Text of SCATV Candidate Profile

Below is the text of my SCATV Candidate Profile, which can be watched here: https://archive.org/details/Candidate_Profile_-_Stephanie_Hirsch

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Thank you to Somerville Media Center (also known as SCATV) for giving all of us candidates an opportunity to introduce ourselves. I’m really happy to be here. I think places like SCATV are so important to our community. They are a place where people meet and work together – like a community living room or a community workshop. People working together on projects here is one way they create community. But also, the shows get broadcast out to all of you. I remember hearing from sleepless new moms – they said they watched SCATV in the middle of the night while rocking their baby, and watching made them feel less alone. And I know some of you are homebound. SCATV connects people across Somerville, wherever you may be watching from and whatever your situation may be.

With my 10 minutes of fame, I’d love to tell you a bit about my background and what I hope to do if I get elected. I’ll do all the talking today. But when I meet you in person, I want to hear YOU talk and to hear YOUR ideas.

First about my background which I what made me who I am today. I grew up in north central Wisconsin. It’s a community that’s just about the same size as Somerville, but it’s the biggest city for miles around. All around it are farms and forest.

Eau Claire Wisconsin was a great place to grow up. It had a strong middle class. We all lived together on the same block, we played together in the street – kick the can, ditch, capture the flag - until our parents called us in. We all went to the same public schools. People looked out for each other and they looked out for the community. They invested in the schools, in our community organizations, like the YMCA or Little League. My parents were teachers, and there were people who made more money – the lawyers, doctors, orthodontists. But those were the people who donated to make a new wing of the library or the children’s museum. A lot of them probably voted republican, while others voted democrat – but that didn’t matter. We all agreed that each person in our community matters.

I’ve been door knocking since April and I have reached 3,000 doors so far. The life-long residents describe growing up Somerville of the 50s, 60s, and 70s just like the way I remember growing up in Eau Claire. When I was door knocking in the States/Aves, I met different members of families like the Cassessos, Lapianas, Deangelis, and Cantalupes. They loved their years growing up. Everyone was like family, and each kid belonged to everyone, just like in my hometown.

I took this value with me – that we are all responsible for every person in our community and that we all need to take care of our community organizations. 

After college, I worked in two places where people really struggled, where there were not enough community resources to go around. First, I taught in an elementary school in North Philadelphia. By the school, one of every three houses looked bombed out. The sidewalk was littered with brightly colored crack vials. Then I worked in rural Georgia. Georgia had its own problems. In both places, the systems of education, health care, governance, and public safety did not work well. There was not a strong, core middle class. There were very few jobs. And, as a result, a lot of people’s lives did not work out well. Many girls got pregnant before age 20 and many boys had a criminal arrest. Systems had failed them and, as a result, they had so much trouble becoming successful providers and community contributors.

I saw how these failure of government affected people, and it broke my heart. I decided to spend my life trying to make government work better so people can have good lives. I studied statistics and business to try to figure out how to improve our local government. Using those skills, I went on to work for NYC, the Boston Police Department, and then for Somerville. In Somerville, I started programs like SomerStat, 311, ResiStat, and helped the schools achieve big gain.

We did a lot, but I want to do a lot more. If I get elected, I’m going to keep trying to improve how well government runs so that the lives of OUR city’s residents are happy and healthy. I want NO ONE to fall through the cracks in my community on my watch.

I’ve had a chance to listen to community hopes and the points of pain in Somerville all this spring and summer. I’ve reached 3,000 households so far and I’ve heard so many different worries. I’ve thought about those conversations a lot, and here’s what I plan to work on if I get elected:

Affordability: Affordability tops most people’s lists of worries. This means something different to different people. Someone may live on only $40,000 a year, so have trouble paying for water or tax bills, even as their property is worth almost $1 million. Young people may have two degrees and high earning potential, but they still struggle with student loan debt and can’t figure out any way to get into the market. Low-income renters face the most struggles. Here are three groups I hope to give special thought.

•     First, I’m worried about families with children. Children are almost twice as likely as other residents to be living in poverty. Families generally make less money, have more expenses, have unique housing needs, have more dependence on municipal/district services, and face much more housing discrimination. Many families will need to move. I think we should create and preserve housing with families in mind.
  
• Next, I believe we need to focus on housing for seniors that allows them to stay in their own neighborhood.
   
