total time: 11.47 minutes
total words: 1715
[Anna Callahan]: Thanks for being here. This is Solidarity Live, where we discuss how COVID-19 is affecting Medford and Somerville. This show is really about getting through this crisis together. So if you have been affected by COVID-19, if you have lost income, if you're worried about a family member in a hospital, in a nursing home, in a jail, if you're struggling with school closures or anything else, please reach out. Good policy is based on hearing directly from people in need. And this show is about uplifting those stories so that we can solve these problems together as a community. One example of how we are doing that is with the SNAP, a food assistance program. Someone did reach out to the show a week or two ago to say that his doctor had told him that he needed to stay indoors because of his lung condition, but he cannot use his SNAP card to purchase groceries online. He has to go to the grocery store in person. So we had an expert come on the show and give some advice, but it turns out that other states are allowing people to do online grocery delivery, and that is where you, viewers of the show, come in. Please sign our petition to make Massachusetts one of the states that allows SNAP recipients to get their groceries delivered. Together, we can help our neighbors through this crisis. Our campaign is hearing directly from people in need, uplifting their voices, and engaging the community to solve these issues. So today I have on Hannah O'Hanlon from the Somerville Homelessness Coalition. She's going to talk about the homeless population here and how they're being affected. Then we'll have David Tissell from the Somerville Community Corporation to talk about the tenants that they have and what they're doing to keep them in their homes. And after that, we will have Mavami Callahan, who's a Medford doctor, and she will be talking about how our medical system is holding up under the stress of COVID-19. So I will go ahead and get us started here. I'm gonna bring in Hannah O'Hanlon. I just have to get her on the screen. Oh, there we go. I... There we go. I have managed to find the right button. And by the way, anyone who is watching on YouTube, you can simply comment in YouTube's comment box and then ask any question you like and I can pull that question in and we'll answer those questions live. So, great. Hannah, thank you so much for being here. I would love to hear a little bit just about your organization in general and the work that you do.
[qEyVvR4dS1w_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, thank you so much for having me. First of all, I really appreciate it. So like you said, I work for the Somerville Homeless Coalition. It's a really small nonprofit in Somerville, but we serve a lot of people. We serve, you know, pretty much all greater Boston. We're part of what's called the balance of state. So we're not really just stuck to Somerville. We do take a regional approach to serving people experiencing homelessness. as well as people on the brink of homelessness. So my particular role there is called the Emergency Services Program Manager. So I kind of have two focuses. My main one is to supervise and kind of control the daily operations of our two shelters. So we have an individual shelter and a state funded family shelter. And then the second part of my job is to oversee our street outreach program, where we're going out into encampments in the area, hitting the streets where people are sleeping at night, kind of the most vulnerable homeless people that we see, and really trying to engage with them.
[Anna Callahan]: So that's what I do. That is great. Really needed work. Do you have an idea of how many folks you interact with as a homeless population in need on a daily or weekly basis?
[qEyVvR4dS1w_SPEAKER_00]: So our individual shelter alone services 16 people and our family shelter holds five families at a time, a maximum of 20 people. At a given time, like I did street outreach today and I would say we probably saw 15 people out in encampment and then probably another maybe five to ten people sitting in Davis Square. Separate from that, we also provide what's called permanent supportive housing, which is when we go out and we rent apartments, take people out of homelessness and put them in those apartments. So through that program, we lease up over 60 units and house probably over 100 people. That's amazing. And then, yeah, we also have our food pantry that on an average month, we see probably 300 to 400 people. Currently, we're definitely seeing that number kind of double. So it really all depends on the program as far as how many people we see. Yeah. And where does your funding come from? Oh, kind of everywhere, honestly. Our family shelter is primarily funded through DHCD. The state, our adult shelter has city funding, has state funding. the federal government. A lot of our homelessness prevention comes from the city of Somerville. We just kind of pieced together a lot of different funding sources to make sure we can stay open. And a lot of fundraising, that's for sure. We just did an online campaign where we raised, to the best of my knowledge, I think over $100,000, which was huge for us.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, that's amazing. Can you talk about how COVID-19 is affecting the people that you're helping?
