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☀️Sunny, with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 8:09 p.m.
When the clock struck midnight, Haitian and Syrian people here in the U.S. under the temporary protected status program (TPS) — that’s about 19,000 Haitian people in Massachusetts alone — lost their legal permits to live and work here. The Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration was allowed to unilaterally end the program. Stripping people who have been living and working in the U.S. of their legal immigration status has major implications for families worried about separation and for the health care system, where thousands of TPS recipients worked. Employers have already been telling workers with TPS that they can’t come to work without legal status.
Clara Raymond, a Haitian immigrant who came to the U.S. 40 years ago, talked to GBH’s Genevieve Morrison last week about what she’s been seeing in her community in Dorchester. “Everybody scared — scared they’re going to lose their job. It’s not a good feeling.” There’s a bill in the Senate that would extend TPS for Haitians and Syrians through 2029, which Republican senators have so far blocked. Morrison has more from a Boston City Hall rally for TPS recipients here.
Four Things to Know
1. After President Donald Trump announced tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on 60 countries and 50% on Canada — which make up 99% of the goods Americans import — a trade group representing businesses in Massachusetts said its members will have to pause their plans and figure out how this will affect them. The Trump administration is saying these tariffs, separate from the ones the Supreme Court struck down in February, are because the countries targeted haven’t adequately enforced bans on forced labor.
“Every time there’s a new announcement about a new tariff, it creates this paralyzation of the economy,” said Brooke Thomson, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a group that represents about 3,000 businesses in the state. “We don’t know what this is going to do and we’re not going to grow. We’re not going to add. We’re not going to hire.”
2. Just over two weeks after a truck driver hit and killed Boston transportation planner Louisa Gag as she rode her bike near Roxbury Crossing, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the city will install more durable barriers for bike lanes “wherever feasible” and work on legislation about truck safety. She also said the city will “conduct a comprehensive safety and urban design evaluation” of Tremont Street, where Gag was hit.
But people who regularly bike in Boston said city officials could have taken these steps sooner — and perhaps prevented Gag’s death. “The vast majority of things that are in the letter, nearly all of them are things that were on the books already, things that were in process, in planning, but which the mayor herself had delayed over the course of the last 18 months or so,” said Benjamin Siegel, who helped write an open letter to the Wu administration after Gag’s death.
3. Investigators in Springfield tested the clothing of Celestina Perez, a 25-year-old woman found dead at Gurdon Bill Park in 1995, to try and identify who killed her. A bloodstain they found matched the DNA of Joseph James Ceravolo Jr., a man who lived in Springfield and died in 2013.
His death means there won’t be a criminal trial. Jose Reyes, Perez’ nephew, said knowing the case was solved after 31 years is helping him and his family “find a little peace.”
4. UMass Amherst is installing a new 6 feet tall and 20 feet long heat pump, which will produce low-pressure steam using heat from an existing power plant. Facilities officials said it will be able to provide about 20% of the campus’ steam and heat. Most of the funding for the project — $18 million — is coming from the UMass Amherst budget, and another $7.35 million is coming from a state grant.
“For every unit of energy that’s put into this heat pump, three units of energy will come out. So it’s very efficient,” said Ray Jackson, assistant Vice Chancellor of facilities management.
From tents to parking lots: Homelessness climbs on Cape Cod
Tammie Docekal lived in Mashpee for two decades, sharing a home with her husband. Just before the COVID pandemic began, her mother got sick in Texas and she went to care for her, balancing caregiving with remote work. Then her husband called and said he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died the following week.
It was only after his death that Docekal found out he had stopped paying the mortgage on their home.
“I couldn’t catch up,” Docekal told CAI reporter Sam Houghton. “Between him passing away and the mortgage being behind, I became homeless. And at that time, COVID had just hit, so resources were very few and far. Very few. So I ended up living in my car.”
It’s hard to quantify exactly how many people on the Cape don’t have homes. The nonprofit Housing Assistance had about 175 clients they considered homeless before the pandemic — and 700 last year. Some of them lived in rentals, which their landlords sold or significantly raised rents on to take advantage of booming property values on the Cape. About 45% are over the age of 55.
Docekal ended up meeting an outreach worker from an organization called Belonging to Each Other, who helped get her into temporary housing after two years of living in her car. “It is an amazing moment, when you have no hope at all, no help at all, and then they suddenly appear like angels,” she told Houghton. “It’s overwhelming. I have a picture of it because it changed my life.” Now she has a studio at a complex called Falmouth Apartments.
Houghton also talked to outreach workers, whose job is finding and helping people experiencing homelessness. You can find the full story here.
This story has been two decades in the making: 20 years ago, CAI reporter Sean Corcoran began reporting about poverty and homelessness on the Cape. For the series, “Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on Cape and Islands,” he talked to Cape Cod residents struggling with poverty and the people trying to help. You can hear his thoughts here and explore CAI’s updated look at poverty on the Cape here.
Dig deeper:
-What happens when you lose your home at 72?
-Two Cape Cods: Who’s on the bus?
-Despite decades of work, housing is still a challenge for many Mashpee Wampanoags
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