacy and/or Appointment has been filed by Misrak Assefa of Boston, MA requesting that the Court enter a formal Decree and Order and for such other relief as requested in the Petition.

IMPORTANT NOTICE You have the right to obtain a copy of the Petition from the Petitioner or at

Felix D. Arroyo Register of Probate

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority is seeking bids for the following: BID NO.

DESCRIPTION

DATE

TIME

7369

Weston Aqueduct Stop Plank Gates

08/21/20

2:00 p.m.

To access and bid on Event(s) please go to the MWRA Supplier Portal at www.mwra.com.

14 • Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER

BANNER CLASSIFIEDS REAL ESTATE

REAL ESTATE

SALE of 2 AFFORDABLE 1-BEDROOM CONDOMINIUMS in BROOKLINE, MA (Selection By Lottery)

24 Juniper St. #71, Brookline, MA — $161,939 1600 Beacon St. #307, Brookline, MA — $175,957 Applications Due By: July 15, 2020 NUMBER OF PERSONS IN HOUSEHOLD

MAXIMUM INCOME

1

$ 67,400

2

$ 77,000

3

$ 86,650

MONTHLY REAL ESTATE TAXES & CONDO FEES

JUNIPER: Taxes $13 Month Condo Fee $302/month BEACON: Taxes $13 Month Condo Fee $332/month

MASSACHUSETTS 50 West Broadway (617)269-9300 50 W Broadway

NORTH SHORE

26 West Broadway (617)269-9300 26 W Broadway

Visit us online! www.corcoranapts.com

North Andover Chelsea

Andover

Andover Commons Saugus Commons Stevens Corner (978)794-1800 (781)233-8477 (978)470-2611 63 Newhall Avenue 75 Park Street 30 Railroad Street

Saugus

Parkside Commons (617)884-2400 100 Stockton Street

Lynnfield

Woburn

Amesbury

Lowell

Lynnfield Commons Kimball Court Massachusetts Mills The Heights Amesbury (781)592-6800 (781)933-9900 (978)970-2200 (978)388-0671 375 Broadway 7 Kimball Court 150 Mass Mills Drive 36 Haverhill Road

SOUTH SHORE Weymouth

The Ledges (781)335-2626 1 Avalon Drive The Commons at SouthField (781)340-0200 200 Trotter Road

Taunton

Mill Pond Apartments (508)824-1407 30 Washington Street School Street Apts (508)823-1299 31 School Street

METRO WEST Framingham

Holliston

Hanover

Hingham

Brockton

Fall River

Scituate

Attleboro

Hanover Legion Lincoln School Apts Brockton Commons (781)871-3049 (781)749-8677 (508)584-2373 86 Central Street Legion Drive 55 City Hall Plaza

The Academy Kent Village (508)674-1111 (781)545-2233 102 South Main St 65 North River Road

Ashland

Renaissance Station (508)455-1875 75 South Main Street

CENTRAL MASS.

Worcester Webster Pelham Apartments Cutler Heights Ashland Woods Canterbury Towers Sitkowski School (508)872-6393 (508)429-0099 (508)861-3052 (508)943-3406 75 Second Street 79 Hollis Street 30A Ashland Woods Ln. (508)757-1133 6 Wachusett Street 29 Negust Street

NEW HAMPSHIRE RHODE ISLAND

Nashua Amherst Park (603)882-0331 525 Amherst Street

W. Warwick Westcott Terrace (401)828-1490 319 Providence Street

Hardwood floors

$2200 per month Utilities not included

Affordable Rental Opportunity

Merrimac Crossing 125-135 Middlesex Road, Tyngsboro, MA 01879 Rent is $1,766; tenants will pay for gas and electricity Utility Allowance: $204

2020 MAXIMUM INCOME LIMITS HOUSEHOLD SIZE

1 PERSON

80% AMI

$54,950

2 PERSON 3 PERSON 4 PERSON $62,800

$70,650

$78,500

No Pets

For all households other than rental voucher holders, the minimum annual income is $52,988.

Call D. Ramsey 617-903-2000

Merrimac Crossing is a development consisting of 64 duplex 2-bedroom townhomes. Sixteen of these units are being made available for less than market rate rents through a lottery process to families earning at or below 80% of Area Median Income. These homes have a living area of approximately 1,250 sq. ft. All feature 1½ baths and will be outfitted with central air, a stove, dishwasher, microwave and refrigerator.