[qEyVvR4dS1w_SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's stressful, much like everybody else. And again, it kind of divides up into the different sections. Like our permanent supportive housing program, their services are now remote. And it's really hard to provide case management to an 18-year-old in recovery and living on their own for the first time when it's just a phone call. Or our shelter, now we're only, we've capped it at 13 right now, hoping to move out some more people, that way we can lower the number even more, because social distancing just does not exist in a homeless shelter. It's real hard. Our family shelter, the kids aren't in school, so we're trying to engage them, we're trying to educate them. All of a sudden, the direct care workers are now teachers, just as much as parents are. Yeah, it's definitely hard. I think we're all tired, and we'll be grateful when it's over, but we're showing up every day. Our services remain open. We're still street outreaching, which is great. We have our masks on, we have our gloves on when we go out there, but You know, today when I was in the woods, a lot of people that typically make their money off of hand handling aren't getting money because people aren't going to work or people are afraid to stick their hand out the car window and give money. So people now are starving in the woods because they don't have any money to buy food. So when we go out there, it is constantly like, do you have food today? Do you have water? You know, those basic needs that normally aren't as dire, really are dire at this point. So things that I never thought kind of would have come up, like money from panhandling, but we're definitely seeing a lot of it.
[Anna Callahan]: Wow. What do you think is the best way for people to be able to help out? Where can they donate? Can they volunteer? Are there other ways that they can help?
[qEyVvR4dS1w_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know our food pantry is taking volunteers because they are getting absolutely swamped. I think it was the month of March, typically we see 300 people and it was over 800 people. You know, surrounding cities that have had to close their food pantries, people are now coming to Somerville. That typically You know, we don't service, but we're not going to turn somebody away for food. So we are, you know, really looking for people to donate food to Project Soup, our food pantry. They can go, they can help sort cans because we're just handing out bags of food at this point. So we need to pack those bags. As well as, you know, you can always go on the website and donate money. Honestly, we're operating our shelter 24-7 right now, and that's not something we have funding for. Typically, our shelter's only open 16 hours a day, and since the beginning of March, we've been open 24-7. So, that's something that, you know, we need to find funding for. And that's one way the community could help, that's for sure.
[Anna Callahan]: Absolutely. Do you have any final thoughts, anything else that you want people to know about what's happening? Oh, you know, I heard on WBUR there was a segment on homeless shelters, and all I remember is hearing that they had gotten enough tests to test an entire homeless shelter, like every single person in the shelter, and that some crazy high percentage of them One in three. Yeah, that's what I remember, but I didn't want to quote it because it seems so high. But a lot of them were asymptomatic and they didn't show signs of the disease. What do you think that that means?
[qEyVvR4dS1w_SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it's hard because we've really heard when it comes to, you know, the shelters, we need three things. We need depopulation, we need quarantine, and we need isolation. And I feel like this is always an issue with homelessness is, is it going to be a state response, is it going to be a regional response, a federal response, or a local response? And I've never seen that more present than I do right now. You know, how are we going to respond? Is it going to be the city? Is it going to be the state? Is it going to be regional? And so as we kind of sort that out, you know, things start, people get symptomatic, people get sick. It hit Boston hard. It hit the Boston shelters really hard, one in three. And now it's starting to make its way over the river. It's going to hit Cambridge, and then it's going to slowly progress. So the more we can do to get ahead of it and depopulate our shelters and set up those quarantine sites is going to really make the difference from Boston to the city of Somerville and Medford and the surrounding areas.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, absolutely. And so it sounds like the program that you have where you actually house people is the safest for them. Correct. In addition to being obviously the best for them. When you can house people and they can have their own home, it's clearly better for many reasons. But here in COVID-19, it's even more crucial.
[qEyVvR4dS1w_SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. It's really showing kind of the holes in the system and what really will make the difference for homelessness in the future, which in reality will always be housing. It will always be what makes the difference for someone experiencing homelessness.
[Anna Callahan]: Well, thank you so much. The work you guys do is totally amazing, and I don't envy you the amount of work that you have to do these days. So, you know, we will be encouraging people to help you out, to volunteer and donate. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's really good to have an update, and stay safe. Do personal care. Thank you. Everything that you need to do. And thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and bring on David Tissell from the Somerville Community Corporation. Let me just switch the titles here. Here he is. Hey, we've got you on. Hi. Hey. Hi, Anna. Thanks for being on. I would love to hear a little bit about what the Somerville Community Corporation does and your role specifically.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure. So the Somerville Community Corporation or SCC is a nonprofit community development corporation for the city of Somerville. Our main areas of work are building and owning and operating affordable housing. We have about 275 units throughout the city scattered around in different buildings. We also have a team of people that helps Somerville and other nearby area residents get jobs in the community. And we also do community organizing for policies that support economic justice locally and in the state. So my work is on the affordable housing side with my supervisor, Scott. I manage a program called 100 Homes where we purchase buildings in Somerville and convert them to affordable housing using subsidy from the city of Somerville, sometimes also from state and federal, but mostly from the city, and then also like private mortgages And so in this program, we have right now 85 units in the 100 homes program.
