Author: Anna Rubenstein

  • Mass. federal workers still unsure about future, despite reinstatement

    When Michelle Huntoon got an email last Monday night reinstating her at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, she laughed.

    The email, which overturned her immediate termination just over a month prior, felt like a “long, pointless joke.”

    When she was fired Feb. 14 under a wave of mass layoffs ordered by the Trump administration, Huntoon spent the day tapping her network — she was not doing unemployment. She got in touch with the private company that gave her an offer two years ago — which she had turned down to help fund loans for affordable housing projects — and was invited to start the following week.

    Now, with that income, as well as the money she’s to receive under her paid administrative leave at HUD, she’s set to make out pretty well, she said. But it’s not what she wanted.

    “At the personal level, I’m laughing at how I’m making out like a bandit for something I did not want,” she said. “On the other hand, I’m feeling so despondent about what’s going to happen long term for friends, agencies, services and the country.”

    Huntoon, who lives in Burlington, was among the thousands of probationary employees fired by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in an effort led by billionaire Elon Musk to downsize and restructure the federal government. Musk and his team have effectively gutted certain agencies, including the Agency for International Development and the Department of Education, while significantly reducing employment and spending at others, like HUD.

    A wave of court orders have attempted to reverse this course. On March 13, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the administration to reinstate fired workers from six federal agencies, just hours before a judge in Maryland ordered reinstatements across 18 agencies. On Tuesday, another Maryland judge said the shuttering of USAID was likely unconstitutional, ordering DOGE to reinstate employee access and prohibiting any more steps to collapse the agency.

    The orders have led to nearly 25,000 workers being told they’re reinstated, whether they be invited back to the office or put on paid leave.

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    Employees wonder if the moves are too little, too late. They also see irony in them: they were fired to save money but now are being paid not to work.

    “This was all done in the name of efficiency, and it feels like truly the opposite of that,” said Maddie Murphy, a reinstated employee in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP department who lives in Somerville. “They’re paying workers not to work, which I think is a really challenging pill to swallow.”

    Murphy received an email March 14 letting her know she was on paid administrative leave, and will receive back pay from the day she was terminated. Other than that, she received little communication after she was let go Feb. 14, other than the shipping labels sent to her house to collect equipment.

    Then, on Friday around 5 p.m., she received an email saying that she was scheduled to return to work on Monday, March 24, or could set up a future start date before the 31st. She’s still struggling with whether or not to return.

    The USDA was one of the agencies covered by the California lawsuit, which requires “immediate” reinstatement of employees and does not allow paid administrative leave for the six agencies it covers. The agency says it has a phased plan to return probationary employees but has not laid out a timeline; the government said reinstating people on a paid leave status was an “intermediate measure” in the process of full reinstatement.

    Murphy said she’s weighing the small picture, of loving her job and the team she worked with, with big picture concerns about what working for the agency will look like under the new administration — and if the same thing won’t happen to her again. Both rulings say the government has the right to reduce its workforce, outlined in a 119-page handbook detailing this restructuring, as long as it adheres to the law while doing so.

    “In a lot of ways, it’s a different job from what I took in September,” Murphy said.

    Claire Bergstresser, an employee at HUD’s Fair Housing office, feels the same hesitation. The Trump administration plans to terminate 50% of HUD’s workforce. Though she received the same email as Huntoon Monday night, the Maryland court order defines reinstatement as either bringing employees back to work or putting them on paid administrative leave. Both HUD employees have not heard about a start date.

    “I’m feeling that the moment they’re able to correctly let us go, they’ll do it again,” said Bergstresser, who lives in Everett.

    Like Murphy, Bergstresser said she’s been in the dark since she was first terminated. Every day she flips from her email to her bank account, to message threads with people she knows trying to piece together what’s happening.

    “That’s kind of what it’s like to be in this position right now. You’re checking everything, waiting for everything,” she said. “It’s all kind of [a game of] telephone.”

