City Council Public Hearing

We are moving into our 630 public hearing on March 9th, 2026. The first order of business is a roll call of members present.

Councilor Al-Zubi?

Present.

Present. Vice Mayor Azeem? Present. Present. Flaherty. Present. Present. Councilor McGovern. Present. Present. Councilor Nolan. Present. Zubi, Anderson, Azeem, Cohen, Flaherty, Flynn, Sieniewicz, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Tan, Watkins, Zern, Zusy, Cambridge, Councilor

We'll now move on to public comment. Public comment may be made in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 20G, and the City Council Rules 23D and 37. Once you finish speaking, the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate the remainder of their time to other speakers. I ask that you state your name and address for the record. We have five speakers. Each speaker will have three minutes. We'll go ahead and start calling the public speakers, please.

Our first speaker is Carolyn Magid followed by Lee Ferris. Carolyn, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can.

Thanks. Carolyn Majid, 71 Reed Street. I'm speaking for the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition. As the Council discusses a possible consolidation of its different housing work into one department, this is the time, the right time, to consider the mission of the City's housing work and how we can accomplish it most effectively. Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition wants to call your attention to exciting and successful models from Somerville and Boston. Both cities have independent offices of housing stability with a meeting that includes anti-displacement work with individuals and also policy work in support of tenant rights and anti-displacement policies. Here are some specific suggestions based on these models that CHJC proposes you adopt. First,

Separate the housing office that advocates for and helps to meet individual housing needs in Cambridge from the office that looks at what housing gets built and where with a vision towards affordability and anti-displacement. These two kinds of work require different knowledge and skills. Two, whether or not they are in the same overall department, we do not think that people in either housing office should be supervising the other, given their different expertise. Three, the office that's focused on meeting individual housing needs in Cambridge should be an office of housing stability. This model is what Somerville uses very successfully. The Office of Housing Stability also should take on additional functions, as Somerville's does, including tenant protections and policymaking and advocacy at the local and state level.

and last, any housing departments or offices should have a research data component that compiles information about housing stock as well as ideas for creative affordable housing programs. CHJC believes adopting these proposals will enable the city to meet the needs of its residents more effectively and to be much more creative and proactive about housing policy and tenants' rights. It's great that the new charter gives council an oversight role in the city's housing reorganization. We hope you will take the opportunity to delay any decisions tonight to give more consideration to these proposals and others you may get. This would have the additional advantage of giving the public a chance to learn that this discussion is going on and weigh in. Finally, we note that although many other interests in Cambridge have a dedicated committee that includes residents and provides a forum for residents to interact with city staff, for example, the Bike Committee or Arts Council. There is no such residence committee for housing.

We propose that the city add a residence housing committee as a forum for residents to interact with staff on housing policy issues.

Thanks. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lee Farris. Lee, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Good evening again. I'm speaking again for the Cambridge Residence Alliance and as a member of the Cambridge Housing Justice Coalition on the plan to align all housing departments. The Residence Alliance thinks that since the city is going to reorganize the various housing offices, it would be a good time to start reviewing their purpose and mission. We would like the mission to include anti-displacement work and policy support for tenant rights and anti-displacement policies. We have long wanted the city to create an office of housing stability similar to what Boston and Somerville have. In addition to assisting individual people, it would collect and analyze data on what sorts of housing are needed and it would generate policy proposals to meet those needs. It would examine how current policies are working. It would also propose and advocate for appropriate policies at the state level.

We think that such an office would likely function better if it does not report to the housing department which focuses on financing affordable housing and what housing gets built in the city. We very much appreciate that the new charter lets Council oversee such a reorganization. However, we think not many people know about this reorganization yet, which of course is of the departments that work on the issue that is always top from residents' point of view. Therefore, we ask the Council to delay any decision tonight so that you can consider the proposals from CHJC and others. Lastly, we would like the council to create a housing committee similar, for example, to the pedestrian committee or any of the other 40 boards and commissions. This committee would include residents and be a place for residents to work with staff on housing policy issues.

Again, for the most important issue in the city, not to have a comparable structure to the Pedestrian Committee seems like an opportunity to remedy this lack. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Dan Totten, followed by Henry Wardus. Dan, you have three minutes.

