Southside view of the newly renovated JP Greenhouse

It’s been a long time coming, but the transformation of the abandoned Jack’s Store into a super-insulated, energy efficient home on the corner of Bourne and Catherine Streets in Jamaica Plain is complete. Earlier this month, Andrée Zaleska, Ken Ward, and their three children Kuba (age 11), Eli (9), and Simon (8) moved into the so-named ‘JP Greenhouse.’ But what really sets this home apart is that the family welcomes others to come by and learn about the ongoing experiment Zaleska calls “being an active witness to climate change.”

“We want to demonstrate a better way of living and be prepared for a world with fewer resources,” said Zaleska, who like Ward, has built environmental activism into both career and personal life. Zaleska is currently a community organizer with the Institute for Policy Studies in Boston; Ward is a climate activist, former Deputy Director of Greenpeace, and co-founder of GreenCorps and the National Environmental Law Center. When the couple wanted to build a sustainable, green home that was both affordable and aesthetically pleasing, they found few examples open to the public and none in New England. The JP Greenhouse will be—as it’s been since construction began—an inviting model for others to follow.

“The house will be an evolving demonstration of how we live,” said Zaleska. “We are constantly giving tours, showing the house to others who are interested in taking on similar projects of their own.”

The JP Greenhouse was built according to Passivhaus standards, meaning the interior temperature is maintained without heating or cooling systems; rather, its efficient design allows the house to heat itself with little more than the body energy of those inside or that of a few lightbulbs. The JP Greenhouse is the second such Passivhaus project undertaken by the Roxbury-based, design/build firm Placetailor, a company that specializes in creating super-insulated, sustainable homes.

Now that the family has moved in, the JP Greenhouse and its occupants begin the next phase: modeling sustainable living and providing a home for local organizing and education around green initiatives. The house will also serve as the unofficial hub for 350.org, a grassroots global movement dedicated to helping solve the climate crisis.

The JPGH sits on the corner of Catherine and Bourne Streets

To the older generation of neighbors, this welcoming corner locale was the site of Jack’s Store for most of their lives, a place to buy “Wonder bread and bologna,” said Zaleska, until it closed in mid-1970s. Years later, after the building had housed a family, a mysterious new owner took over the property and let it fall into disrepair.

“He owned many properties and rarely spent any time at the house,” said neighbor Peg Preble who has lived two doors down for the past 15 years. “One year, on a night when the temperature dropped to 20 below, a pipe broke and flooded the basement, spilling sheets of ice out the windows. The fire department came, shut off all the water and electricity, and boarded up the building. The next morning, I saw smoke coming from the chimney and thought, ‘Oh good, someone is there.’ Actually, the boiler had run dry and overheated. The firemen had to break back into the building. So the place wound up in pretty bad shape.”

Some neighbors hoped the ravaged building would be torn down, yet many stayed loyal to its history in the neighborhood. Despite the magnitude of their task when they purchased the property in July 2008, Zaleska and Ward knew the house still meant something to the community.

“We want to reclaim this area as a public space,” said Zaleska. “We will keep this front portion [site of the original storefront] open for the community as a public meeting place.”

“This is an interactive neighborhood with lots of sharing going on,” Preble said. “We have a community snow blower. I have keys to the neighbor’s house, in case I run out of milk. It’s a good place for the [JP Greenhouse].”

During the build, Zaleska and Ward kept the house open to visiting architects, activists, neighbors, students, and others curious to learn more about the work being done. As interest grew, so did a small army of volunteers eager to lend a hand. To date, over 600 people have signed up for the JP Greenhouse mailing list. During construction, the team was able to summon upwards of 30 to 40 volunteers when needed to help with tasks like clearing debris or putting up insulation.

Preble was drawn to the project, too, and provided her expertise as an electrician. To date, Preble has spent 80 hours rewiring the house “for cheap,” according to Zaleska.

“[As a Passivhaus], it was challenging to wire,” Preble said. “The walls are a foot thick, and you can’t put holes in them to run the wire through. [Placetailor] saves lumber in some places by making ‘toothpick walls,’ which are 2×4s sawed in half. But that’s too thin to run wire through, so we had to run it on the outside surface and protect it with pipe or wire mold. I’ve been an electrician for about 20 years and I learned a lot with this project.”

“I did it because I wanted to see the building rescued,” Preble said. “I knew [JP Greenhouse] was a gamble considering the history of the property. It may not have worked. But if people don’t take a chance, then nothing changes.”

What’s the impact of such widespread participation? As volunteers lend a hand, concepts like green building and sustainable living are quickly demystified. Zaleska and Ward hope the JP Greenhouse will inspire others to believe that they, too, can adopt green choices into their lifestyles. As Zaleska said: “This isn’t anything radical… We’re just super-insulating a home. Volunteers come here and see how it can be done.”

Nor is the Passivhaus building standard particularly revolutionary, despite being little known. Declan Keefe is one of the dually talented designer-builders on the Placetailor crew that began renovation of the house in May 2009. At age 21, he’s now helped produce two Passivhaus buildings in Boston: the JP Greenhouse and another home in Roxbury.

“The truth is, any construction crew can do this,” said Keefe. “With respect to the technical skills, there’s nothing new here. [The other Placetailor builders and I] didn’t even realize Passivhaus was so innovative because energy efficient homes just make sense.”

The walls of the JP Greenhouse are insulated with eleven inches of cellulose (shredded newspaper) and another two inches of recycled foam board donated by a Western Massachusetts school. Insulated walls in a standard home are typically only five inches thick.

Sunlight pouring in from the south-facing windows

A continuous air seal throughout the house keeps heat from escaping and cold air from entering, though fresh air does circulate through an HRV (heat recovery ventilator), which pulls heat from the outside air—even on days as cold as 4° Fahrenheit—and circulates it through the house. In warm weather, the windows can be opened at any time.