• Finally, I think we need to have a special focus on middle income households. They less support, but do need some subsidy and technical assistance. Middle income families – including municipal employees -- are a key part of creating a strong community.
  

So, what are the tools? There are no easy answers, no silver bullet. I think we have to use all of the tools, and find a balance among them. The step we have to take include:

• Holding developers to do as much as they can to build affordable and family-friendly housing, including the smaller investor/developer currently not affected by law like inclusionary housing;
   
• Moving ahead with zoning and projects even though they remain a work in progress;
   
• Give owners easy access to a tax deferral program that allows them to forgo paying any taxes until they sell their property;
   
• Pass a transfer fee that’s thoughtfully designed that creates funding for subsidies;
   
• Create a right-of-first-refusal program that makes it easier for owner-occupant to compete with developers for the purchase of a home;
   
• Add units, both through accessory units and through taller building in transformative districts. Whenever possible, we should do this without adding cars; and
   
• Control budget expenses which may mean discipline in the funding of new initiatives, including capital projects that we desperately need.
  

We have to take all of these approaches. We will look for the win-wins. But when there is no opportunity for both sides to be happy, we will need to split the difference, to compromise.

Quality of life: In East Somerville, almost every household talked about rats. Many people throughout the city have also talked about cut-through traffic and feeling of being unsafe on and around streets. While these are also tough issue to fix, I promise to redouble efforts to find solutions. As we think about the big picture, we will need to continue to focus on the little things – the day-to-day issues that weigh on our peace of mind.

Community institutions: As I mentioned, I believe that having strong, integrated, accessible community institutions help people be happy and form friendships. I will work hard to add funding for recreation and support for community-based providers to do more out-of-school programming and activities for people of all ages. I’d like the city’s public buildings to be open from 6 AM until 10 PM, I’d like new community space in each of our squares. And, we need to make progress on improving/expanding our athletic field space.

Community: Community institutions help us meet together and form friendships. And I want to continue that focus in all I do. I believe the more we know and are about one another’s needs, the better able we will be to make hard decisions. I will work to form neighborhood groups, helping them set up ways to communicate and annual events, goal and metrics of neighborhood goals. And a special note, in door knocking, I have often heard division that are rooted in people’s own, unique struggles. Some people do not feel heard. As one of the most poignant examples, Somerville has experienced at least 40 deaths to opioid overdoses in 2015 and 2016, and those deaths were concentrated in a smaller demographic group within Somerville. It feels like we should be shouting these statistics from every the rooftop. When think about the concept of OneSomerville, I believe we need to have the most inclusive definition, looking at the pain and experience of EVERYONE so as to increase our understanding of one another.

Transparency: I will work to make the decisions of our local government as transparent as possible. On the School side, I believe we need more information shared about district budgeting and decision making. On the City side, I will dig into publicly available data on any issue residents care about. We can use data to set goals and metrics, and regularly report on them. One of my heroes, Maura Healey, promise to serve as the “People’s Lawyer”. And I promise to be the “People’s Bean counter.” Maybe you didn’t even know you wanted your own bean counter, but I plan to prove that it’s a powerful tool for change.

Other goals I have include using my political capital to help settle open contracts and support the work of environmental groups like Mothers out Front and Somerville Climate Action.

You may be thinking this all sounds hard, and I agree. Should we do it? I think – yes. Almost no place has figured out how to stay connected, integrated, and well run. Let’s us do that – even if it means sacrifice and compromise, hustling and bootstrapping our way to groundbreaking policies. Let’s us be the proving ground and the antidote to a country that’s being pulled apart by income inequality and division.

So, that’s a little about me, my background, and what I care about. But I am learning as I go – I’m learning from YOU. I have another 6,000 doors to knock, and I hope to meet you on your front step. When we meet, please tell me your hopes and worries, and we will figure out what to do about them together.

Thank again to SCATV for this opportunity.

Planning for the Needs of Children and Families

I love the end (and start!) of the school year, but the hardest part is knowing that as the school-year wraps up, for some, it’s a time of transition and uncertainty. It's the end of stable routines. The hardest part is seeing a pile of record transfer request forms in the school office, knowing many families are moving, mainly because they could not find an affordable place to live in Somerville. Somerville’s loss is the gain of Everett, Revere, Lynn, Saugus, and places farther north or west. I hope our kids thrive in those districts. We will miss you and all you have to contribute.

