In her 71 years, Emily Szczypek has lived in many places. England, Australia and plenty of cities in Massachusetts have been home bases for her, but one spot eventually became home. Szczypek has lived in Waltham for 29 years, almost half her life, and she’s not hesitant to share her deep concern for the development  — or lack thereof — that she’s witnessed here. 

“Waltham used to be a place that anyone could afford to live in, and now it’s a place almost nobody can afford to live in — unless you’re wealthy to begin with,” she told The Justice in a Dec. 10, 2024 interview. Szczypek has always been involved with local groups in every place she’s lived. In Waltham, her groups include Bike Together Waltham, MA Audubon, Brookline Bird Club, Menotomy/Arlington Bird Club, The Trustees of Reservation and the National Wildlife Federation, among several others.

She’s recently added a new recurring item to her calendar by joining Waltham Inclusive Neighborhoods, which formed in April of 2023. 

The group is led, unofficially but objectively, by Tom Benavides — an engineer who moved to Waltham three years ago after graduating college. Though he checks several boxes of the YIMBY stereotype — young, highly educated, techie — he doesn’t fulfill other, more consequential aspects of the YIMBY caricature. He’s not condescending or arrogant, like the critics of YIMBYism might assume, and he’s definitely not hawking unrealistic policy based solely on idealism. Quite the opposite — members of the group credit his charisma and vast knowledge of policy with getting them into housing advocacy in the first place. Both Szczypek and Debra Herman, a retired Waltham resident involved with several groups including WIN, credit him for inspiring them to learn more about the incredibly complex issue. 

YIMBYs are best understood by learning what they are not. The term is a response to NIMBY, meaning Not-In-My-Back-Yard, which represents those wary of affordable housing development (YIMBYs replace the “Not” with “Yes”). NIMBYs have myriad, complex reasons for believing what they do. Some worry about strain on their city’s infrastructure. One Waltham resident told The Justice in an online exchange, “The city will allow a dozen condo buildings to be erected (adding hundreds of people to the population of the city) while neglecting to increase the number of police/fire/ems [Emergency Medical Services]/dpw [Department of Public Works] personnel and improve infrastructure.” 

Herman and Szczypek, however, are less focused on an unknown boogeyman entering Waltham to bother the police and cause havoc on the road. Rather, they were inspired to start advocating for housing by Waltham natives who were driven away from the city by rising costs. “I’ve seen friends have to move all the way to Rhode Island to afford to live, and continue to work in Waltham. This is my way of doing something for them,” Herman told The Justice in a joint interview with Szczypek. “This is my way of doing something for them.” Szczypek agreed, “Seeing that happen to people, it just makes me incensed.”

 They also both warn against homogenous communities of exclusively older or younger people. “It just doesn’t work,” Herman said. “That’s not how you create a community.” What’s the only way to get young people to stick around after completing a Brandeis University or Bentley University degree? Make housing cheap and abundant. 

Herman and Szczypek credit Benavides for teaching them the logistics of the issue so they can focus on a people-oriented vision. Benavides, however, is a data machine. He first recruited another founding member of WIN, Tim Riley, by posting a homemade data map of redlining in Waltham on Reddit. Benavides’ knowledge of housing policy is encyclopedic, which makes it a lot easier to buy into the idea that creating more housing will basically solve every problem — something he steadfastly believes and backs up. 

He shared, “Are there downsides to legalizing more housing production? Not particularly. Most NIMBY concerns (denser housing causes traffic! Upzoning will price out existing residents! Residential development will lead to higher taxes!) are actually the opposite of the truth — traffic is bad because low-density sprawl forces people to drive long distances to get everywhere, increasing housing supply leads to lower housing costs and fewer evictions for existing residents and dense housing pays for its own services through property tax revenues.” It’s characters like Benavides that attract people to advocacy. They’re inspiring, staunch and persuasive — they anchor the feeling that you’re doing good work in real evidence. 

They also make the more tedious parts of local politics feel urgent and important. When asked about WIN’s tangible successes as a group, Benavides and Riley both recount convincing City Councilwoman Cathyann Harris to amend Waltham’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Communities Act plan to only require one parking spot per unit instead of two. This drastically decreases the amount of land you need to build new units and allows more housing to be built with less area. “The fact that our suggestions of improving building size and reducing parking are literally the only two changes they ended up implementing — it makes me think that was our voice advocating,” Riley said. “And even if she’s not pro-housing,” Benavides added, “she’s acknowledging that we are the people to listen to.” By showing up consistently to notoriously long and inaccessible city hall meetings, WIN has made a name for themselves doing what very few other citizens are willing or even have time to do.