Since the JP Greenhouse gets maximum sunlight from the south, airtight, triple-glazed windows cover the southern walls, spilling natural light into the first-floor community gathering space and family room. Placetailor builders were resistant to install any windows on the north side, but Zaleska and Ward insisted on proving that green can be aesthetically pleasing, too. There are five north side windows, significantly smaller than their southern counterparts.

“The strict requirements of Passivhaus can turn people off,” Zaleska said. “I think it’s great to shoot for [Passivhaus certification], but it’s also just a label. Passivhaus doesn’t mean anything to most people, whereas not having to heat a home is impressive.”

What also impresses is that Zaleska and Ward managed to build the JP Greenhouse on a modest budget and with surprisingly little difficulty.

“We hardly had any problems meeting standards or regulations at a state level,” Zaleska said. “The builders think our public image helped us get things through. We did, however, expect state funding and some of that green money stimulus. We tried to get it, but we haven’t been able to thus far. It makes me wonder if that money is really as available as they say, although perhaps our activist past is a barrier.”

After renting a house just a short walk away during the long construction process, Zaleska and her family are glad to finally be home. The children are especially glad to have their own rooms. For Zaleska, the completed house speaks to the quality of her relationship with Ward.

Kuba Zalesky, Andrée Collier Zaleska, Simon Zalesky, Ken Ward, Eli Ward, and Lucas Wikstrom-Ward (L to R)

“In most relationships it’s hard to get both partners to agree,” said Zaleska. “But Ken and I have the same view of where the world is going. We put most of our savings into that house. Even as the economy fell, we didn’t give up, because honestly, we could think of no better investment. We’ve gone to the extreme [with Passivhaus]. But anyone can insulate from the outside. It’s amazing what can be done.”

At last, Zaleska and her family are looking ahead from the inside out. Envisioning an ideal day in the future life of the JP Greenhouse, Zaleska said:

“I would love to spend half my time at a job and the other half visible at the house, either puttering around in the garden or doing home-schooling, leading tours or workshops, working with volunteers. We’ll have community composting where neighbors can bring scraps and get soil. I’d like for the place to be bustling.”

Learn more about Andrée Zaleska, Ken Ward, and the JP Greenhouse at their website: JPGreenHouse.org. More photos from the project coming soon.

Aaron Devine is a freelance writer and NPi contributor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Visit his website at www.aarondevine.net.

Photographs by Leise Jones. View more of her work on her website at www.leisejones.com.

Subscribe via iTunes.

Joe Finn has served as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance since 2003. Prior to MHSA, Joe served as Executive Director of Shelter, Inc. (now Heading Home) in Cambridge and Quincy Interfaith Sheltering Coalition (now Father Bills & MainSpring) in Quincy. Throughout the 17 years he has worked on homelessness issues, Joe has focused much of his energy on the expansion of permanent supportive housing opportunities for individuals, including the chronically homeless, the most difficult segment of the homeless population to serve.

I originally met Joe Finn at one of MHSA’s Young Professional Group networking events in 2007. There I heard Joe speak about the Housing First movement and learned about MHSA’s partnership with physician advocate Dr. Jessie Gaeta. Dr. Gaeta is on staff at MHSA as well as at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and is a faculty member at Boston University Medical Center where she regularly cares for the sickest homeless individuals in Boston.

NPi: What service does the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance provide?

JF: We’re a hybrid policy and advocacy organization that focuses on the unaccompanied homeless persons within Massachusetts, the so-called street people, alone and without shelter. To borrow a term from the private sector, we’re an incubator of innovations around new ideas meant to reduce the state’s reliance on emergency resources and [create long-term] solutions to homelessness. Our mission is to end homelessness, and we’re doing it not just because of the morality of it—which should be obvious to most, but isn’t necessarily—but because we believe it’s generally detrimental to society. Emergency services are costly and we feel leave public, state, and federal entities off the hook in terms of providing other core, essential resources citizens need—whether it’s substance abuse treatment, housing, or mental health services.

NPi: How is the work you do different from other organizations in the same field?

JF: Since the beginning of my involvement with MHSA close to 20 years ago, we’ve always been focused on how to change what’s creating the problem of homelessness.  I think that that’s a fundamental difference between MHSA and a lot of organizations. [Other organizations] have their own particular piece of the pie, they address their piece of the problem, and they’re usually focused in the provision of a more direct product or service.  Most are rather set in terms of their mission.  They don’t always have the time to think about what it takes to change [the way they do things], to move in a different direction. This [adaptability] has been a key innovation of MHSA.

NPi: What is MHSA’s approach to solving the problem of homelessness?

JF: The standard approach we’ve had to homelessness has always been outcome-based.  It’s one thing to say we shelter 1,600 people in a year, but what benefits are we actually providing to the community? Secondly, to what degree do our interventions make a difference? We used to just track the census data on a daily basis through the shelters to get a true picture of what our capacity was. In the mid-90s with regard to sub-populations, we began to ask how people ended up here in order to understand what it would take to prevent homelessness.

More recently we have focused on the Housing First movement, which is really a national movement. With Housing First, we essentially flip the paradigm upside down from a continuum of care that is a linear model with housing being the prize at the end of the continuum—the homeless person moves from the street to the shelter to transitional housing to their own housing—to one in which housing is placed at front of the continuum. Our first objective is bringing people into housing.  As much as we do whatever it takes to get people treatment for substance abuse, we’re taking the emphasis off them being good clients and asking instead what it takes for them to be good tenants.

NPi: Can you speak more about your partnership with Dr. Jessie Gaeta?

JF: Sure. Long before Jessie Gaeta, MHSA had been focused on health care and housing particularly as it impacted the homeless. We’d already partnered with Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP) on the Community Support Program for People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness (CSPECH) model, which provided Medicaid reimbursement for services to support tenants in housing. But unless we had a physician who actually embraced it, it wasn’t nearly as powerful.

