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[Jason Stone]: Alright, let's eat.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Hello, welcome. Hi, everybody. We are here, sorry, hold on. We are here for the Public Health and Community Safety Committee meeting, October 8th, 630. We are here to discuss two items. I'd like to take the second item first, because we have some staff from the health department here to talk about it. 25-139, resolution to assist Medford residents in accessing social services. So this was a resolution, just makes me feel safer to have this closer to me. This was a resolution Councilor Tseng and I put forward just as a mechanism to speak about what resources are available to Medford residents who may be facing fewer social services because of cuts at the federal level, or possibly state level, depending on other cuts and how they trickle down. So if, folks from the health department wouldn't mind coming up or actually well, I'll give Councilors a chance to speak first. If anybody has anything they'd like to discuss and Councilor Tseng does and now I will remind myself how to work this system. And Thank you.
[Justin Tseng]: I think that worked. Cool. Thank you, Chair Lazzaro.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes, Councilor Collins, hold on.
[Kit Collins]: Hearing that some people can't find the password to this.
[Emily Lazzaro]: People are not being able to access the Zoom meeting. People can't find the password for the Zoom.
[Kit Collins]: Is it on the... where can that be found if you're not in the chambers?
[Jason Stone]: It's on the agenda.
[Emily Lazzaro]: It's on the agenda. Okay. After the call-in number. Thank you. So on the agenda for this committee meeting, there's listed written out is the Zoom link, and then it says call-in number. And then after the call-in number, it says star 744745. and that 744745 is the password. Okay. So that should be the password for the Zoom. Does it seem like people are, like that is working?
[Kit Collins]: I'll communicate that to the person who texted me. I think going forward, we should find a place to make that more obvious. Thank you so much. Sorry for the interruption.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yes, I would agree with you. Also, I feel like in the past, we didn't have a password for the Zooms at all. That's correct. When Zach had to change the- He had to change the permissions? Zoom and all that changed the permissions. Okay. We're going to work on this. This is actually maybe something we should talk about in- regular meetings or just administratively, but apologies to everybody who's having trouble accessing the Zoom. We want to make sure everybody who wants to attend the meetings is able to attend them. So I'm sorry about that. Councilor Tseng, are you ready to speak on that?
[Justin Tseng]: I don't have too much to say because I think you covered it. Thank you, Chair Al-Azharo for sponsoring this with me. Thank you to the Health Department for showing up for this item. A lot of residents are facing some real difficulties, especially with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, whatever it's called, thing. And the cuts that they're making to the federal government's making, especially to Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA subsidies, which affect the Medicare exchange as well. And that's just a chunk of the numerous cuts that have been made that have this trickle-down effect that that affect our residents locally. I was thinking that we could use this meeting as a way to really assess what the city is seeing on the ground and to ideate about ways that we could help out as a council, ways that City Hall can do more on this issue.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Yes, so I would love to invite our health department staff to talk about a few of the resources that are available. I know that the health department does a lot for a lot of our residents that are especially vulnerable. And there may be some people that find their in a position of further vulnerability right now. So I have the director of the health department, Marianne O'Connor here, Catherine Dengra, who does outreach and I forget your title, I'm sorry. Come on up. And Jason Stone, who is our social services coordinator. Marianne. Oh, wait, let me turn on your mic. Which one is that? What is that one called? Nine. Does it have to? Can you touch? Can you touch the one with a little?
[Jennifer Yanko]: Yeah, it shows the person. Yeah.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, good. So yes, thank you. Thank you for the resolution. Thank you for inviting us. We do support folks in Medford in a variety of ways, there's a variety of ways that they can reach out to us with any needs or concerns they have. We have the multilingual resource line that's manned, and if they can't speak English they can leave a message in their own language, and then we can have that interpreted and passed on to the appropriate person for service. So I do have Catherine and Jason with me here Catherine does an amazing amount of work in the Office of Prevention and Outreach, we have, as you are aware, the connectors and the liaisons, they each have kind of unique roles, but they all are kind of our ears and eyes out into the community. They're the ones bringing concerns back to us, letting us know what's going on, where gaps in services are, where needs are. Jason is constantly caring for and seeing folks from the City of Medford. Again, there's a variety of ways you can meet up with Jason. He's in the library. He's here. He has also gets referrals from the multi service multilingual resource line of folks a lot of times just walk into City Hall and asked to see Jason. So, I mean there's a beautiful presentation that Catherine actually just did this week for the kind of a summary of what all of the. Programs and services and events we've done over the last year with the connectors and liaison so be at your next meeting if you'd like to see that presentation, I think it's very eye opening and the amount of work that's being done and the outreach that's being done. We do have our Hispanic day coming up this weekend festival on Saturday afternoon. from three to five. So but we've done Brazilian day we've done a winter preparedness last year, we've done back to school nights and bags and we're planning on doing winter preparedness again this November which was a huge success last year gave up coats and hats and a lot of resources. But I'm going to let them, and we have seen an uptick. I mean, obviously, it's been very steady, but we have seen a slow but increase over the last several months in requests that are coming in, both through the multilingual resource line and just with the work that Jason is doing. You can see the calls that he's getting and the needs that are out there, basic needs, housing. It's, it's necessary so Catherine wants to start and give an overview of the connectors and their work and the liaisons and their work. Then if you have any questions at the end, we'll be happy to take them.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, good evening. Again, my name is Catherine Dingren I'm the manager of the Office of Outreach and Prevention, and I am fortunate enough to get to work with the community outreach team the Medford connects team. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about that team how they function, and how they are assisting our most vulnerable residents. We're really fortunate that the Medford connects program is funded through the MVP grant the bar foundation. So this is fully grant a fully grant funded initiative, and we are doing a lot of great work that a lot of people across the state are looking at on how we're supporting our residents. I'm just gonna talk a little bit about how that functions. And really the Medford Connects team is not just our internal outreach team where consisting of our connectors and liaisons, but all of our city partners across the city. So nonprofits, the libraries, the schools, people really doing this work. And we work in teams to collaborate and address problems that are coming across. our plate, a lot of which that are highlighted by, as Marion said, our connectors and liaisons. We see this happening, so we bring that to the team and say, how can we address this? So as everyone knows, you probably have seen those blue flyers that have our connectors and liaisons on them. So we have a team of 12, no, yeah, 12 connectors and liaisons. And really the idea is they're building resilience and equity through collaboration, and they have their connector themes and language themes, and our city partners as I said play a vital role. So the goal is twofold, to expand and strengthen supportive services for residents and to nurture and grow our community networks. And I feel like we're doing a really good job of that. And I will also send you our Medford Conducts newsletter so you can see some of that work. Just in the last three months alone we've served over 1000 residents, so not just with large scale events like the Brazilian day but through one on one enrolling people in mass health, connecting people to Jason our social services coordinator our liaisons and connectors love Jason. He works really closely with them and problem solving through simple cases and complicated cases. And we've really increased our collaborations. We're always looking at different organizations that we can partner with. So recently we realized we wanted to expand more with the AAPI community. So we partnered with Greater Malden Asian American Community Coalition. So they're a partner of ours. They help us with translations they're helping us bridge those connections so we're building those partnerships, all the time. So our connectors we have six of those and they work within six different themes so we have an immigrant support and ESL. We have an older adults and disability connector we have a team in young families connector we have a financial security connector, a food systems connector and climate equity connector so those are our six connectors. And then we have our six language-based community liaisons. Just to give you a highlight of, I'm just gonna show one thing that each connector is doing to give you a sense of the different things, well, maybe two things, but like our financial security connector is really looking at how do we build the capacity of our residents to, you know, cause that's what everyone's struggling with. How do I pay for my groceries? How do I pay for my rent? So we're doing things like the other night we hosted the library, a pop-up admissions event with Bunker Hill. We had it translated in multiple language or interpreted in multiple languages. So it's really to connect people to education and opportunities. We've hosted financial literacy workshops that were very well attended and we've done a lot of collaboration with local businesses. So we're working closely with our economic and development office to build those strategies. our ESOL and immigrant support. That is really another place where we see our community connectors, our community partner agencies coming together. So those meetings consist of the schools, the libraries, the Welcome Project, the Housing Authority, several different organizations that are providing ESOL classes, where we're taking a look at where are the gaps in services, where are their wait lists, and people can call the multilingual line and get connected to an ESOL class, because we know the higher English capacity someone has, the higher chance they are to get a job and build that financial security. So those meetings we just had one this morning are wonderful, and we're doing great work with the connections there. Our older adult connector is doing a lot of great things she's developing a are you okay program where we have younger seniors who are going to be checking in on older seniors who are homebound a lot of them through our housing authority and things like that because we know that that's a huge driver of health inequalities is social isolation. So we're figuring out strategies to that. We're working with the senior center to rebrand the senior center so more diverse people see the senior center as a place that they want to go to. And then also looking at bringing younger seniors there because we did an assessment of what people perceived at the senior center. So it's been great and stay tuned for our launching. We're going to have billboards and all sorts of things. And then we have our food systems connector. They host a meeting of all of our different food partners in the area between the Mystic Market and all the different food security. And we're talking about where are the gaps? What are we seeing at the local pantries? Where are the barriers? And so we're talking with the team to figure out, do we need to get things translated? Do we need to break down some of the myths? interpreting what are the cuts at the state level and how they're impacting our residents' pockets. So we're, you know, and we're trying to promote things like the YMCA's Mystic Market has new food lockers that are available so people don't feel safe going to the they could, you know, go to the locker. So there are lots of great options for our people, and we're really trying to communicate where the gaps are. And we do food deliveries to homebound and lots of other things. And then we have our climate resilience initiatives where our climate connector is working on things with seniors, things with students, and really looking at, because we know climate events impact our most vulnerable first. And if you look at, all the recent climate events that have happened over the country, most vulnerable, are most deeply impacted. So we're doing a lot there. And then our family and youth engagement connector is doing things from working with the PTOs to get more parents involved in the PTOs and supports the PTOs. We heard from the schools that a lot of people needed backpacks and haircuts and stuff so that we hosted a back to school event here where people got free school supplies got haircuts, we had well over 200 people come through and get connected to resources. So that's another one where Head for Family Network, the public schools, we all come together and we work to identify challenges and come up with strategies. We, and also the other great thing we do with the clerk's office is our welcome baby initiative where people come into the clerk's office to get a birth certificate, and then they're directed upstairs to our office where they get a bag of of free supplies and diapers and then they also get resources from here's where the wake offices here are some postpartum resources here's where the Medford family network is here's where the moon and back bookstore is so it's great resources that we connect people to. And then switching over to our liaisons, they are language-based liaisons, so we have Arabic, English-speaking BIPOC, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, our relationship with GMAC, and Haitian Creole. And those liaisons support the work of the connectors, but they're doing the one-on-one work with residents. They might be having open hours at the library. They might be doing here at City Hall doing mass health applications. So they're really working one-on-one with residents. They're often teaming up with Jason or our recovery coach Chris to assist residents who call the multilingual line or need other help. And they're also kind of telling the whole group of connectors and and all of our city partners, here's what we're hearing, here's what we need more of. So we're really kind of coming together to strategize. So our liaisons do great things. We have great, Stacy, our connector works with the West Medford Community Center and we host the cultural events. Like we have this coming up this Saturday where we have our Hispanic cultural event where people feel like the city really welcomes, you know, all cultures and that they get connected to resources that are cultural specific. So that is something that we do. And then we're looking at health equity issues too. So we're really proud of the work that we're doing. We're constantly looking to hear ideas from the community on what could work next. So upcoming on the horizon, as Marianne said, our winter preparedness event, we're working with Mass Hire to do some pop-up job fairs and job application sessions. And there's a lot more on the horizon. But I'm going to turn it over to Jason who can talk about the great work he does.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you very much. One quick question about the event that's coming up on Saturday, the Hispanic Heritage event. What time is that?
