More than 120 community residents and activists gathered at the Resiliency Summit that was organized by The Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH) last Thursday evening at Spinelli’s in Central Square. The summit touched on 12 topics that dealt with Cybersecurity, Extreme Heat, Tree Canopy, Air Quality and Health, Housing, Pandemic Planning, Food Insecurity, Flood Prevention, Critical Infrastructure, Youth Roles, and Immigration.
Those attending picked a topic that they felt strongly about and then, and with 8-10 other people, convened in breakout groups to discuss what can be done to improve people’s lives and safety in East Boston.
Mayor Michelle Wu was in attendance and gave the keynote address for the event before the discussions started. The mayor said she had made it a point to squeeze this event into her schedule before she headed back to her next meeting in Dorchester. She said her office was working to tie resilience, climate, equity, and other community needs together and that people could see this effort in her new cabinet.
Mayor Wu introduced her Director of the Green New Deal, Oscar Sellers-Garcia, who began work just last August. Neighborhood favorite, Nathalia Benitez, the Mayor’s Neighborhood Coordinator, was on hand to meet and greet as well. Ward 1 Councilor Gabriela Coletta also stopped in and remained behind to meet with constituents. Coletta said this work to pull the neighborhood together, especially on waterfront and climate issues, was essential.
Gloribel Rivas, State Rep. Adrian Madaro’s Chief of Staff, said the representative was in support, but was in Italy with family on a long-awaited vacation.
Latifa Ziyad, the Resiliency Coordinator at NOAH for the last 18 months, took the lead in the community efforts along the way that resulted in many listening sessions, with the Social Centers, the Health Center, food and social service agencies, and the East Boston Climate group among the most frequent participants.
In their previous summit in 2020, NOAH had undertaken more than 300 surveys throughout East Boston.
“Since East Boston is so vulnerable, we worked across all East Boston neighborhoods to learn if and how people understood climate issues and to whom they turned for reliable information on climate issues, especially in the event of an emergency,” NOAH Executive Director Philip Giffee said.
“A major outcome was the agreed-upon need for more emergency preparedness planning and building a non-partisan Resiliency Network,” he added.
While the need for Emergency Preparedness is still very much a focus, Ziyad found that in today’s challenging COVID world, other issues topped residents’ list of priorities, including food insecurity and food collaborations, COVID information networking and health and social service collaborations, and air quality.
“We believe that resiliency has to be built first with respectful listening to what people are saying about their needs and priorities,” said Ziyad. “Everyone across the community is interested in preparing for an event, but other issues, such as affordable housing, immigration, youth vulnerabilities, flooding, air pollution, food insecurity, and the like need to be acknowledged first.”
She said that more than 15 people came up to her afterwards and asked about next steps and how to get involved.
Giffee said some of those next steps include gathering interested people and agencies for a Resiliency Network and diving into some planning for the highly vulnerable Liberty Plaza/Central Sq. environs. He also said the City’s Chief of Emergency Management, Shumeane Benford, agreed to help work on an East Boston Emergency Preparedness Summit in the coming months.
To get involved, reach Latifa Ziyad at 617.418.8241. The next steps include gathering people for a Resiliency Network and preparing in the coming months for an Emergency Preparedness Summit.
NOAH along with East Boston Neighborhood Health Centers and Blue Cross Blue Shield helped to fiscally sponsor the full days event(s). However the event planners consisted of no fewer than 22 organizational and academic leaders, many of whom co-facilitated the issue tables.