State and local leaders gathered at Zion Lutheran Church on First Street Tuesday to celebrate the ceremonial groundbreaking on a new, $16 million three-part housing undertaking that will bring 37 new permanent supportive housing units and a housing resource center to Berkshire County’s largest community. While shovels will first hit the dirt under the administration of Mayor Peter Marchetti, the origins of the project date back to his immediate predecessor, Clairmont.
“It wasn't always and didn't start out as a celebration," said the former mayor. "It started out as a very, very difficult, and to some degree, a traumatic experience for our community and for our neighbors and for leadership. Some of you probably remember COVID-19. I know it feels like it didn't actually happen, but it did, and those were two years of crisis management in the mayor's office, and I would not have been successful without the COVID-19 task force that helped us through those two years of crisis management.”
The pandemic outbreak in spring 2020 took place at the start of her second four-year term after a bitter re-election campaign against then-city councilor Melissa Mazzeo.
“A lot happened during COVID-19, but one of the truly most difficult, heart wrenching, devastating experiences was the rise in homelessness and the experience of the encampment at Springside Park," Clairmont continued. "It was a lot of people without shelter, without access to food, without access to a shower, without access to all of the wrap around services that our vulnerable neighbors need the most.”
The encampment in the city’s largest park was formed by unhoused Pittsfielders who opted to rough it over navigating a decrepit shelter system, saying the risks of illness, assault, and separation from loved ones proved too great to bear. Clairmont and her administration were faced with unpopular choices: forcibly evict a vulnerable population from their makeshift home in the middle of a pandemic and housing crisis or allow a technically illegal and definitely controversial settlement to remain up in a public park. Standing before some of her former team members who continue to work in city hall under Marchetti, Clairmont looked back on one of the most challenging periods from her eight-year tenure.
“So, that was crisis management, and it was also a reckoning," she remembered. "It was a moment when I spent a lot of time with people who are experts in the field of caring for people who are unhoused. And it was a moment of a great revelation, and I learned a lot from that experience that was devastating to all of us. I admire so many people in this room who helped me learn and grow and understand the complexities of dealing with this really difficult- As many speakers have said, it is not easy, and there are a lot of strong emotions attached to it. People in our neighborhoods reacted, people in our downtown have very strong emotions about it. Fortunately, there were a lot of people on the front lines doing the hard work, and they were my North Star. They were the ones who gave me and guided me to the decision that, yes, we have to do everything we can right now in this crisis to care for the people that are homeless and living in Springside Park. It was really, really hard. And, what are we going to do to prevent this from happening again? How do we save the most vulnerable in a way that meets humanity?”
Clairmont recalled rallying her team and assembling community partners to map a path forward to bolster Pittsfield’s housing options for its unhoused residents. Alongside the pandemic, Pittsfield and Berkshire County writ large were then and continue to be trapped in a parallel housing crisis where limited stock, stagnant wages, and expensive rents have made finding a dwelling historically difficult. It’s fueled a massive spike in homelessness in the Northeast over recent years.
“It was the faith community that stepped in in the middle of that crisis and really delivered," said Clairmont. "What I didn't expect, and what I am so happy that we're doing today, is the level of commitment that came from that, from the faith community. First United Methodist Church opening up their beautiful, historic church for a crisis shelter- And it's right next door to my husband's business. Right next door. My husband is a CPA, and he has partners and clients, and it was not easy often for me in those conversations with him, but I kept insisting that it would be fine.”
From there, momentum built until the climax of the American Rescue Plan Act, the almost $2 trillion economic stimulus bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021.
“And then Zion Lutheran steps forward and says, we how can we help?" Clairmont continued. "And it was in that same sort of moment when the ARPA funding came into the city of Pittsfield, $42 million. Honestly, I did not believe it. When that number came to us, I went to everyone. I went to Matt Kerwood, our director of finance, and Deanna [Ruffer]- I'm like, is this real? This is not real. There's no way we are getting $42 million. An infusion of funds like that? In our city? And that's when the dreaming began and the community conversations and the engagement and how do we put this once in a lifetime resource to the best use, and a third of it has gone to housing.”
Clairmont and her ARPA team allocated around $8.6 million to housing projects in Pittsfield, including $6.5 million for the resource center that will be housed in Zion Lutheran.
“We're successful in Pittsfield and in the Berkshires because we are so far away from the center of the commonwealth," said the former mayor. "So, we have to collaborate. We have to join hands in order to succeed. And this is another example of that, of how faith, community, state, federal and local partners, nonprofit partners, neighbors, come together with a vision, a shared vision, sometimes a hard one, but a shared vision about how we can be better and more heartfelt and more caring for the least among us.”
Clairmont announced in February 2023 that she would not seek a third term, and since leaving office has taken a position as Executive Director of Workforce and Community Education at Berkshire Community College.