    For agencies that have felt the brunt of Trump scrutiny, attacks have been more calculated. Trump signed an executive order Thursday to close the Department of Education, though the department cannot be ended without congressional approval. He’s worked to dismantle USAID, leaving what’s left of it to be folded into the State Department, and says he will appeal the court’s recent decision.

    Rainer Assé, who lives in Brockton, has been on paid administrative leave since Feb. 14. In his role of an agricultural adviser, Assé worked with USAID units in 20 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, working to help agriculture-led development and economic growth since 2018.

    There’s been no instructions since, but he and his colleagues have all been waiting to get laid off under Trump’s Reduction In Force plans. He’s not sure whether the USAID court order will change anything.

    “It’s really hard to get a paycheck when you haven’t done anything,” he said, beginning to cry. “It hurts us so much. I need the money, but it’s such an insult.”

    Fired workers must receive 60 days’ notice and a severance package, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management website. Agencies are also being told to consider other options, such as offering early retirement or buyouts. Assé said he attended a meeting about both options last week.

    Some employees, like Bergstresser, said they’d return to the office immediately, given the opportunity. Others, like Huntoon, said they would not do so under the current administration.

    All are worried about the future of the work they did — from helping people with disabilities get housing accommodations to designing programs that helped women farming in Liberia.

    Huntoon is most proud of a closing she did about a year ago for an affordable housing project in Lowell with 400 units. She’s hesitant to take the drive to go and see it.

    “I feel like I’ll get kind of emotional seeing it and being like, that’s not something I’m going to be able to do again,” she said.

    Reducing workforce in private companies, state and federal government is not uncommon, of course. Paul Craney, executive director of Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for fiscal responsibility in the state government, said it’s not always a clean process.

    “Some of the people right now might feel like they’re caught in the crosshairs, but there’s a bigger plan from the Trump administration,” Craney said. “This is all kind of the messy transition when you’re trying to rearrange bureaucracies.”

    But the scale and speed of these reductions — and now the uncertainty — has disillusioned federal workers.

    “A reduction in force or downsizing — if it’s properly done, people can understand that,” Assé said. “But the way this was done, people are left without life saving medication, food is rotting. The waste of this, of resources and human life … It makes me ashamed.”

    This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Pro-Palestinian protesters rally in Boston Common as bombings in Gaza resume

    Scores of people gathered on Boston Common Tuesday afternoon to protest Israel’s renewed bombing in Gaza and demand that the U.S. stop supplying weapons to the Israeli government.

    Several protesters also held signs demanding the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University and lawful U.S. resident who was arrested by federal immigration agents and is in the process of being deported despite his status as a green card holder.

    Hubert Murray, 78, stood outside the Park Street station entrance with a sign in each hand. The 78-year-old Cantabrigian said he was there to lend his voice against the “disruption of the bombing.”

    An architect in Boston for many years, he said he’s spent part of his retirement involved in developing a kindergarten, community center and health clinic in the West Bank.

    “It’s so dispiriting because the United States seems to be thoroughly behind Israel, and Europe isn’t doing anything much about it because they’re preoccupied with Ukraine,” he said.

    The protest comes as the fragile two-month ceasefire in Gaza has seemingly collapsed. A wave of Israeli airstrikes killed more than 410 people Monday, adding to a death toll of over 48,000 in Gaza since the war began.

    Under phase two of the initial ceasefire agreement, Hamas agreed to free all remaining Israeli hostages captured during the Oct. 7 attacks in return for a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly delayed discussions to move forward with the deal, agreed to a day before President Trump entered office. Israel has stopped the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and continued military strikes.

    Hamas has not responded militarily to last night’s strikes after weeks of calling to begin phase two of the ceasefire.

    “Last night, we saw Israel resume a full force assault on Gaza,” said Joe Tache, an organizer with the group Party for Socialism and Liberation, at the Boston rally. “I mean, even in the last few weeks the so-called ceasefire has been tenuous because Israel has been blockading Gaza, preventing any aid from entering the area. So it’s essentially genocide by other means, right?”

