Creating Community in Northampton
My friend Jada is a force of nature. Originally from Texas and now a long-time resident of Northampton, Massachusetts, she brings a fierce commitment to justice, community, and healing—even in the face of personal and institutional adversity.
Jada does this despite her frustrations with the management and the other members of the housing authority board. She often feels diminished and disrespected, unable to make herself heard, and denied her rights and justice. Nevertheless, she lives a creative and productive life, helping to build and maintain a supportive, caring community.
At Walter Salvo House, a seven-story apartment complex in the Northampton Housing Authority (NHA), Jada is known not only as a steadfast advocate but also as a generous neighbor. Like her preacher grandfather before her, she lives by a creed of service—offering weekly rides to the grocery store or hospital and always checking in on those who need support.
Jada wears many hats. She currently serves as Tenant Commissioner on the NHA Board—now in her second term—with hopes of continuing in that role. She is Vice President of the Salvo House Local Tenants Organization (SLTO), President of the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association, and an active member of the Northampton Neighbors Inclusion Committee. She also contributes to environmental equity work through the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP 2.0) program, including by presenting her community organizing experience at a national conference in Anchorage, Alaska.
Of all her roles, Jada says she feels most connected to her late maternal grandmother when serving on the board of the Northampton Survival Center.
“When my grandmother had food, no one in my neighborhood would go hungry,” Jada remembers.
Carrying on that spirit, she helped launch a distribution hub at Salvo House of the Hart Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, delivering organic produce—payable with SNAP (food stamp) benefits.
In doing so, she is building food justice into the foundation of public housing.
This past year, Jada also organized a deeply meaningful Juneteenth Jubilee, recreating the Texas traditions of her childhood. With barbecue, storytelling, gospel music, and soul food, she brought Salvo residents together in celebration and reflection. Many residents and neighbors contributed by making flyers and posters, by bringing food, by playing music and creating a new song, by cooking, and helping in many tasks that combined to ensure a great event.
Jada's leadership created the space for others to help make a difference, each small contribution became part of the whole.
“It felt like an emotionally warm, braced hug from those in the present and the spiritual world,” Jada said. “A joyful memory was rekindled.”
Yet Jada’s leadership has not come without cost.
During her service as a commissioner of the Northampton Housing Authority board, she has endured exclusion and mistreatment by the Authority’s leadership because, she feels, of her identity as a Black women and public housing resident. She has frequently been dismissed, challenged, or treated with suspicion. These experiences have included racial microaggressions, class-based bias, gaslighting, and a failure to uphold ethical standards of inclusion.
At board meetings, Jada has been denied access to information, belittled for asking necessary questions, and left out of major decision-making processes.
“It’s as if my presence on the board is tolerated but not respected,” she reflects. “When I raise questions, they are dismissed. When I speak up for residents, I’m painted as divisive.”
Others have confirmed the disrespect experienced by Jada as a commissioner of the board. One observer of the June 2024 meeting of the NHA, sent this expression of concern to the board.
“I watched this meeting and others in shock at the level of condescension so clearly expressed by Chair Carney towards commissioner Tarbutton-Springfield. I’d encourage Commissioner Carney and others to rewatch some of these meetings. You won’t get far into the videos before seeing passive aggressive remarks made of Tarbutton-Springfield’s statements /questions/ concerns. Is the intent to demean her in public meetings by commenting on how she “doesn’t understand” when she notes valid concerns (such as the inconsistencies in the meeting notices/agendas)? Is the intent to discourage question asking?
Comments such as these are called micro-aggressions often made towards Black Women. There are many resources available online for those that are interested in critically reflecting on how white womanhood shows up each month, and the classist and racist implications.”
Jada's efforts to have the board do their job met barriers against asking the kinds of questions essential to oversight. The NHA board may have failed in their responsibility to oversee operations.
The March 27, 2025 report in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, "Northampton Housing Authority boss placed on leave," by Alexander MacDougall, reveals that employees of the NHA filed a complaint against the executive director of the housing authority. The commissioners of the NHA board should have responded to complaints by tenants as well as staff long before that complaint by past and current employees. The NHA board of commissioners is the legal provider of housing and responsible for protecting staff as well as tenants from harassment and should act without being required to by the Commonwealth—JH.
Jada learned that the Executive Director had shared sensitive information about her with residents. In one particularly painful instance, tenants recalled hearing the ED say,
“Jada is trying to get me fired,”
a comment that undermined Jada’s credibility.
Still, she presses forward.
Through the tenants’ organization, Jada has launched community-based efforts like “Clean Up, Salvo” and “Sew What, Salvo”, bringing neighbors together for monthly beautification days and sewing circles.
She is also organizing new committees within Salvo House to foster broader resident involvement, strengthen tenant voices, and build lasting community power. Her work reflects what public housing should represent: safety, dignity, equity, and participation.
‘I may be gaslit at NHA board meetings,” Jada says, “but I shine where it matters most—on the ground with the people. Our Juneteenth gathering reminded me of what freedom looks like when we make space for each other, when we tell our truths, when we celebrate our resilience.”
Living in a city known for its progressive values, Jada is committed to making Northampton even more inclusive—especially for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities, whether physical, emotional, or invisible. Her vision is one where public institutions reflect the people they serve.
For Jada, justice is not just an ideal—it is her daily practice. And in her ongoing pursuit of a better housing authority and a more just Northampton, she remains unshakably determined.
Juneteenth National Independence Day is a federal holiday observed annually on June 19. It commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of slavery to more than 250,000 enslaved Black people—over two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
For recordings and minutes of the Northampton Housing Authority board, see the Northampton Government Video Archive channel on YouTube to view video recordings. Meetings are typically labeled by date and organization (e.g., "Northampton Housing Authority | June 16, 2025"). Agendas and minutes for each board meeting, along with some instructions on joining virtual meetings (which may be audio/video recorded), can also be found in the city’s online Agenda Center.
Photos: Salvo House, Northampton Housing Authority; all others, contributed by event participants.