[John Petrella]: Hello everyone, and welcome to Method Happenings, a show far and about the city of Medford, and I am John Petrella. And the purpose of this program is to give Method citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. And at Method Happenings, we're very proud to have Jason Stone, who is the Method Social Service Coordinator joining us for tonight's show. And welcome, Jason. And really, we appreciate you coming on. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[Jason Stone]: I appreciate this opportunity.
[John Petrella]: OK, so we're going to get right into the questions, Jason. We'll just move along. So the first question we ask everybody is, you know, exactly who is Jason Stone? Let our audience know who you are, what you're all about.
[Jason Stone]: Locally, I like to say jokingly a little bit that first and foremost, I am not the Jason Stone that you see on the TV, especially if you watch Celtics games. I am not the same guy as the lawyer who sponsors the Celtics games. We are not the same person and it does come up every single day, as you might imagine. Yes, I am, in fact, the social services coordinator for the city of Medford. I have been in this position since November of 2024. Prior to that, I was the social services coordinator for the town of Wakefield for a couple of years. Before that, I spent 20 years in the substance use disorder and community corrections fields, and eventually it was just time to do something else. So I entered the wonderful world of municipal social services. I currently live in Wakefield. I've lived in Wakefield for 23 years. I'm married. I have an 18-year-old daughter who is about to choose which college she's going to go to. And I run a music website on the side, and I do podcasting and all sorts of fun stuff. So But yeah, that's the $0.25 version of who is this particular Jason Stone.
[John Petrella]: That's a good version. I like that. That's a great version. And it's a $0.50 version, not $0.25.
[Jason Stone]: Right. Give myself credit.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so the Method Health Department is responsible for several areas. Can you give our audience briefly discuss and identify each one of them. There's a lot involved here.
[Jason Stone]: There's a lot involved. Medford Health Department does an awful lot. And yes, I should have probably prefaced that I work technically under the Medford Health Department's Office of Prevention and Outreach, which is very unique, and we'll get into that after. But first and foremost, the stuff that a traditional health department does is sort of the meat and potatoes of what Medford Health Department does. Inspectional services, environmental health, public health nursing, those are kind of the bread and butter of most health departments. That is, when you think about a health department that is looking at restaurants and making sure that they're up to code, looking at housing issues and making sure that things are up to code, that people have heat, taking care of rodent issues, that sort of traditional health department inspectional services stuff. We have three full-time inspectors that are out in the community all day, every day. We have a public health nurse too that I'm sure folks have come across. She does traditional public health nursing stuff, vaccines, communicable, I get that word wrong every time, disease prevention, TB tests. She works with the schools a lot. She does blood pressure clinics. She's over at the senior center a lot. She does home visits for folks who can't get out and need their vaccines brought to them. And then, of course, we have Pat, who's our animal control officer, which is sort of part and parcel again with health department stuff. He's full-time as well, and he's out in the community all the time taking care of traditional animal control stuff. And I think it's sort of important to note that we all sort of collaborate a lot. And a lot of that collaboration comes through the Office of Prevention and Outreach, which is sort of a very unique thing for the city of Medford. And to be truthful, it's one of the reasons that I threw my hat in the ring to come to Medford a couple of years ago, year and a half ago, because it's sort of unique and I think innovative. So Office of Prevention and Outreach, which for folks that don't know is located primarily in room 205 at City Hall, does an awful lot of stuff. We have under Marianne O'Connor, who's our health director, and under Catherine Dingra, who runs that office, there's the really cool and fun and innovative stuff happens. So I take care of the social services side. So if folks are looking for help with, and we'll get into this a little more later as well, but if folks are looking for help getting on MassHealth, if folks are looking for help getting fuel assistance, et cetera, et cetera, they can come see me. But we also have an outreach team that works all part-time. out of that office, supervised by a guy called Patrick Donovan, who's one of our newest recruits. He's technically the health equity coordinator, but he supervises that whole team of liaisons and connectors, right? And they are embedded in the community. They're residents of the community. they represent a variety of different languages, a variety of different cultures, a variety of different backgrounds, and their goal is kind of to be a two-way conduit to and from City Hall about the things going on in the community. The specific needs of individual communities, whether it's the senior community, whether it's the food insecure community, whether it's the Haitian or Brazilian or Arabic communities, they're out holding events, holding listening sessions out in the community, reporting back to City Hall, things that are going on. And that way we can sort of keep communication going both ways. We also have a recovery coach who, for folks that haven't met, like, not to give you an idea for a future episode, but Chris Suma, who's our recovery coach at City Hall. Wonderful. Tremendous energy when it comes to early recovery, especially getting folks in the door. We run a recovery group every Wednesday at 430 that that meeting has gone on for years and it has grown to sizes larger than we might have to move it into the city council chambers at some point because we got a bunch of people. Yeah. It's really great. And I can elaborate on a lot of that. But again, Chris has that sort of energy, that sort of like magnetic energy that gets people in the door and excited about being in recovery. So that's a lot of stuff that most of it being grant funded, so not necessarily on the city role, but between Catherine and Patrick and their predecessors, Sophie and Penny, for folks that have been in Medford for a while, they hustled a lot and they got a lot of grant money to do a lot of really good, innovative things in the community to improve health equity in the community. And I could go on and on and on and on and on about the Medford Health Department and about the OPO specifically, but... Again, the 50 cent answer.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. Well, no, that's that's all great. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. I didn't realize how involved it was. I mean, I try and, you know, know what's going on and method. And I'm really I'm I'm so happy you're on the show because that's a lot. I mean, you guys really do cover a lot. And I know the department has gotten bigger, and it's great that you're getting grants and everything else. And the bottom line is you're really doing a great service for the city. And that's what it's all about, really. We're trying. Yeah, we're trying. That's what it's all about. And it's for the whole city, which is nice. So, you know, we see on the website under the Office of Prevention and Outreach, you know, there's basically what I see is three groups. I'm just going to read them quick. And you got social services, mental health and substance abuse under one group. And then the Method Connects community engagement team. And then we have prevention and wellness. Well, I'm sorry. So can you know, can you give us another Yeah. Description, I'm very interested, like, of what each of these roles are, what they do.