The best things that happen to me happen purely by fate and serendipity. Dr. Jessie Gaeta walked into MHSA one day and said, “I’m just tired of patching people up and sending them out to the street. There’s no way people can get healthy this way.” She said, “Teach me advocacy. I have this grant idea.” It was funded through the Soros Foundation originally I believe and later went to Columbia University, and focused on physicians as advocates. [With Jessie’s help], MHSA’s program “Home For Good” suddenly became “Home & Healthy for Good.” The timing was unique because it was when health care reform was happening in Massachusetts in 2005. I can’t say enough about what a difference Jessie has made. Being a physician, Jessie is more familiar with the scientific methodology involved in these things. She has lent credence to the data that we wouldn’t otherwise have and makes a very compelling case as a physician talking to an administrator or a legislator.

NPi: Why housing first? Can you explain what the value is of placing housing at the front of the line of services rather than having it be the prize?

JF: When people ask that question it reflects the image we have about who the homeless person is. There’s a fundamental belief out there at a very deep level that people are homeless as a result of their own behaviors. Homelessness, in some respects, becomes a moral issue or a moral failing on the part of the individual. Of course this ignores the whole social reality of things that have happened in the world we live in. The truth is we’ve seen wholesale elimination of specific housing niches for the working poor, for marginalized people. We’ve seen drastic drops in single-person occupancy. We’ve seen the destruction of neighborhoods like Skid Rows through urban centers across the country. What’s the common denominator? It’s a lack of housing.

Particularly when you’re dealing with people who have a substance abuse issue or are disabled through mental illness, it’s going to be difficult for them to navigate the [traditional] system to get to the prize: housing. The term I’ve always disliked is “housing ready.” Most of these folks don’t present a problem with housing; their housing they can sustain. We wanted to take the emphasis off clinical outcomes. So often the goal is to make someone clean and sober first. There are lots of people out there who you’re never going to make sober. In fact, some of them live in some very high-end housing! That’s not always an achievable goal. However, it might be achievable to say this guy can successfully live in his own housing. Because if he doesn’t, he adds all these other costs as he continues to deteriorate whether he’s in the shelter system or on the street.

[The Housing First model] is also different in terms of delivery care. Years ago at Father Bill’s Place, there was a woman who was the most seriously mentally ill person in many respects I had ever met. She would only come into the shelter every couple of weeks or so to shower, get something to eat, and then be back out on the street. And she was such a nice person. I wrote the first Shelter Plus Care Grant, which was funded through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, before we had these continuums of care. Shelter Plus Care provided housing subsidies that were conditioned upon the person receiving or accepting services. I won the grant, and she was one of the first people to whom I offered the subsidy. I said, “I have great news! I’ve got an apartment for you. I can give you a subsidy.” She thought that was wonderful. Then I told her, “There’s only one catch. In order for you to get the subsidy you have to acknowledge that you’re mentally ill.” And her response was, “I can’t do that. That wouldn’t be fair. I can’t lie just to get housing.” What dawned on me was that she had no perception of herself as being mentally ill even though she was clearly seriously mentally ill. She was never going to work within a system that required her to acknowledge this at that point in time. I started wondering who really is in rougher shape? Is it us or is it her? So I went to the DMH (Department of Mental Health) and asked why she had to say she was mentally ill to get housing. Why don’t we just put her in the housing and then see what we can do to help ? They put her in housing and within a matter of weeks she was linked back up to DMH case management and had gone back on her medications. To the best of my knowledge she’s still living in her own housing, costs a lot less [to society], and is far more independent.

Some of the greatest resistance we’ve had to Housing First models comes from staff people because they’re so into a recovery-oriented model. They’re not housing-ready. You can’t put people in housing because they’re so sick… But even with people who are seriously mentally ill, many of the living skills are intact. What if we can provide a different model which wraps those [mental health] services around first providing housing?

NPi: Have you ever done outreach to other organizations to share your knowledge and increase the social impact?

JF: Home & Healthy for Good is unique in terms of its structure. MHSA is a member-driven organization, and so we have a creative tension that exists. If you push all of our members, they’ll probably say we’re about ending homelessness. But when you look closer, the tension between what we are now and what we could be is so great, people get very afraid. They get afraid of losing resources. Seen in its best possible light, the most compelling argument [against Housing First] is that moving away from the shelter system would be damaging if there is nothing to replace it with. It was the same thing with the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. It was supposed to be for the benefit of clients and yet, all it did was abandon people to the streets.

With regard to the Housing First model, we’re going out there trying to convince people they can do this. We’re not saying it’s easier. What we’re saying is it’s more effective and more cost-effective. It turns people’s lives around in ways you couldn’t ever imagine.

NPi: We’re talking about substance abuse?

JF: Yes, homeless people with substance abuse issues. The Housing First model is incredible because it fits the reality of substance abuse and addiction; it’s a recidivist disease… A hospital doesn’t kick the diabetic out just because they see him sneaking a candy bar into the hospital. But with alcoholism and drug addiction, in so many of the programs that exist, the minute you manifest the disease, you’re out, and yet you’re actually there because you’re trying to get help. That’s been a key idea for people who are slowly but surely starting to believe that the Housing First model presents all kinds of potential not just for homelessness, but for people to get into recovery-based programs.

NPi: What are some of the biggest impacts or successes you’ve had?

JF: The greatest success has been what we’ve done to view things from a cost-benefit analysis… We’ve demonstrated the social benefit of what we’re providing. And the Medicaid data that we have is astounding. The first people to go through 18 months of the Home & Healthy for Good program, their Medicaid costs (the mean cost) went from roughly $26,000 per year to about $8,500 per year. That’s more than $17,000 in savings annually per person, or a 67 percent reduction! This blew our minds. We thought there would be a savings, but we had no idea it would be that significant. Many of our [other] significant accomplishments have been in the realm of policy.

NPi: What are a few of the challenges you’re facing?

JF: The challenge right now is bringing this to scale at a time when the economy is so bad. It’s very hard to get people focused on change when they are nervous about resources. My fear is that the progress we’ve made in the last two years on housing will get overshadowed by the fact that now we have a whole new group of people at the front door trying to get into shelters.

NPi: Where could you use help as an organization?

JF: What we’re trying to do is change people’s impression of the reality of homelessness. We want to let people know that it’s not necessarily charitable to be out there always supporting the emergency resource or handing to blankets to people on the street, working in a soup kitchen, or serving meals at a shelter. These are all good things, but we want people to understand how costly they are. The question is, what can we do to get the philanthropic community to support us now that we’re doing things differently?

NPi: Supporting preventative care?

JF: Not just preventative care. It’s about service delivery and policy. Our focus right now is on communicating the message that housing, not temporary shelter, solves homelessness. It’s also a great deal for taxpayers. When individuals in the private sector invest in organizations that promote housing as the solution to homelessness, they’re investing in policies and programs that save lives and use society’s resources in more efficient and productive ways.

Click here to read Part II of our MHSA story, a conversation with the MHSA team about what they’ve learned doing the work they do and what keeps them coming to work every day.

Related News:

Home & Healthy for Good was chosen as a 2010 Social Innovator by the Root Cause Social Innovation Forum. Click here for more details.

How To Get Involved:

Become a MHSA member, make a donation, become an advocate, attend one of MHSA’s events, or join MHSA’s special events committee. Click here for more information.

After speaking with Joe Finn, President and Executive Director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, about MHSA’s history, current work, and the Housing First movement (click here to read the interview), I sat down with more MHSA staff to ask some of the bigger questions about what it is like working on such a cause as ending homelessness every day. In this interview, you’ll hear from Joe Finn; Erin Donohue and Nicole Silva, both in Development and Communications; Pat Walsh, Policy and Advocacy Director; and Kaye Wild, MHSA’s Vice President.

NPi: What have you all learned by doing this work?

Joe Finn: In terms of the nonprofit world and working on an issue like poverty, one of the things I learn continually is how much both of these things are like everything else that happens in the world. There’s a common mythology out there that the nonprofit realm is different from the for-profit realm in the sense that it’s somehow nobler in purpose, etc… The human condition is universal… Also, idealism is one thing, but actually creating something in time and space is quite another.

Pat Walsh: I worked on homelessness for over 30 years as a state employee. Having come from state government before working in the nonprofit world—and they are two entirely different worlds—I’ve learned an awful lot that I wish I had known earlier. What I’ve seen is that from a resource point of view, paying for shelter (which when I was a state employee was the only way to go because we wanted to make sure people weren’t homeless) was actually a bad road to go down. We created this whole population of homeless people who have now taken on a life of their own and have benefits and resources attached to them. They’ve become a subset within the larger realm of poverty. Government, in my opinion, is [reactive, not progressive]. I think one of the nonprofit world’s challenges is getting government to say, listen, there’s a better road to go down… and in the long-run everybody is better served—the tax-payer, the clients, society.

Kaye Wild: I would say, if everybody likes you, you’re doing something wrong.

Nicole Silva: You can get a lot accomplished when you don’t mind who takes the credit. I’ve noticed that this comes up a lot when you’re working with people providing direct services as opposed to doing advocacy at a higher level.

NPi: What is something you’ve learned from the communities you’ve served that has surprised you?

Kaye: People always ask me why are people homeless… Are they all substance abusers, etc. I’ve learned that everyone has a completely different story. Certain elements of the stories are the same, but everyone has such a completely different story, which is kind of inspiring and kind of daunting. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution or program that will help people.

Pat: I’ve learned that advocacy has many nuances to it, maybe it’s a bit cynical, but I don’t necessarily think that people who say they are homelessness advocates are advocating for the homeless. In a lot of cases they’re advocating for their own particular interests which they think will better serve the homeless, but in reality do not… People think homeless individuals want to live on the street and in shelters and that’s not necessarily true.

Kaye: I would say not everybody who advocates for the homeless is advocating to end homelessness. We all say “end homelessness” and that would be great, but a lot of people just want to maintain the system that’s in place (shelters) because they think we’re never going to get rid of homelessness. Either they think it can’t be done or the change would require too much. People get into a way of doing things and don’t like to change.

NPi: What keeps you coming to work every day?

Kaye: I don’t want to be homeless. I don’t want to lose my job. [Laughs] Seriously though, that’s the first thing I think of because I see homeless people and they used to have jobs, they used to own their homes. I think, that could be me.

Pat: You have to have an interest in people, in working for something that’s important in the larger scheme of things. We deal with real people and real situations and real problems. You get a feel for what’s really going on in society.

Joe: You’ve got two types of people in state government: those who solve problems and those who create problems. Pat was one of the guys who actually solved problems. Now, we’re really trying to get the state to do more flexible spending. If you can’t give us more money, at least allow us to spend money where we know it will have the greatest impact.

Erin Donohue: I just believe so strongly in MHSA’s mission. I know that there’s nobody else in the state that’s doing the work that we’re doing, so for me it’s a combination of feeling passionate about the fact that I think it’s atrocious that homelessness exists and then being able to work in an organization that’s truly working to end homelessness.

NPi: What is a lesson you’d pass on to other leaders or would-be leaders?

Joe: We’re not dealing with rocket science. We lose focus when we get off of an action-based model for what we’re trying to accomplish. Leading is not just about process; leading is about doing. “Home and Healthy for Good” did more good by doing it than all the theoretical talks and workshops in the world. I think that’s what leadership requires, and I wish we had more of that on the state side right now. When shelters started it wasn’t like people said, OK, we have the money to do it; it was one commissioner who just said I’m going to do it. We can criticize the shelter system now, but if he hadn’t done it, people would have died on the streets. Who was that by the way?

Pat: Chuck Atkins.

Joe: It’s keeping that focus on action, which can be frustrating for folks particularly when you’re going 90 miles per hour and you don’t have control of the steering wheel. I’m not opposed to planning, but I do think we can get hung up on process too often.