Yes, hi. Back like I forgot something. Dan Totten, 54, Bishop Allen Drive. I don't have written remarks on this, but I do want to speak as somebody who used to refer a lot of people to the Multi-Service Center, and Tamora when I worked at City Hall. And I want to say I think it's a really, really great idea that that those two entities are being combined because sometimes it's really hard when somebody's like maybe they're homeless but they're also facing eviction or It's just kind of an edge case, and you refer them to Mora, but they actually need to go to the multi-service center to get CCAN, and it's just a really overwhelming, confusing process, even for people who are providing those referrals. And that's not to say that either of them on their own, they both do amazing work. And I have so much respect for both of them.

I just think that When they're together and when it's all like a one-stop shop, it's going to be a lot easier to serve vulnerable residents. I will say though, I don't fully understand the decision to combine those Thank you. And I think that that seems to work well. I worry about there being some kind of tension between a desire to focus 100% of our resources on upzoning every neighborhood in the city and making sure that we provide the most vulnerable residents with the support that they need and I just want to make sure that as we combine all of it that we're thinking about that because I would really hate for

The support to play second fiddle to the zoning, which is of course everyone's, you know, right now it's everybody's favorite thing, but the support's important too. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Henry Wardis, followed by Heather Hoffman. Henry, you have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Henry H. Werditz of 106 Berkshire Street speaking on behalf of our revolution. Reorganization of our housing services is an opportunity to examine the city's housing missions and to create departments designed to achieve our goals. We suggest that one mission is to advocate for the housing needs of all Cambridge residents. For this purpose Based on the experience of several of our neighbors, we proposed the creation of an Office of Housing Stability. This office would help rehouse the homeless work to prevent involuntary displacement by eviction and advocate for policies and programs to protect and enhance the rights of tenants and low-income homeowners.

Within this unit, there should be a new commission or committee populated by tenants of public and private housing that facilitates communication between residents and owners and housing agencies. A second mission is to promote the preservation and creation of affordable, safe, and comfortable housing for residents at all income levels. This means promoting the most effective mechanisms including social housing, a community land trust, privately built 100% affordable housing, and Market Rate Housing.

Historically, groups that take on this work spend a fair amount of time on zoning, and that seems appropriate. We feel that it is important to organize each of these units to meet individual missions for this reason. Separate unit leadership needs to be built on the particular expertise required to realize the two missions. Combining the two under a single Thank you for your work on this.

Our final speaker will be Heather Hoffman. Heather, you have the floor. You have three minutes. Please go ahead.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I want to thank all of the people who spoke ahead of me. I have no expertise whatsoever in creating sensible corporate structures or governmental structures. the thing that I want you to think about is first of all what will be a setup that will allow planning to happen what will allow Thank you. Thank you. to live in it and to live good lives in it.

I am unconvinced that those are the things have necessarily gone into this. The notion that The people who create and oversee the housing would have anything to do with deciding what the zoning should be, as I heard earlier, seems like a complete nutter non-starter to me. You should not be creating all of your own rules. And I don't think that that's the expertise that people have. So please, Think about this in something other than victory terms. In, oh, we did another fantastic efficiency thing. We reorganized departments.

Let's think about what will do the job that every city councilor presumably signed up to do, which is to serve all the residents of this city. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes public comment.

There's one more speaker. James Williamson.

James, you have the floor, three minutes. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Yeah, James Williamson, Cambridge resident, longtime Cambridge resident. As usual, it seems like a tiny group of people are putting forward a proposal that almost nobody in the city know anything about. It's a typical top-down... We're going to decide what to do. We'll announce it and we'll go ahead and pass it. And people are scratching their heads wondering what the hell is going on. You've got six people who bothered to... you know paid enough attention care enough about it to participate in this so-called public hearing. I think the whole thing is disgraceful. It's so typical of the way things are done in this city these days. The people most affected aren't part of this discussion at all. I consider myself to be one of those people as an elected member of the board of the Alliance of Cambridge Tenants.

put a lot of effort into these issues. Nobody extended any invitation to us that I'm aware of to participate in any discussions preceding this effort. Such as it is. At the very least, I think we deserve an extensive conversation about the issues at stake here. I do like some of the ideas that have been mentioned by some of the previous speakers, Dan Totten, Henry Wardus, the idea that Some of the combining, some of it makes sense, lumping it together. I don't even know what the proposal is and I'm interested in, I mainly tuned in to try to understand what it is that's being proposed here

and I don't have a lot more to say because I don't know exactly what it is. But I do think it's so typical and so disgraceful that things are done this way in this city when we have to constantly be subjected to rhetoric about inclusiveness, about equity, about all that garbage. And it's never practiced by the people who are running the city. So thank you.

