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