[SPEAKER_04]: That is from three to five, right here at City Hall. Awesome.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Is it outside or is it in the chambers?
[SPEAKER_04]: Inside, because October, we weren't sure. You never know.
[Emily Lazzaro]: OK.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[Jason Stone]: Good evening. Jason Stone, social services coordinator here at City Hall. I should have gone first, because I can't follow that. I feel like it's easiest to start maybe by having you guys ask what you want to know about my position, and then I can kind of narrow down from there.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I appreciate you being here. I know that your work is dependent on who comes to you and what they're looking for. So if you could give us a little summary of a typical day and why you host office hours at the library and why somebody might end up coming to you.
[Jason Stone]: Sure. Every day is a little bit different, which is one of the things that I love about being centrally located in City Hall. The office hours at the library started My predecessor here at City Hall in this position did office hours at the library for a while, and it seemed like a great idea. As accessible as I think City Hall is, sometimes some people just feel comfortable being at the library. They're familiar with the library. They might be using the library for resources anyway, and we were finding that the research staff, the reference staff at the library, were getting a lot of inquiries from people that they didn't necessarily know how to handle. They can help people research things, but as they're not social service trained or social workers, they didn't necessarily know where to ask them. So I do office hours at the library every Wednesday, 10 to 12, study room one, which is the one on the left, and every day is a little bit different. It took a while, I think, to get people used to the fact that I was there, But I stay pretty busy when I'm down there now. A lot of what I encounter there is requests for housing. A lot of the inquiries that I get from residents in general are housing related because of the cost of housing, because of falling behind in rent, because of falling behind in utilities. Some people have accessed services that are available for financial assistance for those programs previously. Some of them didn't know that there were financial assistance programs available. And so we do a lot of problem solving with how to help people fill in the gaps. We've had a lot of, I would say, behavioral health questions come up recently. We obviously have three great, well now two great clinicians at the Medford Police Department. Obviously sometimes people don't want to necessarily go to the police department or reach out to a clinician at the police department, so sometimes they'll reach out here and then we'll collaborate amongst ourselves. But a lot of what will come up now and has started to come up already is heating assistance applications. The federal heating assistance season for where we live opens November 1st. The application portal opened October 1st. We partner with ABCD. We fall under their catchment, ABCD out of Malden, for fuel assistance. Their portal is live and it can be cumbersome to navigate if you have never navigated it before. The ABCD staff are very welcoming to our folks, but some of our folks don't want to go to Malden, they'd rather come here. So we've done a couple of heating assistance applications. already this season and the application portal opened October 1, so I expect that there will be a lot more of that to come. Charbel, who's one of our, the Medford Connects team members as well, did office hours at the library on Saturdays through last heating season as well, so if people are only available on weekends. They could meet with Charbel at the library on Saturdays, it sounds like we're probably going to do that again we haven't solidified the schedule yet, but he's open to it the library is open to it. And that is hugely, hugely beneficial. a large number of the individuals that come to my office, as I mentioned before, are behind on a lot of bills. There are some that there aren't financial assistance programs out there for. Thankfully, there are ways to access through National Grid and through ABCD funding to help make up the gaps, at least. Yeah, I could go through a list of examples of cases.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Do you mind if I ask, when people come looking for assistance with housing, I know that Medford doesn't have an office of housing stability and do you, that ends up falling to the health department and housing is a healthcare issue because lack of it results in healthcare outcomes and it's a basic, Shelter is a basic requirement for your health. But what sort of resources are you able to connect Medford residents to? Is it all non-profit or is it external to Medford?
