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Date: 11/8/2021
HOLYOKE – Way Finders President and CEO Keith Fairey was joined by state representatives, state senators, project funders, community stakeholders and Holyoke’s acting Mayor Terence Murphy at a ribbon cutting to celebrate the completion of Phase 1 of the Library Commons Development on Oct. 22.
The Library Commons Development is across the street from the Holyoke Public Library. Fairey said that the Library Commons Development was built over a vision of what was needed in the community and through the Holyoke Urban Renewal Plan.
“As we were participating in those discussions, the organization was looking at ways to have a positive impact in the community and was looking at investments that were already being made in the community like the redevelopment of the Holyoke Public Library,” he said. “We saw the vacant and abandoned buildings in the immediate neighborhood around it as an opportunity to bring those back so those could also be a resource to the community as well.”
The Library Commons Development is now providing 38 affordable and stable housing units . According to Fairey, a lottery was conducted to fill these apartments. He said they had over 1,500 applicants.
“It shows you the great need that these apartments are meeting in terms of more affordable housing, not only in Holyoke but in the region overall,” he said.
Along with the apartments, the Library Commons Development is now home to the Holyoke Housing Center that was previously on High St. Fairey said Way Finders has also partnered with the Cares Center to create the Roqué House, a program that offers educational services and support to young parents on site.
The ribbon cutting celebrated the completion of Phase 1 as well as the beginning of Phase 2. Phase 2 will work to fill the vacant lots immediately around the Library Commons and offer additional housing.
“We are hopeful that we will be getting financing for Phase 2, which will include 41 additional affordable apartments,” said Fairey.
If Way Finders is able to secure funding in the current round, Fairey said they will hopefully initiate construction in the spring of 2023.
“We’re a couple of years away,” he said.
According to Farey, building the Library Commons Development is important to bringing back a vibrant, thriving and safe community.
“Over time, the buildings had become vacant, damaged and had become havens for negative activity. Negative activity that impacted quality of life and safety. With the completion of Library Commons One and our acquisition of all the properties for Library Commons Two, we’re bringing all that back to life with families, services and programs and creating a thriving community by doing that,” he said.
Fairey said that he is excited for the opportunities this project will bring to residents and learning how Way Finders can support them along the way.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing how the new and existing community members kind of knit together the fabric of the community and see how we can be supportive of that,” he said. “Affordable housing projects are buildings, but it’s really about the people who live in those buildings and how quality housing can support them and their goals, dreams, themselves, their children and their families more broadly. It’s about how we can be supportive of them in pursuing those dreams and then also support them in thinking about what the larger vision is in the neighborhood and bringing it to a new point of being a thriving community.”