Kids in Somerville are almost twice as likely to be living in poverty than the rest of the population. Families at many income levels face more hurdles than others to find a place to live – they have less income, they have more expenses (like childcare), they experience more housing discrimination, and they need more space. If families have kids enrolled in the public schools, they are deeply invested in the municipal boundaries. Moving even just block into a new city means a moving to new school district and thus a complete change in their kids’ worlds. (See above for a table that shows the decline in the numbers of children, even just between 2000 and 2010).

We have a lot of work to do on affordability. As we do, we need to pay special attention to how systems and policies impact children, who are both a particularly vulnerable and, in my opinion, a particularly wonderful part of our community. Pictured here are my daughter, Nancy, and some of her awesome classmates who won the City’s Fair Housing Contest this spring. Kids have seen friends move each month and year, and it's hard to say goodbye. They understand what's at stake.

I think we have to take a lot of steps, and all of them will require both the best technical tools and lots of community discussion. First and foremost, however, I think we have to talk to families to understand their hopes and challenges.

Here’s where I think we should focus, based on my experiences with children and families in Somerville and elsewhere:

• Traditional neighborhoods: I believe we need to invest in programs like the 100 homes effort that takes properties off the speculative market. I think most families would like to live in one of Somerville’s traditional homes that often will have its own entrance, often a shared backyard, and proximity to stores, schools, bus/T lines, and other kids.
• New housing: When we hope to have families live in new housing, I would like to see the housing and neighborhoods be designed with families in mind, such as building units with a view of shared outdoor space or walking distance to a school.
• Ownership: I believe we should focus on ownership opportunities. Anyone who wishes to own should ideally have a path to ownership.
• All income levels: I believe we need to create programs that support families at all different income levels, from the lowest income earners to those for who need less subsidy.
• Other affordability factors: I would like to see the City and District greatly increase its investment in out-of-school time programming and in health and human services. I would like to see public buildings open all the time for community use and a subsidy for transportation. We should be thinking of how systems work together to make life with kids (especially in a small space with limited resources or adult time) easy and happy vs. hard and stressful.

What are the tools we can use to achieve these goals? Many issues need to be resolved at the State level, including ways to pressure communities less dense than Somerville to build more housing. We need to change the state’s (and nation’s) education funding and accountability systems that currently systematically penalize communities for welcoming families – especially lower income families.

Locally, I think we need to bring every tool to bear, even though most steps will be difficult. Those include:

• Building incentives for family-friendly housing into the new citywide zoning;
• Making sure developers to do as much as possible to build affordable and family-friendly housing;
• Moving ahead with zoning and projects, especially those that increase commercial development, even though we have incomplete information or they are still a work in progress;
• Tapping into the extraordinary appreciation of home values by giving all homeowners access to tax deferral programs and by implementing a thoughtfully considered transfer fee;
• Creating a right-of-first refusal program to enable long-time tenants to purchase equity in their homes with funding from an affordable housing trust;
• Building higher density in transformative districts, even though neighborhoods will struggle with growing pains;
• Controlling budget expenses to stall tax increases, which will mean some austerity in the funding of initiatives;
• Finding a way to and go slow on some big capital projects that, unfortunately, we desperately need; and
• Finding ways to create and enforce a “car-free” property status and then allowing for higher density (such as development of accessory units) or more open space without increased cars.

On top of all that, we need to keep trying to build community so that we understand one another’s needs and keep paying attention to the day-to-day quality of life issues, like rats and cut-through traffic, that impact people’s sense of safety and peace of mind. Plus, we need to continue working to increase transparency, reform our powerful boards like the SRA, and pay attention to campaign finance, all of which will (I hope!) increase trust in the process. Whew… that’s a lot to worry about.

Those are my thoughts, but I am still learning and I learn more each day as I talk to people while door knocking… and we all will have to. There aren’t many examples in the US of communities that have figured this out. Let me know what you think!

Some Data on Somerville

In our recent Housing Design workshop, we discussed data on Somerville as a way to understand the struggles we face. Here are the data points for reference.