[Jason Stone]: What we have the best luck with is collaborating with other community agencies, nonprofits, particularly housing families and ABCD. Housing families runs, their legal staff runs a housing task force every Monday that I meet with, my counterpart in Malden meets with. They have staff attorneys there. They have the outreach teams from ABCD are there. The housing advocates from ABCD are there and anybody from the communities, Malden Medford, they do take some Everett but it's usually Malden Medford, can present cases there and we sort of triage them. Sometimes it's folks who need rental assistance, sometimes it's folks who need legal representation because they're low income and they're being evicted. And so we try to, between myself and the two agencies, sort of collaborate on how to best triage those cases. There are legal aids available through Housing Families. There is rental assistance available through ABCD. There are housing workshops available in now English and Haitian Creole at ABCD in Malden. So between myself and then the two partner agencies, were able to triage a lot of cases. But I will say that that task force has seen a tremendous uptick in cases in the last, let's say, four months. Where there were weeks where we would have one or two cases, I think this Monday we had like 12 new cases. And again, that's just for Malden-Medford. And it's mostly folks who are In the early processes of being evicted, usually, sometimes they've gotten notices to quit. Sometimes they haven't. Sometimes they've got court dates. Sometimes they haven't. Sometimes, for whatever reason, they won't be able to go back to the place that they've been living, so they need to find a new place. But they've got kids in the local schools here, so that certainly adds an extra wrinkle to it. So between us, we try to triage those cases help them access the emergency assistance through DTA, the emergency assistance housing when possible. Some folks find that system tricky to navigate on their own, so we help them as best we can. did an application with an individual yesterday over the phone with the DTA office because she just doesn't have luck going in in person, and that can happen sometimes. And some folks aren't very comfortable using the computer to do those applications, so we'll use mine, or we'll sit down together at the library and walk through an application that way. So I do a lot of, I try to tell folks that I am not your Councilor and or therapist and or like clinical social worker. It is my goal to help you do those things but not to do them for you. Like I'll do them with you and Chris sort of has this mentality and this approach to his recovery cases too. Chris Zuma, our recovery coach, is like we'll do the work with you but we're not going to do it for you. Like we'll walk side-by-side with you and help you to the finish line, but you'll be the one to cross the finish line. So I try to instill upon people that I'll do these things with you. You might not have a scanner, so sure, come to my office. You can scan your paperwork here, upload it to whatever assistance portal it is that you're trying to upload to, and do it that way. Because those things are only sustainable if people know how to access them, if people feel comfortable accessing them.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I was wondering if there is something like a one pager or if there is a simple sort of direct visual aid or a pathway online where if somebody needed what's the best way for people to find out how to access resources that the city can offer or just where to find out about what the health department is doing to help people who may need to find out about what you're doing.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, so the health department will have an updated website. The one that now exists is a little cumbersome to navigate. There will be a new website through the city's website, but the health department will have its own updated website that will be much more streamlined, much easier to find a lot of this information and find who to contact for whichever information. So it does exist in theory online right now. I tend to tell folks that the easiest way is to either call me or call the multi-language resource line and we'll get you to whoever you need to be connected to.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Okay. One other question that I have is, what was it? It was about, it's gone. Do Councilors have questions for Jason while he is up here? What was my question? It was good. Can't remember. Councilor Tseng, one second. Yes.
[Justin Tseng]: These questions aren't necessarily for Jason, but you might know some things about them. And if Marianne or Catherine want to fill in, feel free to. I think we've touched upon some of these already, but I was wondering what kind of services are most in demand from us right now in City Hall? And going along hand in hand with that question, what kind of issues? You mentioned housing and heating assistance. Are there any really popular areas of need that we're seeing from residents?
[Jason Stone]: Mass health is always a huge one. And if you're here, our liaison, Maralea Barroso, she's here every Monday and every Wednesday doing walk-in mass health applications. And she is always busy. She is never not usually backed up with one or two people waiting for her. I am also a MassHealth application Councilor, so I can certainly do them in a pinch. Maralea knows that system inside and out, so it's easier usually for her to do them rather than to have me fumble through it. So MassHealth is always, and especially with open enrollments coming up, MassHealth is always going to be a popular one. Food insecurity is also another one, like trying to do SNAP applications. probably second to Mass Health. Those are easy enough to do. The DTA system is easy enough to navigate. But if you've never navigated it before, and your only other experience is going to the office, some people are put off by that. So they'll come and seek out our services, my services. Yeah, health insurance, food security assistance, and housing, like the milieu of things that are housing, like the umbrella of things that are housing, whether it's like rental assistance or eviction or finding a new place to live. Those are probably one, two, and three anyway. And there's certainly been an uptick, I would say. I think there's an uptick in people being nervous about what's going to happen with those services if they've already got them, whether it's Medicare or MassHealth or SNAP benefits. And we share a lot of those same anxieties that they do, because, I mean, truth be told, we just don't know yet how things are going to shake up. And so we just sort of proceed as we have proceeded until told otherwise. So we'll still do the same SNAP applications. We'll still do the same MassHealth applications, because those systems haven't necessarily changed yet. It's just that we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, I think that answered the question.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, no, that's very helpful. I mean, um, this is kind of echoing chair was our last point about the one pagers and the FAQ sheets. I, I've had some constituents years ago reach out. They didn't speak English. It was really helpful to have the, I think it was a housing stability notification ordinance one sheet, or two, I think it was a two-pager. It was already translated into Chinese so they could use it. And it was easy, it was really helpful for us to have resources like that to point to constituents, to hand to constituents. I also know there are a lot of folks who kind of just inquire online. You know, they go online and they look out what's available there, and then they kind of stop. If there's nothing that's easily accessible, they won't even really reach out to us. And then sometimes we meet them on the doors or at community events, and they'll ask us in person. And so that's, I just wanted to lend my voice and support for that idea. I know that's also a bigger effort than just you guys, because it requires updating the city website, making those things more prominent as well. But just food for thought. Catherine mentioned, and feel free to chime in too, gaps that might exist in city services right now, things that we could do more on, reaching out to community members, hearing back from them about, you know, what gaps we need to fill essentially. And I was wondering what those gaps were from your perspective as city staff.