Thank you. That is all.

That concludes public comment on a motion by Councilor Nolan to close public comment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. Public comment is now closed. We'll now move to pull calendar item number three on the city calendar for public discussion. So on a motion by Councilor McGovern to pull that item, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those against say no. The ayes have it. The calendar item is pulled. This was a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, city manager, relative to a plan to align all housing and homeless services and programs into a unified housing department. Just before I go to you, City Manager, I wanted to remind folks around the Charter, Section 5-1,

Charter speaks to the fact that the organization of the city into operating departments to provide services and administer the government may be accomplished only through an administrative order submitted to the city council by the city manager No administrative order may originate with the City Council. And further on, it does say that an organization or reorganization plan shall become effective At the expiration of 60 days following the date the proposal is submitted to the City Council, unless the City Council shall, by a majority vote, within that 60-day period, vote to disapprove the plan. The City Council may vote only to approve or disapprove the plan and may not vote to amend or to alter it. So I know that there's been various ideas and other suggestions that have been brought forward. Given the language here, we are limited in what we can actually do.

I think those outstanding questions, you know, I had a brief conversation with the city manager today around process. following that but I wanted to just share that that's kind of what our charter says around we have the power to Approve or disapprove. And if we don't act, it automatically within 60 days is approved. I want to get that starting off, but we'll go to the city manager and then we'll open it up to city council for their questions.

Thank you so much, Mayor Siddiqui. I'm happy for us to have this public hearing, and this is a bit of a new journey for all of us, so appreciate the work that we're doing Over the past several months, there has been a lot of conversation across the city manager's office, Department of Human Service programs, Community Development, and the Housing Department as we've been thinking through this reorganization. I just wanted to introduce the team that's here this evening. These are the folks that are I have Chris Cotter, our housing director, Maura Pensack, who leads our office of the housing liaison, Maria Mello, who directs the Multi-Service Center, Cassie Arnault, our Senior Manager for Housing Development, Anna Dolmach, our Senior Manager for Home Ownership,

Alexis Buckley, our senior inclusionary rental housing manager, and not able to join us tonight, but very much part of the team is Liz Mengers. who's our manager of planning and development for Department of Human Service programs. Her team really oversees a lot of the major grant programs and also coordinates the work on continuum of care. So this is the team that I think we are talking about. And what I would share in some of the conversations that I've had, the city is doing incredible work on housing. and as much as there's been some conversation about what's happening in Boston and Somerville, I think as we have the discussion tonight, you'll see that there is so much that is happening across these departments What this proposal represents is over the last couple of years, what I've actually seen is a lot of the work is already happening in collaborations across these teams.

When I think about the work that was happening in 2024 through 2025 on the emergency family shelters that the state opened up in the city of Cambridge, when I think about the 116 Norfolk Project, permanent supportive housing for people coming out of homelessness that opened. This is 60 beds in Central Square. When I look at the municipal voucher program, all of these initiatives actually required significant coordination and collaboration across these teams. But we actually have four teams that are reporting across three different structures right now. The Office of the Housing Liaison Report was created by the City Council and reports directly to the City Manager. We have the Housing Department that oversees the Affordable Housing Trust. as well as both housing development, home ownership programs and inclusionary sitting within community development. And then we have the multi-service center and our planning and development group that sits within human service programs.

And I think the structure both works, but actually having a more unified approach reflects the work that's already happening. and that's the proposal before us today. And so we are thinking about this as three areas with five divisions. And so in the memo, we are talking about a housing and services area that includes housing support services and homelessness program planning. So that's the first area. The second area is affordable housing programs. And this is the affordable rental programs and the home ownership programs that we're running. And the third area is affordable housing development and planning, which is really about development of new affordable housing. And that's where most of the work with the Affordable Housing Trust sits. I think there has been a little bit of conversation about the broader housing and zoning work that's happening within the city. Obviously, a lot of that is led within community development, but we would see zoning as a separate team.

