November's Historical Commission Monthly Tales of Our Town

November’s story concerns Town-sponsored affordable housing in West Newbury. Unlike the Almshouse and the Pipestave Hill apartments (which came with the Town’s purchase of the Cardinal Cushing Academy complex), additional Town-sponsored affordable housing now located at the municipal campus and Bachelor Street entailed a decades-long siege, punctuated by fierce battles upon identification of any specific site. A band of determined, dedicated, indefatigable volunteer members of the Council on Aging and the Housing Authority made it happen. It took 20 years from the time the need was first identified to the dedication of these new homes in 1992. In April of 1989, when success was near but still elusive, Housing Authority Chair Nancy Barry summarized the advocates’ unshakable determination to see it through: “We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go. …We want to continue until we reach a point where we have to take another tack.”

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