    Lea Kayali, with the Palestinian Youth Movement and Boston resident, said the bombings show that “a ceasefire without an arms embargo is really just more genocide.”

    “We’re out here to demand an arms embargo, and we know that this is not a priority of the Trump administration, but we will continue to demand it,” she said.

    Kayali said she’s the descendent of Nakba survivors. “Nakba” is the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” and is used to describe the mass displacement of Palestinians during the formation of Israel in 1948.

    “When I see this happening to my people, I know that we have more fight in us,” she said. “It’s really on the rest of the world to join the right side of history.”

    This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Mass. fair housing center says it can’t take new cases after HUD funding cuts

    Calls to the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center’s main line have gone to voicemail since March 5.

    Clients are directed to dial the extension of the person they’re working with, but those looking to open a new case with the nonprofit center — which provides free legal services to people experiencing housing discrimination — are told by the recording that the office won’t accept new requests for assistance.

    It was a difficult message to put up, said Maureen St. Cyr, the executive director of the Holyoke-based center. But the Department of Government Efficiency, an entity formed by President Trump through an executive order, slashed the center’s annual budget by more than half, she said, leaving her little choice.

    The office’s $1.3 million contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development was terminated Feb. 27, effective immediately. The contract had been Congressionally approved yet was cut in the midst of a three-year payment plan.

    “To have our funding terminated with no real reason while doing high-quality work,” said St. Cyr, taking a long pause. “I don’t have a word for what it is. It’s devastating to the work that we do.”

    DOGE’s terminated contracts with 65 other fair housing organizations throughout the country on the same day. The Holyoke center and three organizations based in Idaho, Texas and Ohio filed a lawsuit yesterday to challenge the move in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

    They’re calling for a temporary restraining order to block the more than $30 million cut by DOGE to the Fair Housing Initiative Program, which issued the grants.

    Fair housing centers provide critical funding that helps educate communities, investigate complaints and remove barriers to housing based on discrimination. If someone believes they’ve been denied housing because of discrimination — because they have children or a housing voucher, or need accommodations on the basis of a disability, for example — they can reach out to local centers to help advocate for them.

    Marily Rosa spent years scouring the Massachusetts housing market for a better place to raise three young her children. When she applied for new units, she faced denial after denial. It was only when a real estate agent told her a landlord rejected her because she had a Section 8 voucher that her suspicions were confirmed.

    When her real estate agent connected her to the center, she felt like someone was finally on her side.

    “The guy that worked with me would call me every so often and let me know updates on the case,” she said. “It was effortless for me after submitting the paperwork.”

    Rosa decided to move to a different apartment, but the settlement from her case helped to pay for her younger kids’ bunk beds, a new dresser for her oldest and a couch to replace the old, rat-infested one from their previous home.

    Without the Fair Housing Center, Rosa said her situation “would be hopeless.”

    “I’m sad other people won’t have the same advantage right now, she said. “These places that are helping the less fortunate matter.”

    For Cyr, the priority now is helping existing clients, even over having a physical space. Once its lease is up in three months, the center’s nine-person staff will leave the office and work remotely, saving “every last dollar for clients and staff.”

    Other fair housing centers across the state are bracing for impact as the Trump administration terminates Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity grants. Of the 162 active grants going to private nonprofits that fight housing discrimination, which is prohibited under the 1968 Fair Housing Act, nearly half are slated for cancellation.

    “All these organizations are funded in this way,” said Jamie Langowski, the executive director at Suffolk University’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program. “If they terminate FHEO, they’re really taking away the Fair Housing Act.”

    Langowski said her program, which has been funded through HUD since it opened in 2012, hasn’t lost any federal dollars. But two grant applications submitted in November haven’t moved forward, she said, which would have been awarded by now in a typical cycle. That funding is necessary for her organization to continue serving the Boston area, she said.

