AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Committee Of The Whole 04-18-23

[Nicole Morell]: 23-093 Committee of the Whole meeting notice Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 6pm. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Present five, present two, absent. Meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, April 18th, 2023 at 6 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chambers on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via Zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the Community Development Block Grant Action Plan, Paper 23-093. The committee has invited CDBG Grant Administrator Ashley Williams and other representatives from the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability to attend this meeting. For further information, aids and accommodations, contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. So we have representatives from the different organizations requesting funding, and we have Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Alicia Hunt with us, who can lead us in and give us a little bit information of what we're looking at and what is coming before us tonight, unless councilors have any questions to start. Seeing none, Director Hunt, if you could.

[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening, Madam President, Alicia Hunt, Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability for the city. With your permission, I'm gonna start by sharing the screen. So I will tell you that every year the community, the city submits to the state, to the federal government, a plan to spend our HUD annual allocation of community development block grant money. Each year, we are allowed to spend 15% of our allocation on public service entities and every year the city of Medford opts to spend its full 15% supporting public service entities. All of this money must be spent to support low and moderate income residents and communities in the city of Medford. Um, each year our office conducts a we put out a request to proposals to public service entities for spending this money. What I have on the screen is the public service entities request for this year. At the very top, you'll see that we're in plan year 49. We have slightly less on approximately $10,000 less than we did in plan year 48. so we are able to give out a slightly less money than last year for these. This is not intended to support an entity so that they can continue to exist. This is in order to give these entities funding so they can support Medford residents. When they receive this money, they must submit quarterly reports to our office indicating how they've spent the money with invoices, and they must give us information on the number of low and moderate income residents they have helped. and the races of the people they have helped. They also have to provide that at the end of the year, and all of that information goes automatically through an automated system to HUD each year. Um, so with that we have come upon the tradition of having each of the public service entities explained to the City Council and this public setting what it is that they are looking to spend this money on. Um, if the council wishes to give our office recommendations in the mayor's office, we will then take all of this information, put it together into an annual plan in Early to mid May on your calendar will be a public hearing to review the annual community development block grant plan. That is all the funding that we would be spending for the next year, the kinds of projects we'll be doing, kinds of programs we support, and the final table of how much money we will allocate to each entity will be in that document. So everybody is aware there is then a formal contracting process. They have to provide bonds and insurance, et cetera, and sign a formal contract with the city to then receive the money. There is a significant amount of paperwork that goes with this overhead. So on your screen, these are the organizations that have applied this year. The first column is the amount of funds that they requested this year. The second column is what they received last year. And then the third column is what our office is recommending right now at this time for funding for each of these. You will see that we actually have received significantly more. I didn't put the total on here, but on the order of twice as much requests for twice as much funding as we have available to give out. So to balance that, what we have looked at doing, I met with our ARPA funds manager, as well as the city's social worker and staff from the Office of Outreach and Prevention to better understand needs of the city, what they are seeing in those various offices as to what sort of programs we need. funding. Um and then we made recommendations about what should be funded through CDBG. What should be funded through ARPA, and we do still have remaining CDBG coronavirus money. So if there are public services that we would like to see supported in the city of Medford, we still have funding that we can use for the coronavirus. So the last two. We're agencies are here to present this evening. So if you want, I'm prepared to introduce each of them. I've suggested that it might make sense to go in this order that you see on the screen and all the Councilors have a copy of that on their desk to simplify matters. It's actually in no particular order other than we put the ones that we're recommending other funding sources at the very bottom.

[Nicole Morell]: unless we have any objections to that format or any questions at this time. Um, if you could director hunt, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: So with that, then I'm going to ask, um, Pam Kelly, who is our director of the council of aging to go first.

[Pam Kelly]: Good evening. Thank you all for taking the time to hear our request. Um, This Council on Aging evaluates, promotes, encourages, and provides new and existing services that are intended to enhance the quality of the lives of our Medford elder residents. Based on the 2020 census, the City of Medford has 13,940 seniors that are aged 60 years of age and older, and that is a actual growth from the 2010 federal census. So we continue to see more and more people age in place in Medford. We are looking to request $30,000 and it will help us allot five different areas at the Council on Aging. The first one is our handyman who works generally two days per week by scheduled appointments and up to 14 hours per week, assisting Medford elders in their homes with changing light bulbs, putting air conditioners in or out of their windows, putting the smoke detectors up, changing them out after 10 years. Assisting with any mild plumbing, electrical, things like that to have them age in their home safely and securely. The next is our recreational transportation day trips. We're looking to have approximately $5,000 allotted to offer 9 different day trips throughout the year. to discount the rates to have people go on different outings. Since COVID, we've seen a great decline in the seniors social events and going out to say the North Shore Music Theater or to a lobster tour, to a fall foliage trip with a luncheon and shopping, things like that has been really successful. With the cost of diesel fuel in buses increasing, being able to discount a total price package for a senior has been a benefit for them. The third is our social worker. We have recently hired a social worker who works 25 hours a week, and this will help supplement the salary for her throughout the year. We also have a line item for our volunteer outreach coordinator who assist the Medford seniors in finding part time position, not part time, sorry, volunteer positions throughout the city, throughout the senior center and having them continue their resources and continue working in the community. Um, and our final thing is the mystic Valley elder services title three C match, which is a look, um, mystic Valley. If you're not familiar is our local triple a, uh, ASAP in their goals are to secure, maintain maximum independence and dignity in a home environment with appropriate services. The city of Medford is lucky to have mystic Valley elder services that provide several different areas, whether it be meals on whales in home care, nursing, trip management, transportation, and goes social services and goes on and on. And we match what they are requesting. And again, the council on aging is looking for a $30,000 request from the city, from the CDBG funding. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Are there any questions from the council at this time?

