City Housing Activists Fight Rising Rent Costs

Members of the Eviction Free Zone (EFZ), a grass-roots community organization fighting rising rents in Cambridge, met Monday with other Cantabrigians to discuss their goals and strategies for the coming months.

The meeting, which attracted close to 80 people, focused on building community solidarity, attracting media attention and creating statewide awareness of the growing number of evictions in Cambridge since the city abolished rent control in 1993.

"Since the end of rent control, we've helped many tenants to keep their homes. If they lose their homes, they're out of the city," said Bill Marcotte, the lead housing organizer for the EFZ. "We're all in the same boat, and we'd like to get out of this leaky boat together," he said.

Bill Cavellini, a Cambridge resident, spoke about the goals and platforms of the EFZ. Cavellini said that the last five years without rent control have shown that landlords are not afraid to raise rents--making staying in the city prohibitively expensive for low-and moderate-income families.

"The EFZ is saying to you tonight that a winning strategy must have a broad base of tenant support and must be coordinated state wide," he said.

Other tenants who spoke at the meeting also saw these two factors as the key to a successful campaign for rent control.

Activists presented a 12-point plan designed to help make rent control a statewide issue, while others reminded the gathering that the EFZ had succeeded in getting the city council to declare a housing emergency last February.

Also important to the EFZ at this point is media attention. "The media must focus both on the problem and on possible solutions," Cavellini said. Cavellini stressed the importance of increasing involvement on the part of city councillors and the community on the issue of rent control. He cited the need to pressure city council candidates to work actively for rent control at the state and local level.

Present at the meeting was current city councillor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 and city council candidate James Williamson. The two were not permitted to speak at the meeting because of their political status.

Cavellini said that if the EFZ continued their twelve-step program, they could win the rent control battle. "We will have the victory that we have to have to allow working class people to stay in the city," he said.

In a written statement read at the meeting, Cambridge resident Louise Dunlap said she supported the EFZ's methods. "I really appreciate the spirit of activism that brought rent control to Cambridge and kept it going," she said. "To deal with [the problem] we need to think big, and that's what the eviction free zone does."

Linda Rousseau, another Cambridge resident, cited the fact that although the focus of the rent control debate is on poor families, low- to moderate-income households also have trouble paying their rent.

Members of Citizens United for Rent Equity (CCURE) rallied outside the Cambridge Senior centure, where the meeting was held.

CCURE also advocates rent control, but disputes the EFZ on some points. They advocate a referendum on the November ballot to establish Cambridge support for rent control. There was some dispute in the meeting over whether this is necessary. EFZ members argued that garnering statewide support is far more important than yet another Cambridge vote.

The issue stressed most at the meeting was the need to make the issue of affordable housing a more public one. "Every activity we've done in the past year or so takes a tremendous amount of energy to even get press releases out there," said Daniel Bouchard, a Cambridge resident.

One Magazine Street resident was not satisfied with the current media coverage, saying that residents need to plan more aggressive activities so that they will be noticed. "We need to be bolder about what it is that we want. We need rent control to protect tenants."