Public meetings and gatherings this week include Earth Day events, including a visit to Somerville’s growing Miyawaki Forest and a pollinator plan; a Narcan distribution; and Mystic River pathway and improvements at Draw 7 Park.

The process of converting an outsider artist’s home into affordable housing begins this month with a community meeting, and a famous fence is coming down too.

Public meetings this week look at setting City Council goals for the term and evaluating the city manager, housing and diversity hiring, and a Patriot’s Day celebration filled with history, treats, a horse riding in from Boston and a Humvee.

A housing crisis of this magnitude requires a number of bold policy ideas. It also requires us to work together as communities to support people in need of housing.

Public meetings this week look at a road diet plan and the impact of bike lanes; plans to redo Haskell Street in North Cambridge; hurdles to diversity, equity and inclusion; adapting homes to child care uses; and a housing agenda town hall.

Public meetings this week look at an evaluation for embattled schools superintendent Victoria Greer and the state of policing in Cambridge. There’s also the first of two town halls run by an organization looking into the term’s City Council agenda on housing.

Gov. Maura Healey’s Affordable Homes Act addresses the housing crisis in several useful ways, but leaves out repealing a statewide ban on rent control.

Public meetings this week look at resolving conflicts in Ball and Magoun squares and South Medford where parcels split at city lines and zoning districts; the future of the Armory arts building; a Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination backlog; and more.

It’s been rough going since a plan was unveiled in 2021 for new affordable apartments in North Cambridge, but the latest version has just one more design review stop before it’s time to work out construction funding.

An Appeals Court decision came the same day Cambridge’s City Council asked the city to include money in the next city budget for legal representation for any lower-income tenant threatened with eviction in Housing Court.