[Alicia Hunt]: Seeing none, Dr. Hunt, if you'd like to go ahead. Our next presenter is Megan Fidler-Carey of the Medford Public Schools.

[Megan Fidler-Carey]: Hello, good evening. Yes, I echo. Thank you so much for this opportunity to present. And thank you for the fact that we have received this grant for years, and we really, really appreciate it. So I'm representing the Medford Public Schools, and specifically the Medford before and after school programs. And we use this funding to supplement our offering of reduced tuition for families that qualify as low or moderate income. And this funding allows us to assist in tuition for more families, or if we don't have more families who qualify, then assist families more so we can help them deeper cut their tuition costs for the afterschool program. The afterschool program is a self-sustaining program. It's tuition-based, So all of our costs are paid for by the incoming tuitions. So the costs include the payment for staffs, supplies, and our incidentals like the cell phones that we need to use and walkie talkies, those sorts of things. So as long as our costs are covered by the tuitions, we keep it as close as we can to make it as affordable as we can for families. But as we know, there are still several families that can't afford the full tuition that we have, despite the fact that we keep it as low as we can. So this help coming from CDBG has really helped a lot of families We've helped an average of 14 to 15 students over the last several years, every year. This year, we stopped taking vouchers from the state. So this was very helpful for us to help families who had qualified for vouchers so that they didn't lose the tuition amounts that they had paid in the past with their vouchers. But we were also able to offer financial assistance to more families who didn't qualify for voucher for one reason or another. So we will continue to do that. I've set a goal. Right now we have about 360 students enrolled in our after school program and 10% only have submitted paperwork to qualify for financial assistance. And I think that doesn't sound quite right. So I've made a commitment to do a really concerted effort on educating families to, in case it's a stigma problem, and to remove stigma for applying for financial assistance if they qualify. or in case families think they can't even apply to the after-school program because they think they can't afford it. So I'm doing a kind of concerted outreach effort this May to try and reach families to let them know what they qualify for and make sure that everybody's really informed about what their options are. But thank you. We wouldn't be able to do that without the help from CDBG, so we really very much appreciate it.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any questions for after-school program? Seeing none, Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Crossman from the West Medford Community Center.

[Crossman]: Hi, thank you for allowing us to present today. I've been with the center going on a year and a half now, but we have received this funding for many years and we are requesting the 21,000 to support our elder services director, the role. This year we'd like to offer our seniors an opportunity for day trips. And so we, our program is a place where seniors can find social and intellectual interactions. And we are our target population are the seniors in Medford who are still living at home but would benefit from the stimulation that comes with ongoing social interaction. We found that the AARP's 2021 Home and Community Preference Survey said that one in four adults aged 50 plus report feeling less connected to their community since the COVID-19 outbreak. And so a lot of our focus this year is on community, bringing our seniors together to reduce isolation, reduce the opportunities for depression, improve feelings of belonging, trust, and security, being that they're going to feel healthier and that they'll feel more connected to their community and more inclined to take action to improve their own health, stay in their own homes. Um, we are looking this year to have meaningful, intentional volunteer and leadership opportunities for our seniors, which they've already taken the role on, um, stronger relationships with our city, um, in our city networks, making our networks that much larger as we work to be a resiliency hub ourselves, um, and having creative, social, recreational, cultural, and physical activities and guest speakers and events to support our seniors.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Lisa. Any questions from the council? Seeing none, we'll go to the next one.

[Alicia Hunt]: Our next presenter is here in person from Magnet Transport is Neema Jama.

