DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE
WHERE/WHEN APPLICABLE
RESPONSES
TESTIMONIES

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE:
Community centers provide affordable opportunities for young people in particular, but also the community in general, to direct their energies in positive directions such as sports, the arts, computers, and school studies. Most community centers offer indoor basketball courts and computer and meeting rooms, while some community centers also offer indoor or outdoor pools, weight rooms, exercise/ dance rooms, and other facilities. In dense, lower income communities where families do not have the option of enrolling their children in after school activities, these centers are particularly important. They can offer youth an alternative to the streets.

However, community centers are not equally distributed throughout the Heart of the City. Some of the neighborhoods with the most acute needs for centers are the most underserved.

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WHERE/ WHEN APPLICABLE: 
The City of Boston runs three community centers in Jamaica Plain, three in Roslindale, including one pool, and one in the Mattahunt area of Mattapan. The City has also made significant contributions to another community center on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester near Franklin Field.

In Jamaica Plain, the three City-run community centers lie in close proximity to one another: Curtis Hall on South Street, English High School on Washington Street, and Agassiz School on Child Street are all within a half mile radius. In Roslindale, the three City-run community centers (Archdale, Flaherty Pool, and Roslindale) are less than three-quarters of a mile away from one another. All three lie within two blocks of Washington Street.

Several community centers in the area are also run with private funds. The George Robert White Youth Center on Talbot Avenue at Franklin Field has received public monies but is run by the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, and includes a pool, and crafts and education rooms. The Sportsman Tennis Center, also at Franklin Field, offers programs for youth in tennis. The Lena Park CDC offers a basketball court, day care center, and a range of other recreational and educational activities. And the Egleston Square YMCA offers opportunities for young people to recreate in Jamaica Plain and southern Roxbury.

No community centers -- public or private -- exist in the lower income, highly populated area of Dorchester north of Talbot Avenue, or in the Roxbury area north of Franklin Park. Nor are there community centers in the sparsely populated, relatively affluent neighborhood west of the Arnold Arboretum.

The most underserved area of all in the Heart of the City is the Grove Hall area, which in recent years has had the highest rate of violent crime among youth in the city. No community centers exist north of Talbot Avenue, an area with a large and growing youth population.

Children living south of Talbot Avenue (south of the area served by the Blue Hill Boys and Girls Club and Perkins Community Center, but north of the Mattahunt Community Center in Mattapan) also lack options for organized age-appropriate recreation.

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RESPONSES:
Community members at Grove Hall have long requested a community center in the vicinity of the Jeremiah Burke High School. According to property owner and youth advocate Walter Little, he and several others who own land behind the school along Oldfields Road and Geneva Street would be willing to sell it for the development of a youth center in the neighborhood.

In 2004 on Geneva Avenue in Grove Hall, a 7,000-square-foot temporary Grove Hall Community Center has been erected. The center, which is also known as "the bubble," is expected to be at the site for the next three years and includes a full-size basketball court, computer rooms, offices, and a multi-purpose room. It is also outfitted with a public address system. The structure is covered in vinyl supported by a metal frame and reinforced double-walls. Programs include a senior citizen exercise program, women's aerobics and step and community meetings. There are athletic activities available including badminton, volleyball, floor hockey, basketball, ping-pong and tennis; workshops, homework time and community meetings.

In September 2003, Mayor Thomas Menino and Archbishop Sean O'Malley unveiled a sign at 179 Columbia Road in Dorchester to announce the upcoming construction of the new Dorchester Community Service Center. The new service center will bring together the Haitian Multi-Service Center (HMSC), located at 12 Bicknell Street, with Catholic Charities' Greater Boston's Uphams Corner Community Center, located at 35 Bird Street. According to a release from the City of Boston, "The new facility, which is expected to improve service delivery in the area, will offer childcare, family counseling and support services, youth services, elder care, perinatal and youth parent services, AIDS counseling, vocational readiness, adult education and literacy services, and health education." In June 2004, the Yawkey Foundation gave $5 million to help fund the construction of the community center. The Yawkey Foundation is a charity founded by the former owners of the Boston Red Sox, Tom and Jean Yawkey. The new center, which will be call the Yawkey Center, is expected to open in fall 2005.

According to administrators of the Mattapan Community Partnership, who also coordinate the Mattapan Youth Concil, in 2002 when the council was established it focused on the creation of more recreational opportunities for youth in Mattapan.

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TESTIMONIES:
"Community centers are almost non-existent past a certain point in the city. The Mattahunt community center is hard to find - it's also a turf issue. The Blue Hill Boys and Girls Club cannot meet the demand. Kids in Mattapan can't travel to the community centers. They are too far away" (Bruce Smith, Dorchester resident and deputy director of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health, 2002).

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