Is Roxbury the ‘dumping ground’ for transitional housing?

Some residents think so, and they're speaking out.

Nestled at the center of 43 Hutchings St., one old Victorian home is pitting Roxbury neighbors and residents against each other.

Transitional housing — temporary housing for vulnerable populations — has become a point of contention as neighborhood residents claim that Roxbury and Dorchester are being targeted with zoning changes, resulting in a disproportionate number of transitional housing units in the area.

In the latest flash point for this debate, Bridgette Wallace, founder of G{Code}, a nonprofit providing tech educational programs for female and non-binary people of color, has proposed converting the property into a “state-of-the-art tech center” for up to 14 student applicants — which means changing the building’s zoning classification from residential to transitional housing.

With seven transitional homes and counting within a three-block radius of Hutchings Street, many residents are concerned about the zoning changes.

“Our opposition isn’t directly against G{Code} house,” Hutchings Street Neighbors organizer Mayowa “Mo” Osinubi, one of 67 residents that signed a petition against the proposal, told Boston.com. “It’s against what the transitional housing change will do to our community and our social fabric.”

But Wallace said the housing component of the project is “critical.”

“If you don’t have a safe place to live, it’s hard for you to participate in anything else,” Wallace told Boston.com. “We’ve tried to educate the community as much as possible on co-living and what that looks like and what that means.”

In a statement to Boston.com, a representative for District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson stressed the importance of the G{Code} project as an “opportunity to invest in young women in pursuit of financial and professional self-development,” and said 43 Hutchings St. is not intended to be “used as a halfway house, sober home, or any other facility beyond its stated purpose.”

Still, Mayowa Osinubi said she worries that if the zoning is changed, the house could be used for other transitional housing purposes in the future. Councilor Fernandes Anderson did not respond to a request for comment on the residents’ concerns about the broader issue of transitional housing in Roxbury.

43 Hutchings St. over the years

Mayowa Osinubi’s mother, Ollie Osinubi, raised her on Hutchings Street. Ollie Osinubi said people “kept to themselves out of fear” when she first moved to the street in 1992, especially following the shooting of an 12-year-old girl just up the street.

“It’s so community-based now,” Ollie Osinubi told Boston.com. “It wasn’t always that way.”

Reflecting on her childhood, Mayowa Osinubi said even though the adults sometimes kept to themselves, their children talked to each other because they all went to school together.

“In elementary school, people used to say to me and my friends that we were rich because of our houses,” Mayowa Osinubi said. “There really was this beautiful society of homeowners.”

But many of these homes, Mayowa Osinubi said, have since been converted to transitional housing.

“Our culture is being erased, block by block,” said Mayowa Osinubi, who has lived on Hutchings Street since she was 6 years old. “This is setting a really bad precedent.”

Transitional housing in the area

Massachusetts Alliance for Sober Housing is a voluntary certification program that provides resources and oversees transitional housing for recovering sober individuals.

“People need somewhere to go,” MASH Executive Director Denise Menzdorf told Boston.com. “We’re taking some people off the street, getting them treatment, and then getting them into a sober home where they can stabilize their recovery and their housing situation.”

Sober homes are not required to be certified in Massachusetts. Of the 32 MASH-certified sober homes in Boston, 18 are in Roxbury and Dorchester, according to MASH’s website. This number does not include the uncertified sober homes in the area.

The Ruthven House, two streets over from Hutchings, is a MASH-certified sober home for women that has been operating since 2018.

Kathy Curley, manager of the home, said the positive progress she has seen some residents go through is “magical.”

“As a manager of a women’s sober home and being a woman in long-term sobriety, there is something special that happens at a sober home,” she told Boston.com. “You just have the autonomy to be in the community.”

Curley said the residents are “not loud and disruptive” and that they have had “no issues with neighbors.”

Given that, Curley said it is “disheartening” that some people “think something bad might happen in the neighborhood” as a result of the sober home.

“We are losing people every day,” Curley said. “So the importance of having a safe place where someone can be if they want to be sober is just so important to somebody’s sobriety.”

Opposition

Roxbury liaison Asha Janay said in the Zoning Board of Appeal meeting on July 30 that she received over 60 signatures against the proposed G{Code} project and zoning changes, as well as 13 letters expressing opposition.

Mayowa Osinubi said she felt “completely ignored” by the Zoning Board of Appeal, who voted to move forward with the motion.

“It’s a slap in our faces and we really want our side to be heard,” she said.

Mayowa Osinubi said she plans to continue to fight against the influx of transitional housing because she sees a “pattern … predominantly in Black and brown neighborhoods” of being “targeted with zoning changes.”

“It’s almost like Roxbury is the dumping ground,” she said. “They don’t involve the community and our voices get silenced and ignored.”