[SPEAKER_13]: Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Um, my name is Nima. I'm the program director for Megan Transport. This is our company's first CDBG City Council presentation. So I'll just briefly introduce our company. We're a small transportation company based in Medford. I was raised in Medford. Our company was born and built around the needs of our city. We have close to 30 years of transportation and delivery experience. We specialize in demand responsive transportation service to elders. We are also a minority owned business certified both by the state supplier diversity office and the city of Boston's office of economic opportunity. So we're applying for, as you can see on the table, two separate programs that we're proposing. One of them is just on the bottom of the table, you can see the recommended funding sources for applicants. That's an extension of the transportation service we currently provide that is currently also funded by the CDBG-CB. The second one is the one higher up on the list. It's a proposal for a new transportation pilot program based on and residents comments from public meetings that we were participating in last year. So our proposal for the 56,000. Firstly, it's the shared goal of the City of Medford and Megan Transport to aid and assist in creating an environment in our community that supports and encourages a high quality of life and a decrease in health disparity by promoting access to secure, affordable nutrition. Our public housing residents that lack reliable transport and who tend to be people of color, elderly, disabled, deserve access to reliable free shuttles to affordable grocery stores. The onset of the global pandemic has underscored the critical importance and the intersection between effective transportation and health outcomes. It has highlighted and reinforced disparities within our community, the detrimental effects of food insecurity, and what the lack of access to adequate nutrition can have on one's overall well-being. It's no coincidence that poor people, poor people of color, usually elderly or disabled with multiple comorbidities are linked to that are linked to poor nutrition have the highest COVID death rates in Medford and all over the United States, with high inflation and ever widening wealth gap the reality is the most vulnerable in our, in our community are continually forced to prioritize their own resources deciding what to use them for what to forego. Our company is proposing a grocery shuttle program for our residents from the eight Medford Housing Authority properties to Market Basket. And if we can create a partnership with the Mystic Community Market as well. Currently, there's no transportation program for our low income residents to access affordable grocery stores or food pantries like Market Basket. Our program is focused on preventative health by eliminating transportation as a barrier to access. We came up with this idea, firstly, because we do currently service seniors, and a lot of them naturally ask for rides to Market Basket. In addition to that, we reviewed recently the 2019 Medford Food Security The 87-page report is based on primarily research, but also a survey conducted throughout the city in different languages. The survey published hundreds of answers to questions, and it's honestly quite eye-opening. I recommend everyone take a look at it. The three main problems for getting food that the participants in the survey mentioned is cost, transportation, and time and distance to stores. Hundreds mentioned that Market Basket is their ideal grocery store. I'm looking at the report now and it's just everyone's just saying market basket. We need a market basket. The prices are too high. We need more access. We need a market basket in West Medford. Um, so the report, if you summarize it, a lot of people say that they just want affordable grocery and it's just hard for them to access it. The Greater Boston Food Bank even identified Medford as a priority city in their efforts due to the high number of households struggling with food insecurity, which is one in nine households in our city. So there's two terms I want to familiarize the council with and anyone who's watching. Term number one is food mirage. So food mirage is a food access concept, which is kind of like a food desert. Food desert's like when you just don't have any grocery stores around you. A food mirage is that grocery stores are plentiful, but prices are beyond the means of low-income households, making them functionally equivalent to food deserts, in that you have to go on a long journey to obtain affordable, nutritious food, and so it effectively makes them the same. The second term is transport poverty. Affordable supermarkets that fit within the budget of our low- to moderate-income Medford residents are in neighboring cities. Access to those without reliable transportation can be expensive, time-consuming, multiple transports multiple transfers on public transport, the lack of adequate transport necessary to access general services, or the inability to pay for these transport services is called transport poverty. So our ultimate outcome with this program is to help reduce food insecurity by providing free transport out of our food mirage community to grocery stores that are a lot more affordable, like Market Basket. In the long term, inevitably, you'll reduce diet-related diseases, disparities, save our residents extra money each month, and lessen the burden of transport poverty. I can talk about, you know, how food insecurity impacts our dietary choices and ultimately the likelihood of developing obesity or chronic disease and how it's going to affect possibly future pandemics. and how important a program like this is for social, is an important social justice initiative, but I know I have limited time. And with that, I just wanna thank everyone for listening to me and providing the opportunity for us to present. I know we have funding recommended for one program, but not the other, but I thought, you know, I still think this is something important to talk about in our city. I grew up here, I went to high school here. some of the stuff that I'm talking about here, some stuff that I witnessed growing up here. So I think that this is something that even if we don't get the funding through this program, I think it's something that we should seriously consider, something we should probably look for funding in other places, even if it's not with us. Yeah, so thank you. Any questions? Thank you, Nima, and welcome.

[Nicole Morell]: Any questions from the council?

[Zac Bears]: Not yet, but I'm gonna actually, after SCM presents, I'm gonna ask Director Hunt some questions, because there's just a lot of transportation applications, and I wanna, is there, you know, what's the best way to organize that? But I think that's a question for Director Hunt after we hear from the other applicants.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Can I ask one question?

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, yes.

[Richard Caraviello]: How many people are you gonna be transporting per day, or would you like to transport a day? Do you have a bus, or what do you?

[SPEAKER_13]: Yes, we have buses that we are allocating for this proposed pilot program, if you get it. We want to do this program in the eight buildings, so effectively it would be two, we would split the eight buildings between four days, multiple transfers per day. The amount of people, I'm not sure how popular the actual pilot program would be, but I do think considering most of our senior residents now, we've serviced like 2,000 senior residents plus, a lot of them go to Market Basket. So it would service the senior residents in addition to the other, you know, low income residents who live in those buildings as well. So I think it would actually, in my opinion, be more popular than our senior transportation program that we have right now that we do have funding for. Medford, West Medford, Holton Street. Thank you. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Our next presenter is Heather Van Orman from Housing Families.

[SPEAKER_05]: Hello, thank you so much for having me tonight. My name is Heather Van Norman and I'm the associate director of the homelessness prevention and legal services department at housing families. Housing families is a nonprofit. We have many different programs. Including emergency family shelter. an individual shelter, permanent supportive housing, a community resource hub with food and supplies, individual and group counseling for adults and children, and a youth program. And I'm here to talk about our Homelessness Prevention and Legal Services Department. We provide free legal services, homelessness prevention case management, and rental assistance to housing insecure families. With this funding we will serve low and moderate income households in Medford who are at risk of homelessness or eviction. And I'm sure as you're all aware, housing in Massachusetts is very expensive and there's limited affordable housing and incomes in general aren't keeping pace with the rising housing costs. And that puts a lot of residents at risk for displacement. It's also very difficult to find new housing right now and homelessness is a very traumatic thing for people to go through. So our goal is to keep people in their homes whenever possible. Navigating the court system is very difficult for people to do on their own, and it's much easier with legal assistance. And also, a lot of the federal funding and the pandemic protections in the courts are now gone. So I think it's going to be more important than ever for tenants to be able to understand their rights and access legal assistance. Having access to an attorney can make a big difference in the outcome of a case. We are very grateful for this opportunity, and we'd love to continue partnering with the city to serve the residents of Medford. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Hi, Heather, and thank you. Thank you. Any questions for housing families? Seeing none, back to Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Next is Lindsay Smith from Mystic Valley YMCA Mystic Market. Oops, I double clicked her. Let's just see. There we go. Sorry.