It’s especially important that they have, because Waltham’s MBTA Communities Act plan was drawn up by the city Law Department — made up of two people appointed directly by Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy. In January 2021, Massachusetts passed the MBTA-CA as part of an economic package to address the ongoing housing crisis in the state. It requires 177 cities and towns with commuter rail stations to have at least one zoning district where multi-family housing development is permitted by-right, meaning without special permits. “Not only does [single-family zoning] cause the housing shortage, but also building multi-family housing can be profitable for property owners if they want to do that. And currently, that’s not something they’re allowed to do,” Benavides explained. In Waltham’s current zoning layout, it’s illegal to build multi-family dwellings in a vast majority of residential districts. “[Developers’] options are, if they’re in an industrial zone, they can build offices or truck depots. If they’re in a residential zone, they can build McMansions or million-dollar duplexes,” Benavides said. 

So the housing problem is sorted, right? Not necessarily. Waltham’s first draft of a zoning-restructuring plan was rejected by the state in November 2024, which motivated WIN to create a plan of action. “I wasn’t holding too much against them because they [the Law Dept.] are two people with no zoning-specific, and no planning-focused expertise,”  Benavides added. In this way, a vacuum of civic engagement can be a good thing — one or two civilians speaking up at a zoning meeting can really make a difference. Cathyann Harris did not respond to requests for comment, and the Law Dept. could not be reached. 

WIN also embodies another benefit of local advocacy: social outlet. Along with hosting monthly social hours at Margaritas, Benavides got several members interested by just running into them in town. “There was a week last year where I saw Benavides every single day, at one meeting or another,” Herman said. “He was at the Farmer’s Market, he was at Food not Bombs, he was everywhere!” Getting involved with a cause allows for instant common ground among members, since they’re all passionate about the same thing, no matter who they are. “We have homeowners, non-homeowners. We’re all up and down through the age spectrum, which is nice. And we have different races represented. The NIMBY crowd tends to say, oh, it’s the libertarian-leaning tech guys. That’s not our group,” Riley said. The causes people join also tend to offer insight into their character and values as well. Riley, Herman and Szczypek all expressed concern for future generations, not just themselves, as being one of their main motivators to get involved. 

So why are people NIMBYs? There are reasonable, surface-level worries that one might have when talking about adding a ton of population to their town. But the most enduring, and the most revelatory, seems to be an underlying fear of change. Benavides elaborated: “The only downside [to adding more housing] is that, when we allow more housing, things will change. Our city will look a little bit different, residents will have to deal with living near construction as new housing and its associated infrastructure is built out, and residents will have to live near more people who have backgrounds different from themselves. I personally don’t consider these downsides — I love change and growth! But for many NIMBYs and existing residents, once all the factual inaccuracies are wiped away, they do genuinely fundamentally believe that change and neighborhood growth are bad.” Riley added, “The NIMBY persuasion, I have a feeling it’s just a lot of people comfortable with what they have bought into and just really not seeing the problems, I guess.” 

In this way, lack of education on housing reform may be a major culprit in the survival of NIMBYism. For that, among other things, you can blame the inaccessibility of local politics compared to the complete oversaturation of national politics. Even Benavides, seemingly a titan of local knowledge, admitted he has to work quite hard to learn the amount that he does. “Waltham, a city of 60 thousand? Alas, we have no celebrities and very little news coverage. If I want to follow local politics, I can’t just find thriving discourse on social media where everyone already has an opinion and is sharing info. I have to show up to city council meetings, make public records requests, create the social media infographics, convince friends and neighbors to show up to meetings, etc. That’s a huge barrier to entry!!! I have to work ten times as hard to learn half as much about political happenings in Waltham than I do for national politics.” 

Engaging locally is hard work, made nearly impossible for those working long hours or taking care of young families. Benavides continued, “It’s really hard for folks to advocate for policies surrounding housing affordability when they themselves are exhausted and struggling to pay rent on an individual level. Thus, advocacy organizations tend to be filled with folks who have the time to do the unpaid labor- for example, young professionals who make bank and older folks who are retired.” This is common — Pew Research Center found that 70% of those who have a household income above $75,000 said they belonged to at least one community group, while less than half of those making less than $30,000 said the same. WIN membership defies these trends with formerly unhoused and financially struggling members, but Benavides recognizes the importance of delivering education to low-income renters, and, eventually, NIMBYs themselves.   

Though several NIMBY-esque organizations and individuals were approached for comment, none responded. YIMBY organizations have higher numbers, more accessible members and generally are enthusiastic about sharing their mission with those interested. On why this might be, Riley said, “NIMBYism is in essence the status quo. It’s only when a group of people like us identify the problem, come in, start speaking, that maybe a NIMBY opposition will form. But the default is NIMBYism.” Despite their momentum, most people tend to fear change, even when change would benefit them and the people around them. The status quo needs no advocacy. That’s why it’s important for pro-housing groups, who’ve been able to educate themselves on the beneficial power of change and growth, to make a ruckus. It’s only when confronted directly with the inaccuracies of their natural human fears that people realize the information that’s been hidden from them. All Szczypek wants, at the end of the day, is for everyone to have someplace to call home. “I’m extremely concerned about young people, or service workers at Market Basket or Star … where can they afford to live? Without them, this city has no future.”