Let's Do Something

THE BARS ON the grates are gone; the Cambridge homeless can once again warm themselves with our leftover heat. The Leverett House controversy is beginning to fade from our collective memory, but the homeless need more than a few grates to survive the season. They need shelters, but thanks to a Cambridge zoning law there is little chance that any more shelters will be built in the city.

The ordinance limits the number of "community residences"--both emergency and longer-term housing--to one per 5000 residents in a given area of Cambridge. In August, the city went so far as to halt the establishment of a shelter in Central Square, because that area of Cambridge, which is home to 13,500 people, already has six residences. In fact, largely because of this law, no new shelters have opened in Cambridge since 1980.

Harvard can have an immediate positive impact on the plight of the homeless by flexing its not inconsiderable political muscle to lobby the City Council for the repeal of the law. Harvard, too, has a large obligation to the city's homeless.

The University is the city's largest landholder, but it pays no property taxes. Although Harvard does give Cambridge a payment in lieu of taxes, the institution nonetheless has a large social obligation to the community as its biggest property user. The University has also contributed, albeit indirectly, to the homeless problem by destroying 78 homes when it built Leverett and Mather Houses. We should not be content with letting homeless people sleep on our vents.

The homeless problem continues to grow. Cambridge shelters currently turn down 25-35 people a night, and the number of homeless people in the Boston area has nearly doubled, to 9800, in the past two years.

Last spring, Cambridge declared itself a sanctuary city and resolved to provide education and health services for Salvadoran, Haitian and Guatemalan refugees. At the same time, its laws prevent private organizations from building shelters to house the city's own homeless citizens.

Harvard can and should do more for the homeless, like donating some land and money towards building a new shelter or opening its own shelter under the auspices of one of the social service organizations. The University has an obligation, both institutionally and as a large collection of concerned citizens, to step forward to do what it can to solve a community problem. Harvard's best first step would be to join the fight to repeal this law and help to clear the way for more shelters. Further steps will require more time, study and, above all, a firm committment on the part of the University and all its members to help the homless people in the area.

The Leverett House grates brought the homeless right up onto Harvard's doorstep. Let's not leave them lying there.