    “We get asked all the time to do training with cities and towns across Mass. for community members, real estate, landlords,” she said. “We’ve already had to start saying no to people.”

    Nonprofits work in conjunction with both the state and HUD to provide fair housing services; state and federal offices act as neutral bodies to investigate legal complaints. Massachusetts has its own set of anti-discrimination laws, upheld by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, whose housing units are supported by HUD funding.

    “[Nonprofits] fill a role that MCAD can’t fill — testing, legal advice and representation, working to file complaints,” said executive director Michael Memmolo. “It’s a collaborative effort.”

    Though the commission hasn’t been notified of any federal cuts, it’s actively planning for the “inevitability that contracts be eliminated,” he said.

    There have been warning signs, Memmolo said. The commission received word from HUD that it’s no longer able to file complaints that relate to gender identity under federal law; since those cases no longer receive federal rights protections, they’ll be left to state protections only, he said.

    The commission has already begun discussions with Gov. Maura Healey’s office and the Legislature, advocating that the state step in if the federal government cuts funding. About 80% of the commission’s budget comes from the state, but the federal money is crucial, particularly for housing, especially if HUD and local nonprofits can no longer carry their weight, Memmelo said.

    In 2024, the commission received 439 complaints alleging discrimination in public housing, making up about 12% of its caseload. Mass. Fair Housing receives about 250 complaints each year and currently serves more than 50 clients.

    Beyond outside contracts, the Trump Administration is slashing HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, cutting probationary workers and proposing a 77% staff reduction.

    Claire Bergstresser lost her job with Fair Housing Feb. 14 alongside three of her co-workers.

    “We were actually trying to head towards more folks covering an entire New England region rather than fewer,” she said. “We’re looking at numerous cases that are going to be reassigned.”

    Smaller staff means people who call HUD will have to wait longer for answers, Bergstresser said. And she’s worried about time-sensitive cases — people who need disability accommodations, and domestic violence cases protected under the Violence Against Women Act.

    “You’re taking out the ground floor,” Bergstresser said. “At HUD, we have such a stretch as a federal agency that we really help to prop up the giant ecosystem of important players. And so when you take out the ground floor, everything comes down.”

    Not every local fair housing nonprofit has been hit with federal funding cuts. SouthCoast Fair Housing, which serves Plymouth and Bristol counties and the state of Rhode Island, still has all of its federal funding, said executive director Kristina da Fonseca. But what’s happened in Holyoke worries her.

    “For many years it’s been a network of different actors playing different roles, all kind of working toward the same goal historically: that everyone has safe, affordable and fair housing,” da Fonseca said. “When one of those pieces steps away from that, it’s going to cause disruption through the whole system.”

    This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Without MCAS, this year’s graduation requirements are left up to local districts

    Massachusetts’ education board last week proposed specific high school graduation coursework requirements to replace MCAS scores. But they won’t apply to this year’s graduating class, leaving it up to local school districts to set their own requirements.

    With little input from the state, districts are taking similar yet varied approaches.

    Graduation requirements in Massachusetts public schools have historically incorporated both local requirements and a “competency determination” — the statewide standard that MCAS used to measure.

    Voters last fall approved Question 2, which eliminated the use of the MCAS — a set of standardized tests that measure students’ abilities in math, English language arts and sciences — as an “exit exam,” or the competency determination for graduation.

    Since then, many districts have settled on requiring passing grades in math, English language arts and science classes as the competency determination to graduate high school. The standards are tied to a 10th grade learning level, the same grade level proficiency measured by the MCAS.

    Seniors at Frontier Regional School District in Deerfield must pass one course in each of the three content areas — English, geometry and biology — and a U.S. history course.

    Other districts, like Cambridge, are using Mass Core, the state-recommended program of study that requires “successful completion” of a number of classes. This coursework will demonstrate competency to earn a diploma, said Jaclyn Piques, director of communications at Cambridge Public Schools.

