MAPS forced to leave Union Square office in Somerville after 45 years. Here's why

SOMERVILLE - Due to a city order, the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers (MAPS) has been forced to leave the office it has occupied in Somerville for 45 years, located at 92 Union Square.

The nonprofit health and social services organization vacated the building on Friday, Aug. 25, and is now in the process of finding a new location.

Somerville officials say the building is in dire need of repairs - worth more than $7 million - and recent findings have led to the determination that it is no longer fit for further occupancy due to the increasing risk to the structure with each new round of precipitation.

“We are sad to leave a space that our organization and community has called home for the past 45 years,” said MAPS CEO Paulo Pinto. “Our organization started in Somerville, and so we hope to find a new, smaller location soon that would allow us to keep our essential presence in the city.”

The non-profit agency paid a nominal rent and now finds itself in the predicament of having to find a new location in a city where rents and property values have exploded in recent years.

MAPS officials say they plan to secure a space a space in Somerville soon that will operate by appointment only and serve as a base for outreach, weekly health clinics, health insurance enrollment and citizenship drives and other community events.

For now, MAPS is directing Somerville community members who need assistance to contact the organization’s Cambridge office in person at 1046 Cambridge St. or by calling 617-864-7600.

MAPS will continue to offer weekly Driver Alcohol Education and Intimate Partner Abuse Educational Program classes remotely until it finds a new location.

“This is a difficult time for MAPS and our community,” Pinto said. “We have been part of the fabric of the city for five decades and played a critical role in helping build and create the progress that the city is experiencing, but unfortunately we are now being pushed out.”

MAPS started as two separate organizations in 1970, one being the Somerville Portuguese-American League (SPAL), which began serving the Portuguese-American community in the late 1960s.

In 1993, SPAL merged with the Cambridge Organization of Portuguese Americans (COPA) to form MAPS.

Over the course of nearly five decades in the Union Square office, MAPS helped countless members of the Portuguese-speaking community and others with a variety of essential services, including HIV/ STI prevention and screening, youth programs, substance abuse prevention, immigrant integration, citizenship assistance, family support and stabilization, in-home therapy, support for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, and the first-ever licensed acupuncture detox clinic in the country.

For more information about MAPS, visit maps-inc.org.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: MAPS leaves Union Square office in Somerville after 45 years. Here's why