DEMOGRAPHICS

• 69.4% of units are renter occupied (Source: Assessing)
• 57.3% of adults have a bachelor’s degree (Source: Census)
• 44% of the population is aged 20 to 34 and 52% is aged 20 to 39. These percentages are among the highest in the country and the second highest in MA. (Source: Census)
• 4.8% of the population is under age 5 and 5.8% is aged 5 to 14. The percentage of children is the second lowest in MA among larger communities. (Source: Census)
• Children are more likely to be low-income than the general population Children are almost twice as likely to be living in poverty than people 18 or over.  In the schools, 48% of students speak another language at home, 39% are economically disadvantaged, and 66.9% qualified for free and reduced lunch in 2013-2014. (Source: DESE, Census).
• Here is how the population change between 2000 and 2010 – the population of children and older people fell, and the population of 25-34 and 55-64 rose. (Source: Census, 12/15 Housing Needs Assessment)
  

  

  
  
• The population is 70% non-Hispanic white, 10% Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 9% Black or African American, and 11.8% Asian. (Source: Census)
• Younger residents are more likely to be highly educated: (Source: Census)
• Age 25-34: 78.4% have BAs
• Age 35-44: 62.7% have BAs
• Age 45-64: 33.6% have BAs
• Age 65+: 20.8% have BAs
• Somerville differs from the national pattern of owners having a higher education (Source: Census)
• 54% of owner-occupied unit owners have bachelor’s degree in Somerville (vs. 36% nationwide)
• 60% of renter-occupied unit tenants have bachelor’s degree in Somerville (vs. 25% nationwide)
• Looking at Assessing data linked to City Census data, we see home ownership by age (Note – just general trend, it underestimates ownership)
• Age 60+: Approx. 61% are owners
• Age 34 or under: Approx. 7% are owners

HOUSING:

Below are two tables that show the gap between housing and current residents’ ability to pay:

• As of December 5, 2014 there were 3,258 affordable housing units in Somerville which accounted for almost 10% of the City’s housing. Affordability can be up to 110% AMA, or $108K for a four-person household. 285 affordable units are at risk of losing their affordability according (Source: 12/15 Housing Needs Assessment).
• Between 2012 and 2016, single family home prices increased by $145,900, or 30.5%. Condominium sale prices have increased even faster over the same period, by 35.7% or $150,000

OTHER DATA ON RESIDENTS:

• There were 40 fatal Opioid overdoses in 2015 and 2016. Almost all (91%) were non-Hispanic people, and 72% were men. The median reported fatal overdose age was 37, vs. 31 for non-fatal overdoses (Source: City SPD)
• Average student loan debt of recent graduates in 2015 was $30,100 (CNN)
• Younger voters are much less likely to vote in the municipal elections (see right, source: City Census data).

CITY FINANCES: Somerville has the second lowest revenue per capita among larger communities in MA. (MA DOR DLS)

Somerville Family Design Workshop — Building an affordable, supportive, and fun place to grow up

“It’s hard to be a grown-up” an eight-year-old concluded at this weekend’s first Somerville Family Design Workshop, held at the Armory on Sunday afternoon. She had just completed an exercise in which she had to try to pay bills on an annual income of $36,000. As she found out, it was tough.

More than 130 kids and grownups tackled challenges at this past weekend’s first Somerville Family Design Workshop. They designed neighborhoods, studied parks and open spaces, and solved hypothetical (though all-too-real) community dilemmas.

A group of parent volunteers organized the event with me to help identify priorities for children and families. We will be replicating the event for other groups —  like seniors and young adults.

At the event, kids and adults visited different stations. At each table, they had to problem solve and share their opinions about life in Somerville. Here’s what we learned:

At the AweSomerville Game station, game inventor Kelsey Kent and Melora Rush helped kids tackle a city challenge. “Emergency!” kids learned. “Somerville’s water supply has been contaminated! How do you get the word out? What’s the next step?”

Kids had lots of clarifying questions and ideas. “Is it so contaminated that they’ll have to go to the hospital?” “Can we call every home on time?” "How about have the mail carrier knock on doors throughout the day?” “Can we install filters for everyone?” “How much will it cost to clean the water?” As they solved problems, Somerville’s happiness score rose. Kelsey's take away from listening to kids think through the issues: “Kids are amazing. They are natural-born community enthusiasts and creative problem solvers.” One of the kid’s take-aways: “We can solve problems and even make more money for the city!”