[Jason Stone]: It's an interesting question to answer, because so many of the resources that are available are state or regional and they're not Medford specific right so for folks to access Social Security for folks to access. mass health for folks to access SNAP benefits. Unless they are computer savvy, they're not physically going to a place to access those services here. They have to go to Malden, they have to go into the city, they have to go to Chelsea, etc., etc. So it's tough to sort of frame what the actual gaps in those services are, aside from, I mean, we can have the discussion about affordable housing, like that, like, obviously, if we had a lot more affordable housing, then there would be a lot more affordable housing available for people who are having housing crises. And so taking that part sort of out of this conversation, like the services that are available we're really just sort of coaching them through how to access them in a different community. Streamlining the services, providing transportation if we need to. Transportation is always a barrier for some of our folks. For recovery purposes, we try to do things so that they can get transportation to recovery groups, to recovery centers, to detoxes, et cetera, et cetera. I think to sort of extrapolate that on the whole, like some of the community development block grant funding is used to help some of our folks get transportation to the services that don't exist in Medford specifically, but that are still theirs to access. That being said, we're not ever going to have a system where everybody accesses all of those services in their own community. You're always going to have to go somewhere. So yeah, I don't necessarily know outside of the obvious affordable housing and affordable health care. Outside of those things, it's tough to sort of pin down what the gaps are. Like I only know what is in front of me and who comes to my door and into my email into my phone. So certainly hearing from like, if folks from the outreach teams, from the liaisons and the connectors, as they hear about, Hey, there should be X, Y, and Z service, then like that prompts that discussion as it would, if we heard from city council about, Hey, is there a service for X, Y, and Z? Like, but I don't necessarily know because I haven't been asked the question yet a lot.
[Justin Tseng]: Oh, did you have a follow up? No, go ahead. Oh, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. Of course. municipalities are constrained in what they can offer. So it's helpful to know that there's a lot of that. You mentioned transportation, and I was wondering if you guys have been in contact with the transportation working group. I know there's a working group in City Hall on it. I was involved in it really early on, but I've kind of run out of time to work with them on it.
[Jason Stone]: Yes, some combination of myself and Catherine and Marianne have been involved in that.
[Justin Tseng]: Great, great. Um, I guess, maybe this is maybe more of a question for Marianne but I was wondering what we can do as a city council to make sure that you guys have the support you need to carry out these services that in helping the residents. We can talk. I'd be curious about a future budget, you know what, what we could help with in terms of advocating. Also any policy changes, things that we could do, ways that we could help you reach out and communicate to constituents as well. Very broad bucket of questions, but yeah.
[Emily Lazzaro]: That actually was the question I couldn't remember. So I appreciate Councilor Tseng bringing that up. Yes, like how, what sort of support can we offer to either get the message out to residents or amplify your work or back up the kind of things that you're doing? I mean, we've been talking about an Office of Housing Stability for a few years, but that would require a lot more larger scale changes and budget maneuvering. But in the meantime, what kind of support can we bring to the table?
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, that might be a Marianne and Catherine question. I approach these things always as the micro. So I work individually with people where they're at, at their houses, encampments, et cetera, et cetera. I'm much more comfortable being on the ground doing the micro and have no real conception of the macro. So I'll back up.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: They said it's amazing. I guess, you know, just having us here this evening to talk about this and and putting it out there. Really getting the word out that we do do this work, we have this here in Medford and like Jason said the problem is Medford is basically a social service desert. We don't have people, WIC is in here, you know, they're not here, so people have to travel. So, in making that easier for folks by hopefully you know as being able to intervene somewhat or help them with transportation or get them where they need to go. And I think just echoing that right now this is totally grant funded. So we don't have to worry about that for a couple of years. But who knows if we don't get refunded and who knows where funding is going to go in the next few years anyways. That will be something to talk about at a later date as far as, you know, sustainability of what we're doing. But I really just getting out there getting the word out there and I love the idea of flies we are working on a food security file of similar to what you talked about that will have every location I was data, how when we're. And maybe doing that for some of the other services. We do have a nice fly with Jason and Christmas based on it too we could, you know, maybe get that out there more at the new website will be helpful but like you said a lot of people on computer savvy so just getting it out there and if you have community events or if you're in the area like helping push this out for us because we are doing the work and I and people really need it so yeah, thank you.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I'm sorry, is all of the work that you've described tonight funded by private grants?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Jason is on city budget.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Okay.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Catherine's on city budget, but the liaisons, the connectors, the programming and the work that we do is all funded through grant MVP.
[Emily Lazzaro]: So, right. So they're not, they're not in the budget of the city, not in any of the community liaisons, the connectors, all of the fuel assistance work that you mentioned the food.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: support like so the fuel assistance is just the work that Jason and, you know, as far as again helping with applications, we don't. Okay. But, but yeah, the, the work with the community partners and stuff this all into the MVP. It's how this whole thing was born through this grant idea, the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Grant, through the state, who they really like the work we're doing and asking us to help them duplicate some of this work across the state. But it is substantial funding that we have because of the work we're doing. But yeah, that's because it's innovative.
