Letter: Disappointing Responses to MCLA Homeless Proposal

To the Editor:

It’s been disappointing, but hardly surprising, to see the knee-jerk reactions to the proposed temporary use of a vacant MCLA dorm for transitional family housing. The stereotypes of homelessness have been alive and well among our local leaders and among the public. The conjured images of filthy drug addicts pushing shopping carts and begging for money have been splattered across social media and whispered over back fences. This is not what family homelessness looks like.

Families are some of the most difficult people to provide shelter for when they lose their housing. When you have families with kids, caregivers, multiple generations, etc.. the public’s stereotype of a homeless shelter simply does not work. The MCLA proposal is not this stereotype, yet that is what people are wrongly being led to believe by some who should know better.

Keeping a family group together is usually imperative and leads to much better outcomes. Kids will go to school. Grandma will get her pills. The family member with mental health issues will keep their home support group. Most revealing of all is that this group is statistically likely to leave transitional housing, and land on their feet, faster than almost any other. They want to work. They want to provide. But in that moment that they have lost their housing, they need a safety net, a roof over their head, and a warm meal. Berkshire Towers can provide that.

Greg Roach
North Adams, Mass.

Clarksburg OKs $5.1M Budget; Moves CPA Adoption Forward

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
08:44PM / Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Newly elected Moderator Seth Alexander kept the meeting moving. 

CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The annual town meeting sped through most of the warrant on Wednesday night, swiftly passing a total budget of $5.1 million for fiscal 2025 with no comments. 

 

Close to 70 voters at Clarksburg School also moved adoption of the state's Community Preservation Act to the November ballot after a lot of questions in trying to understand the scope of the act. 

 

The town operating budget is $1,767,759, down $113,995 largely because of debt falling off. Major increases include insurance, utilities and supplies; the addition of a full-time laborer in the Department of Public Works and an additional eight hours a week for the accountant.

 

The school budget is at $2,967,609, up $129,192 or 4 percent over this year. Clarksburg's assessment to the Northern Berkshire Vocational School District is $363,220.

 

Approved was delaying the swearing in of new officers until after town meeting; extending the one-year terms of moderator and tree warden to three years beginning with the 2025 election; switching the licensing of dogs beginning in January and enacting a bylaw ordering dog owners to pick up after their pets. This last was amended to include the words "and wheelchair-bound" after the exemption for owners who are blind. 

 

The town more recently established an Agricultural Committee and on Wednesday approved a right-to-farm bylaw to protect agriculture. 

 

Larry Beach of River Road asked why anyone would be against and what the downside would be. Select Board Chair Robert Norcross said neighbors of farmers can complain about smells and livestock like chickens.