A washer and dryer hookup will also be provided.

Occupancy is estimated to begin October 2020.

Completed applications must be received or postmarked by August 18, 2020 at 4:00 PM in care of the Chelmsford Housing Authority, 10 Wilson St., Chelmsford, MA 01824. Applications will be available in person at the Chelmsford Housing Authority (by appointment only) and online at www.chelmsfordha.com and at www.tyngsboro.gov. They will also be available by calling (978) 256-7425 x10/TTY/TDD (800) 439-2370 and via email at lottery@chelmsfordha.com.

Persons with disabilities who may require a reasonable accommodation in obtaining or completing an application may call the CHA to make special arrangements. An information session has been scheduled for July 14th, 2020 at the Chelmsford Woods Residences at 6:30 p.m. where outdoor seating is available and/or via Zoom Video Communications.

BOSTON South Boston

3 bedrooms, 2 full baths

AD

Make a CORCORAN Community Your New Home

Dorchester

14 Ferndale St, 1st Floor, Dorchester

Equal Housing Opportunity

For more detailed information visit: http://www.brooklinema.gov/231/Affordable-Housing-Opportunities

McNamara House Uphams Crossing (617)783-5490 (617)506-1792 210 Everett Street 516 Columbia Road

Apartment for Rent

Off-street parking

Income, asset & occupancy restrictions apply. These are affordable housing condos restricted by the Town of Brookline. For an application package, please call (617) 730-2091 or send an email to dguzman@brooklinema.gov

Allston

REAL ESTATE

For more information or reasonable accommodation, please call the property that interests you. We provide free language assistance by phone, just state your language and hold for an interpreter

To Place a Call Using MassRelay, dial 711

more classifieds

at baystatebanner.com find even more events, jobs, real estate and obits, and post your own ads on the banner’s website.

Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, you must call to reserve a spot as capacity is limited.

Applicants will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, religion, familial or marital status or handicap/disability or any other basis prohibited by local, state or federal law.

Thursday, July 2, 2020 • BAY STATE BANNER • 15

BANNER CLASSIFIEDS REAL ESTATE

REAL ESTATE

Littleton 55+ Affordable Housing Two 2 Bedroom Detached SFH’s Price: $251,000

AFFORDABLE NET RENT

Studio 1BR 2BR 3BR

AT LONGWOOD

Jones Meadow, off Spectacle Pond Road, Littleton WAITING LISTS ARE OPEN FOR AFFORDABLE RENTALS

MAX INCOME

Public Information Meeting 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, July 14, 2020 Via Zoom Meeting ID: 875 7393 3535 Password: jones

1—$67,400 2—$77,000 3—$86,650 4—$96,250

CityView at Longwood Apartments

Pick up applications at the leasing office** 75 Saint Alphonsus Street Boston, MA 02120 cityviewleasing@jagmgt.com (617) 397-4457

Assets to $275,000 Homes by Lottery

$1635 $1913 $2172 $2437

1 Person 2 Persons 3 Persons 4 Persons 5 Persons 6 Persons

$79,000 $90,650 $102,000 $113,300 $122,400 $131,450

For TTY Services dial 711. Free Translation Available.

CityView at Longwood shall not discriminate against any person because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, handicap, veteran status or any basis prohibited by law. *Rents and income limits are subject to MHP approval and may change with HUD’s publication of area median income. **Reasonable accommodation

Application available online at: www.mcohousingservices.com

@baystatebanner

South Boston NDC Income-restricted Rental Opportunity O’CONNOR WAY SENIOR HOUSING 5 Major Michael J. O’Connor Way, South Boston, MA 02127 46 INCOME-RESTRICTED UNITS FOR SENIORS 62+ # OF UNITS

# OF BEDROOMS

PRICE

INCOME LIMIT

5

one-bedroom

30% of Household Income

up to 30% AMI

* 17

one-bedroom

30% of Household Income

30% – 50% AMI

** 24

one-bedroom

$1,111 – $1,333 (based on your household size income) over 50% and up to 60% AMI

*Three units are built-out for persons with mobility impairments. **One unit is built-out for people who are deaf/hard of hearing and/or have vision impairment.