[Emily Lazzaro]: It's it's and it's unique. So that's important to note, I think that not everybody does it that way. And also that you noticed that it was something that we really needed. We needed to be able to connect people because we don't have a lot of that available in Medford already. Another thing I want to mention is that there are ways to build up accessibility of social services in a community that isn't exactly what we do, but as like an extension of things that we can do, like making changes to our zoning code, making it easier to have commercial development in different parts of the city, making it easier to build affordable housing in different parts of the city, all of that can relieve some of the pressure on vulnerable populations that are currently, when support systems like what we describe in this resolution start to fall apart and are not guaranteed, we can change some of those things. And restrictive zoning codes make it a lot harder. So that's one of the reasons why that strategy was being deployed. Just a note. point of information. Um, does anybody else have anything they'd like to add? Councilor Tseng?
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I mean, I number one. I just really, really want to underscore what you just said. That a lot of the work that we can do as a city council to address the big issues that we've been talking about tonight, especially with housing come through these other reforms that Aren't necessarily discussed it in this committee. Um, that happened in other city council committees and other efforts. Um I mean, and in zoning reform, housing reform really is that big ticket item. It's not going to solve everything, but it's going to make a huge dent in helping our residents. But back to questions, just a few short questions. Do you know when the MVP grant runs out?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Next year. We have another year with it.
[Justin Tseng]: OK. And do you have any sense of whether that grant is going to continue?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: We are going to reapply. there is another round opening, so we will be reapplying.
[Justin Tseng]: Awesome. And then I guess the... Now it's my turn for something to slip my mind.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Well, Vice President Collins has another comment.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Yeah, just a note because Councilor Tseng and Chair Lazzaro have addressed many of the questions that are on my mind tonight. Sorry, I think we're getting static. Thank you. Really appreciate this discussion. And really, I couldn't thank you three and your team enough for the work that you do every day for our community. It really is. I really love meetings like this where we get to Zoom out and hear about everything that you do on a truly day-to-day basis because it is so striking. just how much you were able to help the community members in Medford with truly a very small and scrappy team. And my greatest wish would be able to clone each and every one of you, but it really does lead me to reflect on just how much more we could do if the operating budget allowed for more social service coordinators and the grant funding were to increase and we could bring more of these functions into our operating budget and that reliably renewable funding over time, which I know is a shared goal. And I think that this is a conversation that I know we've had meetings like this before. We've kind of had like broad updates on the work on the scope of the MVP grant before, for example. But I think this is a really important thing for us to do. every term every year maybe even by annually because we're speaking to hearing about the micro issues that come into your offices. It's good to know the great work that's going on and what you're able to connect people with the resources that are in the community that you are doing the work of making sure people know about and can access and can access on their own in the future. I think it in a sense sets up kind of a table of contents for our work on the council for what are the policy issues that we really should be using our particular jurisdiction to advocate for throughout the term for those things that can only really start to turn at the state level or those things that we really can start to adjust at the local level, things like land use, housing production that will over time, over a lot of time, not enough to help the people who are getting evicted right now or in dire need of affordable housing right now and can't find it in Medford. but to set the scope of what are the problems that we really need to work on this term. So in five years, there's fewer people that walk in the door looking for affordable housing, they can't find it. And I think it really helps us frame how can we be using our voice as a council to advocate for those state level policy changes as well. So I think you all are holding both at the same time, all the time, the micro and the macro. And I think it's really useful for us to have that discussion in this forum. So thank you.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Thank you. I appreciate that. And just an open invitation, the community liaisons and the connectors meet here on Wednesday evenings at five I know you've been to talk with them. So you're, you're welcome anytime to come to one of the meetings here the work they're doing or bring concerns to them or just listen to them and see what they're hearing in the community. community agencies come in and educate them as to what they do, so then they can spread the word as well in their communities. So open invitation, just like Catherine know, if you'd like to come on a Wednesday evening, feel free to do so.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I really enjoyed attending that meeting and the food assistance connector is somebody that I used to work with at the Malden Warming Center. and she still volunteers sometimes. So it's a great group of people. And I learned while I was there about the Native American celebration that was happening like that next week at the senior center. And it was an incredible event. There are so many awesome events that the city is putting together. And I just think that program, the connectors and the liaisons are so interesting and so cool. Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. I don't want to keep you guys too long. I know you guys work so hard. So I just have, you know, I keep having ideas and questions that keep popping up in my head, but I'll be very quick with them. I was curious with the multilingual hotline, when someone calls in, let's say using like Haitian, for example, and there's someone that we don't, haven't reached out to before. We don't know, we don't have them in our network. I'm just curious, like, is there a way to get them added to our network? I'm sure that's something.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: So if they leave a question and what do you... Yeah, let's say they leave a question.
[Justin Tseng]: It's something that our city staff can help with. Is there a way to connect them or make sure they are in that network with their community liaisons to make sure that we keep expanding our community liaison connections?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yes, absolutely. Because those calls are answered by our community liaisons and connectors. So they do the outreach themselves to these people and explain who they are, what they do.
[Justin Tseng]: So they get direct responses from, great. I'm also curious about like programming for things like clinics and like the pop-ups. I was just curious how they come about. How do we determine what is programmed? Are there ways for, like, are we gauging kind of what residents want or is it more like different community organizations exist, they reach out to us and it becomes a good opportunity to have that programming.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: So the old, the structure of the MVP was actually created out of somewhat of a needs assessment and talking to the community. And that's how those topics were chosen around financial stability, food insecurity, help me out. Youth and family, so that's kind of how those, so that's the way that, and then we're in those communities, so the youth and teens are talking to the youth and teens and figuring out what's needed, what's more. The financial stability is out there talking about what's needed, the ESOL. big thing that keeps coming up as jobs, jobs jobs with the SOL folks. So that's where that's coming from with our connection to mass hire. So that's kind of where we get the information from and then move forward accordingly.