Nearby at the Favorite Spaces station, Courtney Cooke guided kids and adults on an exercise

developed by Somerville mom and park designer, Eden Dutcher Martin. Participants marked up a big map of the City’s open spaces, pointed out places they love, their own homes, and their routes to open spaces.

Here’s what they said they loved: shady spaces, with places to sit and access to port-a-potties. They like playgrounds that are close to other destinations — like the library, the pool, and a store to buy snacks or cool drinks. They love it when programs, like festivals, Art in the Garden, or the Open Air Circus use public open spaces. Kids love “water play” and “fun structures.” They love to be able to walk or bike to their favorite parks.

And some ideas for improvements: “More and better athletic fields!” “Continued progress towards an extended community path,” and “Can we use the Veterans Memorial cemetery more?”

At the Balancing a Household Budget station, kids had a challenge. They learned that 37 percent of Somerville families with kids make less than $50,000 per year as a household. Almost 2,000 families make less than $24,000 per year. At the table, participants figured out how to live on $36,000/year, or $3,000/month. Using pennies as their funds, they had to pay: $2,100 (or 21 pennies)/month for rent, $1,000 for childcare, and $800/month for food, $600/month for transportation, and $300/month for recreation, vacations, and other expenses. They quickly learned that, though $3,000 seems like a lot, it doesn’t cover basic expenses. Try the tool yourself here: https://jcalz.github.io/family-budget/

Participants grappled with a few options to cut costs or earn more — and each option came with its own challenges. In addition to the conclusion that being an adult is hard, other thoughts included the following: “Life in Somerville is expensive,” “It must be very, very difficult to raise a family in Somerville,” “I need my extended family to help with my kids,” and “It’s not possible to afford to live here.”

What can we do? The most popular idea — shared more than 15 times — was to help families with childcare. Other ideas included building more high-density, affordable, and family-sized housing. Also, people suggested providing free wi-fi, creating more employment opportunity, building a bigger commercial tax base to help pay for programs, and creating “bigger, open indoor public spaces for multi-aged recreation.”

At the Immigrant Family’s Journey station, participants had a chance to role-play (in a very simplified way) the difficult decisions someone makes before they leave their home country. After people tried it, they shared their reflections: “It is very hard for immigrants to come to the U.S.,” “Immigration is very stressful.” As one immigrant mom said, “It’s a very hard decision, torn between two lands, and can be very dangerous for some.”

At the Recreation table, Dave Ahouse and Rob Odilon asked people a few questions and they had LOTS of ideas. People said, we need better facilities, including more/better athletic fields (turf and/or grass), a large indoor city pool, a teen recreation center, and easy ways for the public to get to the facilities.

We need more activities for ‘tweens and teens, including options other than sports.

Participants said they’d like more both indoor and outdoor theater events, and theater camp for all ages year round. Could we have a Somerville talent show, or a theater festival similar to Honk/Porch Fest?” people asked. Also, “What spaces can theater groups use?”

In terms of public spaces, many people asked for port-a-potties in parks, “so we can stay all afternoon!” Residents asked if the Kennedy Pool can be open longer, and also if it could have an “open community park and playground?” Other wishes included the community path extension, more dog parks, more movable red chairs, a new playground for the Brown school, and help for restaurants to have outdoor seating.

People threw out more ideas, including requests for more mixed-age activities, more non-sports

activities, a free shuttle from Davis to Assembly, more inclusive programming, and depaving of yards. Facilitator Rob Odilon said one of his favorite ideas he heard was to have a citywide cookout — each block should pull out their grills on one day in the summer and share burgers with neighbors.
At our housing table, Tim and Shu Talun helped kids and adults look through magazines to find features of homes and neighborhoods they liked best. Taking a look at the collage, it’s clear kids like interesting designs with unique spaces, easy access to outdoor space, play elements, and natural elements, like trees turned into benches. Based on the pictures of animals cut out and glued, it’s evident they also love furry creatures. Parents asked about ease of access to shared outdoor space, and wondered “Why don’t kids go out to parks any more by themselves? Meanwhile Jason Behrens helped kids use many different materials to build neighborhoods free form.

Finally, at our community sustainability table, Jennifer Dorsen led a discussion of how to invest in our community’s environmental health. Composting was a popular suggestion here.

Stay tuned for a design workshop coming to you soon!

—photos by Jeanine Farley