No kids allowed

The South End's Cathedral housing development had a thriving youth program. Why do its hard-won facilities stand empty?

by Sarah McNaught

CITYSCAPE

Sitting in the rectory at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, in the South End, Yasari Rivera is surrounded by serene paintings of holy lands and sacred cathedrals. Yet the 15-year-old feels anything but calm on this blustery Sunday night, when residents of the nearby Cathedral housing development have gathered to meet with Boston City Council president Jimmy Kelly. The charms on her silver bracelet clink together as she picks up a Styrofoam cup and begins tearing tiny bits off the rim to keep her frustration in check. She's angry about the lack of youth programs at the complex -- and worried, she says, about what might happen to Cathedral's younger kids when the school year ends and they have nowhere but the sometimes dangerous streets to hang out.

"Right now things aren't too bad because it's winter and it's too cold to stay outside," she says, tucking her thick brown hair behind her ears and leaning forward to stress her point. "But crime goes up when the summer comes. Gangs from outside start shooting at each other in places like Cathedral. Only this year, it's not just the older kids who are going to be out there -- it's the babies, too."

Rivera and her Cathedral peers have plenty of reason to be disheartened on their own behalf as well. As the South End News has reported, youth services have virtually disappeared at the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) development. Four workers who helped organize activities for children and teens have left in the past five months; the last to go was Langston Cawthorne, who quit on March 18. Kids at Cathedral say he and the others were being refused the money, the space, and the support to provide them with what they had worked so hard to achieve -- a teen center, a child-care program, field trips, and computer tutoring.

Jimmy Kelly has agreed to look into resolving the situation. To the kids, however, the answer is simple: bring back the youth workers who have devoted so much time and energy to them. And get rid of Ruth Barkley, the long-time head of the Cathedral Tenants United (CTU) board, an on-site tenant task force that runs programs such as youth projects, medical screening, and CPR classes. Barkley, her critics say, is apparently holding back more than $100,000 in state and federal grants set aside for youth programs.

"She didn't even pay her staff," says 31-year-old Mary Merritt, a mother of three boys who has lived in Cathedral her whole life. "The problem is, Ruth plays dirty and tenants are afraid of her. If you confront her, she throws any personal information about you on the table for the entire development to hear. We are worried about the kids, but our hands are tied." Merritt says she has put in for a transfer out of the BHA complex because things are so terrible.

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It was a different story last summer, when youth workers Cawthorne, Mary Reed, and Michael Slayman were supervising the kids' activities along with Elly Saraceni, who served as program manager and grant coordinator. Cawthorne ran the "Youth on the Rise" program for the more than 30 kids in the complex under the age of 12. Saraceni and Reed organized activities for the older kids, and Slayman ran a computer lab. Together, they took the kids on field trips, supervised basketball and flag-football teams, organized fundraisers, and provided tutoring help. All four had been hired by CTU and paid through grant money.

Back then, according to 15-year-old Fernando Villenueva, Cathedral teenagers were so motivated that they decided to build their own teen center and leave the existing recreational room to the younger kids.

The youths worked all summer, painting, cleaning, and decorating a vacant apartment while the adult workers hit the streets in search of donations from local businesses. By October the center was almost complete, and the teens were looking forward to using it after school.

"That's when it all happened," says Villenueva. "Elly and Mary left, and the center was closed because we had no more donations and no more support from the development. Now it's locked and it's useless to us."

Saraceni resigned because Barkley refused to sign off on grants awarded to the development for youth services. And Reed was laid off due to lack of funding, even though many tenants say grants had been set aside to pay her and other staffers. Tenants have many theories about why Barkley is holding back funds, but most agree that it's a power struggle. "She doesn't like being told what to do, and she's been in the development for so long she has begun to run the CTU like her own personal empire," says Merritt. "She wants the job done, but she doesn't want to have to do it or pay those who do."

The teen center is not all the kids have lost for lack of funding. A recent ski trip was canceled with no explanation. Summer-job-placement programs have ground to a halt. And when the kids tried to hold a car wash to raise their own money, they were denied access to water.

