Their mail call is 'Land ho'
Marina delivery irks liveaboards
As a liveaboard, Richard DeRosa knows he lives a different lifestyle than most Bostonians. Home is a 50-foot houseboat, which rocks with each swell that rolls into his floating community in Charlestown.
And whether rain, sleet, or snow, the post office delivers his mail to Shipyard Quarters Marina, where DeRosa is anchored.
What he doesn't understand is why the mail can't come directly to him the same way letters and bills are delivered to apartment dwellers and single-family homeowners.
The US Postal Service recognizes a marina as a single unit, ''similar to a business, organization, or institution," so carriers deliver the mail to one delivery point -- the marina office -- and not to the 29 individual liveaboards.
It's not far to the slip, perhaps 100 feet, but to DeRosa, an information technology consultant, it's the principle that matters, and he's been leading a crusade on behalf of local boat dwellers. He's achieved at least two stamps of approval in his quest, with support from US Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat, and the mayor's office, according to a spokesman.
DeRosa wants liveaboards to be recognized as individual postal clients and not ''bulk mail," as his fliers, circulated around the marina, state.
''We feel like we are truly disenfranchised," said DeRosa, who has lived aboard his houseboat for five years. ''This is our primary address. Our tax returns, our voter registration, and our credit cards come here. We are being treated like second-class citizens."
A Postal Service spokesman said mail is delivered for the entire marina, and then a property manager or an employee distributes it.
''The marina is one delivery point. The boats aren't considered separate residents," said US Postal Service spokesman Robert Cannon. ''In the case of marinas and trailer parks, the obvious primary reason for this policy is the extremely transient nature of the individuals residing within the unit. To even consider individual delivery to such multiple dwellings would be to invite nightmarish problems with both delivery and forwarding of mail."
Because of that set-up, when a boat resident moves, the post office doesn't forward their mail to their new address -- another thorny issue.
The post office says that responsibility should also fall on the marina's hands.
''It's been problematic because we are treated like a boarding house," said Tom Cox, co-owner of Constitution Marina in Charlestown, home to the largest concentration of liveaboards in the Boston area. ''It comes in bulk and we sort it for customers who are here. We built our own small mail room in the laundry facility."
At Shipyard Quarters, marina manager Christina DiRusso says she places the residents' individual mail in small mailboxes outside the marina or in folders in the marina office where residents stop by and pick it up. But she adds that the marina office closes at 4 p.m. weekdays and is not open on weekends.
''We are not asking for anything out of the ordinary," DeRosa added. ''We are going to fight to the end." 