Posted on June 12, 2015
The Housing Institute is a two-day training for local officials and volunteers. Each year, an awards luncheon is held to recognize local officials for their outstanding work in advocating for affordable housing in their communities. Awards were given in three categories: community volunteer, municipaly official and housing authority employee.
The awards were presented by Chrystal Kornegay, the Baker's Administration's Undersecretary for Housing and Community Development. The following are the presentation remarks made by Kornegay to the 2015 Housing Hero Award winners.
John Suhrbier, Winchester, community volunteer
To build affordable housing, you need more than money. You also need local voices who will do their homework and stand up at public meetings. John Suhrbier is one of those voices.
Suhrbier has been speaking his mind about affordable housing in Winchester for a long time. He did it when he helped the town form the Winchester Interfaith Housing Corporation, which converted four two-family homes to affordable apartments in the 1970s. He did it when he was on the housing authority board in the 1980s. He’s been doing it since 1995 as a member of the Winchester Housing Partnership.
The local newspaper led its meeting story with Suhrbier's quote. One month later, Town Meeting voted 136-9 to allow residential units on upper floors and to require that 10 percent of them be affordable.
Four-term planning board member and former selectwoman Betsy Cregger had this to say about Suhrbier's many years of contributions to the town: “John is an ever-present reminder of the need for affordable housing. He does his research and comes to meetings with facts. He makes it easier to make the case for housing.”
Here’s another example. Two years ago, he attended this very Housing Institute and heard about MHP’s new ONE Mortgage Program for lower-income first-time buyers. He asked for some marketing materials and brought them to local banks. Winchester Coop signed up and ended up being the first bank to do a ONE Mortgage loan. The bank credits Suhrbier with making them aware of ONE Mortgage.
An MIT graduate and transportation consultant, Suhrbier said he became interested in local housing issues through his understanding of how highway projects can impact communities.
Now retired, he can devote more time to affordable housing. He loves doing it but he worries about Winchester’s longtime resistance to apartments and affordable housing and how it’s hard to buy a home for under a million.
“Seniors and young people are being priced out,” he said. “I never thought of myself as a community organizer but that’s what you’ve got to be if you want to get anything done.”
That’s why John Suhrbier is an MHP Housing Hero.
Michelle Jarusiewicz, Provincetown, municipal official
• Organized the 2014 housing summit which resulted in a Housing Action Plan that was OK’d by selectmen.
• Started a “Little Fix Program” which uses volunteers to help seniors and the disabled with small repair projects.
• Helped convince town to spend 60 percent of its CPA funds on housing.
• Is creating a local voucher program that will use CPA funds to provide rental subsidies and financial counseling.
• 65 apartments completed and 23 in the pipeline.
Jarusiewicz came to Provincetown straight out of college and has worked for the town for 30 years. Her focus is retaining families that have lived in town for years and building more year-round housing so other families can move back. Ptown’s population swells from 3,000 to 60,000 in the summer and much of the year-round housing has been converted to seasonal condos. This is the tide Jarusiewicz is fighting.
She was nominated for a Housing Hero award by Ann Maguire, who knows a thing or two about public service. Before retiring to Ptown, she was in charge of hunger and homelessness prevention programs for Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. She then was Mayor Menino’s chief of Health and Human Services until 1999.
Maguire knows a good public servant when she sees one and she’s impressed with Jarusiewicz. “She has been really good about working with all sides to get things done. She may come in looking for 100 units but she’ll settle for 50. She believes in what she’s doing. It’s not just a job for her.”
This is why Michele Jarusiewicz is a Housing Hero.
Chris Pude, Westford, housing authority
Chris Pude came to affordable housing for practical reasons. With her children in college, she was looking to get back in the work force. Around this time, she got involved in the closing of the Westford dump and the transition to curbside recycling. She worked on the dump issue with Westford Housing Authority Board member Mary Smith. Mary liked Chris’s style and urged her to apply for the housing authority director’s job.
That was 1988. 27 years later and 19 days before she is set to retire, Chris Pude leaves a legacy that will be hard to repeat.
Time does not permit us to list all the policies, apartments and condos that were developed on her watch. Here are a few highlights:
• Driving force in a two-phased development of 51 apartments for families on town land.
• Has done fair marketing plans, lotteries and long-term monitoring of over 100 affordable apartments and condos.
• Worked with town and developers to add 50 new units for seniors, veterans and people with disabilities.
• Pushed the town to adopt CPA, an affordable housing trust and a housing production plan.
With so much early success as HA director, it was only natural that she would be the town’s choice to help oversee all its affordable housing activities in 2007. Norm Khumalo, then the town’s assistant town manager, recommended her.
“As housing authority director, she was always available to help so she was a natural fit when we were looking to expand,” said Khumalo. “She carefully guided us through so many issues with patience, wisdom, knowledge and understanding.”
Pude is a reluctant hero. She is quick to point out that she had a lot of help. But she does have an explanation for why she expanded her duties beyond managing units. “When you have housing in your job title, you get a lot of calls and it’s hard to sleep when you’ve listened all day to people who need housing,” she said.
For 27 years, Chris Pude has got up every morning and tried to do something about it. That’s why she’s an MHP Housing Hero.