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On Thursday, March 29, 2007, Legal Services Center students along with Harvard Legal Aid Bureau instructors and students, joined community organizers and residents to rally for transportation access and affordable housing in Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood situated between Dorchester and Hyde Park. The Legal Services Center is the community-based, attorney-run clinical in Jamaica Plain, while the Legal Aid Bureau is student-run and on campus.
The rally was the kickoff event for a Mattapan community undertaking to get more stops added to the Fairmount Line, which is a commuter rail line that runs from South Station to the wealthy Boston suburb of Milton. Currently the train stops only twice in the low-income neighborhoods that line its 9.2 mile run; one of the stations has been renovated recently, and a renovation of the second is in the works.
The MBTA also has tentative plans to add a number of additional stops. One purpose of the rally was to show the community's support for the additional stops to pressure the MBTA to move forward with its plans. Right now the neighborhoods along the Fairmount Line are not served by the T and can access downtown Boston only by bus.
The other, related purpose of the rally was to begin fighting to keep housing in the area affordable, in anticipation that values will jump with better transportation access. The LSC and HLAB students and staff are working together to develop a plan to keep housing in the area affordable. The plan includes developing a Displacement-Free Zone, a physical area around the new stops in which the two legal services providers will fight gentrification-related evictions. It entails organizing tenants in large buildings in the Zone to bargain with their landlords for long-term affordability. And the plan involves encouraging local Community Development Corporations ("CDCs") to buy up housing in order to use government subsidies to rehab it and keep it affordable.
John Hill (3L, LSC) Julie Park (3L, HLAB) Kimberly Harbin (3L, HLAB) and Emily Cocanower (3L, LSC) have been some of the most active students. Hill drafted the initial plan for the Anti-Displacement Zone. Hill, Park and Harbin presented the plan to the Fairmount Coalition, a group of organizations dedicated to improving the Fairmount Line. Cocanower wrote a letter to be sent to local politicians, inviting them to the rally, and Harbin drafted a press release.
And then there was the rally itself. Dave Grossman, the director of HLAB, drove the team to Mattapan, stopping at the Mattapan CDC on the way there to pick up placards. Once at the site, an abandoned parking lot along a busy road, Hill, Tawfiq Ali (3L, HLAB), and Grace Lee (3L, Environmental Law clinical, and friend of Hill's) sprang into action. Lee found some abandoned tires to stabilize a sign. Hill wrested down a rusty beam that was obscuring the podium and threatening to give someone tetanus. Ali held a placard along the road. Hill and Lee together held aloft a "Tenant Power" banner for oncoming traffic to see.
In a fit of zeal, Grossman actually wrote a song for the rally to the tune of the old Boston standby "Charlie on the M.T.A," (originally about Charlie, who can't pay the T's exit fare and must ride the T forever). In Grossman's version of the song, Charlie can't even get on the T, because he's driven out of his newly-T-accessible neighborhood by skyrocketing rents. Your correspondent waved to oncoming traffic and encouraged drivers to take flyers. She also persuaded some to honk for affordable housing, including two police officers and the #39 bus.
During the rally, representatives of various tenant organizations, CDCs, and community groups spoke to the crowd, including Grossman. Cheryl Lawrence of the Mattapan CDC led chants like:
We're here, with a plan Rapid transit in Mattapan We're here, we're sayin' Current residents plan on stayin'
Although most of the crowd was directly affiliated with the initiative, organizers hope that the rally will be the beginning of a substantial effort to make sure that the planned transportation investments benefit those who live in the area. "The actual rally itself was planned and organized well," said Hill. "I think its primary effects were to rally the troops and get them… excited for the next step, as well as to let others in the area know" about the Anti Displacement Zone. Hill continued, "We're ready to begin more focused and large-scale organizing efforts to try to get the ADZ in place before the expected gentrification happens."
My wife's father is hessaby as in www.hessaby.com (they stole his cash and put it there) and my mother-in-law family is related by marriage tot the Pakravans., who headed the SAVAKPan Am was nicknamed PanIran as the Shah's family was the largest shareholder. I have extreme amount of details of exactly was going on
from the Iranians wanting him to return their assets to other coup attempts to 6 months before the Shah son pretended he was bankrupt in a public trial, to my wifes relative coming to our house talking about the coup and we did not know they were in Washington DC, to the Iran Contra hearings trial that was going to start Feb 20 th, 1989 to the tipping of the coup to the Iranian govt, ,to something in writing I can prove the coup to the Salamon Rushtie Feb 14th insult to islam to get the people on the street to avoid the coup to the Iranian govt announcement of a coup by 'dissent mullahs' announced at the time to the negiotations between the Bush people involved pretending they were going to make a deal to the 'nice' stories plant in US newspapers at the time (including the Post) as part of the negotation to the fact the bomb had to placed out of London based on the flight path as I worked at USAir at the time creating the flight plans for the 'planes to fly themselves' to overt CIA agents around me at the time to the fact that Bollier, the guy who made the timer for the bomb's wide was IRANIAN and the Libyans told me and said they were not allowed to say... there were 3 witness only.. the main one was trashed.. Bollier and a guy whom said he soldm the Libyan a suitcase in Malta.. hence, one the suitcase guy would be left.. the Libyans did not put up a defence in exchange for evidence to trash the main witness on the stand to what an overt CIA agent told me in the US 4 years later.. etc. etc and the details of several coups to the new World bank (my wie's cousin involved who used to work at the work bank)and US loans starting May 1990 to Iran to the fact that PANAm was shut down 18 months later as they thought it would be targeted again because of the Shah connection (the US airlines go in and out of bankruptcy all the time - this was the one of the first US airlines - an ICON) etc
I also know where the Iranian govt officials have money in the US, Canada and UK; the back door dealing etccall me for details.. Barry Lanza 00 44 1786831554.. My father-in-law was a convicted spy given amnesty