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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Grad students concerned about safety, housing in Boston

Student complaints about housing and safety on the Boston campuses have forced the health science schools to look closer at their place in the Chinatown community.

The Boston campus has only one dormitory, Posner Hall, which houses 97 students, roughly four percent of the combined 2,507 students enrolled in the Dental and Medical schools. Increased housing, second-year Dental School student Matt Feeley said, would not only bring greater contact among students, but would also help ameliorate the high cost of living in Boston -- one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Feeley, a second-year student at the School of Dental Medicine, said at the Trustee Luncheon on Feb. 7 that he was concerned about the housing situation on the Boston campus.

Aside from the practical problems with housing, students are also worried about their safety in the community. Chinatown, which borders the remnants of the notorious "combat zone" adult entertainment district, is widely considered one of the most dangerous areas of Boston.

In the first four months of 2003, Chinatown saw 84 reported instances of property crime, such as burglary and vehicle theft. Instances of violent crime increased 26 percent from 2002 to 2003, according to the Boston Police Department web site. "Walking to school, it's not rare for us to see a drug deal happen," Feeley said.

Feeley thinks that "more students concentrated in one area could only increase safety."

Executive Director of the Chinese Progressive Association Linda Lowe, who works to improve working and living conditions for Chinatown residents, said that safety is "an issue for students and for everyone else who lives in Chinatown."

Director of Community Relations Barbara Rubel said that the University is already doing what it can to prevent crime in the area. Tufts representatives meet on a monthly basis with members of the Boston Police Department, Chinatown residents and businesspeople, and human service workers to "talk about everything from traffic situations, to requests for liquor licenses, to crime on Chinatown's streets."

Rubel also pointed out the cooperative relationship Tufts police and New England Medical Center (T-NEMC) security has with the Boston Police Department. According to Rubel, Tufts has been instrumental in lowering Chinatown's crime rate.

Rubel says that the University has a "strong interest" in creating more housing for Medical and Dental School students.

Dental School Executive Associate Dean Patricia Campbell said that the central problem is that there are very few options because there is not much space to work with for new housing.

Tufts has upset the Chinatown community over campus-expansion issues in the past. In 1993, the T-NEMC offered to purchase a plot of land in order to build a multi-story parking garage, a plan that was supported by the City of Boston. The neighborhood rallied against both T-NEMC and the city in order to keep that area for community use. Low-income housing is now being built in the area.

Lowe said those years were "tense" but added that in recent years, the University has tried to reach out to the community. One example of this, according to Rubel, is the Smile Squad, a group of Dental School students who travel to local elementary schools to teach children about oral health. The Dental School also treats many patients from the community.

Another attempt to show goodwill by the University is the Sharewood Project, a free clinic operated by medical students. It was forced to relocate to Malden, however, because of lack of space in Chinatown.

In general, Rubel said that the relationship between the health science schools and Chinatown is positive, "but could benefit from more interaction and partnering."

Lowe said there is still talk of instituting a joint crime watch in the community with Tufts and its host communities' residents. She says that relations can improve in the future if the University preserves an "ongoing dialogue with people in the community," and tries to relate to them and their problems.

Freely said that solving the housing situation would help improve the school's sometimes acrimonious community relationships. "Building a community resource center and promoting housing for us would be a community builder," he said.