August 2022: HOUSING & TRANSPORTATION
Take me to:
Program Day
Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Time: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Location: TSNE Missionworks located in 89 South St Suite 700 Boston MA 02111. The program will be held in the West Room
Objectives
Our objectives are to
- Understand inequities, challenges, and opportunities related to housing and transportation.
- Reflect on and discuss what work, resources, and tools are utilized or needed to drive change in the area of housing and transportation.
- Engage with fellow participants, facilitators, moderators, and/or guests in discussions, networking, and activities.
- Name how housing and transportation inequities relate to your workplace and what you could do to create a more inclusive organization.
Agenda
- 8:45 Doors open for breakfast. We kindly ask that you do not enter the space until after 8:45.
- 9:00-9:30 Welcome & Opening
- 9:30-10:30 Transportation Expert Speaker
- 10:30-12:00 Transportation Discussion & Activities
- 12:00-12:45 Lunch
- 1:00-2:00 Housing Expert Speaker Panel
- 2:00-4:00 Housing Discussion & Activities
- 4:00-4:45 August Leadership Commitment Prep Group
- 4:45-5:00 Closing & Feedback Survey
5:05 Optional social/networking gathering to follow program day!
Pre-work: Please complete pre-work in preparation for the program day.
- Explore Story Map Part 1 Racial Residential Segregation in Greater Boston for background on Redlining and historical housing factors in Boston (~15 min)
- Read pages 4-19 Housing Justice Beyond the Emergency: An Analysis of Racial Inequity in Eviction Filings across Massachusetts(~15 min)
- Watch video and explore Timeline of Recent MBTA Safety Incidents (~5 min)
- Listen OR read Black and Hispanic people are more likely to be denied mortgage loans in Boston (~10 min)
- Watch this PBS video on Gentrification in East Boston (8 min)
- Watch Livable Streets’ 64 Hours Video OR Review Livable Streets’ Better Busses Fact Sheet (4 min)
- Read In Mattapan, bike lanes divide the community: ‘They’re just trying to push us out’ (PDF) (6 min)
- The Boston Globe, The ‘good intentions’ program that devastated Boston’s neighborhoods (PDF) (10 min)
- Anecdotal Organizational data gathering: Housing & Transportation questions
OPTIONAL: Additional related resources to explore before or after the program day if you are interested in this topic!
- GBH, How A Long-Ago Map Created Racial Boundaries That Still Define Boston
- WBUR, MIT Study: Boston Evictions Happening ‘Orders Of Magnitude’ More In Low-Income Neighborhoods
- The Boston Globe, Don’t just fix the infrastructure, let’s rethink our transit policies (PDF)
- The Boston Foundation, The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2021
- MassINC, From Transactional to Transformative: The Case for Equity in Gateway City Transit-Oriented Development
- Reveal, The red line: Racial disparities in lending
- Boston Magazine, How Has Boston Gotten Away with Being Segregated for So Long?
- The Boston Globe, Few families occupy Greater Boston’s multi-bedroom homes, report says (PDF)
- The Boston Globe, Study links crowded housing in Greater Boston’s poorer neighborhoods with spread of COVID-19 (PDF)
- The Boston Globe, Researchers expected ‘outrageously high’ discrimination against Black renters. What they found was worse than imagined (PDF)
- Nonprofit Quarterly, The “Black Tax” on Homeownership
- Literary Hub, America’s Housing Crisis: A Reading List
- Boston Magazine, Nearly everyone in the Boston mayor’s race wants to eliminate some MBTA fares. The question is for whom.
- Mass.gov, Commission on the Future of Transportation
Module 6: Inclusive Communication Skills: Inclusive Meetings
- Watch Module 6 of LeadBoston Online, Inclusive Communication Skills: Inclusive Meetings (16:06).
- Once you’ve finished the video, share your response to the Post & Share question below as a comment to the pinned post in the YW Boston Connect LeadBoston 2022 group page.
Post & Share: How do you define inclusion? What does it look like? How does it feel?
Expert Speakers
Sheila Dillon, Chief of Housing and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing
Sheila A. Dillon is the Chief of Housing for the City of Boston, a member of the Mayor’s Cabinet, and a key advisor to the Mayor on housing issues in Boston. She is responsible for the execution of the City of Boston’s housing plan, “Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030”, as well as the “Action Plan to End Veteran and Chronic Homelessness in Boston 2015-2018”. She oversees the management of the Boston Home Center, the Neighborhood Housing Development team, the Real Estate Management and Sales team, and spearheads the City’s efforts around housing Boston’s homeless. In addition, she leads the Office of Housing Stability, which is charged with protecting residents’ tenancies in Boston’s competitive real estate market, and also administers Boston’s $50 million Rental Relief Fund. Chief Dillon is the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing (MOH), which includes managing a staff of 150 and a budget of $170 million, which includes federal grants from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Prior to her appointment as Chief of Housing, Sheila served as the Director of the Bureau of Rental Assistance at the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development. She has also served as Deputy Director of MOH’s Neighborhood Housing Division and as Deputy Director of Housing for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Prior to her work in government, Sheila was the Director of Real Estate at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and the Director of Development for the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation.
Ms. Dillon received her undergraduate degree from the State University of New York, an M.B.A. from Suffolk University, and a M.A. in Psychology from Pepperdine University. She currently lives in Boston with her husband and two children.
Rachel Heller, Chief Executive Officer, Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association
Rachel Heller became CHAPA’s CEO in 2016, after joining the agency as the Director of Public Policy in 2012. Rachel is responsible for providing strategic leadership and overseeing all activities of the organization. She works in partnership with the Board of Directors to articulate and execute CHAPA’s mission. Rachel previously worked as the Director of Public Policy at the Alliance for Business Leadership, served as Chief of Staff to Massachusetts State Senator Susan Tucker, and was the Senior Policy Advocate at Homes for Families, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to end family homelessness. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Peace Studies from the University of Connecticut.
Jarred Johnson, Executive Director, TransitMatters
I come to this position after serving as a project manager for the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation where I managed a variety of complex affordable housing real estate projects and supported organizing efforts for better service on the Fairmount Line. Before that, I helped to start the “Love Your Block” mini-grant project and helped write the City of Boston’s first Volunteer Plan as a part of the Civic Engagement Office. I also have a wealth of grassroots organizing experience working on various presidential, state, and Cherokee tribal races. I joined TransitMatters as a volunteer member in the summer of 2015 and served on the Board since the fall of that year.
My area of interest is how transit and housing intersect with advocacy and organizing. I stumbled into my love of all things transit on a trip to DC when I was 11 and then again in my early college years. I was amazed at how the subway shaped DC and its suburbs into a radically different city than my hometown of Oklahoma City. And through working with low income communities, I’ve come to understand just how important access to jobs, walkability, and green forms of transportation can be to raising a community out of poverty and poor health outcomes.
Living in Boston, I’ve embraced a car free lifestyle and I know how vital the MBTA is to the lives of so many in the region and to the economy. I’m looking forward to working with advocates and allies around the region to embolden the MBTA to consider the bigger picture and make bold, meaningful investments. I’m particularly excited to make Regional Rail a reality. It has the potential to revolutionize how people live, work, and move around the Greater Boston region and lift up our Gateway Cities. Let’s make the county’s first transit system first class together!