'A Beautiful Neighborhood Before Harvard'

(This is the second article of a three-part series. The first article appeared yesterday, and a photo feature will appear tomorrow.)

ONE YEAR ago this month, Harvard notified 182 tenants in the area of the Medical School that their homes would be torn down to make room for construction of the Affiliated Hospitals Center (AHC). The tenants, who were told that their homes would be taken in two to five years, were not at that time organized into a tenants' union. Even after the eviction notices had been received, there were many difficulties in building an organization of affected tenants.

"People were afraid that if they organized, they would be kicked out instantly with no housing," said Mrs. Beatriz Powers. "And people just didn't have any incentive. When we canvassed, some would say 'Five years from now, who know?'"

The Roxbury Tenants of Harvard, which now has more than 100 members, has been struggling with the University to keep these homes standing and to ensure the existence of comparable relocation housing should the tenants be evicted.

The tenants began to organize after the occupation of University Hall and the subsequent appearance of student canvassers in the medical area.

"At the time, I wasn't impressed with the occupation of University Hall," said Robert S. Parks. "At first I wasn't even impressed with the students who canvassed us. It took a lot of convincing to make me think we weren't helpless. But it sort of changed "my whole philosophy."

At the beginning of August, a delegation of tenants presented Dr. Robert H. Ebert, dean of the faculty of Medicine, with a petition signed by 175 tenants. It demanded

that Harvard improve maintenance and initiate repair of safety hazards in their homes;

that the AHC be built only where no homes would be destroyed and only if it provided low-cost medical care for the surrounding community; and

that Harvard immediately reveal its construction and expansion plans for the medical area.

None of these demands were met in August, and none have been met since. But out of the canvassing for this petition grew the tenants' association. Parks was elected president, and the tenants turned their attention to saving their neighborhood.

"It was a beautiful neighborhood before Harvard bought in," said Mrs. Theresa Parks. "You'd walk down the street and you'd see flowers and gardens, because the owners were living here. The houses were livable, and, you know, nice. When Harvard arrived, the whole character of the neighborhood changed. You'd walk down the street and pick out the houses that Harvard owned, and the ones that people owned."

"I think the bad maintenance was deliberate," added Edward M. Stanton. "They really wanted people to move out. It was all tactics, you know. But it worked."

Many people have been forced out of their homes in the medical area by Harvard's "tactics," and there are now about thirty low-income apartments that are vacant. Harvard has not rented these apartments, despite the fact that a critical housing shortage now exists in Boston. The windows in these apartments are boarded up, and their doors are padlocked shut. Occasionally, whole buildings are demolished, and empty lots and piles of rubble are left behind. The entire neighborhood bears a mark of extinction.

These episodes have had their effect on the tenants' association. Though tenants still wish to keep their present homes, they have now centered their efforts on ensuring that the University keeps its promises on such items as maintenance repair and comparable relocation housing at comparable rents.

BUT HARVARD did not budge even on those requests to which they had already given their verbal assent. In particular, the tenants have been plagued with difficulties about urban consulting and lack of a real voice in community affairs.

One problem which the tenants' association faced late in the summer was the lack of an urban consultant. The University had hired two consultants to deal with Harvard and the tenants, but the tenants felt that these consultants did not serve their needs.

"In the first place, we never saw them," said Mrs. Powers. "They never talked to us. We couldn't get any information at all. All they did was come around and ask questions."

"Then, when we asked what their final report was, Harvard said we couldn't see it because it contained "Information of a personal nature." What kind of a consultant is it that you can't see his final report?" she added.

Stephen J. Miller, associate dean for Urban Affairs at the Medical School, later admitted that this second charge was true. "You never hire anyone that's responsible to anyone but you," he said.

In September, the tenants obtained their own consultant-John Sharratt. They demanded that Harvard give money to the tenants' association to pay their consultant on the grounds that the University had implicitly assumed this expense by providing a consultant of their own choice.

Sharratt made clear to the tenants and to Harvard officials that he would continue to work with the tenants' association regardless of whether or not he was paid.

Last month, after continued pressure from tenants, Harvard gave in to the demand, but only indirectly. Miller filed an application for the tenants with Permanent Charities-an organization directed by Fred L. Glimp '50, former Dean of Harvard College-who granted the tenants' association $6500 to pay their consultant.

At the beginning of May, community representatives were invited to join the Medical School's Committee on Community Relations, which Ebert had set up to investigate the issues surrounding expansion of the Affiliated Hospitals Center int other Roxbury community. The committee was empowered to make appropriate recommendations to the University.

EBERT ruled at the outset that the committee could not reconsider the AHC site, and so the tenants' work in the committee centered on the questions of maintenance and relocation housing. The tenants' association worked in a housing subcommittee where they held a voting majority.

The committee never approved the relocation guidelines proposed by the tenant subcommittee, and the University did not act on a committee recommendation for immediate maintenance improvement and repair of safety hazards. The relationship of the committee to the decision-making structure of the University never afforded the tenants a genuine influence concerning the fate of their present and future homes.

"Our experience with the committee gave us an insight into Harvard's way of thinking," said Parks. "It was a real education for us."

At times, tenants experienced condescension and harassment during committee meetings. On one occasion, the committee was discussing the rental of vacant apartments. In previous months, Harvard had rented to students, hippies, and other transients to case the process of eviction. Tenants requested that rental priority be given to families, and casually used the words "responsible persons" to refer to married couples.

"They took an hour and a half to ask us what we meant by 'responsible persons," said Mrs. Parks. "They implied we were racist and bigoted."

"You see, they just can't accept us seriously as people," added Parks. "They're supposed to be the liberal influence in Boston, but really, they're the bigoted ones."

The Community Relations Committee disbanded in mid-November when Ebert announced that the Corporation would empower an individual to negotiate with the tenants' association. No such individual has yet been appointed, and the tenants' grievances have gone unmet.

NEVERTHELESS, tenants have succeeded in extracting some concessions from the University. From time to time, maintenance improvement has been initiated. Harvard arranged for payment of their urban consultant. And, last October, after a tenant boycott of the housing subcommittee. University officials signed an agreement which gave the tenants an indirect veto over all relocation housing plans.

This agreement is the only prerogative that the tenants exercise in relation to the University. Should Harvard find some way to invalidate it, the tenants would be virtually helpless to resist eviction without provision for relocation.

What, then, would have happened if tenants had not organized?

"We would have gotten the bum's rush," said Frank D. Williams. "But now it won't happen so fast. Does Harvard like public opinion against them?"