DAILY FREE PRESS

Groups urge cooperation for helping poor communities
Matt Klein
Issue date: 4/30/07 Section: News

Tineshia Curetan (left) and Martha Galdamez discuss how to solve neighborhood issues that affect the environment in Boston on Saturday.
Media Credit: Kristyn Ulanday

One of the groups most active in protesting Boston University's proposed Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory, gathering together representatives from local advocacy groups Saturday at the Harriet Tubman House near the South End, said they must work together to effect change for Boston residents' most pressing concerns.

About 50 residents brought together agendas aimed at developing ways to get city and MBTA officials to better meet what they said are environmental and transportation needs of Boston's poorest communities during "Environmental Justice in the 'Hood" -- an annual gathering held by the Alternatives for Community and Environment, an advocacy organization for lower-income and minority neighborhoods in New England.

The complaints and questions -- including crime, transportation, air quality and waste disposal in areas including Chelsea, Dorchester and Roxbury -- are interrelated, said ACE Youth Director Brandon McDowell.

"A lot of the time, you take all these things separately," McDowell said. "If you're not looking, you can miss the underlying connections between the issues."

Though the event's title suggested a focus on environmental justice, all the concerns raised during the day-long event are connected to the broader concept of the environment, he said.

"We define environment as where you live, work and play," he said.

The organization believes there are disparities between the services provided by the city and MBTA to poor and affluent neighborhoods, he said, pointing out the lack of new T stops in the Dorchester area as an example. The groups attempt to garner attention for their causes by working alongside officials as they stage rallies and sign petitions, he said.

"We work with city officials along with applying pressure from the outside," he said.

Renée Mardones, community organizer for the T Riders Union, an MBTA watchdog group part of ACE, said he hopes to raise awareness of perceived problems with public transportation in Chelsea.

"The community is really concerned about the service they're getting from the MBTA," he said, adding that improving bus service -- something the MBTA has worked to do in the past several months, with plans to install security cameras on buses in problem-ridden neighborhoods by the end of July - is crucial to a neighborhood where so many rely on public transportation to get to work.

Over the last two years, Mardones said the group has been successful in encouraging the MBTA to increase and improve bus service to Chelsea, where he said buses were routinely overcrowded and late.

Chelsea residents said their problems are similar to those of Roxbury residents, who worry a security breach at the Level 4 lab, which will house some of the world's deadliest diseases, could jeopardize the safety of their neighborhoods. They also said a proposed diesel power plant in the area would threaten air quality.

Dorchester resident Billy Roebuck said the area already has a problem with air quality, which he attributed partially to emissions from many local auto body shops.

"There are a lot of body shops and pollution," he said. "It can cause asthma."
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