Tenants who will be ejected from Cambridge’s Democracy Center on July 1 are being offered a refund of the past year’s rent and help finding alternative office space, but its closing for renovations will not be stopped, a representative of the meetinghouse said. Those efforts didn’t reach a nonprofit center with an expressed interest in helping, and city councillors have offered only words of support.
There’s agreement among center staff, tenants, visitors and city councillors that renovations are needed. But the Foundation for Civic Leadership, which owns the building at 45 Mount Auburn St. in Harvard Square, doesn’t have permits, plans, a builder, a timeline for the work or money budgeted, said Sue Heilman, the interim executive director of Democracy House, during April meetings with angry and worried tenants.
Peter McLaughlin, commissioner of the Cambridge Inspectional Services Department, confirmed that there are no permits on file for the address of The Democracy Center, and finding someone to do the hands-on work is the bigger problem: “Usually, good contractors are booked for a year or two in advance,” McLaughlin said.
Asked why the foundation was expelling organizations if a long permitting process had not begun, Heilman wrote: “FCL is in the process of investigating what the renovations could include and expects to be filing for a building permit as soon as the plans are completed.”
A more specific answer was suggested by a tenant who attended an April 25 meeting with Ian Simmons and other representatives from the foundation – the third since it was announced the center would close after more than 20 years and be renovated to house another foundation project called Democracy House. Heilman is interim executive director of Democracy House.
“The closest thing to new information was that [Simmons] said that a full investigation of what needs to be done would itself be invasive and would involve knocking down walls to see what’s behind them,” said Clare, a Boston Democratic Socialists of America member. “The reaction to that was very skeptical. You’d probably find disagreement on whether or not that even constituted new information, or if it’s just like trying to placate people, because there haven’t been any contractors or permits or any more concrete plans involved.”
Need for space
The City Council asked during a Tuesday meeting for the FCL to “reconsider” its plans to close the space. The author of that order, councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler said Friday that no steps were taking steps beyond the policy order. Co-sponsor councillor Sumbul Siddiqui said Tuesday that “we all know that The Democracy Center is in need of renovations.”
More forward-looking remarks came from councillor Joan Pickett, who said the situation was “emblematic of what’s happening with many other organizations – it’s really difficult for not-for-profits to find space.”
“We need to consider how we can offer space or develop space that will be available for not-for-profits,” Pickett said, “this is an issue we should be looking at holistically.”
After the “Nonprofit Row” building at 93-99 Bishop Allen Drive was saved from a sale that could have changed its use or raised rents dramatically for its tenants, the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority and Cambridge Community Foundation said in 2019 that they planned to continue similar work as partners “to address the growing crisis in affordable office space for agencies serving the local community.”
The Democracy Center hasn’t reached out to the Cambridge Community Foundation, said a spokesperson.
The CRA also has not had any direct contact with Democracy Center itself and doesn’t have office space at its Foundry building or on Bishop Allen – though there may be a sublet option there, said Tom Evans, the authority’s executive director, in a May 7 email. The quasi-governmental agency is aware of the situation, though, he said, and asked its nonprofit property manager Third Sector New England to reach out to suggest looking at The Link co-working space in Kendall Square or its own Nonprofit Center in Boston.
“Many of the tenant organizations had previously utilized spaces at The Foundry and are in conversations with the Foundry Consortium” about doing more events there, Evans said.
Future Democracy Center use
The Link and Nonprofit Center were to be proposed by Democracy Center staff to tenants in a continued panicked search for space, including Better Future Project, New England Bangladeshi American Foundation, Neighbor Program Cambridge, The Black Response, Cambridge Heart, One Fair Wage, The Activist Supply Closet, SubDrift Boston, Boston Area Liberation Medics, DeeperThanWater, Grow to Consume and Cambridge Community Fridge. The FCL is trying to help, Heilman said.
“While acknowledging the sense of loss many are feeling right now,” said Heilman of Simmons in a statement about the third meeting held with tenants, “he listened – especially for ideas to enhance and sustain the building for its long-term future – and emphasized that he looks forward to the building continuing to be a meeting house and civic incubator space.”
“We welcome community input on the future use,” Heilman said, including a link to a form to provide feedback on what activists would want to see in a future Democracy Center-style space.
Tenants said they were were not impressed by the meeting or center efforts to help them after eviction.
“It was very tense, and I feel like it wasn’t productive because people were talking past each other,” said Clare, the Boston DSA member. “He seemed very unwilling to address what the activists were already saying unless he had a direct answer that fit in with what his agenda already was.”
Unhappy activists
A statement circulating among the activist community makes five demands of the FCL, including an indefinite pause of the decision to close, a transferral of decision-making power to groups and individuals invested within the space and a commitment to not retaliate against activists working to keep the space open. It wasn’t address during the meeting, an activist said.
“He was making a big show of how he wanted to do deep listening and wanted people’s feedback, but in a very focus-group kind of way that I think probably irritated everyone else, because we’re all scrappy leftists and the fundamental thing is just that this wasn’t our decision,” Clare said.
Karanfil Casey, an activist with ties to the Center, was also critical of Simmons’ response in the meeting. “You purport to stand in support of the democratic process, and yet this is pretty authoritarian, like this is not a democratic process in any way,” Casey said. “There’s a very superficial engagement with the community.”
“We’re still going to 110 percent stand behind our demands and walk forward and fight the fight,” Casey said. “It ain’t over yet … I remain committed to working toward a better way forward.”
This post was updated May 10, 2024, with comment supplied May 7, 2024, by Tom Evans of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority.
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