It will continue to sit separately as part of community development. And the broader mandate of community development to function as our planning department I think just to clarify a little bit, we're really thinking about housing services, affordable housing programs, and affordable housing development. and planning. And so I think those are the main points just to open with. We really believe that this improved organizational structure is going to better support staff in doing the work. It will be a single and clear way to present the city's housing assistance programs and resources for residents and providers in the community. And it will create a structure that will improve some of that coordination that's already happening and create more clarity for all of us as we think about where this work really sits. So those are just some opening thoughts and maybe I was going to turn it over to Director Kotter and

and Ms. Pensack to also speak a little bit about some of the vision behind this and how we came here.

Thank you, City Manager Wong, and through you, Mayor Siddiqui. So, yeah, as the City Manager said, this is something that we've been thinking about and putting together over the last couple months. And it's something that makes sense to us as we look at the range of programs and housing support that's available in the city. and thinking of building and cementing some of the collaborations that we've seen develop over the last couple years into the structure so that we are more aligned, we're working together more clearly. and that collaboration will then last on a go-forward basis. I'd say that this has been building for the last four or five years, I think. I feel like when we... First started the housing stabilization program in response to COVID. It really brought us together in a way responding to resident needs and setting up a program practically overnight and really began

A period of collaboration that we've now expanded on and continue to provide, recognizing that a lot of that collaboration is happening between certain staff on the teams teams themselves are still not integrated folks are still working in their individual teams without necessarily seeing that the bigger picture or the full range of housing The idea here to bring the teams together Expand upon the collaboration that's now happening between key staff on the teams to help people working on housing programs be part of a larger and a combined team working to support the housing needs of the community and residents made a lot of sense to us and will help and so forth. I think it's important for folks on those teams to be better trained and understand what's available where and the differences between

Case Managers at the Housing Liaisons Office and Housing Advocates at the Multi-Service Center. And to have those staff better keyed in and connected with folks that are working with residents that are in our affordable housing programs, like the inclusionary rental program or our affordable homeownership program, to really build those linkages in a way that brings people together. We have a combined cohesive team. We have begun to do that with just Some discussion with teams about the plan, what we've been working on. We look forward to doing more of that, but are here today to answer questions from you all and to hear Your thoughts about it, and we hope to have your approval to allow us to move forward with this and continue that work. So a little bit more background, and I will ask Ms. Penzac if she has anything to add.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. Similarly, I think I really, I'm excited about this. I'm excited that we will have one Stop Shopping, a housing department, and everyone will know where to go, whether they're going for a question about affordable rental programs or to get rental assistance or they have a tenant rights question. Right now, we work really well together, but there is a better way to do it. We've had a great decentralized model that I've believed in, that I've promoted. We've had the multi-service center providing a lot of the services for a really long time. And then 2019 when the housing liaison position was created and then we've added staff along the way. We collaborate, we talk, but having one standard mission and one way of planning and doing the budget I think will be much more efficient and much more effective. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. We'll go on to questions from the body. I'll say please start with two questions and then we'll go from there. Councilor Nolan and then Councilor McGovern.

Thank you. First, I'm really glad we're here to discuss, and as the mayor noted and the city manager noted, the charter changes were a really significant improvement in transparency This would not have happened under the old charter, and I think it's better for everybody in the community, including I think the staff, so I'm thrilled that that is happening. And secondly, The fact is our city is a leader in pretty much all the areas of housing in the Commonwealth. Our work over the last 20 years in particular is truly astonishing in funding. have tripled the funding going to the trust over the last 15 years. In the provision of services, housing, the Boston Area Housing Report Card confirms that our services are at least on a par, if not above all others already. I would argue it's above. Although we acknowledge there are still housing needs and not to be minimized, but it still is true, I challenge anyone to challenge this, that if every municipality in the greater Boston area produced what we did,