[Anna Callahan]: You're getting close.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it differs from sort of traditional affordable housing development in that it's the already existing structures that become affordable rather than creating a new building.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, that's very important. I mean, it seems like there's only a certain amount of new construction you can do in the densest city in the whole of New England.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, and it's really expensive now to buy anything in Somerville, but especially to purchase land, hold it, try to get your zoning, try to get in line for tax credits and everything to do the traditional development is really hard now. We still are doing that and trying to do that. But in addition, we decided that based on just the community and the market that we're in, that this was a way to further our mission at this time through purchasing buildings.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, that is great. So I'd love to hear how COVID-19 is affecting your organizing, is affecting your tenants, like what do you see happening?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so my, I know I guess the most about just on the landlord side, because once we buy these places, we own them. And definitely our rent collections are less than usual for this time of month. We've had a large number of tenants reach out to us that they've lost their jobs or that their hours have been cut. And a lot of them are trying to apply for unemployment. And our team of people that helps people get jobs is mostly focusing on helping people get unemployment now, because there aren't that many new jobs, except there's some at Be Fresh, I guess, and some other places where they're hiring more people. And we have a large number of tenants that are immigrants, and some of them have different statuses. immigration status, and so people that are undocumented typically can't utilize the same benefits that people that are residents or permanent residents or citizens can. So it's especially tough for some of those people, some of those tenants that we have that can't work now, so they're like zero income, so they can't pay their rent. You know, we are trying to help everyone to the extent we can, and there are some funds set up. For example, there's one, Cosecha has a fund, and also there's a new one that just is launched, I think, today. United Way and City of Somerville, with CAS, the Community Action Agency of Somerville, sort of came together and launched this fund for Somerville residents. So we're steering people towards those resources in addition to trying to help them get unemployment or there's also what's called RAFT, which is a state-funded, state of Massachusetts-funded rental arrears, rental assistance program. So we're helping people apply for that too.
[Anna Callahan]: Is that something new to COVID-19 or is that something that existed before?
[SPEAKER_04]: It existed before, but it's been expanded because of COVID-19. Yeah.
[Anna Callahan]: So can you talk just a little bit more about that in case there are people listening who might be interested in looking into that?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so RAFT is administered around Somerville by Metro Housing Boston, and the information is on their website. And basically, you can apply for arrears or up to $4,000 of budget, or it could be a mix of arrears and future budget. So like if you're behind, if your rent's like $2,000 and you're behind one month, you could apply for the month you're behind and next month. And you have to provide a lot of documentation. I'm not going to go over all of it, and I can't remember all of it. But if you look for RAFT in Metro Housing Boston, you'll see the application. You'll see what type of stuff you have to attach, like stuff about your income status and documentation of your income.
[Anna Callahan]: Okay, good to know. You know, it's funny, shortly before this call, I happened to be talking to my mom who lives in California, and she was saying that Governor Gavin Newsom you know, had very recently given a speech or a talk where he was saying that 10% of Californians are undocumented and that these undocumented workers were the people growing the food, were the people delivering the food and other essentials, they were the people working in the grocery stores, that these are the essential workers, and that he was going to ensure that they had medical care, that they were all gonna get unemployment. And I just wanna, I haven't looked into that from a policy, like I don't know what exact policies he passed, because I literally just got off the phone with her, but I'd love to hear from you a little bit about your thoughts on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that I agree with that totally. And I honestly, I don't know what documentation you need in Massachusetts to get unemployment. I think you have to be a lawful permanent resident, but I'm not an immigration lawyer. I know that there's some different programs that have different needs. I think for RAFT, you need to show a social security number for the applicant. I'm not sure how it works if you have like a mixed household, But I think, I mean, immigrants, regardless of status, are what makes this country what it is, and it's who we are, is my opinion, and I think it's also a lot of people that are most at risk right now because of their jobs. So.
[Anna Callahan]: Absolutely. Are there other ways that people can get involved? can help out in the work that you guys are doing. Tell us what we can do as far as... Yeah, thanks.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, if you want to try and help people directly, I think that the best is this new fund for Somerville residents that just came out and they're fundraising. And also, if you're specifically concerned about undocumented people in general, there's the Cosecha Fund. SCC is a nonprofit and we also rely on fundraising, so if you want to donate to SCC, that's great. We have a community investment tax credit program as well that you can learn more about on our website, summervillecc.org. And I guess this is a little out there, but if you're trying to sell your house, maybe we buy it. Or maybe not a house, but if you have a triple decker or something with tenants, you want to try and keep people there. Most investors that buy investment property, their business model is to displace people, and ours is to keep people there. So something to think about, too. Wow. And shout out to SHC, Senegal Homeless Coalition. We work with you guys a lot. Thank you, Hannah.