[MCM00001474_SPEAKER_08]: Hi, everybody. I'm Lindsay Smyth with the Mystic Valley YMCA. Thank you so much for years of support of our programs here in Bedford. and for the opportunity to talk a bit about our Mystic Community Market this evening. As most of you know, the Mystic Valley YMCA serves Malden, Everett, and Medford. In addition to operating the Medford Youth Center in the lower level of the Chevalier Theater and the Willis-Abb Community Center in South Medford, we opened the Mystic Community Market in early 2020, about six weeks before the COVID pandemic hit. Timing is everything. And thanks to generous funding in the first three years for our startup support from the Greater Boston Food Bank, as well as generous support from this council through the CDBG funds, we've been able to serve 5,000 food insecure Medford residents annually. Over 30% of the folks that we serve are children in terms of the composition of families. And I heard a number of food insecurity statistics about Medford earlier, which are super helpful and absolutely lines up with what we're seeing. It's estimated that just about 5,100 Medford residents are food insecure at any given time. So we feel like our ability to reach 5,000 Medford residents annually with our current service levels means that we're we're really helping to meet a need. We feel like we've become part of the fabric of this community. The Mystic Community Market is currently located at the Walnut Street Center on Mystic Avenue and anyone who is registered, which is anyone, there's no eligibility requirements, can visit as frequently as once per week and come into the market with an appointment and grab a shopping cart and select all of the groceries that they need for them and their families, from shelf stable items to fresh produce, dairy, baked goods, and lean proteins, household items whenever they're available. And we are really proud of what we've been able to do over the past three years with the community support. We are looking right now at a pretty critical transition year. We need to find a new long-term home for the location of the Mr. Community Market in Medford. We're working with city and commercial real estate partners at this time to find that. We are completely committed to keeping this program here in this city and for the Medford residents who need us. And it is also the startup funding from the Greater Boston Food Bank has just ended. So we have been working hard to find private and public sources of ongoing operating support to maintain service levels, so your support's needed more than ever. We are asking for a pretty similar amount to prior years, and we anticipate that we'll continue to be able to sort of over-deliver on our promises with what we're able to do with it. I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any questions from the council? Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Lindsay, for your presentation. This is a group that even though they're being funded, they're struggling to stay alive right now. You know, I'm down there on a weekly basis and I can see, when I first started volunteering down there, they were full all the time with food. And now you go in there, their shelves are, you know, kind of, they're sparsely stocked and they're really struggling, you know, for donations from the grocery stores that normally gave it to them in the past and aren't giving now. If there were some extra funding to go out, I think this is a program that really could use the extra money. Because like you said, the funding from the food bank is going to be ending. They're looking for a home, but this serves a lot of people in the community. And I think if we could find some extra money for them, I'd like to see it go to that program.

[MCM00001474_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. That's appreciated. We have stable sources of food, just to reassure everyone. There have been reductions, which I think anybody here, Gabriella, probably knows. Reductions in overall weights available from the Greater Boston Food Bank over the past year and a half. But it's gotten more steady. Shelves may appear a little bit more lean due to the way that we are allowing folks to take food versus pre-packing, not using it as much of a staging area. But at the end of the day, Councilor Caraviello is accurate it's a critical point in this program, and we want to keep it strong for this community because we know the community needs it.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you.

[MCM00001474_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I do want to thank you for your comments to assure people that we are actually been working with Lindsay and the Mystic Market on locations, and that's something that both Victor and I have actively been engaged with her on.

[MCM00001474_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you very much.

[Alicia Hunt]: I wish I had something better to say than that. Our next speaker is John Keegan from SCM Transportation, and he's here with us.

[John Keegan]: Good evening, folks. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm John Keegan, as Alicia said, the executive director of SCM. I guess, so we primarily have provided transportation in Medford for about 40 years. The M in SCM is Medford, one of the sort of founding cities. Perhaps to differentiate just a little, because I certainly support my friend's requisition for some money here. There's plenty of demand out there. We have always worked with people living in their homes. And so part of what we do, we look at as helping people stay in their homes, two of the main Here we go, that's a little better. Two of the main things that support that are access to medical treatment and access to food. And so those are the two things we do. We also take some folks over to the senior center, I should mention that. So we do a door-to-door service. We go to people's homes, we go to their door, we bring them out. Everyone is low to moderate income, mostly low. And most people need some assistance or they would be going on their own. So we really feel that we provide people with a way to stay in their homes, active in their communities. There is a strange social component to all of this as people get together and get to talk on events, particularly in food shopping. but we provide approximately 1,500 medical trips a year, almost the same for grocery. They're done a little differently. The way we do the grocery stuff is we go to different areas of the city on a rotating schedule. and we go to different shopping locations. Again, sort of as people have decided, we have some folks who wanna go to Wegmans and most people do like to see Market Basket in terms of the price though. So that's the short version of what we do. And I guess if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Questions from the council. Seeing none, thank you. Thank you so much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you for the presentation. I just want to go to Director Hunt at this point. I'm just noting and appreciate the camaraderie between the different folks providing transportation services and the different ways that we do that, you know. Almost 250,000 of the requests was from three transportation programs, and I think something else that Nima really outlined, and that I think we've all definitely heard in different public settings, is a need for more transportation services in the community, and a variety of them. Door-to-door is one, serving the MHA buildings is another. Food access is a big piece of both of those. You know, even just funding those three programs would be more than our annual allocation for all of the CDBG public service money, right? I guess it's not really an idea or a proposal, but more of a question for you and your office. Clearly, it seems like, at least for now, given some of the emergency federal funding, our hope with the recommendation that your office is making is to be able to fund the two biggest ones of those programs, but maybe not the pilot program for the grocery delivery. What can we do to try to do more in this arena? And especially with ARPA and CDBG coronavirus going away probably in the next two years at most, that would bring us down even more from what we're even able to do last year, this year, next year. So what are we thinking around that? What can we do?