Erin: Also, not to be shy. Just talk to people and put yourself out there. Do informational interviews. I think hearing from a diverse group of people in different occupations is very helpful in terms of figuring out what direction you want to go. And take risks when you’re starting something new.

Joe: Erin and Nikki have made such ground in terms of re-imaging homelessness. We’re just starting to get some traction. We’ve always been good on the public side, and we’ve had some private support, but not what I refer to as popular private support, which I think we’re just starting to get now thanks to their efforts.

Pat: And they’ve engaged a younger generation.

Kaye: Pick your battles or you’re just going to wear yourself out… I don’t know if it’s wisdom or instinct or what, but you have to know what you need to stick to your guns about and what you need to let go of a little. Don’t drive yourself crazy over something that you really should let go of so you can focus on something else.

Nicole: One of the things that I hear people say a lot about our Housing First tenants is meeting people where they are… there’s some young professionals who just want to write a check and some who want to get more involved. One of the things we do is think about who the people are who want to come to every single meeting and giving them that opportunity, and then thinking about who the people are who may just want to come to one or two meetings and giving them that opportunity, too. Meet people where they are.

Related News:

MHSA’s Home & Healthy for Good was chosen as a 2010 Social Innovator by the Root Cause Social Innovation Forum. Click here for more details.

How to Get Involved:

Become a MHSA member, make a donation, become an advocate, attend one of MHSA’s events, or join MHSA’s special events committee. Click here for more information.

Speakers: Ned Rimer of Chronic Care Community Corps (also Co-Founder of Citizen Schools); Helen Zak, Chief Operating Officer of the Lean Enterprise Institute; Neel Shah, Founder and Executive Director of Costs of Care and resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Jessica Aguilera-Steinert, Director of Client Services and Training at The Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment (PACT) Project.

About NPi dialogues: NPi dialogues bring together local leaders to discuss lessons learned, current projects, and potential collaborations. We invite you to come hear first-hand stories of community activism, ask questions, share your thoughts, and learn more about how you can get involved.

Register here: http://npicommunitydialoguefeb10.eventbrite.com/

Carrie Fitzsimmons is the acting Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation whose mission is to foster hope and confidence in urban teens through artistic and cross-cultural expression. Together with Cloud Foundation founder, David Edwards, Carrie has led the creation of the Boston 100K ArtScience Innovation Prize, an urban teen empowerment program that provides learning opportunities through the development of breakthrough ideas in arts and design at the frontier of scientific knowledge. I sat down with Carrie at the Cloud Place building in Copley Square to talk about the recently launched ArtScience Prize, flaws in the U.S. public education system, the nature of inspiration, and why now is exactly the right time to develop more Leonardo Da Vincis.

NPi: Congratulations on launching the Boston 100K ArtScience Innovation Prize. What form is it taking and is it the form you expected it would take?

CF: Yes, absolutely. We kicked off the Boston 100k ArtScience Prize on Monday, Sept 21st at the grand ballroom of the Boston Ballet. The week before, we’d been doing a road show in most of the high schools. Our staff personally presented to 3,900 teens. The prize is open to any eligible Boston high school teenager.

NPi: And that was a promotional tour to get the word out?

CF: Yes, we had about 300 students show up [to the launch]. It was amazing. They listened to David Edwards, our founder, talk about what the ArtScience prize is. It is certainly a competition, but it is also an after-school academic program. David talked about what we mean by idea translation. He first created this curriculum and process at Harvard. For about four years he has taught the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard and by “art/science” he means really the soul of creativity. When you cross disciplines you see things with a new perspective and so you’re more creative. We also believe that when you empower students with an idea, or their own passion for an idea, that they’ll learn experientially more than they would otherwise. The ArtScience Prize ultimately is an art and design competition with a scientific theme. Teams start with a seed idea and then work to translate that idea.

NPi: How’s it going so far?

CF: Amazing. We’re just still trying to get everything running smoothly, but at the end of our second week, we’re nearly there. [The students] come once a week for a seed idea translation with a project mentor and once a week for an art class. We truly believe that to be more creative, you have to be a bit polymathic. So this is polymathic experience where they’re translating their idea and learning a bit of science, but also taking art for the creative process, not just the outcome. It’s all about process.

NPi: What’s polymathic?

CF: Polymathic is like Leonardo Da Vinci where you excel in more than one medium or discipline. Our catch phrase is we’re trying to catalyze the next Renaissance generation. We believe we have not seen a more creative time since the Renaissance, and that’s because the Medicis could pay to bring scientists together with mathematicians and artists and poets. It’s that breeding ground where people are crossing disciplines and having conversations that allow them to make associations they wouldn’t otherwise make. And that’s the creative spark we think is needed for innovation.

NPi: You talked about “the soul of creativity” earlier, and there’s this great line on Cloud Foundation’s website that says, “Before ideas grow as science, they emerge as art—the most natural language of youth.” That struck me and I wanted to ask: What it is about kids, about teenagers, that Cloud Foundation would make this investment in them?

CF: For many reasons. First of all, we believe we need to empower young people everywhere now to really believe in themselves and to work in a cross-disciplinary environment before they get older. So many of us have become stuck in disciplinary silos. Youth naturally cross disciplines. They don’t see barriers. So we’re just trying to encourage that space.

Also, the education system in the United States was created during the Industrial Age to serve that time. We need to rethink how we educate our youth for the future. So many people are talking about 21st century skills and so forth, and there is so much chaos in the world, on so many levels, that we really need a creative environment to solve these problems. We start by educating our youth so that they’re not afraid to cross disciplines, so that they can believe in themselves, so that they can dream that anything is possible if they put their mind to it.

NPi: What problems will they be putting their minds to?

CF: Our theme this year is neuroinformatics. We want to always be at the frontier of science, and so much is not known about the brain. Seventy to eighty percent of every person’s brain works in the subconscious. So without you even knowing it, when you’re posed with a question or a problem—and this goes back to crossing disciplines—your brain is throwing up answers, saying ‘I know this, I know this,’ and it’s only because of associations you’ve seen in the past or experiences you’ve had. If you see something in a fresh light, you might make a connection you wouldn’t otherwise make.

