Watch meetings digging into details of budget, response to Covid-19 and public housing work
Public meetings this week get into the the proposed $715 million municipal operating budget in detail (but very quickly); hear coronavirus response updates, delayed a bit by Memorial Day; and look at the work of the city’s overseer of public housing.
Pressures of Covid-19, and outside protections, convince CHA it must drop some aid to renters
A program that helped lower-income Cambridge residents stay in their homes if they faced big rent increases has been suspended by the Cambridge Housing Authority, which says it lacks the money to continue the aid, especially considering the Covid-19 crisis has resulted in other protections.
Testing for coronavirus arrives in The Port, comes next to group settings, public housing
A free Covid-19 testing program for residents of The Port neighborhood began Tuesday, one of a flurry of Cambridge coronavirus testing opportunities now offered by city and health officials after weeks of restrictions that curtailed availability.
Plans to test most vulnerable for Covid-19 evolve, enlisting fire paramedics to visit public housing
Fire Department paramedics will go door-to-door in public housing developments housing the elderly and younger disabled tenants to offer Covid-19 tests to residents, according to preliminary plans calling for visits to all 1,200 households by Memorial Day.
Areas where most vulnerable populations live see expanded Covid-19 testing, led by The Port
Cambridge will offer Covid-19 tests to tenants at the city’s public housing developments for the elderly and also locate a testing site in The Port neighborhood to focus on older, low-income, black and Hispanic residents. A North Cambridge site could follow.
With coronavirus case and death data withheld, Housing Authority is on its own to gauge extent
At least 25 public housing tenants have tested positive for Covid-19 and six have died – but public housing managers have no way of knowing the full story. Agencies such as the Cambridge Housing Authority get no official notification of positive test results, or even of deaths.
Housing Authority finds masks for households, many donated within city – and some by tenant
The Cambridge Housing Authority has managed to get 10,000 masks to distribute to elderly tenants living in low-income housing developments for seniors and single elders in family housing sites.The agency has given four masks to each household in an effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Despite ‘mixed bag’ of actions in senior housing, CHA reports of Covid-19 infections remain low
The Cambridge Housing Authority has stepped up cleaning, closed community rooms, canceled communal meals and other events, stopped face-to-face communication by staff and discouraged visitors, all to keep Covid-19 out of its senior complexes. It may have worked so far.
Housing Authority does the math, will cancel security deposit system, return tenant money
One of Cambridge’s biggest landlords, the Cambridge Housing Authority, is about to take an extraordinary step: return security deposits to its tenants and stop collecting the payments from new residents. The authority’s board approved the change Wednesday.
No diversity problem in our public housing, unless state just created one with 70-30 split
The state is doing a good thing in breaking down local-preferences policies for public housing – but not in Cambridge, where it’s arguably turned a positive into a negative.
