Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Our Town, Our Future

Voices from our Salisbury community about the housing we need for a healthy, economically vibrant future

Our Town, Our Future

Amy and Lloyd Hosier

Mary Close Oppenheimer

“I love, love, love it!” says Amy Hosier about living in an affordable apartment at Sharon Ridge. “The place is great. The apartments are beautiful.”

Amy and her husband Lloyd are longtime residents of the Northwest Corner. Amy’s journey took her from the Sharon Pharmacy to working at local hospitals as a certified phlebotomist. However, an injury forced her into early retirement, leaving her dependent on Social Security disability benefits.

Lloyd grew up in Sharon and worked as a custodian at Region 1 schools until his retirement at the age of 70. Several years ago the State dropped his pension plan and gave him a lump sum instead. The money soon ran out so he is now dependent upon Social Security and a small union pension.

For the Hosiers, as for many seniors, retirement has brought a double whammy: dwindling financial resources and skyrocketing housing costs. When a rent hike threatened to upend their lives, Sharon Ridge’s affordable housing offered a lifeline.

They were fortunate to apply in 2017 since today there are 161 people on the waitlist.

For just over $600 a month, Amy and Lloyd enjoy a comfortable two-bedroom apartment, complete with nearby laundry facilities and a sense of community they never expected to find.

They say, “We have really good neighbors. We’re a community. We like that it’s a diverse neighborhood with people of different ages and people with young children.

It’s nice to have little kids playing outside.” They know a number of their neighbors and say they would be there for them in a second if they needed anything. Their neighbors include a teacher, nurse, maintenance man, country club employee, retiree, and a young working couple. “We feel very safe here,” Amy says. “There are no problems, no issues with behavior or the police.”

The Hosiers are part of a growing trend. Approximately 50% of local affordable housing residents are retirees. As Amy and Lloyd’s story illustrates, affordable housing is more than just a roof — it’s a chance to age in place with dignity and remain part of the fabric of the community that has been their home for a lifetime.

Mary Close Oppenheimer
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

Left to right: Hannah Wheeler, Matin Malikzada and Yonah Sadeh.

D.H. Callahan

On Monday, Oct. 26, a group of students, teachers and local residents gathered at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville for a screening of the new short documentary “Matin.” The film tells the story of Matin Malikzada, a seventh-generation Afghani potter making a new life in New Milford, Connecticut. The film was made by local filmmaker Yonah Sadeh, creator of the Video Wall at the David M. Hunt Library, and Berkshires-based potter Hannah Wheeler, who were both present for the screening, along with Malikzada himself.

As a member of the seventh generation of his family to master the art of pottery, Malikzada had done things the way his family had for over a century. Istalif, the village where his family has lived for generations, was known throughout Afghanistan for its pottery, with wares sent across the country for use as everyday cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. The pottery-making families of Istalif gathered clay from the same mountain, about 30 to 45 minutes away by donkey. Every July, they would head north toward the Uzbekistan border to gather ishkar, a plant they processed by hand to make their signature glazes.

Keep ReadingShow less
film

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.

L. Tomaino

When Meg Sher came to Falls Village in 2006 from Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she grew up, she never imagined she’d someday be the executive director of the David M. Hunt Library.

Although, in hindsight, perhaps it makes sense.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, conducts the audience at a performance.

Steve Potter

For Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, music from centuries past is anything but a relic. It is a living, breathing art form, full of drama, emotional complexity and, occasionally, surprises. As the regional choral and period-instrument ensemble launches its 23rd season, Gevert is once again bringing forgotten masterpieces into the present.

“Early Music has been my lifelong passion and the focus of my specialization in Europe and South America,” Gevert said. “Bringing this repertoire to our audiences in a nuanced way that does justice to its incredible depth, intensity, and beauty is deeply important to me.”

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music’s 35th season opens with “Saluting the Clarinet” featuring clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein.

Provided

For 35 years, cellist Yehuda Hanani has been inviting audiences to experience classical music in unexpected ways. As founder and artistic director of Close Encounters with Music, Hanani has built a concert series that goes beyond the music itself, exploring connections to literature, history, politics and the human experience.

This year, Close Encounters celebrates its 35th season with “Celebration & Discovery,” a seven-concert series that opens Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Seeing isn’t always believing. Sometimes it’s the lack of a defined picture that can be the most compelling. And when Alex Harvey of Shinbone Alley sings his supernaturally charged sea shanties and street ballads, the unseen will be downright scary. On Oct. 30, the historically inclined storyteller and performer will create a spooky evening of forbidden tales and yarns through a carefully chosen series of songs at Spencertown Academy of Arts.

The repertoire for the performance is a bit fraught. Over the years, Shinbone Alley has explored the world of folklore through music. Though the group usually features two musicians, Harvey, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, will be performing solo. That is, of course, unless you include the spirits.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield

Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield
Vieux Farka Touré
Proivded

Desert winds rarely blow into the Berkshires, but on Nov. 5, they will carry the Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa music to Race Brook Lodge.

That evening, Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, often called “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” and Moroccan musician Samir LanGus will play at the lodge’s Event Barn in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at a benefit for the foundation Touré directs.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.