[Anna Callahan]: Absolutely. Great. Thank you so much, David. Great to see you. Thanks, Hannah. And thanks for coming on and talking about the great work that you guys do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Anna Callahan]: Wonderful. We are going to wrap up this episode with having my sister come on one more time because there are always updates in the medical community and we want to know what is happening with our medical personnel? What is happening? How are doctors and nurses doing? How are hospitals doing? Are they able to cope with the stress of all of the new patients? Are there enough beds? Are there enough ventilators? What are the numbers? Tell us your updates. And I apologize. I asked all these questions, but you know what? People who didn't see the episode two weeks ago, please introduce yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Mufanami Callahan. I work at Atrius Health in the center of Medford, and I'm a primary care doctor. So I can tell a little bit of the story just from my experience as a primary care doctor, but I also just recently got completely up to date on the numbers in Massachusetts as well, because as people know, we are approaching the peak numbers for coronavirus. So the latest numbers, we have nearly 30,000 cases in the state of Massachusetts and over a thousand deaths from coronavirus. So it is very real for many people. I think more and more people will know someone who had coronavirus. And unfortunately, there will be more deaths as well. The expectation is it's going to peak around Patriots Day. So it's going to be very unusual for everyone. On a day when everyone is used to going out to the marathon and having all sorts of gatherings, this is going to be a quiet day. And it's going to be really the peak of activity for all the medical personnel. What I can say that's really hopeful is that we have not reached peak capacity in terms of our ICU beds. Massachusetts has been amazing. They nearly doubled the ICU beds in the state. Wow. So we went from 1,500 to 2,700 beds. In three weeks? In a month? Right, just in the last month or so. They also basically built a hospital at the Boston Convention Center, a 1,000-bed hospital. And I actually think it's wonderful that we have the Homeless Coalition and other groups on today. because half of that convention center is intended for the homeless population and it's being run by healthcare for the homeless. So as we just talked about, it's a huge risk to be in a homeless shelter. Obviously there's really no way to socially isolate. So that convention center is gonna provide beds for patients who may be doing better in terms of their coronavirus, but they have no home to go to, or they really can't isolate. And so that's going to be a place where people can convalesce. They can get better. But it's staffed by medical personnel. Atria sent 40 docs and nurses over there. There's docs and nurses from partners and other hospitals all coming together so that we have this facility that can take a lot of the extra patients off of the hospitals. So the patients who are really struggling and really need ventilators, they can get the care that they need.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah. That's incredible that all these beds have been built. It's really amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe that we've done everything that we can, and I truly hope that we're going to have enough to meet the surge. So far, we are doing it, and we're meeting that need. It is really tough, I would say, on the ER docs and on the ICU docs. They have never needed to manage so many patients on ventilators. It's not just the doctors but the respiratory techs who are there adjusting the machines and all the nurses. They're the ones that are really getting exposed to the virus and there are medical personnel getting sick.
[Anna Callahan]: And I know there was a ballot measure recently to limit the number of patients that nurses would have to deal with at a time, and that didn't pass. Do you have any sense of whether, I mean, obviously there's no avoiding in a pandemic that people are gonna have more patients, doctors are gonna have more patients, nurses are gonna have more patients, everybody, you know, and some medical health professionals are going to get sick and be out. So as far as just the medical professionals, are people working crazy hours? I know there was some sort of rotation happening. How is that working out?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I can't really speak to inpatient experience. I believe they really are working crazy hours, just to be perfectly frank with it. From the outpatient experience, there's not really vacation or weekends anymore. We are all working seven days a week. Right now, our whole practice has really been transformed because we're trying the best we can to actually promote social distancing. So we're avoiding bringing people in unless they really need to be seen physically. So for that blood pressure check, if they've got a blood pressure cuff at home, we can call them, we can talk to them. Even things like rash, we're getting everyone trained up to do video visits. so that you can see someone in their home and not necessarily bring them into the clinic where they might be exposed. So we're completely transforming how we do care. But what we're finding is while people aren't coming into the clinic, a ton of people are calling with questions about coronavirus exposure, symptoms. And so a lot of our staff have been switched over really to receiving all those calls. And just as you would imagine, that's happening at every time of day and night. So we have teams of people just rotating on to try to answer those calls, and then to convert those to visits if we need to bring someone in. We've got drive-through testing, and we're trying to ramp that up as well.