and provided the services we do, the problem would be far less urgent and salient. I do have a couple questions though. So we do phenomenal amount of work, especially in terms of housing stability, homelessness. I will say it would also help that sometimes I call Ms. Penczak, sometimes I call Director Cotter or CM. This will be great if all of us know there's just one point of contact. because I'm never even sure. I'm not as savvy about who it is who would take care of it. So I think just from that point of view, it seems beneficial. So the question is, will all the same points of contact for residents and also developers, right? They are also coming in and talking, although it sounds like that may be a separate thing if I'm a developer. Producing Housing, I will still go to zoning. So that's a clarity that would be helpful to know. And just the expected benefits in terms of how the residents will be acting with the department would be a good thing to know as we move forward.

I'll take that and answer it and ask Mara if she's got anything to add. But I'd say the approach here is to not change things that don't need to be changed. So we're not envisioning any changes to core city services. The team that you see here today would continue to be the team working on the programs that we now offer. Relationships will be preserved. Residents working with support for the Multi-Service Center will continue to have the support from the same staff, same with the OHL. I think that's a little bit of the other thing that we've seen and looking at how the Department has evolved over the last 20 years. We're very different now than we were 20 years ago, given all the work that's happened, given all the

We were still working with homeowners but we weren't Abel, and staff to work with them in the way that we are now. Same thing with the rental team that's working with now over a thousand residents living in inclusionary rental housing. Same thing with All the work that we do with developers of affordable housing, given the tremendous amount of funding that we are able to offer and the and other strategies that we use to advance that. I think the same can be said about Mara's team at the Housing Liaison's Office and the Multi-Service Center. We're much bigger than we were 20 years ago and we've grown. Here's a way to try to bring it in, make it more coordinated and allow it to evolve more together rather than potentially separately. Mar, anything you'd add about?

Thank you. I don't have anything to add at this time. Councilor Nolan?

Yep, thanks. That was my main question. Happy to hear other questions from the body, but certainly... As the mayor said, we'll either support or not, and I'm fully in support, especially because the people I respect a lot in this city have just said they think it'll make their jobs even better, and it's already phenomenal services that we're providing, and I'm eternally grateful for that. Thank you, I yield.

McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Yeah, I think this is a great idea. I just had a single mom in my office today. who was forced to leave her family residence due to some issues. and is couchsurfing. And I had to basically say, well, okay, we'll talk to Maura, the family liaison, about what programs you provide. Then I'm going to call Liz Mengers about a family shelter program just in case you can't couch surf anymore. And then we'll talk to Chris Carter about inclusion. Basically, I didn't really name everybody's names. But that's the reality of those of us who... of the counselors who have folks come into our office or call us all the time with these types of issues.

You know, when it's confusing or daunting for me to navigate all of that, it is incredible. It was incredibly difficult for the individual who was going through a traumatic time and worried about a lot of other things rather than having to go to three different departments, talk to three different people, make sure they're communicating with each other. I told this person this and this person that and this person that. I mean, it makes everything much more complicated And again, not just for us, and we're the least important of that, right? It's for the people who we're trying to help and who we're trying to serve. So having folks together is important. We heard a lot in public comment about this whole You know, Somerville has this Office of Housing Stability. We've talked about this for a long time.

We continue to point out that our city does all the same things that the Office of Housing Stability does in Somerville. You talk to some people in Somerville, they would actually think that we do more. I don't care what we call this. If it's going to make people happy to call it an Office of Housing Stability, I don't care. I care about the services being done and being offered and the way in which we're supporting people. And I have, again, great confidence in those of you who are doing that. I guess my question through you, Madam Mayor, is, and this could be complicated, I know we don't have a whole lot of space in the city for city space. is the plan to get everybody under one roof. At some point, I mean, it would be nice to actually have an address and a place to say, you need to go to 52 Immon Street or whatever, and then everybody's there and someone can go, and then they get all the services and all the questions they answered.