[The students] start with a seed idea. It could totally take a left turn and turn into something else, but these are far out there ideas. One idea, for example, is a dream cap. You wear a cap at night that records your dreams so that in the morning, when you’re brushing your teeth, you can watch your dreams. Now, what are the implications of that? It could go anywhere. It could turn into an art exhibition, it could turn into some sort of company, it could be a humanitarian effort. But we want them to ask these questions. Knowing your dreams, what does that tell you? What does it mean to be human? to have feelings?

NPi: What kinds of ideas have already come from this process?

CF: I can give you some examples of things that have happened with the Harvard students because David has done this [with them], so we know it works.

In 2007, David was on a group working to think of innovative lighting to light London for the 2012 Olympics. He gave the group a seed idea: Think of some creative solutions for lighting London. The team—we believe it’s more powerful to be creative and innovative when you work as a team—realized that many of them were from different parts of Africa. They went to David and said, “Actually, we’re not really interested in lighting London. We’d like to light Africa.”

That was part of David’s learning experience as well. He knew that to empower them to really pursue their passion, they needed to take [the project] where they wanted. So they learned some science along the way around all sorts of energy sources and came up with a solution, which is growing energy. It’s an off-grid energy solution, a company called Lebônê Solutions. They won the World Bank prize in Africa, they’re winning all sorts of prizes, and this was because they started with a seed idea… And this was a mixture of students, none of them specialized in this area. But they learned [new skills] in order to follow their passion.

NPi: Is it hard to talk about bringing arts and science together?

CF: At first people are very intrigued. It may take a little to explain what we’re doing, but people get really excited. Ultimately, everyone wants to be in this space, even the schools. They realize–I guess it was maybe 15 years ago that they introduced standardized testing—we’ve become so focused on teaching to the test that we’ve lost the ability to really be creative and cross disciplines within the classrooms. And I think the teachers, the policymakers, everyone’s really eager for [our work].

NPi: What is it that catches their imagination?

CF: Everyone knows when you see things with fresh perspective, when you think about something differently, or when you bring in creativity, it enhances the human experience at every level. Everyone needs to be creative. We need to be creative in our board rooms, in our lives. No matter what your job is, you need to be creative to keep your interest there and keep doing better.

NPi: We live in a time when people hire creativity coaches to come in and consult…

CF: Exactly, and everyone is born with the ability to be creative. No matter what you do, if you have a new idea, that’s creativity in action. We all have imaginations, and when you implement on that imagination, that’s creativity in practice.

NPi: So going back to the 100K, why a prize?

CF: We looked at the MIT 100K [prize], an entrepreneurial competition at MIT, which really helps things come to fruition and helps businesses at MIT and young people who apply and participate in their process. And it’s exciting. The money for the ArtScience Prize is broken up for winning teams to pursue their idea. We want to show them that if they believe in it, we can help make it happen. When we were doing our road show at the high schools, it was almost like Willy Wonka and the golden ticket. We were [saying], you can dream… we believe in you, you could win, your team could go to Paris. They just got so excited.

You should have seen the energy in the room when they showed up to just learn and hear about the prize! If you saw 300 students sitting there listening to David Edwards talk about these neuroinformatics seed ideas that are just out there—they were just silently watching. And at the end, after two and half hours, I got up and said, ‘We’re so excited!’ and some of the kids yelled, ‘We’re excited, too!’

NPi: Did David Edwards do a Willy Wonka tumble?

CF: He did not. [Laughs]

NPi: Who are these kids and where are they coming from?

CF: The applications we got came from 19 of Boston’s high schools. There are about 42, so it was close to fifty percent.

NPi: Public or private?

CF: This year it was just the public high schools. It was a way for us to control numbers. This is a crucial year because we want to launch this program, really learn and evaluate to ensure that it’s a quality program. We need to keep our numbers small this year. Mayor [Thomas M.] Menino was really supportive and excited with what we were doing, as was Superintendent Dr. [Carol R.] Johnson. They allowed me to speak to the headmasters at the high schools in Boston, and we worked with several of the department heads as we worked through our curriculum. They were really helpful.

NPi: Other than the money, what’s getting [the students] excited about the program?

CF: I think it’s the idea that they could do anything. One young woman came up to me and said, “My dream is to become an architect, but they don’t have art classes here at my school and I don’t know how to draw. Will you teach me how to draw?” And I said, “Certainly, you can sign up for one of the art classes and we’ll work on that as you’ll also pursue your seed idea with your team. We can do that for you.” So I think there are many reasons why they’re here.

NPi: What kind of a pilot location will Boston be?

CF: Boston is known as an innovative hub, and it has a lot of great thinkers. David is at Harvard and has a great network of professional colleagues there and at MIT. Mayor Menino and Boston World Partnerships—they’re great resources. So it’s exciting to be piloting in Boston this year, and then we intend to scale [the prize] both nationally and internationally in the coming years.

NPi: What is tomorrow’s success story for the 100K?

CF: Tomorrow’s success story is that we have transformed the lives of as many teens as have gone through the process this year. There’s so much that they’re going to learn even if they’re not on one of the winning teams. The fact that they’ve pursued an idea with a passion, that they know that there are no limits out there… We’re going to teach them along the way 21st century skills: public speaking, creative writing, writing your idea, conceiving your idea, brainstorming, working with a team. These skills are not necessarily taught elsewhere. As people get to the workforce, they don’t necessarily know how to work as teams.

NPi: It seems like this project fits well with you, someone who has been involved in the arts, but also on the management side, reaching across boundaries, like in your prior work [as Director of Administration, Planning, and Stewardship] with the ICA. What have you learned working here?

CF: David will say what we’re doing is a bit of an experiment as well. Just being a part of this group that’s creating this, I really believe in what we’re doing here. It’s taught me what we hope to teach the teens: that there are no limits. Really, you just need to go out there and knock on doors, and people are open to new ideas and new partnerships.