[Anna Callahan]: With drive-through testing, how long does it take to get the test results? Or are you just getting tested and then you get the results later?
[SPEAKER_03]: That is an improvement. So right now, tests are coming back in one to two days. It used to be four or five days to get the test back. Now, one to two days is still a long time when you're waiting and your family's concerned and you're concerned and you can't go back to work. So, there are tests that are in testing, you may have heard from the Broad Institute and for Abbott Labs, that will be shorter, within an hour or even within 15 minutes. It's not widely distributed yet. I think that's going to be, once again, transformative. Unfortunately, I think we'll probably see a second wave in the fall. I'm hoping by then we'll have a rapid test that'll be like walking into a clinic for a flu test. Once we have that, it'll be much easier to really tell who has this disease and who doesn't, and to isolate if you need to.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah. How is it going with personal protective equipment? I know that's something that you see in the news all the time. There's not enough equipment. People are having to wear the same mask for many shifts in a row. Has that changed?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's changed in a way. So we've gotten better about reduce, reuse, recycle. And what I would say is a lot of these masks and gowns were designed to be disposable. And what we're finding is we have to find a better way. And what we've done is there are washable, waterproof lab coats that we can use throughout a shift. And 95 masks, instead of changing them with each patient, we're using them throughout a shift then they're being decontaminated. So I believe all the hospitals are decontaminating their N95 masks so they can be used up to 20 times. Wow. Now this is a huge change. As long as it's safe to do this is amazing because then we don't need to buy millions of masks. We just need to safely decontaminate them and then get them back into circulation. So right now we're doing okay. I think the The limitation is always getting enough masks and really the right kind of mask, so the N95 that provides a good seal. Those are really the key, but so far we've been able to meet the demand.
[Anna Callahan]: Okay, that is good to know. Great. I would love to, first let me ask if you have other thoughts, if you have other things that you think people might find interesting?
[SPEAKER_03]: The only other piece that I'm going to put in there, which is a little bit less about coronavirus, but just about how medicine is going to change. I think people will like not coming into the clinic. I think a lot of these changes, making virtual visits, making it easier for people who maybe have our mobility challenge. They can't get out of the house. A lot of these things are going to stay with us. And that's a good thing. So we've been making the changes more rapidly than we ever imagined. But I think some of these are going to be really good changes that we can take forward.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah. And I'm just going to go ahead and have you finish up with a reminder, like washing hands. What is a reminder of what is the proper, how do we best protect ourselves and others?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right. As you have heard a million times before, this is a time for physical distancing. I like saying physical distancing instead of social distancing. When you cross the street, you can still wave and say hi. You just can't be right there with the person. And that is the most important. So really do not go on errands unless you absolutely need to. If you can do grocery shopping once every two weeks instead of every twice a week, that's better. Reduce the number of times that you really have to go out and about amongst other people. Then the very best thing is washing your hands with soap and water. Gloves, you might have seen a few things on the Internet. It's very easy to cross-contaminate. You wear your gloves and you touch your cell phone, you've got it all over your cell phone. The best thing of all is really to wash with soap and water, 20 seconds. That'll kill the virus. It has that little coat of fat on the outside. If you use soap, that'll take care of it. I wanted to mention one last thing because as we go on, we're gonna have more and more people that have recovered from this virus, which is a wonderful thing. And it is something where most people recover and do all right. There's a real need for convalescent plasma. And what that is, is a blood donation from patients who have had it. Because of all the drugs and all the treatments that they have found, the one that really works is antibodies from someone who's recovered. So for people, if they know they had it, if they had a test, and they are recovered and feeling well, please call the Red Cross. Think about donating. You could absolutely save lives.
[Anna Callahan]: That is amazing. Thanks so much for that tip. That is really great. Hopefully we'll soon get enough testing that everybody can know whether they have it, whether they had it, if they have been interacting with someone who has it or had it. So hopefully we'll be there very soon. Great, thank you so much for the update. It's really great to hear about how the medical community is coping and that it seems like it's going okay. We're not gonna be totally overwhelmed. Yay! And of course, thank you for being the front lines of this fight. It is really, you guys are all the heroes of the coronavirus. We're glad to do it. We're glad to do it. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. I think that is the end of our show this week. As I mentioned before, please do send us your stories of how COVID-19 is affecting you, is affecting your family. Let us know what sorts of issues we can dig into, what things you're interested in, and we will bring people on to talk about those issues to uplift the stories of what's happening to people in our community and to try and solve things together. Thank you so much.
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total time: 11.47 minutes total words: 1715 |
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