    Somerville approved a proposal that requires students to pass two English courses, two math courses and two science lab courses, which overlaps with existing local standards.

    Under Somerville’s new proposal, approved Monday, only a handful of students would be held back from graduating, said Jessica Boston Davis, assistant superintendent of academics in the district.

    Boston, Greenfield and Worcester are following suit, except they’ll require only one lab science. These course requirements — two English, two math and one science at a 10th grade learning level — are in line with what the state proposed Tuesday.

    The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education specifies which courses will count next year: two years of high school English, algebra and geometry; and in the sciences, either biology, physics, chemistry or a technology course.

    Satisfactorily completing coursework means a student should earn full credit “in accordance with the district’s grading policy,” DESE states. For most districts, a passing grade is anything above a D-minus, a benchmark that was questioned during the Greenfield School Committee’s Feb. 12 meeting.

    When a member of the school committee asked why a minimum C grade wasn’t the requirement, the assistant superintendent said that it’s in the interest of fairness to current seniors who went into the school year unaware of the new competency determination. He said more than half of Greenfield’s graduating students would be adversely affected should they change the requirement to a C.

    Some districts are still in the final stages of finalizing graduation requirements for the class of 2025.

    LaTonia Monroe Naylor, a school committee member in Springfield, said her district will vote on new requirements in the next two weeks.

    “I think most of our kids are probably going to be fine because we’re not really doing anything drastic for this year,” she said.

    Not a goodbye to MCAS just yet

    Though the MCAS is no longer a statewide graduation requirement, some districts are considering how to best use the test in the future.

    All districts must still administer the high school MCAS to collect student data for the state, and participation is still required under state and federal law.

    “I think most of our kids are probably going to be fine because we’re not really doing anything drastic for this year.”

    LaTonia Monroe Naylor, Springfield school committee member

    Frontier Regional School District proposed requiring students take the test in order to graduate, citing reasons such as real world preparedness and higher stakes to take it seriously. But when the district floated an idea for students to plan to pass one of four standardized tests to graduate, community pushback tabled the proposal for the time being, according to the superintendent.

    At Pioneer Valley Regional School District in Northfield, all seniors already passed the high school MCAS exams, which will suffice as their competency determination.

    Many other districts are also using the test as a sufficient standalone graduation measure for now.

    “They’ve already earned their competency determination because they’ve already passed the MCAS,” said Dan Bauer, the Danvers superintendent. “Although it’s not used as a mechanism for this year, it would certainly satisfy that.”

    Sparking new conversations

    The passage of Question 2 has left administrators asking new questions, including what a high school diploma should mean for a student in the state.

    “I don’t think it should just be about checking boxes,” Monroe Naylor said.

    School districts have always had their own local requirements beyond proficiency in 10th grade English, math and science. Fulfilling subjects like physical education and health, world language and social studies are also required for students to walk.

    “I think keeping those local requirements based on the school and the district are important, and there probably should be some coherence across the state in order to make sure that diplomas from various high schools hold the same weight,” Boston Davis said.

    In Springfield, Monroe Naylor hopes her students will one day be required to graduate with certain basics like financial literacy skills, whether it be mandated by the state or her district.

    “That’s a direction that I hope that they’re going to present to us,” she said. “What are some basic fundamentals that we have not been able to focus on because we’ve been so focused on folks passing the MCAS to graduate?”

    The state’s new proposal does not include requirements outside core classes but communicates that students should show “mastery” of skills by successfully completing a final assessment, a capstone or portfolio project or an equivalent measure.

    But some superintendents want more specifics.

    “It’s still pretty vague, right? What does mastery mean?” said Newton Public Schools Superintendent Ann Nolin. “The state really didn’t help us in terms of more clarity there.”

    The state’s proposed requirements are in a public comment period until April 4, and will go to a final vote before the board on May 20.