The 22 units affordable to households earning up to 30% AMI and between 30% and 50% AMI Filled directly through the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) Applications are available by visiting BHA’s website and printing an application to be mailed in, by completing an application through CHAMP online, or by calling 617-988-3400 and requesting BHA mail you a paper application. Applications are available at https://www.bostonhousing.org/en/For-Applicants/How-Do-I-Apply-for-BHA-Housing.aspx.

To apply online please visit CHAMP at https://publichousingapplication.ocd.state.ma.us/.

MINIMUM INCOMES (set by owner + based on # of bedrooms + AMI) MAXIMUM INCOMES (set by DND + based on the household size + AMI) # OF BEDROOMS

HOUSEHOLD SIZE

MIN-MAX YEARLY INCOME 30% AMI

1

1

0 — $24,900

1

2

0 — $28,440

MIN-MAX YEARLY INCOME 50% AMI MIN-MAX YEARLY INCOME 60% AMI

$24,901 — $41,500

$28,441 — $47,400

Mixed-Income Apartment Community

1 Bedroom/Selection by Lottery ~ A 62 & Over Community ~ Rents: Type

MAXIMUM HOUSEHOLD INCOME

High-rise living in Boston with elevators, skyline views, swimming pool, fitness center, 24hr Concierge and more!

Application Deadline August 10, 2020 For Info and Application: Pick Up: Littleton Town Hall, Town Clerk’s Office And Public Library, if reopened to Public Phone: (978) 456-8388 Email: lotteryinfo@mcohousingservices.com

REAL ESTATE

$41,501 — $53,760

$47,401 — $61,440

For the 24 units affordable to households earning between 50% and 60% AMI, income minimums do not apply to households with housing assistance such as Section 8, MRVP, or VASH. Applications are available during the application period for 22 days, from Monday, June 29 – Tuesday, July 28, 2020 from 10 AM – 4 PM and on Thursday, July 9 and Thursday, July 23 evenings until 7 PM and Saturday, July 11, 10:00am – 2:00pm 60% AMI units — To request an application online, please visit https://bit.ly/OConnorWaySeniors. After careful consideration and an abundance of caution, the City of Boston has decided to cancel the in-person application distribution period. If you cannot complete the application online or from your smartphone, please call us at 617-464-2483 to request that we mail you one and to ask for any guidance you might need to complete the application. When you call, you will be asked for your full name, complete mailing address, and phone number. This is a City and HUD requirement.

1BR 1BR 1BR 1BR Ashland, MA 01721

Applications available 6/15/20 thru 8/13/20. Apply online LedgesAshland.com or by phone 781.664.4029 (TTY 711) or email: ledges@peabodyproperties.com Mail completed application to: Peabody Properties c/o The Ledges Lottery, 536 Granite Street, Braintree, MA 02184 or email to ledges@peabodyproperties.com Deadline: Last day for paper application distribution is 8/13/20 with a postmark date for of 8/15/20. Lottery to be scheduled at a later date.

# of Apts. Gross Rent Income Limit

24 24 1 15

$1,440 $1,200 ** **

60% 50% 50% 30%

**Rent share based on income of applicant.

Income Limits #HH

30% AMI

50% AMI

60% AMI

1 2

$26,850 $30,700

$44,800 $51,200

$53,760 $61,400

Information Session: In an abundance of caution, and based on current CDC guidance, information session will be available online. Please visit LedgesAshland.com for more information or call 781.664.4029.

AMI - Area Median Income as of 4/1/20. Income, asset & use restrictions apply. Preference for current residents and current employees of the Town of Ashland. Rents, Income limits & utility allowances based on HUD guidelines. For more info, language assistance, or reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities, please call or email.

Affordable Housing Lottery

Modera Marshfield Commerce Way, Marshfield, MA 02050 1BRs @ $1,573* • 2BRs @ $1,867* • 3BRs @ $2,135* *Rents subject to change. Utilities are not included.

Tenants will pay own gas (heat, cooking, hot water), electricity, and water.

Free surface parking space included.