NPi: Has your perspective changed at all? Either on the organizational side or the student side?

CF: I’ve always believed in the arts, but now even more so. And maybe it’s just this year while there was so much going on: the financial crisis, the historic election of President Obama. It’s an exciting time, and I think what we’re doing aligns with where the world is. We’re ready for ArtScience. There are so many people around the country working on creativity and innovation… I think we are a part of this bigger movement.

How To Get Involved:

The Cloud Foundation is actively fundraising and looking for supporters the artscience prize and their work. To learn more, please visit: www.artscience100k.org. Click here to watch a short video about the ArtScience Innovation prize.

Aaron Devine is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, MA. His most recent work, Wonder/Wander: 522 Days in Latin America, is a literary scrapbook that combines poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction prose to tell the stories of people and communities off the tourist trail from Nicaragua to Argentina. Contact him at: aajamde@yahoo.com.

Special thanks to Leise Jones for snagging these great photos. Also, stay in touch with NPi and those you met via Twitter.

Subscribe via iTunes

The Notre Dame Education Center (NDEC) has been a place of hope for South Boston residents since it opened its doors in 1860. Started by a group of nuns called the Sisters of Notre Dame, the center began as a free high school for girls. While the school closed in 1992, the sisters remained committed to meeting the needs of their community. Using what resources were available to them, they gathered together teachers and volunteers and opened their doors to all as an adult education center.

NDEC has continued to pursue its mission by providing community-based, comprehensive adult learning and literacy programs underscored by the values of respect, understanding, and quality services. Amie Cressman has been involved with NDEC for over five years. She has worked two years as NDEC’s Notre Dame AmeriCorps Member helping to facilitate courses and now serves as NDEC’s Program Director, overseeing four programs at NDEC, ensuring program funding, and making sure staff and student needs are met.

NPi: What does your organization do? What services do you provide to the community?

AC: We have four programs. ESOL, which stands for English Speakers of Other Languages–we use ESOL, instead of ESL, because most of our students are learning English as their third or fourth language, rather than their second. There are four levels of ESOL, and each class develops skills in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and American culture, which explains how to navigate the systems here. We have a literacy program, reading, writing, and math. People can enter in as beginning readers up to the GED level. Most people enroll in the literacy program because they want their GED. They are getting their GED for many reasons: to get a better job, or for personal reasons like being a good example for their children. We also have a distance-learning program of online classes for those students who aren’t able to attend class because they work non-traditional hours or they’re on the waiting list with an ABE/ESOL program in the state of Massachusetts. This also allows them to learn at their own pace and convenience. We’re the only state funded hub in Massachusetts, but we do have five other partners who can accept students on our behalf. It’s a new and exciting program.

The fourth program is the high school diploma program, which is an alternative high school program. Students who have completed at least 10^th grade can come take the class they need to complete their high school diploma and get a diploma from Cathedral High School. I see it as a “second chance” program since they are so close to graduating. This is important because GEDs were considered equivalent to high school diplomas, but now they’re not. Some branches of the military will accept a GED, but most won’t. Many of these students want to go directly on to a four-year university, as opposed to the traditional GED path, which includes a stop in community college.

NPi: What communities do you serve? What does the make-up of your classes look like?

AC: Now that we’re in the heart of South Boston, situated between two housing developments, Old Colony and D Street, we see more South Boston students. We’ve seen an increase in students from Southie since we moved to our new location. People who live in Southie don’t like to leave Southie, and the Broadway T stop is at the edge of the neighborhood. Most of our students are from South Boston and Dorchester. Our biggest ethnic communities are native born Americans, Haitian, Chinese, Albanian, and many students are Dominican and Somali as well. We have a good mix racially: 20% Asian, 27% black, 21% Latino, and 22% white. Ages of students vary from 16 to 70 years old, however, the alternative high school program is only for students 16 to 21.

NPi: How is the work you do here different from other organizations in the Adult Education and ESOL fields?

AC: Part of what is different is the heart of the organization and the mission. Many people come here because they are drawn by the mission and by the Sisters of Notre Dame, who worked without pay for many years and are committed to the mission. There are also Notre Dame Americorps members who are very community-minded and attracted to the Notre Dame AmeriCorps Mission to empower vulnerable people through education.

Also, there’s the fact that we have four different internal programs, which means we can do referrals. We had someone come to the high school program and she was upset because she didn’t finish the 10^th grade, but then we transfered her to the literacy program so that she could get her GED. There are many internal referrals: ESOL level 4, to GED, to distance learning. I think another thing that distinguishes us is our support system and holistic approach. We look at all the aspects of our clients’ lives. We are concerned about education, but we also offer support services as well. We have a volunteer coordinator who gets tutors for students if they need extra help. We also ask students to be tutors, and this is a form of empowerment. We have a job counselor who works with students on resuming writing, job searches, training placements, and interviewing skills. Many of our ESOL students arrive here with university degrees from their own countries, so we help them translate them and their credentials. We also have an immigration case manager who helps with all immigration issues. She teaches a citizenship course, but immigration issues aren’t simply about citizenship; there are issues of sponsorship, bringing family members to the US, seeking asylum, work permits–anything related to immigration.

My opinion on immigration is: it’s so hard to leave your country logistically and personally, that if you make it to this country, you’ve demonstrated you’re a driven and dedicated person. Education has always come very easy for me, and I feel very lucky. But for some of our American students, the education system has failed them. It may be because they have a learning disability, mental illness, or didn’t get enough support at home, and so they come to us. I read something the other day that said Boston Public Schools spends on average $13,888 per student in the school system. In our GED program we’re spending only $1,700 per student and getting students for whom the public school system didn’t work. Yet, they achieve great success through our programs. Last year we had 39 graduates (22 High School Diploma and 17 GED). We met every Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Performance Standard: attendance, retention, learner gains, and student goals.

NPi: Can you talk about NDEC’s approach to ending adult illiteracy as well as its approach to working with under-educated adults?

