Dear Billy T and Somerville News Weekly Speakup Line:

Here’s an interesting post that Somerville City Councilwoman Stephanie Hirsch just posted to her page regarding that Somerville has little to no school kids in the city.

One true and interesting comment read as follows: “Its sad no one can afford to live ANYWHERE. 😞 Somerville resident got old and passed and their kids sold their homes to the contractors and moved to the suburbs and now those homes are beautiful condos. Million $$ condos. Who can afford to live here!?? So sad. I’m not judging anyone’s decisions it’s just so amazing to see these changes!”

And don’t you know it that Former School committeeman Andre Green aka “Mr. know it all” has all the answers to it!

And here are two of Andre Green’s comments as follows: “I make objectively good money, but if my wife’s family hadn’t bought in Somerville in the 50s and/or I had to pay market value I couldn’t be here. As is, a large part of why we only have one kid is lack of space.”
And his second comment was as follows: “True…but the existing stock of larger units used to belong to families. now they belong to 24 year old software developers rooming together at $1200+ a room”

My only advice to Andre the brain is: Stop giving advice on a subject which you know nothing of ie: high rent mortgage payments! Because how would you know living in your in-law’s grandmother’s basement for free?

Stephanie Hirsch’s posting reads as follows:

If you saw the Globe article about how few children live in Boston, it’s worth noting that the two places with even fewer kids are Cambridge and Somerville (That’s for 2018 Census data which includes estimates for only larger communities. In the 2010 Census data, Somerville also ranked at the bottom for children as a % of population, along with Hull and Cambridge.) This graph here could be titled – “Somerville’s Missing Tweens.” The Census estimate that puts our population aged 10 to 14 at 2% (vs 6.5% nationally) might be low, but our State student enrollment show only an average of 343 students per grade in grades 5th through 9th, so it’s not too far off.

The Globe article is here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/22/report-says-boston-becoming-city-with-few-children/YBp5C8dcB01PA0uo12S3eI/story.html?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter