Saying Farewell: Nicole Eigbrett's Address to the Community
I am incredibly grateful for the time I’ve had to lead the CAAS Community Organizing program. It’s been an absolute privilege to live in Somerville as your neighbor and dedicate my days to ending evictions, empowering new leaders, and cultivating collective power for housing justice. It’s impossible to fully state how proud I am about all that we’ve accomplished together in just a few years.
None of this would be possible without you – thank you to every tenant, volunteer, and ally who welcomed me to CAAS from day one, and shared your stories and dreams for our community. Thank you to all of our Community Organizers, past and present, who poured your hearts into our mission, even when it wasn’t easy. And thank you to the Somerville Renters Committee members for trusting us with your journeys as leaders, especially when it meant moving from crisis to courage.
I would like to think of this transition as a shifting of my role in our community, rather than a true farewell! We still have a lot of work ahead to end the displacement crisis in Somerville, bring back rent control statewide, and make housing an actual human right. It’s an honor to carry everything I’ve learned in our community to my new role at the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW), where I will continue to build our multiclass, multiracial, and multicultural movement for racial and economic justice. Thank you all for your belief in our movement!
With gratitude and solidarity,
Nicole