Is that part of this plan at some point?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. I think this is a great question. Short term, we are not proposing any major space reorganizations. I think longer term, McGovern. There's conversations as we think about space and how we can put teams together. I do think that a lot of what this represents is as you're noting Councilor McGovern, Getting people that are already working together but it's the behind the scenes. It's being able to have regular team meetings. It's building a culture within a team where even though these are obviously very different There are such strands that connect them. And so I think that co-location longer term is something that we would certainly aspire to. But just to speak a little bit more, I think

I think what I do love is there's this end of the work that we're doing on the development side that I think oftentimes we don't see as connected enough to the service side and yet when we think about some of the permanent supportive housing projects the policy work that was happening around how we figure out who's prioritized and who goes into that there's actually been A clearer understanding over the last couple of years of how connected all of this work is, and especially as the Affordable Housing Trust has been funding more work to support the homelessness work that we're doing I'm really actually quite excited about seeing this come together and seeing our teams just much more connected and spending time together.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Yeah, I hope we continue to think about organizing people together. One of the things we always talk about with Kendall Square is that You know, having all those companies side by side where they can talk to each other and meet with just being in the same vicinity is important. I sort of picture a time where Ms. Penzac could be walking out of her office and bump into Director Cotter and say, oh, by the way, as opposed to picking up a phone or dropping an email. those having people under one roof will create a much closer relationship and I think will ultimately be better for the people that we're all trying to serve so I hope that doesn't I know it's a long-term thing but I hope it is it stays on the radar I think that would make things much more effective thank you

Zuzi, and then Councilor Flaherty.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I also want to commend all of you for your work. This makes sense to me. I mean, to currently have four teams working in three departments sounds a little problematic. And even if you're all connecting with one another... So it makes sense. My question is, so who will the housing department report to?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, the housing department will report to Director Cotter and then to Assistant City Manager Peters.

Okay, so yes, yeah, thank you. Well, I knew people would be reporting to Housing Director Cotter, but it wasn't clear in the memo that... then he would be reporting to assistant city manager for community development. So that's good to understand. Again, I think this seems like a great idea. The question I had is I just want to make sure I want to make sure that Housing Director Cotter has the time to do visioning. You're going to have a pretty big department now, and I don't want you to lose sight of evaluating who we're housing, what our housing needs are. And I'm really excited about the social housing idea, so I really don't want us to lose that. and I agree the community land trust idea. Again, if this group has a, you know, A credible business plan.

I hope we can support it. But I want you to have the freedom, along with managing this broader staff, to be thinking about how we can best How's our middle class? And just solve overall, do a real assessment of housing needs as well as doing all these major things that are so important. So thank you. I yield. Councilor Flaherty?

Through you, Madam Mayor, I just want to say this is a no-brainer and I applaud all of your efforts and Councilor McGovern, Beat me to the question, housing all of these services in one location I think is essential. I think the population that is in most need of the services requires that public-facing component. Like the young lady that visited Councilor McGovern today, I happened to speak with her and I bumped into her on the street on Mass Ave a moment ago and Just in that brief interaction, I can tell you the fact that she recognized, you know, someone in City Hall that's willing to help is a big deal. So to the extent that we can find space

to have this centralized essential services all located under one roof, I think is critical. That's the only point I wanted to make, but thank you very much.

On this side, questions? Councilor Al-Zubi.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you for the information and your work on this. I think it's a great conversation to be having. And I know, like you mentioned, Madam Chair, the charter requires us to hold the hearing. hopefully the conversation doesn't start and stop here especially right now when I am now understanding that this will still be housed under CDD even though we are consolidating the different services and pieces within the housing department under CDD. And I think that's gonna beg the question on how either this will serve our residents or fail to. So I guess some questions I'm holding are Right now, what is the value add in combining these under CDD, which in my mind right now, services are distinctly different from like zoning and development. So could you walk us through that piece of it?

Sure. I would say right now we have the two major departments that are housing The different housing workstream departments would be human services where we have the multi-service center and then planning and development which is managing a lot of the continuum of care and the grants that we're getting. and then Community Development. In terms of which side of the house to put it on, it felt like Community Development made more sense. Obviously, at some point, you have to decide where to make some sort of division, but I think when I looked at the work that the teams are actually doing. There's a lot more work that Liz Mengers and the planning and development and continuity of care work is happening or Maria Mello and her team in the Multi-Service Center. A lot of that work is really shifting over

Closer to the work we're doing on developing new housing, the work we're doing serving people who are already in affordable housing programs compared to what else is happening in human services and so youth programs, senior programs, I don't think it's necessarily like a black and white issue. I think there are a lot of shades of gray in terms of which side to lean on. But I would say the sense of community development as doing only planning is also not entirely correct when I think about the work that There is a lot of service programs that they are building and putting out into the community with small and local businesses. It's not that I think community development is only doing zoning and you know I think ultimately As we're doing this work, there is a lot of how we think about supporting these teams.