[Alicia Hunt]: transportation has always been a major problem. It is a significant issue throughout the city at all age levels as well. And it is something that I've honestly been thinking about for a long time. I sometimes Todd and I, Director Blake, our director of transportation, have talked about, are there other models that we should be thinking about? I have on occasion, actually pre-pandemic, was talking with Tufts about a shuttle that would run between Tufts and Medford neighborhoods in the high school and the senior center, because there is a desire to move between these. Tufts students don't live in certain neighborhoods in Medford, because you can't get there from there to Tufts. And how do we support these programs? There aren't good answers. Communities that live that are further outside of the MBTA area run their own shuttles. I mean, even Burlington, Massachusetts runs its own shuttle within the city. And it's something to think about, but it's expensive. Like what you're seeing here is that the transportation are some of the most expensive issues. Even the senior center and part of what they've asked for is to do transportation for events for seniors, right? It's a very difficult situation because you have to pay for gas, you have to pay for vehicles, you have to amortize the vehicles or lease them, and you have to pay drivers, and you have to pay drivers' prevailing wage. So all of a sudden, it's just expensive. I'm very concerned about it as well because we're not going to have the CDBG coronavirus money forever. That was a one-time lump sum that we have been spending out as it makes sense in allocating the projects. But it's going to get spent down as well. The ARPA is getting spent down. And I mean, I think we're all aware that we don't just have it in our budget to just run these services. So we need to think about other models. And I think that it's worth, I'm not proposing this now, but I think it's worth considering. Are there models where we ask for small amounts of of money like that people pay some amount per ride, right, is it, you know, can they be paying a couple of dollars a ride if it's a date if it's a door to door pickup, and is that supplementing, it could not possibly pay for the full cost of it, but would that actually it's like when you pay your doctor's co pay I was aware of a of a occupational therapist once who never collected the co-pays because she felt her patients couldn't afford it. And then at the end of the year, there was a significant deficit in her books because those co-pays add up. And whether that's something to consider, is there a $5 a ride? Is that too much? Or is there something that helps offset these? I don't know, because we don't have it in municipal taxes to pay for these programs. and I'm open to ideas. So it's always the state. So it's always the state.

[Zac Bears]: Well, right. And I mean, I guess my thinking too is, you know, could we bring the different vendors together with the city to try to coordinate specific types of services and maybe, like, you know, I appreciate that the CDBG rules have their own specific thing and it's set by the federal government and it's 50 years old, but could we try to come up with a cohesive plan from the city side of things, and then piece the funding pieces together have some requests for CDBG from one vendor and another vendor, maybe try to make it a budget priority you know I agree with you, you're right, that the budget is so tight right now that it's really difficult, but I also think with a little thinking and a year or two of budgeting ahead of us, that coming up with $250,000 in city-side money shouldn't be impossible, and if it is impossible, we have a bigger finance problem, which I won't get into right now, because I say it every meeting. But that's just something I want to think of. I guess just finally, I think Nima really presented the value of at least looking at the pilot program for one year around the grocery stores? Do we think it might be possible to recommend, you know, and I just don't know the details as much as you would on since you've probably looked at these since you looked at alternate sources. Could that also potentially be a one time potentially from the ARPA or the CDBT coronavirus? Or are we really that tight on those two buckets that we don't want to recommend that being funded at all?

[Alicia Hunt]: I will say that I have not yet seen all the applicants for the ARPA pool and how big that is. It is definitely worth having that conversation. So one thought that I had, as you were saying that, and I did just, I did message Pam because she has a lot of awareness of this. She's very involved. She does say that the ride is $3 each way, just to give like a point of reference, that I think it would make sense I'm trying to fill a couple of open positions, and so is Todd, Director Blake. Once we get these positions filled, perhaps over the summer or early fall, we should actually have a meeting where we put together representatives from SCM and Megan, from the senior center, our transportation staff, see if we can get somebody from MBTA The Ride to just come to a brainstorming session.

[Zac Bears]: Those are super broken, Kevin.

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh. We can see the sun in your face. Yeah, I can see it in my eyes. But bring together this group of people to have a conversation and brainstorming about different ideas about what might work. There are people who do specialize in last mile transportation and and shuttles and stuff. I haven't had the time to attend some of these meetings that have been going on in the greater region, but I think that it would be good for us to try and pull together some Medford people to have a Medford conversation about this, but invite the MBTA, the RIDE, some of these other groups who have more experience with this to talk to us about it. That's my best suggestion right now.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Yeah, I mean, personally, just generally, we go with what you recommend, and I don't think we really change it very often at all. I certainly with Councilor Caraviello, if there was a little bit more for the Mystic Community Market, that's a very noble and important project and thing that's happening in the city. The other piece of this, it just stood out for me that that was kind of the one thing that was being, one of the major applications that wasn't being recommended for any funding. So maybe if, I don't know, I don't know what, since it's outside of CDBG public service, which is why we're here and what we approve, I don't know what effect it would have, but I would request that we recommend that the grocery pilot program at least be considered for ARPA funding.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, and I will take that back. I do believe that Penny from Outreach Intervention and I are going to be meeting with the ARPA staff about the public service applications. We were just trying to get through one thing at a time, but actually we can't, and that's why we all met together a week and a half ago. to compare notes and to see who was applying and to see which ones of these would make the most sense to refer to other programs, so.

