Great Barrington — Musician Doug Mishkin will be playing a concert benefit on Saturday, April 15 at 8 p.m. at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, located at 270 State Road. The benefit is for both the Religious Action Center of Massachusetts and Construct Inc.
According to its website, the Religious Action Center of Massachusetts is part of a national organization working for the Reform Jewish community and advocating for social justice.
Construct Inc. is a nonprofit organization operating out of Great Barrington dedicated to providing affordable housing opportunities.
“I have performed at many Religious Action Center events over the years, so I am happy to play at another benefit for them,” Mishkin told The Berkshire Edge. “As for Construct Inc., the organization does noble work to create affordable and workforce housing, which we are desperately in need of. I am a lawyer at a small law firm here in Western Massachusetts, and the firm have represented low-income tenants in housing matters. So I am regularly getting calls from Construct to assist people with housing problems. Also, I’ve performed at many events for the national Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C., so I’m happy to be doing this concert for the state-level program of the Religious Action Center for Massachusetts.”
Mishkin, who grew up in Monroe, N.Y. first came to the Berkshires in 1968 when he was 14 years old for summer camp. “The Berkshires looked like a pretty great place to me, and I started coming back to it after law school,” he said. “I and my wife purchased a house in Egremont about 16 years ago. In the fall of 2018, I decided that Washington D.C. had been great, but I needed to be up here in the Berkshires. Not to retire, but to live here and work in the community. That’s what I’ve been doing through the law firm and other activities that I’ve gotten involved in.”
One of the many activities Mishkin is part of is serving as a co-chairman for the Egremont Housing Committee. From both his work as an attorney and as part of Egremont’s Housing Committee, Mishkin said that he has seen firsthand the effects of the lack of affordable housing in the Berkshires. “I think it’s a crisis, full stop,” he said. “I talk to people every week who say things like ‘my apartment violates the housing code,’ or ‘we have no heat in our apartment, but we have no place else to go.’ This situation of not having any workforce or affordable housing throughout Berkshire County is not sustainable. I want to live in a community where there are people of varying incomes, who do different things for a living and are not stretched so thin that they’ve got to spend an exorbitant amount of their monthly income just to pay the rent. We need more families moving in here, we need young families moving in.”
Mishkin is known for his song “Woody’s Children” about Woody Guthrie, and Mishkin said that affordable housing is a cause Guthrie did fight for. “He wrote the song ‘I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore’ in the era of the Depression,” Mishkin said. “I still sing that song. The fact that the song is still relevant is just maddening and embarrassing. It should be embarrassing to all of us that it is still true.”
When asked if it was possible the housing crisis in the Berkshires could ever be solved, Mishkin said he thinks back to his hero, Pete Seeger. “He was asked if the planet and the human race are going to make it,” Mishkin said. “Pete would say ‘It’s 50-50.’ What he meant is that it depends on what each one of us is going to do. It’s 50-50 because it could go either way. When it comes to housing, we are determined to solve this crisis. But it requires a community effort. Is there cause for hope? Sure, because I get to meet all kinds of people who share these values and commitments. But it takes work.”
Tickets to see Dough Mishkin at Hevreh of Southern Berkshires are $36 for adults, $18 for students, or $36 for a livestream donation. For more information go to Hevreh’s website or call 413-528-6378.
