Are you frustrated with the constant negative impacts city and state decisions, policies and laws have in Roxbury? The administration's commitment to build new housing and “increase the overall housing stock” forces most of our communities to move to wherever they can afford.
We hear police sirens all day and night. Why is our neighborhood so much louder at night than other neighborhoods? Aren’t police supposed to prevent crime before it happens, without arresting the wrong people? Why can’t that happen in my neighborhood too?
Everybody we know who was born and raised in Roxbury has asthma, high blood pressure or diabetes…everyone… and sometimes all three. Why does Roxbury have some of the worst health outcomes in the whole region?
Massachusetts is supposed to be the state for educational opportunity, but in my neighborhood, in my classroom we are about 3 years behind everyone else. The crazy thing is everyone of these issues is tied to the federal government’s decisions to segregate housing and housing opportunity in the 1940s. Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) is working to end housing segregation and its impacts on Roxbury, today.
ACE has worked with a team of experts to build an Assessment for Fair Housing (AFH) that Roxbury residents and organizers are putting in place. This Assessment includes goals and methods for implementation that everyone can use to improve the civil rights in their neighborhoods and communities.
This Assessment for Fair Housing began with a shift in the ways former President Barack Obama’s Administration decided to address segregation and housing policy. In 2014, the Federal bureaucracy that administers fair housing–The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)–offered guidance for every state and municipality that receives Federal dollars through its programs to desegregate urban community neighborhoods where protected classes are concentrated.
It created new tools for addressing discrimination and systemic inequality in housing and in municipal and state services. These tools are designed for communities where protected classes are located. ‘Protected Classes’ is a legal term that means–groups of people who have been disproportionately discriminated against in American law and society. With this understanding the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Table set out to use HUD’s tool to build a community participatory research process to address disparities and to desegregate the city in 2017. Their work culminated in an Assessment for Fair Housing that we are implementing in the following ways.
Massachusetts is supposed to be the state for educational opportunity, but in my neighborhood, in my classroom we are about 3 years behind everyone else.
- Building community centered and guided power that dictates direction according to the Jimez principles
- Supporting Lydia Edwards Zoning Amendment
- Pushing for Public Health equity regarding COVID-19 and air pollution in inner cities
- Pushing for clean air and preparation for rising tides whenever possible
- Fighting for Building standards and civic design that mitigate air pollution
To achieve fair housing that removes systemic racism, ACE is inviting you to become a member and join us in building a critical movement of 150 new community residents to lead fair housing implementation and dismantling systemic racism. Become a member here.
Many housing advocates in Boston decided that it would be enough to build a community-driven process that documented the extent of Housing Segregation and the unequal impacts that continue in Boston.
ACE has joined them at a table with leading fair housing experts to develop an Assessment for Fair Housing that is focused on the City of Boston. This Assessment includes several goals that we are working to institute as we organize Roxbury. How can we work together to desegregate our city?