[Zac Bears]: Great, thanks. And if there's any way that I can be helpful in bringing people together to have that bigger transportation conversation, I'm happy to do it.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, we may wanna get on, I think it's Transportation Massachusetts, the nonprofit.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: To see if they have any thoughts and wanna discuss with us.

[Zac Bears]: Great, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The next- Councilor Caraviello has a question as well.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. The need for transportation is growing. It's growing quicker than we think. Being in the transportation business, I certainly understand where these people are coming from. Fuel has gone through the roof. I see my own insurance on my own vehicles. Insurance has almost doubled. They run buses. I know what they go through. Labor, everything has just gone crazy. It isn't just the seniors, it's disabled people, it's younger people that don't have vehicles that do have maybe needs. And you talked about how Burlington does their own. I mean, even if the city were to establish some type of budget to do it, by the time it got up and going, you mentioned $250,000, you buy a vehicle or one or two vehicles, three or $400,000 to put somebody in and you're gonna maintain them. It's crazy. So, and I say, I don't know where it ends. You know, even if you see, and I know people take the ride and it's very, it's very undependable and people wait for that. And I know the T is bleeding, trying to keep data flow. I see other communities that like I see in other States, they've relied down on the ride share services. to take people to medical appointments and things like that. So maybe that's something we could look at going down the line, but I'd be happy to sit on a group with you and bring other people together.

[Alicia Hunt]: Like we did a housing task force in 2020, I think maybe now it's time to do a transportation task force to meet several times and talk through this and try to figure out what to do about it.

[Richard Caraviello]: Well, let's say as the community is getting older, the needs are, just getting bigger and, and we're losing you know medical medical care around here is seems to be drying up a little bit so people need to win the Boston and Cambridge, and other and other areas rather than just staying in their own community now so I think that's a discussion that needs to be had, bringing more medical services to the community so people don't have to go outside as far as saying and then if you had something you wanted to add.

[John Keegan]: They can't hear you.

[Nicole Morell]: Oh, sure. If you want to speak in the mic. They can't hear you on the Zoom.

[John Keegan]: I think we would be very interested in that conversation. And so we'd be happy to do that at any time. And I'll just mention every year I debate charging people, charging seniors. And every year I painfully rule it out. But so anyway, we'd be happy to be part of that.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.

[Justin Tseng]: I'll be brief because I think much of the conversation about transport is better saved for a task force or for a committee of the whole in the future. But I did want to note that I believe that Everett is working on a transportation force, and I'm friends with the Councilor over there who's working on it, and she's mentioned a few months back asking neighbouring municipalities if they want to chip in, and maybe that's one way we can see it happen. It wouldn't be as ideal, maybe, but perhaps there's a way in which that would split costs a bit more. But again, the details, I think, better serve for future conversation.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Director Hahn.

[Alicia Hunt]: So if you're ready, I'll introduce the next speaker, is the Immigrant Learning Center, Mark Correa.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good evening, everyone. My name is Mark Correa from the Immigrant Learning Center. I'm the director of development there. The Immigrant Learning Center serves hundreds of low-income immigrants and refugees from the Medford and surrounding communities. We do this through English language programs, which include everything from civics and financial literacy to citizenship classes. And these students come to school daily. They're there every day, afternoon and morning classes, Monday through Friday. We run four-month sessions, and in one session a student can learn enough to want a job interview, to get a job, to eventually become independent, support themselves and their families. Finally, I want to invite you to visit. If you haven't been to the ILC, please reach out to me. Come and visit. You can meet our students. You can meet our teachers. It's always a wonderful thing and a happy place. Thank you all to the organizations that are here because many of our students rely on support for transportation. We have seniors. They go to your food banks. Thank you all for that. And finally, thank you for the council for your ongoing support.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Mark. Any questions from Councilors? Seeing none, we'll go back to Director Hunt. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: So the next one on the list is the Evangelical Church of Holiness. Many people know Pastor Pierre and his wife Immacula. I do not believe that they are on, and I am just double-checking, and I don't think there's somebody here to speak for them. We have been working with them on a number of programs this year, and actually, we've used CDBG CV money to help them procure a van. because they do a food bank as well, and they do food delivery to Homebound. They particularly work with Haitian families in Medford. They work extensively with the Haitian community. And Immacula has been running a program for citizenship to bring a pathway to citizenship program for Haitian families in Medford. for a couple of years now. Actually, I understand she started pre-pandemic, and then there was a bit of a hiatus during the pandemic, and they've asked for our support to bring that program back. And so that is what we are recommending funding with them. It's less than the full amount that they're asking for, but that is their program. The next one on the list- Just quickly, do we have any questions on that one from the council?

[Nicole Morell]: Go ahead, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next one on the list is, oh, and I just thought I'd mentioned that they are based out of the Otis Street Church. I think a lot of people are familiar with that building. That's where they're based out of. So the next on our list is the community family, and Ann Marchetta is here with us in person.

