BRA Evicts Four Families At Proposed Building Site

Yesterday morning a squadron of police, paddywagons, and moving vans evicted four families from their homes near the Harvard Business School. These four are the last of a group of eighty-five families who have been fighting for the past nine years against the plans of the Boston Redevelopment Authority to raze this low-income neighborhood and build a moderate income housing project.

At 10 a. m., Middlesex County Chief Deputy Sheriff Robert Tobin and about 25 policemen arrived at the frame houses on North Harvard Street, broke locks off the doors, moved the furniture of these four elderly families into moving vans, and boarded up the doors with plywood. The residents, who had received 30-day eviction notices on September 11, said that they had not been told that the police would be coming yesterday, and most were away from home.

One elderly woman, in tears as she watched her furniture being carried outside, said, "1 went to work today. They called me on the phone and told me. I passed out or something. My boss helped me and I came back here. It was awful." She said that she didn't know where she would spend the night.

At 2:43 p. m., a restraining order was issued by Judge Francis Ford, allowing the families to move back for ten days. Late yesterday afternoon, four tenants took the plywood off the doors of their homes and moved back in. However, their furniture has not been returned.

A spokesman said the BRA is anxious to get these people out using any means it can, because if the site is not cleared by November 1, FHA funds will be withdrawn from the proposed housing project.

This neighborhood on North Harvard Street has a history of very militant opposition to the BRA's plans to redevelop the site. In 1964, when the BRA tried to evict 85 low income families to build a high-rise luxury apartment tower, the residents fought back so bitterly that the plans for the project were scrapped.

However, since all but 16 families had been moved out, and since the BRA found

it "inadvisable" to return the property to these people, the building plans were changed to "moderate" income housing at $130 for a one bedroom apartment to $205 for a four bedroom apartment. Thirty per cent of the 212 housing units will be "low income" under a federal plan whereby residents pay 25% of their income as rent, and government subsidies cover the difference between this and the rents. This means that the original 85 low income units, with an average rent of $60 a month, will be replaced with 63 low income units and 149 moderate income units.

There is also no guarantee that the government will continue its subsidy program, so the entire project could become "moderate" income housing.

As of this month there were still eight families living on the proposed construction site on North Harvard Street. Three families have been relocated by the BRA into public housing in Brighton-Allston, where rents are 25% of family income and are subsidized by the government. One more family decided to accept relocation today.

The remaining four families, two of whom own their own homes, refused relocation. Asked why they wouldn't move, one of the residents said, "We've lived here for 30 years. We saw the (relocation) apartments and we didn't like them. We're not animals, you know."