And so the work that we're doing in the background on both ensuring that community development has the infrastructure to manage a lot of the major grants that are coming through and I think ultimately support some of the frontline work that's happening in the Office of the Housing Liaison and the Multi-Service Center. All of that is on our radar, part of how we're thinking about rolling this out and I think an important part to get right.

Thank you for sharing a little bit more about that. So I'm understanding that you all were trying to figure out whether it was going to be between DHSP or CDD and... I'm curious, was there a discussion around a third option of going independent and structuring the housing department as its own? I know Councilor McGovern brought up this idea around folks caring about an office of housing stability. We know that Boston and Somerville, they both also have that, so I'm just curious to hear a little bit more about discussion around it being its own versus being housed under CDD.

Ms. Penzik, do you want to, or you or Director Crowder, do you want to speak to that?

Through you, Madam Mayor. I think a couple of things. In terms of it being part of CDD, We really see it as being part of the housing department that was named as a housing department. So yes, it's connected to CDD, but it's also the existing now housing department. and in terms of it being part of DHSP, I agree with the city manager that, you know, could go sort of either way, but if you think about the fact that DHSP has many, many, many different programs, and we have something called the Housing Department, and a lot of the work we're doing is Housing and Housing Services. It just made sense. I think it's clearer for people, for the residents, for the people that we serve, that it is all part of one and that we have a full continuum.

I think the other thing is that in this way, and I think it's come out a little bit in what Director Cotter and City Manager have mentioned, is that the services, we're looking for the services and the on the ground work to inform or to inform more the planning and development and the kind of housing that we're looking to build. In terms of the Office of Housing Stability, I just want to call out for a few minutes In my previous job, I was around when the Office of Housing Stability was started in Boston, and I am very familiar with the startup of the Office of Housing Stability in Somerville. and I think a really important piece to know is that neither of those cities had or have a multi-service center.

and when those offices were started and still today, much of the work that they do is exactly what exists with the Multi-Service Center. Then in 2019, the position of housing liaison was started and that has grown. So again, and if you match through the years, and I haven't looked at it this past year, but the capacity, the staffing levels of our decentralized model have mirrored or matched or exceeded actually either of those offices of housing stability. So it's very much kind of a name is a name. but all of the services that exist within both of those offices of housing stability do in fact exist through the Multi-Service Center and OHL and P&D

Al-Zubi, planning of the homeless services and the contracts.

Thank you for sharing a little bit more about that. It's helpful to know how the two cities, Boston and Somerville, have approached their work and how the Multi-Service Center incorporates that work specifically for our community members. I know Councilor Nolan also brought up better understanding some more of the specifics, like be helpful to know where the staffing continuity is, budget allocations would be, to understand the workflow of how things would function or like when you say like this will help inform the planning and development side of the department, like what does that mean or look like? and having that context would be helpful in better understanding is this going to be the most effective way to approach our restructuring. I'll yield, thanks.

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I'll add just a little bit in that way. Yes, we think it will be, and I think for the same reasons that Housing remains a department affiliated with CDD. A couple years ago, housing was broken out of CDD as a separate department, and at the time, I think we talked about whether it would be best separately situated but thought it best to remain part of CDD so that we remain involved in planning work given how important housing is and that we're We're there. We don't do zoning, but we are involved with a lot of zoning discussions. So just to clarify, The housing team doesn't have a formal role with the zoning amendments that you all see though. Oftentimes we're part of the discussion because we want housing to be there as a consideration as we look at changes as we think about The impact of zoning or other programs and planning on housing so that we've got that there.

