Late August 2023

Housing events and opportunities starting tonight!

August 24, 2023

Somerville YIMBY

City Council returns from their summer break tonight, August 24, with a

, including a number of key items on homelessness services. Several resolutions from Councilor McLaughlin focus on the urgent problem of helping unhoused people in East Somerville, and are well worth your time if you're available tonight.

On September 6 at 4:00 pm, Ugo DiBiase from Somerville Living LLC will host an on-site meeting about the construction process they're planning for 16-20 Medford Street (the Cubby Oil site). This is planned to be a zero-parking, net-zero apartment building and has been through quite a long series of community outreach meetings, and this extra on-site tour should be especially helpful for neighbors concerned about construction impacts.

Then, on September 7, the 

will hold a joint meeting. Several items on the agenda would

decrease

the zoned capacity for several parcels. We look forward to finding out why.

At the same time, our friends at Abundant Housing MA will be hosting an

, with Richard Rothstein (The Color of Law) and Karilyn Crocket (People Before Highways) moderated by Boston Globe journalist Abdallah Fayyad.

And of course, Somerville YIMBY is hosting two events in September:

  • Book club: We're meeting up with some friends from A Better Cambridge at Bloc cafe on September 9 at 2:00 pm to talk about Homelessness Is a Housing Problem. If you haven't read it, you can still come and chat!

  • Our monthly open meeting is Wednesday September 13 from 6:00 to 7:00 pm. Our agenda will include the upcoming city council and mayoral elections and our endorsement strategy.

Volunteer Opportunities

CultureHouse is recruiting people who live in or near Union Square for an advisory committee about their upcoming Union Square popup. They need about a dozen people to meet once a month from October to July

to provide input on what's going on and what should happen. Apply here:

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The Somerville Community Land Trust is

. Board members meet once month and can be local residents who care about the topic, housing professionals, or residents of SCLT properties.

Recommended Reading

We recently spotted a couple items we thought our membership might want to check out: