OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Housing & Community Dev. Committee Meeting: Nov 18, 2025 (Somerville, MA)

Meeting Portal — Wednesday, November 19, 2025
BodySomerville, Massachusetts
SessionMeeting Portal
DateWednesday, November 19, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:44:10

Transcript — Verbatim
0:04

Good evening.

0:07

This is the housing and community development committee.

0:10

I am City Councillor at Large, Kristen Strozo.

0:14

Tonight is Tuesday, November 18th, 2025.

0:17

It is 632 p.m.

0:19

And we are in the subcommittee room broadcasting live in Somerville City Hall and also hybrid virtually.

0:28

Pursuant to chapter two of the Act of X of 2025, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation.

0:35

We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels.

0:53

Here.

0:54

Council Ewan Hampen.

0:55

Here.

0:58

Okay, we do have everyone here, so wonderful.

1:01

Thank you.

1:02

Our first agenda item is an approval of the committee minute minutes by the uh number two five one two two four.

1:11

And we please call my others call the role now.

1:14

Yep.

1:15

On item number 25 1224.

1:19

Um approval of this.

1:24

Okay.

1:25

Yes.

1:25

Uh Counselor Hart.

1:27

Yes.

1:28

Council and Swiss.

1:32

Yes.

1:32

Okay, that is all those in favor.

1:34

Uh thank you.

1:35

Okay, so the first item on our agenda order 240075 that the director of Office of Housing Stability appear before the Housing and Community Development Committee to discuss the current status of residents based and displacement and the number of households seeking rental assistance.

1:51

Uh typically over the years in HCD.

1:53

Come on in, where are you?

1:54

Okay, feel comfortable, Director.

1:56

Over the years in HCD, we've we've kept this as an ongoing agenda item.

2:01

This is a weekend every quarter or so check in and see what Office of Housing Stability is seeing and experiencing.

2:08

And what we should plan and fund for in the in the months and days to come.

2:13

So with that, I have uh blessing of having executive director of the Office of Housing Stability, Ellen Chapter.

2:20

Thank you very much to the chair for inviting me and to our new member of the council and to Ben Yuan Campin from afar.

2:27

Um I'm really glad to be able to come here before you today just to share a little bit about what we're seeing, some of which is good news.

2:34

Um the first thing, just in terms of volume to let you know the period that I looked at for this data for the most part was January 2025 to the end of September 2025.

2:45

And during that time, we had 637 unique Somerville households seeking assistance, sometimes households seek our assistance multiple times during the year, but those were unique households.

2:57

And about uh 49% were 312 of these households were at imminent risk of displacement.

3:05

And out of these, 118 had already received a notice to quit or court summons for eviction.

3:12

Um, about 41% of all our referrals recorded a monthly household income below 2,000, and within this, nearly one third recorded having no income whatsoever.

3:23

So that's kind of just a little look at the volume of the cases that are coming into our office, and then I'm going to talk to you a little bit about rental assistance and what we're seeing on the eviction front.

3:34

Um so first um for rental assistance, when push comes to shop through all this OHS assisted 102 unique families with obtaining rental assistance from federal, state, and um city resources.

3:49

This smaller amount, 42,674 was obtained through the state raft program.

3:54

And I will just note for those who may not remember that our rental assistance program here was really a more robust rental uh assistance program that was designed to kind of wrap around that state program and to fill in gaps and especially to be able to help with prospective rent if a person looked like in some reasonable period of time they would be increasing their income, or there'd be some other way for them to be sustainable.

4:16

So, all totaled our main rental assistance programs are administered by the community action agency of Somerville, CASS and the Somerville Homeless Coalition, and combined during this period um with both OHS cases and the other cases that they had more independently, 2,593,000 and 595 dollars, sorry, in the first nine months of 2025.

4:44

So this is obviously a fair amount of money and it is robust.

4:48

And one of the things that I'm sure we'll be talking about in the next year to come is what are the various ways that we can sustain um some of the funding for this program, even if not all.

5:00

And I will just say over the last few years, we have been tightening the restrictions a little bit as we looked at not having the same kind of guaranteed revenue sources from free cash and from ARPA and other sources that we had had previously.

5:12

So and then from there, just eviction data.

5:16

And I wanted to walk you through this because I'm really proud of this.

5:19

So first you can see we looked at the number overall of eviction cases.

5:24

This was to through the end of October, so a 10-month period instead of a nine-month period.

5:29

And there were 167 eviction cases filed.

5:33

And what I do want to say for those that aren't as familiar with the eviction process, A, it's always bad if a case gets filed because then you have a case in court.

5:42

B, there's now eviction record ceiling thanks to a long effort by housing advocates, so that in some cases we can get those evictions taken off.

5:50

But there are many more cases filed than actually result in eviction.

5:54

And I think that's an important thing to understand.

5:56

So the measure that we look at most frequently to really assess who is really getting evicted here as opposed to a case being filed.

6:04

And there were 42 executions filed during this time.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Economic Development█████████████████████████████████33%
Housing█████████████████████21%
Parks and Recreation██████████10%
Public Engagement███████7%
Community Engagement███████7%
Engineering And Infrastructure██████6%
Public Health████4%
Historic Preservation████4%
Disability Rights████4%
Summary of Proceedings

Housing and Community Development Committee Meeting – November 18, 2025

The Housing and Community Development Committee convened on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at 6:32 p.m. to review the status of housing stability, eviction prevention, and small business support programs in Somerville. The meeting featured presentations from Director Ellen Schachter of the Office of Housing Stability, Director Luisa Olivera of Public Space and Urban Forestry, and Deputy Director Dana Whitehead of Economic Development. The committee discussed the impact of shifting federal funding landscapes on rental assistance and homeless services, the city's progress toward inclusive playground design, and new strategies to sustain small businesses post-ARPA, including a new winter marketing campaign.

Consent Calendar

  • Unanimous approval of the committee minutes for Order 25 12 24.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • General Public Sentiment: Councillor Hart expressed strong opposition to current federal funding cuts, characterizing them as "despicable" and "sickening" for disproportionately affecting low-income residents while tax cuts are reportedly provided to the wealthy.

Discussion Items

Housing Stability and Federal Funding Landscape

  • Director Ellen Schachter presented data from Jan–Sept 2025, noting 637 unique households sought assistance, with 49% (312 households) at imminent risk of displacement and nearly 41% earning below $2,000 monthly.
  • Speaker Position Report: Director Schachter stated that Somerville's eviction execution rate (4.1 per 1,000 households in poverty) is significantly lower than neighboring cities (Maldor, Medford, Cambridge, Waltham), expressing that this evidence indicates current anti-displacement programs are working.
  • Federal Impact: Director Schachter clarified that while HUD has released a new NOFA for Continuum of Care (COC) funding, it restricts permanent housing support (including Section 8 vouchers) to 30% of allocations, potentially reducing usable funding for the balance of state from $27 million to under $10 million. She noted that current Section 8 funding changes include a suspension of new regular voucher issuances by the Somerville Housing Authority for the past six months.
  • Councillor Ewan Hampton: Expressed concern regarding the potential loss of guaranteed federal funding and asked for clarification on the certainty of these cuts.
  • Councillor Hart: Reiterated that the funding reductions appear to target the poorest residents to fund taxes for the rich, stating, "I want to stop right now" due to the distressing nature of the information.
  • Councillor Hart: Asked for clarification on the financial impact of losing Section 8 voucher issuances.
  • Director Schachter: Stated that the reduction in voucher issuance impacts the ability to assist new clients and affects affordable housing development revenue sources, though no terminations of existing vouchers have occurred.

Small Business Support Post-Pandemic

  • Director Richard McCurry & Deputy Director Dana Whitehead: Discussed the transition from post-COVID ARPA direct aid (2020–2024) back to a "new normal" utilizing Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds primarily for technical assistance.
  • Speaker Position Report: The Economic Development team expressed a commitment to shifting from direct aid to "education, training, and information" to comply with Massachusetts anti-aid amendment constraints, emphasizing partnership with Main Streets and the Chamber of Commerce.
  • Councillor Hart: Highlighted specific instances where construction disruptions in the Davis Square/Union Square corridor significantly impacted business operations and accessibility for customers with disabilities due to lack of advance communication.
  • Councillor Hart: Expressed strong support for specific business recovery measures, stating, "I think that this is exactly what they're doing," regarding the need for targeted relief.
  • Specific Ask: Councillor Hart requested a direct reimbursement for outdoor dining fees paid by businesses on Bow Street whose permits rendered unusable due to utility construction preventing outdoor access for the remainder of the year.
  • Staff Response: Director McCurry conveyed that while Economic Development cannot authorize the refund directly, the request will be forwarded to the Mayor's Office and Licensing/City Clerk's Office, where the decision authority lies.

Inclusive Playground Accessibility

  • Director Luisa Olivera: Provided an update on the city's playground standards and upcoming projects.
    • Speaker Position Report: Director Olivera stated that all city parks built in the last 20 years are fully ADA compliant, countering claims of non-compliance, though she acknowledged maintenance issues can cause temporary deviations.
    • Speaker Position Report: Director Olivera emphasized a commitment to "inclusive play" that goes beyond minimum ADA standards, noting that the recent inclusive swing initiative increased the percentage of parks with accessible swings from 23% to 83%.
  • Project Update: Director Olivera detailed the upcoming design of Somerville's first inclusive playground at Kennedy Schoolyard, with construction targeted for summer 2026 pending funding.
  • Councillor Hart: Expressed concern regarding potential expansion constraints near parking at the Kennedy Schoolyard but supported the effort to maximize space while balancing community needs.
  • Councillor Hart: Expressed disappointment that state-owned property (Trump/FOSS field) may not have shared funding for inclusive swings, though staff noted DCR properties may have utilized similar models independently.

