Letter to the Editor

A Thank You to Our Supporters

We at United South End Settlements (USES) and New Boston Ventures want to take this opportunity to thank the hundreds of supporters who live, work and represent the South End neighborhood who helped ensure the success of our project over these many months.

The recent approval by the  South End Landmarks Commission will enable USES, a historic 128-year-old non-profit organization, to continue to provide early ed-ucation, out of school time, and economic mobility programs to the hundreds of children and families we serve in the South End and Lower Roxbury community.

The Harriet Tubman House was built in 1975 to serve as USES’s new headquar-ters and has served this community well for the last 45 years. Led by people of color and serving a diverse constituency (over 80% of USES’s participants are people of color). In the spirit of Harriet Tubman, USES has been committed to racial, social, and economic justice. In 2018, USES made the decision to consol-idate its programs and services to its Rutland Street location and sell a  dilapi-dated  building in need of costly maintenance to ensure sustainability of ser-vices – especially needed now in the middle of a pandemic that has hit commu-nities of color particularly hard.

 USES and New Boston Ventures have worked together  over this past year to ensure a commitment to community through a very generous and significant community benefits package which embodies the following:

 •        Commitment  to Racial equity – We are proud that a significant share of our investors are people of color and that people of color businesses and workers will be represented at all levels of this development

•         Preserving Public Art and Neighborhood History: New Boston Ven-tures will digitally restore Jameel Parker’s iconic mural, “Honor Roll”, that graces the front and side of the existing building on the site and display it as its original size in the windows of the new building so that it will be available for public viewing around the clock.

•         Increasing Affordable Housing: The project will exceed the city’s homeownership affordability requirements and be reserved for art-ists,  many of whom have been displaced here in the South End and throughout the city.

•         Supporting community-based organizations:  Nearly 5,000 square feet of first floor space is being donated for use as community gathering space and offices for non-profit organizations that serve the South End and Lower Roxbury neighborhoods

NBV has already helped subsidize the relocation of  the non-profits located at 566 allowing them to continue to provide uninterrupted services

United South End Settlements

New Boston Ventures

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