LYNN — Congressman Seth Moulton met with local officials Wednesday morning to discuss a variety of projects in the city, from teen homelessness, to infrastructure projects and care for veterans.
At 11 a.m., Moulton, alongside Mayor Jared Nicholson met with leaders from local nonprofit The Haven Project to discuss their Catalyst Supportive Housing Initiative, one of 14 projects under consideration for community project funds that Moulton submitted in a $16 million FY23 federal funding package last month.
Haven Project leaders gave Moulton and Nicholson a tour of their facilities, walking the officials up to the top floor, where they plan on building 24 studio apartments, one for a floor manager, and the other 23, for teenagers and young adults struggling with housing insecurity.
The Haven Project’s Executive Director Tracey Scherrer said that the project would show Moulton and Nicholson what the nonprofit he supports plans to do with its space.
“We’re creating housing on the top floor of this building, we’re creating 23 units for homeless youth,” Scherrer said. “The whole point of the project is to support youth who are struggling with housing instability. Get them off the street, out of the shelters, and we’re looking to house them and see what we can do with their time up there. To see what we can do with case management, wrap-around services, and community environment. The event today is really just to show the congressman and the mayor what we’re doing.”
Moulton said that The Haven Project’s mission served an underrecognized population of young people in need of help. He said that the Catalyst Housing project will not only give homeless youth a place to stay, but provide them with the resources they need to build successful lives.
“This is an inspiring project because it meets a real hole in the market, which is that we need to support young kids. We often think of homeless people much older that we see on the streets, but a lot of kids are coming out of tough situations, they’re graduating from state-supported housing, and they have nowhere to go,” Moulton said. “This is going to be a true haven for these kids, and not just a haven for them to stay at, a place where they can grow, study, learn, and get jobs so that ultimately they can be great members of our community.”
Nicholson said that he was grateful for the opportunity to see what he considers an important and exciting project in the making.
“We really appreciate the opportunity to see up close a project that we’re really excited about. It’s going to provide much needed housing for our younger residents, and it’s going to be able to set them up on a successful trajectory with the support they need,” Nicholson said. “The model of providing housing with wraparound services is really important and exciting.”
After leaving The Haven Project’s headquarters, Land of a Thousand Hills coffee shop on Monroe Street, Moulton and Nicholson walked toward Central Avenue, where they met with Lynn Principal Planner Aaron Clausen to discuss a sidewalk expansion project meant to make the route from Central Avenue, down toward Washington Avenue and Central Square, more pedestrian friendly.
“When you design a street in a complete street fashion, you’re designing for all users. It’s not just about cars, it’s about transit, it’s about pedestrians and bicyclists, so you design a street section so it’s safe for all of them,” Clausen said. “So we’re basically taking some of the improvements that we made a couple of years back on Central Ave. and we’re extending them down toward Central Square and Washington Street.”
Clausen said that the Planning Department partnered with the State Department of Transportation to create the Safe Streets for People Playbook, a guideline for planning and building safer streets. The project, currently listed in the Transportation Reauthorization bill, was guided by those local and state guidelines.
“Beyond making it safer, it makes it a more positive environment,” Clausen said. “The plan looks at the entire city because the city has a large number of high crash locations … that whole stretch is a high crash location, and so we’re taking all of those locations in the city and we’re making improvements so that they’re safer for their users.”
As the officials entered the Lynn Senior Center on Friend Street, they were met with applause from dozens of local seniors. When a woman asked Moulton how he planned to support veterans in the city, he said that as an Iraq War veteran himself, he still goes to VA clinics around the country, and that their conditions reflect a form of governmental neglect for veterans.
“I want to make sure everyone understands the origin of this. I’m a VA patient. I think I’m the only member of Congress who goes to the VA, but I made that commitment when I was elected, and when I go to the VA out in Bedford, it’s actually one of the nicer VA clinics in the country, but it’s in rough shape,” Moulton said. “It doesn’t look anything like Massachusetts General Hospital, it doesn’t look anything like Brigham and Womens, and the message that sends to veterans is: ‘you’re second class citizens, you don’t deserve the care that everyone else gets at places like MGH in Boston.’”
At one moment during his speech, Senior Action Council Vice President Kathy Paul interrupted to thank Moulton for his service toward elders. Moulton shook her hand and thanked her for her support.
“You all represent a remarkable legacy of a remarkable city and we want to make sure we take care of you in your current place. We want you to be happy, to be thriving, in Lynn and to set an example for the next generation of Lynners to come,” Moulton said.
In a brief speech, Nicholson thanked the seniors for their energy, and thanked Moulton for his help in proposing around $1 million in funding for the Senior Center.
“I’m so impressed every time I come in here with the energy that you all are bringing to this space, and we’re really grateful to have it. It was a lot of work, as you all know, we got a lot of support from the state delegation, from the city, and then also from our federal delegation led by Congressman Moulton,” Nicholson said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
