Affordable Housing Petition Hits Dining Halls

Campus activism entered Adams House dining hall Friday, as Adams residents Alexander H. deWeese '98-'01 and Amanda C. Davis '01 gathered 200 signatures in support of a Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) petition to increase affordable housing in the Boston area.

The petition seeks to double local, state and federal budgets for affordable housing, to persuade corporations and universities to "commit their fair share" of resources for affordable housing, to use public land for affordable housing, and to increase affordable housing for renters and homeowners.

"Gentrification isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think lots of different people should be able to live in the city and live well," deWeese said.

Since a 1994 statewide referendum abolished rent control in Boston, Brookline and Cambridge, rents, housing prices and turnover in the area's housing market have all risen dramatically.

"The diversity of the city actually does change as people are forced out of the city," deWeese said.

"A few students were opposed to the petition, and most others were simply wary of putting their name on a petition of any sort," he said.

Katherine A. Murphy '01, one of the students who signed the petition on Friday, said it "raises awareness" of the housing difficulties the region faces.

"It's very easy to ignore when we're comfortably provided for in a House and a dining hall like this," she said.

Friday's effort is just one part of a campus-wide and Boston-area drive to gather 100,000 signatures for the petition by April 6.

The petition will tentatively be delivered to Gov. A. Paul Cellucci, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham '72 (D-Boston), House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran (D-Mattapan) and other state legislators in Boston on May 9, according to Ari M. Lipman '00, a member of the campaign.

At Harvard, students from the College, Dudley House, the Graduate School of Education, the Law School, the Divinity School and the Kennedy School of Government are aiming to collect 3,500 signatures by Spring Break, Lipman said. He added that 1100 endorsements had already been collected.

As part of the Boston Campus Organizing Project (BCOP), Harvard's students are working in conjunction with students from Roxbury Community College, Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and local high schools, he said.

"The nice thing about it is that it's students working together with people from all across Cambridge," Lipman said.

On Saturday, the Harvard campaign held a "Petition Day" at Phillips Brooks House, as more than 50 people were trained in the art of gathering signatures, then sent out into Cambridge, armed with clipboards and pens.

"It's nice to prove that there are students who care about it and are doing something about it as well," Lipman said.