Mattapan

In late February, two days before she had to vacate her apartment, 73-year-old Margaret Nichols got a knock on her door. She’d been rushing to fill moving boxes and pack up her apartment of more than 20 years. After years of paying her climbing rent at the recently rebranded “SoMa at the T” complex in Mattapan, she’d spent nearly all her savings and had to give up.

The Boston-based school improvement organization EdVestors has awarded their School on the Move Prize this year to Mattahunt Elementary School in Mattapan.

A long-awaited bill that would create more than 200 new liquor licenses in Boston passed through the legislature Sept. 5, after a stall at the end of the legislative session left its future in question.

The city of Boston and Boston Unity Soccer Partners (BUSP) have created a public-private-community partnership to revitalize White Stadium for the neighborhood, BPS student-athletes and our city’s new National Women’s Soccer League team. This co-investment of more than $100 million will renew a community jewel and bring White Stadium back to prominence.

On a spring afternoon, Pamela Saucer-Richardson stood in a grassy vacant lot on Erie Street, a block from Franklin Park in Dorchester, and remembered when her father owned the property more than 30 years ago.

For the 35 years she’s lived in Mattapan, Vivien Morris has centered local health and wellness in her life and work. This focus led her to found the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition and the Edgewater Food Forest and to join groups like the Boston Community Health Collaborative as a community resident representative.

Blue Hill Avenue’s proposed $44 million redesign, which would put a dedicated bus lane in the middle of the busy Mattapan road, is an opportunity to let residents shape their neighborhood — but more work needs to be done to make sure that happens, said State Rep. Brandy Fluker Oakley, whose district covers much of Mattapan.

Taking another step toward bolstering affordable homeownership in Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu announced last week the team of developers who will build 70 residential units on 15 parcels of land in Dorchester and Mattapan.

The administration of Mayor Michelle Wu is planning to use federal funding for a $44 million overhaul of Blue Hill Avenue, with a focus on updated bus and pedestrian infrastructure. The work is slated to begin in 2026.

As a child, Jessie Dambreville would look out her window at an open lot next door, near the Neponset River in Mattapan. Full of weeds and walnut trees, the space sat empty for years, serving mostly as a shortcut home.

The cool green path of tree-lined Commonwealth Avenue cuts through Boston’s Back Bay. In the city’s southwest areas, tree-filled streets keep temperatures in neighborhoods like West Roxbury, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain low, providing relief and respite for residents. Compare that to low-tree areas in minority neighborhoods like Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roxbury and Dorchester.

The idea of a Starbucks operating in this part of the city — home to taxi drivers, school teachers and government workers — caused rumblings in Mattapan and Hyde Park among some residents who say the major chain is a precursor to higher rents and housing prices in two of the city’s most affordable neighborhoods.