Please enforce the city of Cambridge's laws ASAP-- if you do this, the problem of not shoveled sidewalks will go away.

The residents of this property are getting older and it's getting more difficult for them to manage the snow. I helped them during the last snowfall and I'm willing to help them again. I'll walk by there on Friday and see if I can help. If anyone else wants to join me, let me know.

Thank you for reporting your concern to City of Cambridge via Commonwealth Connect. We have reviewed the information you provided our staff and will be investigating this issue further.

Going forward, may I politely suggest that since the Cambridge Housing Authority owns the property next door (15 Inman St) and they share a driveway with 17 Inman St, perhaps the Housing Authority could lend a hand to their elderly neighbors and clear the sidewalks for both properties. Where I live, and in many other places in Cambridge, when we have elderly neighbors we help them out. Perhaps this isn't how it works when we have institutional neighbors like the Housing Authority, but there's no reason why CHA couldn't act with the same kindness as other neighbors throughout Cambridge.

Robert, I'm a little puzzled since the Cambridge Housing Authority probably does not read SeeClickFix and I don't think there's a direct communication path from DPW's Compliance Officer to the CHA for that kind of message. So I'm not sure how posting your suggestion here would work?

Also, though, a huge difference between an individual assisting your neighbors and the CHA is that the CHA has many properties and the time of its employees costs money (contractors?) or takes them away from serving their direct mission. So while you or I may volunteer to help our neighbors and it takes a small fraction of our time because we each live in 1 property, the CHA might have to spend a lot more of its scarce resources if it chose to assist every adjacent elderly neighbor (I'm not sure how many they have).

And as a governmental agency, this is a lot like asking the CHA to provide elder services that they're not set up to do. But fortunately, the City is!

The City offers a mean-tested snow clearance program for residents age 60 or over, or those with disabilities: https://www.finditcambridge.org/programs/snow-removal-assistance
I can only assume that DPW Compliance communicates this information to property owners at the time of their followup, since they have easy access to good indicia of the age of property owners (if not, there 's no excuse for it, and the IT Department should be engaged.)

I don't know whether it would be more boots-on-the-ground efficient for the City to do it through their program or for the CHA guys to just run their snowblower a few feet further, but certainly it is more administratively efficient to go through the City's program.

Thank you for reporting your concern to City of Cambridge via Commonwealth Connect. We have inspected the location and a citation was issued.