Siege at Columbia Point

Built on a former garbage dump that thrusts into Boston Harbor, the Columbia Point Housing Project has never been an appealing place. The stark, institutional-style buildings and their occupants--now mostly impoverished blacks and Puerto Ricans, with a minority of white pensioners--are isolated both geographically and culturally from Boston proper. There are no private doctors in the project, and Boston City Hospital is a long bus ride away.

The project's one bright spot since 1965 has been the Columbia Point Health Center. Organized by Tufts University Medical School with federal funds, the center has provided a variety of high-quality medical and social services. After the clinic's first two years of operation, a survey showed that 91% of the people thought that the medical care available to them was "good" or "very good." Now the 1,130 families are in danger of losing the clinic altogether. Reason: chronic and bitter controversy between professionals in the center and black community activists in an unstable environment. It is the kind of fight that occurs all too frequently in and around ghettos.

Tufts has abolished its department of preventive medicine, which originally sponsored the center, and has encouraged patients to look elsewhere for care. Four of the clinic's seven doctors and all of its social workers have quit out of fear and frustration. Though last-minute negotiations have stopped the other professional staffers from following, the center's chances for survival are dim.

Part of the reason is crime. Fear of robbery and assault--always a problem --has worsened to the point that many families have left. Their apartments often remain empty because of the project's reputation. In the past couple of years the threat of crime has become so serious that residents and doctors alike feel besieged. Says Dr. Sol Fleishman, a former medical director: "When I first came, I didn't hesitate to go out on calls even at night. By last year I thought twice before going out in broad daylight."

Even more damaging has been the political warfare, with Tufts and the medical staff on one side and militant critics from the community, most of them black, on the other. A loosely knit elected body called the Columbia Point Health Association often speaks for the clinic's opposition, though some attacks have come in the form of anonymous leaflets charging incompetence and insensitivity. The controversy reached a crisis point last spring after the then administrator, Leon Bennet-Alder, a frosty Englishman who had little rapport with the neighborhood, tried to cut costs and personnel he considered superfluous. He also attempted to fire a black business manager whom he accused of gross incompetence. Bennet-Alder became the target of threats by phone and leaflet. Then, on the way to work one morning, he was bludgeoned so viciously that his skull was shattered. There was no attempt to rob him, and the identity of the assailant remains unknown. Bennet-Alder recovered and left the center; the business manager still has his job.

Angry Wolves. One of the gut issues continues to be white-collar jobs for project residents. Dr. Jack Geiger, the center's creator, points out that pumping large amounts of cash--the current budget is $1.4 million--into a desperately poor area is risky. "It's like throwing a pound of meat to 50 angry wolves," he says. "They'll kill each other to get a bite." But racial pride and sensitivity about the condescending attitudes of some white professionals are also crucial factors. Gloria Nelms, a black former psychiatric counselor at Columbia Point who is among those responsible for the leaflet attacks, charges that "Bennet-Alder did everything possible to keep the Health Association from developing the ability to run the center. He also cut off training for para-professionals from the community." Opposition from some quarters in the community is virulent. Even some of the newer black administrators are being pilloried for "the same plantation mentality as the whites who came before."

Help has now arrived with the intervention of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), a city-wide agency that has replaced Tufts as the administrator of federal funds for the center. The group is heavily staffed with blacks and is determined to rally Columbia Point residents in support of the clinic. ABCD is trying to enforce some of the efficiency measures started by Bennet-Alder but is imposing them gradually. It has also hired a black as acting administrator and persuaded the remaining staffers to stay for a while. The agency, says ABCD Director Bob Coard, "is not about to retreat from involvement in Columbia Point because of a few faceless saboteurs." Coard may succeed, but for doctors like Fleishman, the retreat is final. "I got battle fatigue," says the physician, "after 6 1/2 years of hassles with everyone."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.