The future of the Bromfield House was once again on the Select Board’s agenda at the board’s March 5 meeting. A month ago, on Feb. 6, the board voted to declare the 1915 building surplus property, a first step toward selling it. Since then, however, two town committees have urged the board to reconsider that vote and to extend the lease for the two Afghan refugee families who currently live in the house. And a citizen petition to extend the lease was added to the warrant for next month’s Town Meeting.
After a wide-ranging discussion this week, the Select Board voted unanimously to extend the current lease for another year, to June 2025. Board members said they intend to use that time to find a more permanent solution, both for the families and for the historic house itself.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the Select Board heard from Terry Symula, leader of the Neighborhood Support Team (NST) that has coordinated assistance for the Afghan families. In turn, the NST works in partnership with Ascentria Care Alliance, a Worcester-based nonprofit that has helped with refugee resettlement in many communities.
The question of housing for the Afghan families was made more complicated this week when the state Department of Public Health informed the town that Bromfield House has lead contamination that must be remediated. The problem came to light when a baby in one of the families tested positive for lead at a physical exam last fall. The families would have to live elsewhere during the remediation work.
Symula pointed out there is some money left from the $100,000 that state Sen. Jamie Eldridge got from the state for renovations to adapt the Bromfield House for use by the families. Those funds might help to pay for the lead removal. Grant money may also be available for the project. But the state has said the town has 120 days to act on the remediation, according to a memo from Town Administrator Tim Bragan.
Committees, citizen petition support extending the lease
A citizen petition, added as Article 24 to the warrant for Town Meeting, asks the Select Board to delay selling Bromfield House and to allow it to be used as a residence for refugees for at least five years. Under terms suggested by the article, tenants would pay for the utilities and insurance as well as “a fair and appropriate rent.”
Both the School Committee and the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust wrote to the Select Board in support of extending the lease for the Afghan families. The School Committee’s Feb. 25 letter emphasized the hardships that would face the family members, 16 of whom are children, if they were forced to relocate when the lease expires in June.
“We are deeply concerned about the future of our students and their families if they are displaced from their home in the Bromfield House,” the letter stated, noting that the families had fled Afghanistan because their lives were in danger; they then lived temporarily in Qatar, Germany, and Texas before reaching Harvard. The letter referred to research on “the numerous negative impacts of abrupt relocation and separation” that can be traumatic for refugees. The School Committee asked the Select Board to extend the lease for at least two years, rather than the one year the Select Board settled on.
The Harvard Municipal Affordable Housing Trust also urged the Select Board to extend the lease, both to give the Afghan families housing stability and to allow the town “to explore alternative plans for the Bromfield House,” including converting it into affordable housing.
The MAHT letter explained that the housing situation “has significantly changed both at a statewide and local level” since Town Meeting last voted for the sale of the Bromfield House. The number of families on the waiting list for emergency shelter almost doubled in the first two months of 2024, the MAHT wrote, and the average wait time for subsidized housing is five years.
“As a community,” the letter said, “Harvard falls woefully short of meeting our 10% affordable housing goal.” Extending the Bromfield House lease for at least two years, the MAHT letter said, would allow the town time to look into “the possibility of transitioning the Bromfield House to affordable housing and onto Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI) in perpetuity,” with help from various statewide agencies. The Select Board’s discussion indicated that at least some members would seriously consider such a possibility.