AC: At NDEC, we believe in mutuality of teaching and learning. We are all adults; we are equals. Therefore, we need to empower students both in the classroom and outside the classroom by giving them a voice regarding their own education and how they want it to impact their lives. Not only are we an educational institution, but we realize our students face many barriers to their education. In order for our students to find success, they need support. So we provide tutors, job counseling, immigration case management, and educational counseling. We provide workshops on financial literacy, workers’ rights, and health screenings. Finally, as our vision states, “participants will use a form of critical social analysis as their tool for understanding the complexities of the world and responding to them.” In other words, we are constantly providing opportunities for reflection and evaluation so that students can see their part in the world around them. I think if more organizations took a holistic approach and provided more support services, then the quality of our educational services would increase.

NPi: Have you ever done outreach to these other organizations to share the knowledge and increase the social impact? Would you consider it?

AC: We have a lot of collaborations. The South Boston Family Center is up the street, and together we’re the only ABE (Adult Basic Education)/ESOL programs in South Boston. We do a lot to assist with employment and making sure our services are aligned with other services offered in South Boston. Also, in terms of Boston-wide and South Boston-wide community planning, we work with the Boston Association of Nonprofits and do service referrals for students. If we don’t offer a program, for example basic reading, we can connect them with another program that offers those services, and by doing so, we’ve increased our accessibility.

NPi: What impact does NDEC have in the community? What are some of the successes you’ve experienced while doing this work?

AC: It’s big that we’re here in South Boston since many of the ABE programs have closed. We continue to get more South Boston residents as students; we’ve had 250 since we started in 1992. Last year, a graduate from the GED program wanted to give back to her community because of her experience here. She’s at Roxbury Community College now getting her degree in social work and she’s volunteering at this amazing program at the Dry Dock where they teach students from the Department of Youth Services (DYS) how to build boats. They’re increasing the number of people of color in this field and giving DYS kids a second chance and a skill… She’s volunteering, and the DYS kids really need someone to help them.

Another success is an ESOL student from 1996, Edouard Zobinou, who is now our Finance Manager after attending university. Our newest board member received his diploma from here and has gone on to Year Up, another organization we collaborate with. Another student is now in the International Program at Brandeis. He’s come back to serve on the board of directors here. We’ve also had several Lost Boys of Sudan come through our program. One is at Bunker Hill Community College and another is studying computer science at UMass-Boston. This is an impressive story, since their lives and educations were completely interrupted when they became child soldiers. You know you’re really making an impact because now they’re able to send kids to school in Uganda and Kenya because they’re improving their own lives. There’s a ripple effect.

NPi: What are some of the obstacles/challenges you are facing?

AC: Funding is definitely one, and that’s true of any non-profit. The field of adult education and ESOL are under-funded and forgotten sectors. When people stumble upon Adult Education, they love it since in the field of education, K-12 is the only education we think of. Adult education is very different. With the current economy, students either don’t have jobs, or they have to work regardless of what shift their boss gives them because they need the money, which means they can’t come to school. We’re seeing a shift in the population; many more teenagers are in our programs, which tells us something about the school system. There are 20,000 people on the waiting list for ABE and ESOL programs in the State of Massachusetts. 5,000 are waiting for ESOL, and 5,000 are waiting for GED, and those are just the ones that are signed up and waiting. That doesn’t take into account all of the people who haven’t yet signed up for services. It’s a challenge to provide services for that many people.

NPi: Can you elaborate on the waiting list policy? How does it work? How does someone get on the list?

AC: The State of Massachusetts has its own waiting list, and we have our own waiting list. People come in and register in the main office and they are put on the waiting list for whichever program they sign up for. Then they have to come back in to be tested. For GED, they only have to wait a few months. For ESOL, the wait is six months to two years. We give priority to people from South Boston, as well as those who are already students here.

NPi: What have you learned by doing this work? What have you learned as an organization?

AC: Personally, I’m in awe of the people that we serve. I love being in a place where we’re all equals, and it’s so neat to have so many different people in a classroom. Amazing things happen when you have so many different people together. In my first class, there was a homeless man, someone who just got out of prison, a 16-year-old single mother, a girl with a mental illness, two Sudanese refugees, and a few people from Haiti. Get them together and amazing things happen. People shouldn’t surprise me, but I am continually surprised.

Organizationally, it’s been powerful recognizing how students need our support services. One of the things I’d like to see is more counseling for students. There are so many other forces acting on their lives. We have someone to help them with jobs and immigration, and someone to help a little with healthcare, childcare, and housing. For these adults who wear so many hats and face so many challenges, it’s important to put all these support services in place.

NPi: Where could you use help as an organization?

AC: We need more volunteers, tutors for individuals and small groups, event support, social workers, and a mental health counselor. We have students with so many different needs, it would be great to meet those needs. We need more people with a background in counseling. We’d also like for the public, especially our neighbors in South Boston, to know about all the things that happen here–about all the people from different countries in the same neighborhood.

NPi: Is there a service you’d like for your organization to provide that you aren’t currently providing?

AC: Mental health counseling. We’ve had gang fights on our front steps, a student threatening suicide. We work with students who are victims of violence or don’t have the support they need at home and students with mental illness. We’d like to make sure these students get what they need.

NPi: What keeps you coming to work every day?

AC: The students. You can never feel sorry for yourself. These students have been through so much and never complain. I’m not saying this from a “Oh, aren’t they great–the poor who come here,” perspective. I try really hard not to use specific labels to prevent putting people on another level. It’s definitely the students who keep me coming to work every day. They are so amazing.

NPi: What is a lesson that you would pass on to other leaders? Other people looking to get involved in their community?

AC: Since students constantly surprise you, it’s important to keep an open mind and be willing to learn from them. This empowers them. I think in social services, it’s very easy to just take the pen and fill out the form for someone. That attitude is just so wrong.

How to Get Involved:

For more information, visit http://www.ndecboston.org. To become a volunteer, click here.