[SPEAKER_18]: Hi, I'm Ann Marchetta, the executive director of Community Family. And I thank you all for the support that you have provided our organization over many years. We are an Alzheimer's Day program. There's only, as far as I know, two Alzheimer's specific day programs in Massachusetts at this point, because the cost of providing Alzheimer's care is higher than traditional adult day health. So a lot of providers have exited that specialized sort of care. We ask for CDBG money to help families who are facing crisis or we're working with them to try and get them on their, get a Medicaid application in so that that will pay for adult day health. These are families who don't qualify for Medicaid and don't have the private funds to pay fully privately for the care that they need and we have limited money so we do it over a limited time period. We also raise other funds for we call it the outreach fund from local banks and businesses. An example, currently we are working with a gentleman who has early onset Alzheimer's. His wife needs to work. They do have two children. She's in the process of working with someone to figure out how he can get on Medicaid because this is a real financial hardship for his family, the Alzheimer's. And we're using some of the CDBG money to help provide him care until we can get him onto Medicaid, and then Medicaid will pick up the cost of his care. I don't know if anyone has questions. Thank you. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. I want to thank you for the work you do in the community. Unless you have somebody in your family that has Alzheimer's or dementia, you really don't know the kind of work that you people do. It's a great organization, and more and more people are being diagnosed with it a lot earlier in life. than later now. So it says that this is a program that could use all the funding it can get. And if they were to actually, this would be a good place to put it also. But Alzheimer's disease, it's a dreaded disease. It just doesn't go away. And I have in my family, and that's why I know how they work. And I appreciate the work that you do out there.

[SPEAKER_18]: Thank you very much. The staff is fabulous. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello.

[Nicole Morell]: Any other members of the Council? Going back to Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: The next one on the list is Communitas, and that is one that we're recommending apply to ARPA for funding. I do not believe that there is anybody on the call from Communitas. I've asked in the chat, I'm just checking. They are formally known as EMARC, and they provide recreational activities for children and adult with developmental disabilities. They traditionally use the funding that they would receive from us to help fund a portion of their recreation director. The next, are there any questions? Any questions on community tasks? Go ahead. The next one is, Sorry, yes, Bread of Life. And from Bread of Life, we have Gabriella Stelmak.

[SPEAKER_07]: There we go. Thank you for having us make a presentation and for your support in years past. We've requested funds Bread of Life to provide groceries for Bedford residents to access our food pantry that's based in Malden, we serve 13 cities, as well as for grocery delivery. But it is for grocery delivery that we believe that Bread of Life is best positioned to fill gaps in services to Medford seniors and disabled residents. We've been talking about transportation a lot, but I will say that the way our program operates, since we're a heavily volunteer-based organization, we have 500 volunteers at any given time throughout the year. So we have a coordinator and assistant that are paid in our own vehicles, and we use a lot of volunteers. So we do a grocery delivery, full grocery order, meats, dairy, bakery, half of the order is produce, as well as some non-perishable goods. We've run this program in its current form since 2020 with Mystic Valley Elder Services, but we've been doing grocery delivery in collaboration with them serving their clients since 2008. So we're currently serving about 600 Mystic Valley Elder Services consumers per month at 12, buildings that are subsidized housing for seniors and disabled, and including Walkling Court in Medford, which we just picked up in January, I believe. So we have, on the other hand, very limited ability to serve non-Mystic Valley Elder Services seniors. And in fact, we've turned away Medford residents during COVID. the height of COVID, we were able to serve more Medford seniors and we had to discontinue serving them in 2021 due to not having the funding. So that's where we think we can actually have the biggest impact. And thank you for considering our request.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Gabriella. Any questions from the council? Seeing none, Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I've actually been informed that actually somebody is here from Communitas. If you don't mind, I'll give them a minute to speak. Please. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_08]: Thanks, Alicia. I'm Jason Maria. I'm the Director of Families here at Communitas. I'm sorry I wasn't quick to the draw with the chat. But we serve people with disabilities and their families. We work with about 400 families in the Family Support Department. I thank you for your ongoing support and reviews of funding. We also cost our recreation director. During COVID, we went completely virtual for recreation. And since last February, we've started in-person programming, which is really helping both the physical and mental health of people with disabilities. So I'm very happy to apply for the ARPA grant. I did apply for the ARPA grant. We're going to use this grant to restart our swim program, which is currently operating at Medford High. We have three programs. restart the program at Hormel Field and to start a program for parents of young.

[Nicole Morell]: When you look to the side, we can actually hear you better. I don't know if your mic is over there. Oh no. Yeah, so yeah. So if you, whatever is going on when you've been looking at the side, I think to read up a piece of paper in that direction, we can hear you fairly clearly when you turn your head. Okay. Well, so.

[SPEAKER_08]: Do you want me to start all over again?

