News & Events

It has been brought to the attention of BHA Management that the outside laundry room (located at Forrestal Heights) has become a haven for smoking and drinking. This was not the intention of BHA when they decided to provide an additional laundry facility at Forrestal Heights. The outside laundry facility was not created to be a lounge, it was created to assist those residents in the low rise units by providing an onsite low cost convenient laundry facility.

To those residents who are smoking in the laundry room, you need to stop. To those residents who are bringing alcohol and drinking in the laundry room, you need to stop. Please respect your neighbors and the vision of what BHA is trying to do for its tenants. BHA is asking for your compliance in adhering to the existing policies regarding smoking and the use of alcohol on BHA properties. It cost your nothing to smoke outside BHA buildings and it cost even less to drink alcohol inside your apartments. Do yourselves a favor and be part of the solution and not part of the problem. A little common decency towards your fellow tenants would not hurt you.

It would be a shame to close the outside laundry room because of the actions of a few.

“North of Boston,” a collection of 17 poems by American poet Robert Frost, was originally published in 1914. One of those is “A Servant of Servants,” the poem where this hopeful line comes from. The lengthy poem spans 177 un-rhyming lines from the perspective of a rural housewife harried by the cooking and cleaning and caretaking of her daily life. She’s thrilled to be talking to someone new, a person camping out in the wilds near her home. And she envies his experience — a chance to connect with nature, to rest, and to recharge. She has no intention of joining this adventurer or setting out on her own to embrace the outdoors. But she has hope: She will power through and continue to care for her family and the house and the people who work her land. And, for her, for now, that hope and that stubborn determination is enough.

This quote comes from “The Book of Disquiet,” a posthumously published collection of Fernando Pessoa’s work left behind after his death in 1935. The Portuguese poet and writer saw identity as fluid and dynamic, and is famous for writing under numerous pseudonyms, giving each invented version of himself a full history and background — even going so far as to draft whole “autobiographies” for the imagined individuals behind his pen names. In the essay where this quote appears, Pessoa posits that our experiences are what we imagine, rather than what we encounter. “If I create it, it exists; if it exists, then I see it like any other scenery,” he wrote. “Life is what we make of it.”

Cheryl Strayed’s memoir “Wild” was a runaway hit in more ways than one. It was so tremendously popular that it ended up being made into a film starring Reese Witherspoon. Its narrative followed the author’s decision, after the death of her mother, to run away from her life and marriage and walk the Pacific Crest Trail alone. It was during that trek that, impelled by a desire to leave the difficulties of her past behind and start over anew, she changed her last name. Because it was impossible for her to go on as before, Cheryl strayed, and went on as she never had.

Spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy believed that in order to achieve inner peace, we should accept whatever life throws our way, and practice forgiveness when times are difficult. He taught that through a regular meditation practice, we can cultivate and spread peace and love. He encouraged viewing hurdles as a part of life, and being grateful that those experiences can prepare us for a better future. In this popular quote, Chinmoy suggests that choosing love over judgment, forgiveness over grudges, leads to happiness and serenity. As the quote continues: “Love everything; you will be happiest.”

At the time of Alice Cary’s birth in 1820, her home state of Ohio was at the western frontier of the United States. Her father was a pious farmer, known to recite poetry and hymns while working his land. Alice began writing poems herself at a young age and had her first piece published when she was just 18 years old. At age 30, she moved to New York, writing every day and gradually earning herself a place among the creative luminaries of the time. This quote is from a poem titled “Nobility,” which gives us a glimpse into the writer’s passion for justice and social equity, themes that ran through her work for the entirety of her career. 

Inspirational author Bianca Sparacino reminds us here that letting others know how much we care is both a beautiful and courageous act, and one that can be surprisingly hard to do. Writing for “Thought Catalog,” Sparacino warned that while it’s tempting to avoid making ourselves vulnerable, putting up walls will close us off to the world, while being honest, expressive, and emotionally raw only strengthens the bonds between people. There’s no shame in telling a friend or family member how beloved they are, so seize that opportunity before it passes.