    This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Canceled meetings and confusion: NIH grant funding in limbo despite court injunction

    By Anna Rubenstein

    Researchers awaiting National Institutes of Health funding say their grant meetings are being canceled, despite a court order blocking the Trump administration from freezing federal funds.

    Study sessions and council meetings are where review groups decide whether scientists will get the NIH money they’ve applied for. And last-minute cancellations are leaving scientists in a precarious limbo.

    Gina Turrigiano, a neuroscience professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, said she knows of at least 10 grants held up at her university. One of those is for Eve Marder, an award-winning neuroscientist studying animals in Boston Harbor and their resilience to climate change.

    Marder said she has received funding from NIH for many years through a series of grants. She relies on this money to fund her lab and train the next generation of scientists.

    One of her grants was scheduled for a council meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 12. But the day before that, on Feb. 11, Marder learned the meeting had been canceled. She said she has no idea when it will be rescheduled and is worried the clock will run out.

    “If everything turns on three weeks from now, nothing will be irreversible,” said Marder. “But if it goes on for nine months or a year, basically all of my people will be gone.”

    Marder said she has held meetings with her staff and hates not having answers for them.

    “The ambiguity and lack of clarity in what’s going to happen is incredibly demoralizing to them,” she said. “I can’t protect them from the irrationality of what may or may not happen.”

    The confusion over federal health programs began on President Trump’s second day in office. The administration ordered federal health agencies to stop external communications.

    According to an internal NIH email sent out on Jan. 21 reviewed by WBUR, the ongoing communications blackout mandates that documents posted to the Federal Register — including notice of these grant-related meetings — must first be approved by a presidential appointee.

    The Federal Advisory Committee Act, enacted in 1972, states that meetings must be posted to the Federal Register 15 days in advance. In effect, the Trump administration is blocking grant meetings by not allowing public postings of the meetings, which are now being canceled on a daily basis. 

    “What I believe happened is that the administration realized that this was an incredibly useful thing,” said Jeremy Berg, a former NIH institute director who has been posting about the agency’s struggles on the social media site Bluesky. He said the move “seems like an administrative work-around,” to stop NIH funding.

    The delays are particularly disruptive for scientists in the midst of research. Long-term grants operate on a renewal basis, where each year a progress report must be submitted to receive another year of funding.

    Scientists interviewed by WBUR say only grant meetings that were scheduled in the Federal Register before Jan. 21 have occurred in recent days.

    Anita Devineni, an assistant professor of biology at Emory University in Georgia, said one of her students had a meeting scheduled before inauguration day. The student’s application was reviewed on on Feb. 11, marking a step toward receiving a grant called a study section.

    If applications receive a strong enough score, they then go to a council meeting, which decides on grant awards. “She got an amazing score,” Devineni said of her student, whose council meeting is scheduled for May.

    “Any other time I would tell her it would get funded, but because this is not a normal year, we don’t know,” Devineni said.

    The lack of normal information flow can be jarring. Brian Stevenson, who researches Lyme disease at the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine, had two study sections canceled last week. He found out while drinking his morning coffee and scrolling on Bluesky — where he spotted a post about the cancellation.

    Stevenson hopes his work changes the drug treatment for Lyme disease. He has two grants that will get him through April 2026, he said, and has been writing new proposals to extend that deadline.

    “If these proposals never get reviewed, or if council meets too late, I won’t have any money, and I’ll have to let people go,” he said. “It’s very frustrating and very depressing.”

    Some states, including Massachusetts, are battling the new administration’s control of the country’s medical research agency. A federal judge in Boston has extended a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration’s attempt to slash NIH funding of indirect costs, which cover items from office expenses to janitorial staff. The judge has yet to make a final ruling on a longer-term injunction.

    Alongside indirect costs, researchers hope the broader grant funding freeze will go back to the courts.

    “If they’re not awarding grants, it doesn’t matter what the indirect costs are, because nobody’s getting any money,” Stevenson said.

    This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Plan for new Mattapan complex aims to foster connection among children and senior adults

    February 06, 2025

    Anna Rubenstein

    Affordable child care and senior housing are coming to Mattapan in the very same building.

    The Shattuck Child Care Center, an affordable child care center established in 1969, will have a new home on the ground floor of Brooke House, a future apartment complex for low-income older adults.

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    Brooke House is part of a larger plan to redevelop land into Olmsted Village, an intergenerational neighborhood offering affordable housing and services for foster children, families, young adults and senior adults.

    The plan was approved by the state in December 2021, and the team hopes to begin construction on the project, including the $90 million Brooke House initiative, early next year.

    Olmsted Village represents the final phase of a long-term project to develop the last 10 acres of the former Boston State Hospital site. The concept was proposed by housing developers 2Life Communities and Lena New Boston.

    “This is the last chapter of the story, which we’re really excited to be a part of,” said Zoe Weinrobe, the chief of real estate for 2Life, a nonprofit affordable housing developer and operator for older adults based in Brighton.

    Shattuck was an obvious partner to 2Life when it considered incorporating affordable child care into its proposal, according to Lizabeth Heyer, 2Life’s president. She said she sent her children to Shattuck and remembered the center’s struggle to find a permanent home after the state decommissioned its original location in 2012.

    Shattuck has rented space inside First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain since 2017. Mary Grace Casey, the center’s co-director, said she’s grateful for the relationship. But before Sunday services, she said, the center’s staff must cover up art projects and tuck away tables so the altar can slide back in front of the window.

    Casey is excited for Shattuck to have its own space again — and even more thrilled to return to Mattapan, where the center was originally located on the campus of Lemuel Shattuck Hospital.

    “There’s nothing about this that isn’t amazing, other than the fact that they haven’t dug the hole for it yet,” Casey said.

    Both Shattuck and 2Life want their relationship to be more than landlord-tenant: as the building comes together, so will plans to foster a meaningful connection among the children, senior adults and wider Olmsted community.

    “There’s something about children that really do bring out the best in people,” Casey said. “If you’re lonely, or if you live alone, sometimes hearing kids’ voices and laughter is a nice thing to brighten up your day.”

    Casey also hopes to work with young adults at Treehouse, another proposed project within the village that will offer housing to those who are at risk of aging out of the foster care system.

    “If you’re lonely, or if you live alone, sometimes hearing kids’ voices and laughter is a nice thing to brighten up your day.”

    Mary Grace Casey

    She sees a future where a 20-year-old living in Treehouse is an aide for her classroom, or a former librarian living in Brooke House spends time teaching the children how to read.

    There’s practical benefits, too: enrollment will increase at Shattuck from 46 seats to 55 seats in the larger space. Casey hopes that will give Shattuck the flexibility to turn its pre-K classroom into a Boston universal pre-K classroom, allowing families to feed into Boston Public Schools.

    Other features are on deck: the new space will have everything she’s long dreamed of, such as sinks in the classroom –– thanks to a long conversation with Mass Design Group, the project’s architect.

    Most importantly, the center’s co-director is looking forward to having more socioeconomic diversity in her classrooms at its future location. She believes Shattuck, which accepts vouchers from Child Care Choices of Boston, will be an attractive, affordable option for Mattapan families.

    “I believe that our program is going to meet the needs more of that community,” she said. “And we always want families with vouchers to be able to find space.”

    But outreach to families must wait on development, which is still in its final phases before construction.

    Weinrobe, of 2Life, said the project is anxiously awaiting its last piece of funding to come in from the state, which will allow them to go out to bid and get into the ground in early 2026.

    That timeline leaves Shattuck’s leaders hopeful to move in by spring of 2028. As one of the first providers to arrive to the new community, Casey was asked by the developers if nearby construction would be problematic.

    She said she immediately shut down that concern.

    “I was like, are you kidding? Preschoolers and construction?” she said. “That’s all they’re going to want to see! You’ve got a curriculum right in front of us.”

    This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.