Key Outcomes

  • Actioned: Councillor Hart's request for outdoor dining fee reimbursement for Bow Street businesses was accepted for staff to forward to the Mayor's Office/Licensing for review and determination.
  • Actioned: The committee agreed to keep Item 25014 (Kenneth Lonergan Memorialization) in committee pending further coordination.
  • Actioned: The committee agreed to keep the construction communication item (Order 240078) in committee to allow for a future joint discussion with the Engineering Department.
  • Next Steps: The Economic Development team will finalize the "Be Loyal to Local This Winter" campaign materials, including a December calendar and social media push, with a physical flyer strategy for the Christmas Tree Lighting and Hanukkah celebrations.
  • Next Steps: The inclusive playground project at Kennedy Schoolyard is advancing toward the capital improvement plan, with the next community meeting scheduled for December 2nd to discuss design variations and parking configurations.
  • Strategic Shift: The Economic Development team will launch a city-wide process review in 2026 to streamline licensing and permitting interactions, aiming to improve communication between businesses, contractors, and city departments.

Meeting Transcript

Good evening. This is the housing and community development committee. I am City Councillor at Large, Kristen Strozo. Tonight is Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. It is 632 p.m. And we are in the subcommittee room broadcasting live in Somerville City Hall and also hybrid virtually. Pursuant to chapter two of the Act of X of 2025, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Here. Council Ewan Hampen. Here. Okay, we do have everyone here, so wonderful. Thank you. Our first agenda item is an approval of the committee minute minutes by the uh number two five one two two four. And we please call my others call the role now. Yep. On item number 25 1224. Um approval of this. Okay. Yes. Uh Counselor Hart. Yes. Council and Swiss. Yes. Okay, that is all those in favor. Uh thank you. Okay, so the first item on our agenda order 240075 that the director of Office of Housing Stability appear before the Housing and Community Development Committee to discuss the current status of residents based and displacement and the number of households seeking rental assistance. Uh typically over the years in HCD. Come on in, where are you? Okay, feel comfortable, Director. Over the years in HCD, we've we've kept this as an ongoing agenda item. This is a weekend every quarter or so check in and see what Office of Housing Stability is seeing and experiencing. And what we should plan and fund for in the in the months and days to come. So with that, I have uh blessing of having executive director of the Office of Housing Stability, Ellen Chapter. Thank you very much to the chair for inviting me and to our new member of the council and to Ben Yuan Campin from afar. Um I'm really glad to be able to come here before you today just to share a little bit about what we're seeing, some of which is good news. Um the first thing, just in terms of volume to let you know the period that I looked at for this data for the most part was January 2025 to the end of September 2025. And during that time, we had 637 unique Somerville households seeking assistance, sometimes households seek our assistance multiple times during the year, but those were unique households. And about uh 49% were 312 of these households were at imminent risk of displacement. And out of these, 118 had already received a notice to quit or court summons for eviction. Um, about 41% of all our referrals recorded a monthly household income below 2,000, and within this, nearly one third recorded having no income whatsoever. So that's kind of just a little look at the volume of the cases that are coming into our office, and then I'm going to talk to you a little bit about rental assistance and what we're seeing on the eviction front. Um so first um for rental assistance, when push comes to shop through all this OHS assisted 102 unique families with obtaining rental assistance from federal, state, and um city resources. This smaller amount, 42,674 was obtained through the state raft program. And I will just note for those who may not remember that our rental assistance program here was really a more robust rental uh assistance program that was designed to kind of wrap around that state program and to fill in gaps and especially to be able to help with prospective rent if a person looked like in some reasonable period of time they would be increasing their income, or there'd be some other way for them to be sustainable. So, all totaled our main rental assistance programs are administered by the community action agency of Somerville, CASS and the Somerville Homeless Coalition, and combined during this period um with both OHS cases and the other cases that they had more independently, 2,593,000 and 595 dollars, sorry, in the first nine months of 2025. So this is obviously a fair amount of money and it is robust. And one of the things that I'm sure we'll be talking about in the next year to come is what are the various ways that we can sustain um some of the funding for this program, even if not all. And I will just say over the last few years, we have been tightening the restrictions a little bit as we looked at not having the same kind of guaranteed revenue sources from free cash and from ARPA and other sources that we had had previously. So and then from there, just eviction data.

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