[Nicole Morell]: I think you can pick up where you left off. Yes. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_08]: Okay. So the goal of the program is to restart the swim program, which we started with three swim teams currently swimming on Sundays in Bedford High. Restart our track team. We have 45 athletes practicing at Hormel Field. and to start a program for parents of young children with disabilities, it will be a support program as well as crafts for the kids. Great, thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you very much. I think that, you know, this is also something that we're seeing now in the recreation field. There's a lack of support for our special needs community in providing programming. You know, we often We often want to see the process of having options. And this would be something that I'd like to see even with this. This is a minimal ask, but looking at, I know Kevin does a great job with the recreation department, maybe finding a way to team up with partners with, I know he works with Belmont Recreation to provide some services. this is something that needs to be done. I know that we do, we're one of the only systems, school systems that have an adaptive program in physical education. And I know that Ms. Andre does an amazing job with all the unified sports. So, you know, I think this, there can be so much more done as a collaboration too. So thank you for your input.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. I'll go back to Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I actually just wanted to mention about the food delivery. So Mystic Market, in their full application, has also started to pilot DoorDash for on-demand free rides for shoppers in need and free grocery delivery for their homebound shoppers. And there's a lot of paperwork and overhead with CDBG grants. And so while we want to support all the different organizations, we would prefer to support a fewer organizations to sort of simplify things for the city of Medford, which is one of the reasons why we're trying to consolidate some of these programs. And I just wanted to mention that with relation to the Mystic Market and the food delivery. The last presenter is going to be Sharn Perdomo from ABCD.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hello, everyone. How are you? Thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate everyone's time. I do want to start off with ABC is known for plenty of our services and program one of the major ones being fuel assistance, and our has started program. And now currently our tax preparations, what we're known for. talk a little bit more about our housing department. ABC has served met for resident since 2015. But specifically since the beginning of COVID in May 2020. ABC has worked with the city of Medford to administer rental assistance and stabilization services. We were fortunate enough to have significant amount of cares fund funding through ABC that allowed us to assist Medford residents with utilities, emergency needs, internet costs, and rental arrears. We've also assisted Medford residents with applying for other sources of funding, such as Metro Housing ERAP and RAP, which was very, very intense during those times in COVID. This funding would allow ABC to continue to serve medical residents who are still dealing with the effect of COVID-19 with financial assistance and other housing related services, such as housing search and stabilization. We have been very successful in ensuring those in need are able to get assistance needed by working with landlords, coordinating financial resources and coordinating with other support agency for emergency services. And this money would help us continue with our rental assistance and expand our rental assistance for those living in the Metro City, which has increased drastically since COVID. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you. We'll go to Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. Now, again, ABCD is housed where? Where is the?

[SPEAKER_04]: We're currently housed, we just moved to 239 Commercial Street in Malden.

[George Scarpelli]: right? Okay. I know that one of the when we first, um, when I first started getting involved, one of the biggest questions, um, that that arose that the funding, um, was making sure that all this funding was going to support metric families. I know that there were some hiccups in the past that there was some confusion that monies were being used for people outside the city. And we I think we need assurances that it was the money that was coming out of this this pool was being directed directly to method families. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[SPEAKER_04]: I know this is the first time I'm hearing this, but we can assure you that all of our money from from Medford has gone to our Medford residents.

[George Scarpelli]: I appreciate it. I think in the past, the presenter mentioned that the funding was going to a different pool. So I think we as a council at the time, I believe it was council Marks that really stood fast in saying, making sure that we would love to help ABCD and the families of Medford. But the confusion was that there was some discussion at the time that It wasn't clear, I should say. So I just want to make sure that we appreciate everything you do. This isn't an attack on you in any way. It's just that this is something historically that I wanted to bring up just to make sure that this is still active and on everybody's minds. So thank you so much.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. Actually, Anne Corbin from ABCD messaged me directly. Sharon doesn't know that, but she could respond to that particular point.

[S_jvt8DRKHw_SPEAKER_18]: Anne, please go ahead. Thank you. I'm sorry, I apologize. I'm actually, I just pulled over because I was driving, but I did want to just speak to that about ensuring that all of the funding that comes from Medford is used on Medford residents. You know, we've had other Medford funding as well. Any reports that I provide always have proof of address attached for every single recipient. And so we do try to, and my reports, and Alicia, I think you can speak to this. My reports are usually very detailed, what ward they live in, some type of proof of address from them. So we've been very successful in ensuring, I can speak to my three years running the program, that we have been very successful in ensuring that Medford funding goes to Medford residents only.

[George Scarpelli]: I, again, I thank you. I thank you. I just, like I said, this was a conversation that was brought up a few years back, and that was the question I just wanted to make sure that that was brought up, and I appreciate the input, and I support it wholeheartedly, so thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Paoli. Thank you, Anne. Going to Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you President real just quickly you know I think this dovetails with a conversation that we were having earlier about, you know, urgent insufficiently met transit needs in our community I think the same is true for housing I know The city of Medford housing staff office of prevention outreach staff, as well as my own volunteer work in our community that ABCD has been a lifeline for many Medford families it's so often that Medford families in need get referred to ABCD so personally so grateful for their work in our community. And, you know, just in light of the fact that this is another organization that is being recommended for funding through the covert CDBG funds I just think it's important it's not news to anybody but I think it's just important to note that, you know, housing was obviously exacerbated by the pandemic. It's also being exacerbated by our regional housing market. That exacerbation is not going away, so I hope that our ongoing conversations about better meeting the already present unmet needs of Medford residents, that has to involve a long-term plan to bring some of these constituent services in-house that we're just consistently having to outsource to organizations like ABCD, and again, so grateful for their work. But I think we can see the amount of demand for these services you know, the requested amount of funding being $40,000, we have 13,000 to give. That amounts to a lot of urgent housing needs. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Any further discussion from the Council? That is the last of our Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Just to confirm with you, Director Hunt, so we've had the presentations. You'll be submitting the official recommendations for our agenda for our next regular meeting.

[Alicia Hunt]: The CDBG plan has to be heard at a public hearing. So it won't be for this one for the 28th. It'll be for the first meeting in May, which I think it's around May 9th, give or take. So it'll be advertised for that. We'll work with the clerk's office to advertise, and we'll be sending you the full plan. Traditionally, a version of this table is the last page of that plan, so it's easy to find. because it's not the opening thing.

[Zac Bears]: Great. I'd move to receive in place on file and adjourn.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you on the motion by Susan bears to receive in place on vial and adjourn this meeting. We have another meeting after this. Second by Councilor Scarpelli. All those in favor.

[Unidentified]: All right.

[Nicole Morell]: All those opposed. Motion passes. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everyone.