So for that reason, when housing became a separate department, we wanted to maintain our connection with CDD, and so we do that. I continue to report to the assistant city manager for community development and we are part of a greater universe of divisions and departments of CDD which includes Several programmatic divisions, the housing department, the arts department now. And I think for the same reason, we want to bring the housing support teams at the Office of Housing Liaison Multi-Service Center and the planning and development team at DHSP Closer to the work that we're doing on affordable housing so that we're more aware of what they see, what they need, what the impact is, and can have that present in the discussions that we have when we're talking with the Affordable Housing Trust about the next new all-affordable building where there's a need for services or

When we're talking about zoning or other planning considerations so that it's all part of that forward looking, I think it's really a combination of the planning and the operational. And we have become more service oriented ourselves as a department as we are now offering access to more affordable housing to residents than many and many affordable providers just to bring it together and to have those connections there both to the planning side but I think also importantly so that we have the support and connections between Rowe, folks that are working with residents who are housed through our programs and folks that are working to support residents in the community. The services that are available through the Housing Liaison Office, the Multi-Service Center, are available to anyone, but we want to make sure that folks in affordable housing assisted through the city or through the affordable housing providers that receive funding from the trust are particularly

Wired in there, because we have seen a need for that support and that assistance, and we've seen that it's successful. So I think that's why we want to bring things together and have things more closely aligned and the bigger picture why it makes sense to have that with CDD. I would also say given that the Housing Department continues to be aligned with CDD, we continue to get a lot of support from CDD administratively. So with regard to our fiscal team, with regard to HR or communications, data, that's all support that we're getting from CDD. And to think about having housing be somehow separate from CDD We'd then be talking about how do we replicate some of those things in a way that's probably not the most efficient way where we're able to do that and get that support from staff that are working to support divisions at CDD, the housing department. The Arts Department. So a little bit more on that.

We'll go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks for having me here today. Councilor Al-Zubi and some of the other councillors raised some of the questions and comments I was going to already, but no, I think, you know, Previously, we've had housing functions scattered around a number of different departments, DHSP, CDD, Housing Liaison Office, Multi-Service Center. Thinking about what Somerville and Boston have done, how we align those things. is important. I do think there are some pieces that we can still learn from them around data analysis, policy advocacy, which I know the city does some around it was great good to see the city testifying in support of the real estate transfer fee but thinking about you know specifically how do we build in those functions in a housing stability housing department Oh, and then I hear the point about the name being a name. To that point, I think multi-service center in particular is a very confusing name for folks as compared to things.

That part is we should do some more thinking around. So looking forward to continuing these conversations. I yield back.

Anyone who hasn't spoken who would like to speak on this? Any further questions around the body? I'll just say briefly I think I agree with a lot of what's been said around the reorganization plan. I think some of the questions and comments that came up during public comment, for example, you know having like a you know further committee for residents and and so forth I think it's separate from some of what's laid out. And so I'd say to the folks who've come and talked about some of these other ideas, I think you know certainly those are we can consider them at a later point I will say on the substance though I agree with The issue around just being in one space.

I know we have issues with space, but I think that would be really helpful because right now people are going through... Broadway, as you know, here, here, is just, it really undermines kind of this, when you're looking for cohesion. The other point around nomenclature, I do think we can get creative here. I don't think what we have is the best thing. but I will say I do agree that I do think we do a lot more than these cities, but because people are so tied to the name, you know it's it's kind of they're not going to look behind the surface and so I do think that's not something for today but something that I think I would ask and push that we think about, okay, can we think about a new name for some of this work?

So those are kind of my points, but I think where we are based on what has been presented and what I've come to know and experience myself I do think reorganization in this way for now makes sense and then some of the other things that have been brought up I think thinking through how what that process looks like if folks if the council is interested in exploring any of those other issues that were brought up in the public. So we've heard from everyone. As I mentioned in the beginning, the votes here would be to approve this, to deny this. Actually, anyone can move to table this, but that would require five votes, and it would also mean that we'd have to... Come back within the 60 days with the public hearing. From what I've heard here, it seems that largely the majority is supportive. So...

I will go ahead and entertain a motion to approve this order. So we have a motion by Councilor Nolan to approve Al-Zubi

Yes.

Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons?

Yes.

Absinthe, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The reorganization plan is approved and the matter is placed on file on a motion by Councilor Nolan, To adjourn, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those against say no. The ayes have it. We are adjourned.