[Justin Tseng]: That's really, really helpful for us to know. And I was curious, are there any programs that are not, I think programs maybe is a strong word, but any ways that of helping people out that exist in other municipalities around us that maybe we haven't had the bandwidth for so far? That's a good question.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Um, we get creative, so we try to do, even if we don't have the services here. A good example is our Haitian community and Catherine can come up and talk, our Haitian community was talking about a lot of anxiety that's out there right now. And a lot of stresses that they're having, and the need for some mental health support so we reached out to Cambridge Health Alliance. and they did a wonderful program for that mental health kind of first aid for the Haitian community a couple of weeks back, and it was really well received, and we're gonna follow up on that. So we kind of reach out to, because again, even healthcare-wise, right, we don't really have a hospital, we don't have a system here in Medford anymore, so we have to reach out to Melrose-Wakefield, or to Winchester, to CHA, outside of our folks. But we bring them in if we have to.
[Justin Tseng]: Well, that's all I have. If I have more, I'll email. You guys are super easy to reach. I just wanted to thank you all for your hard work, for coming here tonight, taking so many questions from us. I don't want to presume that other Councilors don't have questions. Thank you for your thorough presentations, for letting our residents, I know there are folks online tonight too, letting our residents see everything that we're doing. It's really impressive. And I do want to impress upon residents that Medford is a leader when it comes to a lot of these issues. The state is looking at us as a leader. I want to thank the community liaisons and our connectors as well for their hard work. It's very difficult times, very there's so much to do as we kind of have gathered from your comments. There's more. There's more work to be done than anyone has capacity for. But you guys still touch to it. So I really appreciate that.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Thank you for having appreciate it. Thank you. Um uh, if Councilors are there any other comments from Councilors? I do see one hand on zoom for public comment. Okay, I will, uh, go to Zoom for public comment. I will ask Steve. Steve, go ahead.
[Steve Schnapp]: Thank you. My name is Steve Schnapp. I live at 36 Hillside Ave. I'm a 15-year Medford resident. Also graduated Boston University School of Social Work, 1981, with an MSW. I want to express my deep appreciation for the health department. for this work, as several Councilors have stated. I'm familiar with this kind of work. It is difficult. It has become increasingly difficult, and I think the members, the staff of the health department are doing a tremendous job, and it's greatly appreciated. One other comment I would make is I have heard candidates for the City Council and their supporters on a number of occasions complain that the City Council is spending too much time on national issues. It is clear from the testimony that members of the Health Department have given that what's happening at the federal level with Medicaid, SNAP, and other programs, and what looks like will be even more severe cuts, have a direct impact on the most vulnerable citizens in our community. We have to pay attention to what's going on at the national level, and I really appreciate the council's efforts to address that. And I appreciate the health department's hard work in the face of a very difficult situation. Thank you very much.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I see one more public comment from Jennifer. Jennifer, name and address for the record, please.
[Jennifer Yanko]: My name is Jennifer Yackel. I live at 16 Monument Street. I just wanted to express my appreciation for these presentations. It was very, very illuminating for me to learn about the wealth of services that we have here in Medford. And I feel very reassured and I commend the work that you're doing and very much, very much appreciate it. It's so much needed at this time for reasons that Steve Schnapp has referred to also. So just thank you very much.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you, Jennifer. Seeing no other public comment, do we have a motion on this paper?
[Justin Tseng]: Yes, we could keep it in committee, just to keep the paper, motion to keep the paper, I can't speak. A motion to keep the paper in committee, just so if we want to bring it back up ever in the future, we can do it.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Okay, sounds good. Do we have a second? On the motion of Councilor Tseng to keep the paper and committee seconded by Councilor Collins. All in favor?
[Justin Tseng]: Aye.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you all for being here so much. Really appreciate it. We have one other item on the agenda tonight. It is 25-138, resolution to hold immigration enforcement accountable to Medford residents. This was another resolution Councilor Tseng and I brought forward regarding immigration enforcement that has been active in Medford. And there was some, community involvement around attempting to support family members of people who were arrested by ICE. And we had the thought that we would like to help people access community support in a more direct way. And when we looked into this further. We initially thought we should send it to committee, talk more about what resources were available to family members and dependents of people who may be arrested by immigration enforcement, and they were the breadwinner. There's an example of somebody who was disabled and couldn't work and couldn't, pay legal fees to get her partner supported after the arrest. How can our community help show up for their neighbors, and how can we connect them. So this is an effort to help community members who are in similar situations more directly, and also to look into discussing issuing Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE about those arrests. And I will turn it over to Councilor Tseng, whose mic is already on.
[Justin Tseng]: Oh, yep.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Yep.
