Let 'em in, or three's a crowd?
Groups face off over Pine Street development
Harriet Finkelstein doesn't leave home without pockets full of green buttons featuring a silhouetted real estate sign and the slogan: "The South End/Bigger Than a Block/I support Pine Street Housing."
If she forgets to bring extras, she says, "I run into someone and have to give them the button I'm wearing."
Finkelstein lives in the Union Park area of the South End, and her little green buttons are intended to deliver a big message to neighbors who oppose Pine Street Inn's proposal to convert three row houses there into housing for formerly homeless people.
Controversy surrounding Pine Street's bid for the real estate on Upton Street has become so heated that while one faction has taken to broadcasting its stance on members' lapels, the other is displaying its on followers' brownstones. Finkelstein's recently formed Pine Street Inn Welcoming Committee started distributing 500 buttons on May 6, as some Upton Street residents posted banners with messages such as "Size Matters" and "One Great, Three Ain't."
The row houses in question currently belong to Hope House Inc., which has operated temporary housing on Upton Street for people in treatment for alcohol and substance abuse for more than 25 years and is relocating to a larger facility in Roxbury.
Finkelstein says she decided to form the welcoming committee in January after the Union Park Neighborhood Association's annual meeting, when she and 11 other board members were ousted from their positions by Upton Street residents opposed to Pine Street's plans. As a former copresident, Finkelstein helped the association decide not to take a formal position on the proposed real estate purchase.
But after losing the presidency, she says she realized "I no longer had to advance my neutral position. I could speak out and say the things I felt needed to be said and try to gather like-minded people who support affordable housing and want to maintain the diversity that is the hallmark of the South End."
So far, Finkelstein says, the welcoming committee, consisting of a five-person leadership team and nearly all of the marginalized board members, has hosted four well-attended meetings and collected approximately 300 signatures of South End residents on its online petition. The distribution of pins, funded by local businesses and residents, is their latest initiative.
Maintaining that three Pine Street row houses will overwhelm Upton Street, the neighborhood assocation's new leadership has stated that the buttons are another attempt by their adversaries to pin them as antihomeless elitists concerned only with property values.
"I agree it's bigger than a block, but a city is bigger than a neighborhood," said current association president Jerry Frank, who contends that the South End houses the majority of Boston's homeless facilities and that Pine Street has plenty of other options outside the neighborhood. Frank's faction has asked Pine Street to develop one row house instead of the proposed 37 studio apartments at 38-42 Upton.
"This is the most divisive thing that has ever happened to this neighborhood, and it simply perpetuates it, because now that they have a welcoming committee, there's no need to negotiate," Frank said. "It's simply saying, 'Hands off, we've got our supporters, too.' "
Alicia Ianiere, Pine Street's vice president for development and external affairs, said that while Pine Street officials are grateful for the welcoming committee's support, they remain committed to negotiation and transparency. She cited a 17-page document officials had composed to answer residents' questions and said Pine Street leaders have attended several public and private meetings, including a closed-door session on April 24 moderated by the office of City Councilor Michael Flaherty.
"I don't see it as pitting Pine Street against other people," Ianiere said. "I see it as people with different views of what the South End has been and what they want it to continue to be.
"The sentiment that has bubbled up has been terrific," Ianiere said of the new buttons.
"I think it's really interesting and terrific that they want to create a visible sign to show their level of support."
The pins are available for free at Haley House, the Harriet Tubman House, and Villa Victoria's community room, and, of course, from Finkelstein.
"We feel that we are all residents of the South End," Finkelstein said, "and that no block here is an island unto itself." 