Modera Marshfield is a 248 unit rental community which offers a range of product types and a full suite of community amenities. The community includes 2-story townhomes as well as flat-style apartment homes in 1, 2, or 3 bedroom layouts. Sixty-two (62) units will be made available through this application process at affordable prices in a mix of 1BR, 2BR, and 3BR apartments. Various parking options are also offered including integral garages within townhomes and select buildings, stand-alone garages, and surface parking. Unit interiors boast custom cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, wood-plank style flooring, stone countertops, walk-in closets, and in-home washers and dryers. Community amenities include a clubhouse featuring leasing offices with package reception, state-of-the-art fitness facilities, a resort-style pool, outdoor fireplace, outdoor kitchen, seating areas and a playground.

MAXIMUM Household Income Limits: $67,400 (1 person) • $77,000 (2 people) • $86,650 (3 people) $96,250 (4 people) • $103,950 (5 people) • $111,650 (6 people) Completed Applications and Required Income Documentation must be received, not postmarked, by 2 pm on August 10th, 2020.

A Public Info Session will be on July 8th, 2020 at 6 pm via: YouTube Live Stream https://youtu.be/pC3BRYfP5gI (or just search “SEB Housing” in YouTube and click the thumbnail for Modera Marshfield Info Session), AND via conference call (425) 436-6200 Access Code: 862627 The lottery will be held on August 20th, 2020 at 6pm.

For Lottery Information and Applications, or for reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities, go to www.sebhousing.com or call (617) 7826900 (x1) and leave a message or postal mail SEB Housing, 257 Hillside Ave, Needham MA 02494. For TTY Services dial 711. Free translation available.

DEADLINE: Applications must be submitted online or postmarked no later than Tuesday, August 4, 2020 Mailed to: 273 D Street, South Boston, MA 02127 n Selection by Lottery for the units affordable to households earning between 50% and 60% AMI n Age Restricted, must be 62 years or older by the move-in date. n Asset & Use Restrictions apply. n Preferences for Boston Residents.

n FOR MORE INFORMATION, language assistance, or reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities please call Michelle Zenga at 617-464-2483 or email o'connorway@sbndc.org

FIND MORE JOBS AT BAYSTATEBANNER.COM

HELP WANTED

Tenant Selector/MRVP Rep. The Braintree Housing Authority is seeking an energetic, motivated individual for the position of Tenant Selector/MRVP Representative.

This position entails processing housing applications, leasing units, performing annual/interim recertifications and processing rent payments. Duties include interaction with applicants, participants and the general public. Experience in the housing industry is preferred.

Applicants must have excellent communication, analytical and organizational skills. Experience with PHA-Web software, Excel and Word preferred. Excellent benefits.

Please submit a cover letter and resume to Braintree Housing Authority Attn: Executive Director, 25 Roosevelt Street, Braintree MA 02184. EOE/AAF. Accepting resumes until the position is filled.

BAY STATE BANNER

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Equipment, taxes and other charges extra, and subject to change. See details below.

Go to xfinity.com, call 1-800-xfinity or visit an Xfinity Store today.

Offer requires enrollment in both automatic payments and paperless billing through Xfinity My Account. Offer ends 7/21/20. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. New residential customers only. Limited to the Choice Double Play with Performance 100 Mbps Internet service. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees, including Broadcast TV Fee (up to $14.95/mo.), Regional Sports Fee (up to $8.75/mo.), and other applicable charges extra, and subject to change during and after promo. After 12 mos., speed reduced to Performance 100 Mbps unless customer calls to add Performance Pro. After promo, or if any service is canceled or downgraded, regular rates apply to Choice Double Play. Comcast’s service charge for Choice Double Play is $89.99/mo. (subj. to change). Service limited to a single outlet. May not be combined with other offers. TV: Limited Basic service subscription required to receive other levels of service. Internet: Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. For factors affecting speed visit www.xfinity.com/networkmanagement. Xfinity xFi is available to Xfinity Internet customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway. Ability to pause limited to home WiFi network. Does not apply to Xfinity WiFi hotspots. Call for restrictions and complete details. NPA231765-0002 NED AA CDP V2

137523_NPA231765-0002 Choice DP 10x15.75 BostonBay.indd 1

6/16/20 1:55 PM