[Justin Tseng]: I, my prepared remarks will largely echo what chair Lazzaro said, um, it's clear to us that the federal overreach on when it comes to immigrations enforcement. enforcing out of state values on our city is threatening the safety and rights of our neighbors here in Medford. And today, we are meeting to address an important consequence of that, that problem that many of those who are who have been abducted or deported, are breadwinners for their families, and without them, their dependents need help. Tonight, I had wanted to use this meeting to identify the more specific challenges that we are seeing on the ground. I believe that part of our job as a city council is as a connector, especially between nonprofits and different community groups. And in that spirit, to learn more about what folks are seeing on the ground, I reached out to Medford residents who are members of Luce, LUCE is a grassroots organization that's been conducting neighborhood watches and providing mutual aid to residents. LUCE has let me know that families need a lot of help with lawyers' fees, attorneys' fees, and connecting to attorneys on the ground, particularly in states that family members are being taken to, the main two being New York and Louisiana. So essentially what often happens is once someone is nabbed off the street in Medford, they're taken to Burlington, the ICE facility in Burlington, for processing. And then very quickly, oftentimes within 24, 48 hours, they're being shipped off to New York, where there's a larger facility, or Louisiana, where there is a large facility and the circuit court is much more conservative. Families, Luces let me know that families also need rental assistance and logistical support, like with errands, running errands, or oftentimes there are cars that are left on the street after an individual is taken away and the parking fines pile up. And the families can't afford for the cars to be towed as well. So that's become a problem. And Luz could use help from Councilors to get connected to community groups and community members on the ground. In general, we just need more help identifying the families that need help. And while we know of a solid number of individuals that have been taken, we know of these cases, there are more out there that we need to know about, who we want to be connecting to. And to that effect, I'd be interested in following Boston's lead in submitting FOIA requests seeking the names of those that have been detained or deported in our community. I also know that some Councilors and community members are already thinking of different concrete ways to support families that are realistic, that preserve people's privacy and safety in these efforts. In our discussions as a council, I also want to impress on everyone the importance of sensitivity, given everything that's happening in privacy. As for the next steps, I was thinking, as a council, our members could provide ideas about what kind of resources the council would like to collect, what kind of problems we're seeing on the ground, and reach out to community groups and members who might be interested in helping, just privately. But using this meeting as a coordinating time for coordination. And I'd also motion to request that the city solicitor look into submitting FOIA requests on the city's behalf to seek the names of those who have been detained or deported along the lines of what the city of Boston is doing. I'd be happy to vote on that after, but after discussion.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Yes. Not... not making names of people who would be in need of assistance public is really important. So we're limited in what we can offer as city councilors in public meetings, but it did feel appropriate to bring this forward to reiterate our clear stance on how important it is that we believe that our community can act in a positive way to take care of our residents when they are in need because of something that happened. based on an action of immigration enforcement, and that our community will step forward and take care of people that need to be cared for. Do any other councilors have a comment, or is there a second on Councilor Tseng's motion? Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Chair Lazzaro. I'd be happy to second. And I just want to reaffirm what yourself and other councilors have been saying in this meeting. I think that this is, we're in a time where it's as important as ever to be taking stock of what resources are available to our residents, making those stronger. and more widespread and better communicated to the community with every channel that we have, making sure that the city is getting in contact and able to find everybody in the community who's in need of assistance, in need of support, who may not be connected to our supportive systems yet as a baseline. And I would also say that I think that now more than ever, it's so important for the city of Medford and the mayor's administration to be doing whatever it can to collaborate with other regions that are also, sorry, other municipalities in the region that are also weathering this crisis with local resources to see what we can do to collaborate and share resources and share response to federal actions, which will make all of our local responses that much stronger and better for our residents.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments from councillors? Seeing none, I do have one public comment on Zoom that I will take now. Name and address for the record, please.
[Munir Jirmanus]: Muneer Jumanis, Three Summit Road. I really appreciate the work of this city council in addressing this issue. And I'm wondering if it's possible, I'm not sure whether you have the authority to do this, but I'm wondering whether it's possible to establish some kind of a fund in the city that even folks can contribute to, to support these families. and also hope possibly with the help of the community liaisons who seem to be working hard to support various community members in Medford. So again, I appreciate your work on this and I'm interested in what you think this, whether this could be done. Thank you.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I will go to Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, Munir. I think that's an interesting idea. I've definitely heard it from residents before as well. It's something we would have to look into. Yeah, I mean, I think there are just a lot of the logistics with it. We'd have to look at privacy and perhaps doing it through private community actors is the best way to do it, but something to be looked into in the future and to be discussed in private.
[Emily Lazzaro]: I can also say that, uh, the. Organization Councilor Tseng mentioned, um. Did I believe take up a, uh. Go fund me for a resident in Medford who needed networks that are happening now that because of the position that the city may be in, there are other avenues, but the Medford as a community has been trying to take care of each other. And I think that's important and nice to recognize. And I appreciate your comment. Is there a second on Councilor Tseng's motion? Seconded by Councilor Collins. Councilor Tseng's motion. Could you repeat what it was again, please?
[Justin Tseng]: Oh, sorry.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Hold on.
[Justin Tseng]: The motion is to request that the city solicitor look into submitting FOIA requests on the city's behalf to seek the names of those that have been detained or deported along the lines of what the city of Boston is doing.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Okay. Seconded by Councilor Collins. All those in favor?
[Justin Tseng]: Aye.
[Emily Lazzaro]: All opposed? The motion passes. Okay. Thank you very much, Councilor Tseng. Yes?
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you. Um, yeah, I mean I think we heard from the public commenter tonight, Moonier, and over the last few weeks, there have been different ideas that have been circulating around with private residents. Just because I think it's best to talk about these ideas when they're fully fledged and feasible. I think we should keep this paper in committee so that we can have that time to flush out these ideas and then bring those ideas to the council if need be. So I would motion to keep this paper in committee and adjourn.
[Emily Lazzaro]: On the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by Councilor Leming. All in favour?
[Justin Tseng]: Aye.
[Emily Lazzaro]: Opposed? Motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much.
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