Housing Greenfield Meeting notes — 01/12/2026

Housing Greenfield Meeting Notes –January 12, 2026

Present: Susan Worgaftik, Peg Hall, Wisty Rorabacher, Nancy Hazard, Carol Letson, Amy Cahillane, Edie Heinemann, Brace Rennels, Louise Amyot, Judy Draper, Nikki Garrett, Lexi Turner, Garth Shaneyfelt, Jen Hale, John Garrett, Jack Redman, Charity Day, Joannah Whitney, Mike Mullin, Jaimye Bartak, Pamela Goodwin, Rachel Gordon

Decisions and areas for further discussion were made are in red. Save the dates are in green.

Updates

Greenfield Warming Center—Amy Cahillane
     The Warming Center has been open 18 nights as of 1/12/26.  It started off slow with 2-6 guests each night, but as last year, is now starting to be more populated with up to 12 guests recently.  The funding from the state will soon be available.  Amy will be sending out stipend paperwork to everyone who has volunteered.  If a volunteer does not wish to take the stipend, it will remain with the program and used for other related costs.
On some nights, the 3-7 shift has not had a community volunteer.  Amy is reaching out to community partners to see if those slots can be filled.  While we all agree that the best situation is for there to always be two people on staff at the Warming Center, some of the service chiefs have said that 1 police, fire or sheriff’s officer can handle it.  Bottom line is that it is up to the service chief to make that call.

Hope Street—Amy Cahillane
     Community meetings regarding the request for proposals (RFP) for the Hope Street lot will begin in February.  They will start out with one city-wide meeting and one Hope Street neighborhood meeting that will be designed to get input on the content of the RFP.   There will be a second set of community-wide and neighborhood meetings which will occur later to review the RFP draft.  In addition, Amy will have open office hours in person and on zoom where ideas can be shared.  There will also be tabling at the library and a dedicated email address where input can be submitted.  The dates for these sessions will soon be finalized.  They will be publicized through social media, city council meetings, press releases, on the Housing Greenfield section of the Greening Greenfield website, the city’s electronic bulletin boards and flyering at downtown businesses.  The Precinct 5 publicity will add mailing/or flyering door to door to the list above.
The process overall will start in February and close in late March or early April.  The RFP will be issued for responses in the spring.

Affordable Housing Trust—Amy Cahillane
     The draft ordinance has been completed and is now in the hands of Councilors Brown and Gordon.  It will start its way through the Council process in February or March.  The Councilors will keep us informed about when letters and testimony will be requested.

Wilson’s—Amy Cahillane
     Cleary’s Jewelers has moved out and will soon open at the Home Depot Plaza.  Preparatory construction by the DPW and Eversource is already underway.  There is no timeframe beyond that at this point.

Wells Street Shelter and Housing Construction—Susan Worgaftik
     Alyssa Larose is still on maternity leave….mother and baby are doing well.  Susan received the following update from Peter Graham of Valley Housing Consultants, who is working on the project. “The project is progressing well.  We are no longer on track for a May/June opening.  This has moved to July.  The simple explanation has been typical delays in construction, the complexity of converting 3 old connected buildings together with a new addition has slowed things by a few months.”
“As I am sure folks can see by the progress on the site, the building is taking shape and looks great.”
Questions asked about the Wells Street housing once it is finished were:

• Will locally unhoused people have first option on the housing or will it have to go through a lottery?
• Will the Arch Street site be able to provide lunch and laundry for people from the Warming Center on Sundays?
• What will the walk-in services at the new shelter look like once it is open?  Will there be any screening for the food services, for instance?
• Susan said that she will check with Keleigh BenEzra about these questions and have responses for the next meeting.

Questions

Greening Greenfield/Housing Greenfield Website—Peg Hall
     The Housing Greenfield portion of the Greening Greenfield website has sections which are defined as “aspects”.  Peg asked the group for assistance in developing the latest aspect “Keeping It”.  This category would discuss various programs and services that allow people to maintain residency in their homes such as information on tax breaks for seniors and disabled people, the new Elderly and Disabled Tax Fund, the senior tax work off, etc.
It was suggested that Peg check the Greenfield Assessors Office webpage for some of the answers to the questions she presented.  Amy Cahillane said that she would provide housing rehabilitation information from her office.  Susan said that she would get Community Legal Aid information to Peg.

Discussion

Rental Housing Inspection Ordinance—John Garrett and Susan Worgaftik
     John and Susan have been working on the development of a rental housing ordinance that will include three major components:

• A rental registry—where all rental apartments in the city will register with the city
• Regular, coordinated housing inspections for housing on a rotating 5 year basis—among the exemptions are owner-occupied houses with 6 or fewer apartments, including the owner’s apartment. –This takes the onus of inspections away from tenants calling in a complaint and makes it a regular part of doing business
• Tenant safeguards—to ensure that tenants who are concerned about the health and safety of the apartment are not evicted or otherwise harassed for voicing their concerns to the city

The goals for this legislation are:

• To provide an inventory of privately owned housing in the City of Greenfield
• To meet the health and safety needs of the residents of private rental housing in the City of Greenfield
• To ensure an accurate count of rental housing in the City of Greenfield so that assessment will be fair and accurate for all residents.

Summary of the ordinance had been sent to members prior to this meeting.

The discussion included:

• clarifying exactly which provisions apply to which units?
• Ensuring that tenants have a copy of the self-inspection form which the landlord submits to the Health Department
• The permit is posted in a public place and notice of where a complaint be made as part of that posting
• Inspection reports be accessible to the public
• There is a real need for landlord outreach before this is discussed publicly.  In addition to contacting any individual landlords, it was suggested that John and Susan should reach out to the Landlord Business Association.
• John and Susan will work on these refinements and outreach during the month of January and report back on their progress at the February meeting.