Michael Slayman, who had set up and found funding for the computer lab, left as well. Cathedral had a digital camera, 10 computers, and a scanner bought with $10,000 in grants from the Boston Foundation and the Boston Police. And Slayman was more than willing to supervise the lab. But he was working at Cathedral as a volunteer. When a grant became available to pay him, Slayman says, Barkley refused. Unable to support himself without pay, Slayman had no choice but to leave.

"Elly resigned [partly] because of their refusal to pay me," says Slayman, who now works as a supportive-living advocate for people with AIDS. "But when she left, they asked me to do her job. My heart is still at Cathedral with the kids, but they can't expect that kind of work to be done full-time for nothing when they have the money set aside to pay us."

That left Cawthorne, who was dividing his time between Cathedral and the Lenox and Camden developments. When he was at Cathedral, the kids say, he was being spread too thin to keep all the programs running full-time. The youths say that CTU's interim executive director, Tobias Cowans, created obstacles, too: sometimes, they recall, he abruptly told Cawthorne to close the computer lab. Now Cowans refuses to open the youth centers and the lab without adult supervision, but he himself appears only five times a month on average, according to the kids and the former youth workers. Some say it's because Cowans, who was hired in November for a two-month stint until a permanent director comes on board, works at least two other jobs.

The absence of Cawthorne, who ran an after-school program for kids up to the age of 14, has been especially hard on the development's younger kids. Under Cawthorne's direction, the little ones colored, played games, learned arts and crafts, and received help with homework. The 14-year-olds helped supervise the toddlers and infants. Now, says 13-year-old Joey Rivera, "Some of these kids are going home from school to empty houses."

Up until last Friday, signs were posted in the common areas of the development that read "No programs." Cowans now claims that the programs are running after all: he says workers have been brought in to monitor the computer lab on Tuesdays and Thursdays and to teach karate on Tuesdays and Fridays. When Cowans was asked why the workers he named were not at Cathedral as of March 19, he said he had no comment. Barkley would not return phone calls or respond to a written request for an interview.

"I have so many things to do that I can't respond to any questions," says Cowans. "I work with a board at CTU and I prefer that they comment." But when Cowans was asked whether he would persuade the board to return the Phoenix's calls, he responded, "I have nothing to say. I only see them once a month." Cowans added, "I spoke to another newspaper [the South End News] and I didn't like what they had to say."

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Fed up with the situation, more than 100 tenants signed a petition last September calling for the removal of Barkley and the rest of the CTU board. Tenant Mary Merritt says she hand-delivered the petition to BHA director Sandra Henriquez and to Michael McDonough, a BHA supervisor who has worked on issues at Cathedral in the past, but nothing has been done.

Henriquez says she received the petition but can do nothing with it. "The CTU is a separate entity from the BHA," explains Henriquez. "We have no control over individual tenant organizations or their elections." Barkley, who has lived at Cathedral since 1965 and has served on the board off and on for more than 20 years, was reelected last summer when only four tenants ran for the 15-member board.

Henriquez says the BHA has launched an audit to figure out what is happening with the grant money and is in the process of attempting to fill the vacant positions at Cathedral. Still, "some of the people who left, like Elly and Michael Slayman, did not work for the BHA. They worked for the CTU, and it is up to the CTU to fill those positions," says Henriquez. "As for Ruth Barkley, we have no control over her position. I do know that Tobias is working on putting together another election, and hopefully the tenants who signed the petition will come forward and decide to play an active role in the tenants' association."

"See, it's difficult to replace an elected figure when there is no one in line to take the position," the city council's Jimmy Kelly said at the meeting, referring to the dearth of candidates in last year's election. "I understand that tenants are afraid to come forward, but you can't force someone to take on responsibilities they don't want."

Kelly has agreed to discuss the problems at Cathedral with Henriquez and with Mayor Tom Menino, who oversees the BHA. He has told the kids that he will meet with them again within 10 days.

"Unfortunately, things don't happen as quickly as they should," Kelly warned the angry tenants. "But don't lose patience and don't get discouraged. We walked into this situation after the damage had been done, and now we are trying to get to the bottom of it. But you are being heard."

"I know things don't happen overnight, but we have been asking for help for a long time," said 15-year-old Cathedral resident Jesus Diaz in frustration after meeting Kelly Sunday night. "Something has to be done soon. [We can't] keep coming to meetings to be told `We are looking into it' and have nothing happen. We aren't that dumb. You can't string us along like that."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.