[Jason Stone]: And I'll actually start at the bottom, the prevention and wellness part, because I unceremoniously left that out in my preamble there. But we do prevention and wellness work primarily with schools. So we have a new prevention and wellness coordinator. Her name is Matisse. She's awesome. She's also got a great energy and I think can relate to the kids on their level, but also has a lot of background in doing outreach work and doing prevention work. So they're working in the schools, especially in the high school, about doing prevention-related stuff and creating activities and creating resources for kids so that they don't, it's sort of upstream stuff, right? So you put in the protective factors upstream, so when their kids are school age, so that hopefully either they don't end up needing my services someday. Or at least if they do end up needing them someday that they know kind of what's out there. So they're doing a lot of cool things in the school. Again, Matisse is probably another good person to eventually talk to to really get into the weeds of some of that stuff. And I say to Catherine, so Catherine Dingra, who oversees our office, she was in Wakefield for a long time as well and worked in prevention, worked in the health department in Wakefield. She jumped ship and came to Medford probably six or eight months before I did. And then I followed her here from Wakefield. But we sort of joke that like she's the macro person. She's the, like see the grants and report on deliverables and all that stuff. And I don't do that. My brain doesn't function with macro level stuff. Much easier for me to be out in the community or dealing with folks one-on-one and helping them navigate their issues. So that's sort of the social services, mental health, substance use stuff all gets thrown under that umbrella. Because my predecessor, Alicia, who was in this role for the City of Medford for a long time, she cut her teeth in the recovery coach world and then became a social worker. So she sort of had that background, and my background is very similar to hers, so I kind of stepped into that role. And then the Connects team, the community engagement team, that's our liaisons and our connectors. That's our Haitian Creole connectors, Portuguese, Brazilian connectors. We have a mass health connector. We have a senior services connector. We have a food systems connector. I always forget a couple. We have a couple Arabic connectors. We have a couple that focus on financial literacy. We have ELL connectors so that if folks in the community are new here and they need to get into ELL classes, well, we have an ELL coordinator who tells them where to go. We run community events at the library. We help sponsor ELL classes at the library. We'll throw community events to get people out so that they know that Medford is a welcoming place for everybody. I mean, that's the goal, right? To make sure that everybody knows that they're welcome here and there's people there to help you if you need it.
[John Petrella]: It sounds like you've got a lot of specialized, I call them specialized like services, people working.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah.
[John Petrella]: Yeah.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, absolutely. And I think especially because some of the stuff that we have to navigate is so complicated. And so that's kind of, that's partially where I come in, right, to help people navigate some of that stuff. And that I always say to people, I understand why people are overwhelmed trying to navigate MassHealth or trying to navigate Medicare or trying to navigate housing applications. It's complicated for me and I do it for a living. I'm not going through a crisis at that point. So I can only imagine if you've got language issues, if you've got learning difficulty issues, if you've got homelessness issues, if you don't have a phone to be able to check a list periodically, it's completely overwhelming. My goal is to help make those connections and do it with people, not for them, but do it with them.
[John Petrella]: Right. I mean, you take a lot of stress off them. They're in a stressful situation as it is, and you're there to help them, and I'm sure that's a relief to them.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, and sometimes I feel like the only, and we'll get into this later in the list of questions, But sometimes I feel like the best thing I can do is just be an ear to listen to people. Sometimes I'm the one who picked up the phone first and actually listened to somebody as a human and had a conversation. And to me, that seems like a low bar. But sadly, it's not, as you probably know.
[John Petrella]: Right. No, I do know. Yeah. I know. All right. So this is kind of one of those questions. I have to ask it, what is your role as a social services coordinator? And then I'm very curious, how do you triage issues? I mean, like you just said, you get the phone call. I mean, it's got to be difficult. And then how do you triage it? What's the next process?
[Jason Stone]: Triage is actually a really good word to use in that situation. And Chris, our recovery coach, and I were just joking the other day, or not even joking, but commenting that, like, I've gotten into watching that show, The Pit, recently, and I don't know if you guys have seen The Pit. Phenomenal show. And a lot of what they do is triage. Like, they're in an emergency department, so people come at them all day, every day, with everything under the sun, and it's their job to not necessarily do the work, to sort of put out the fire in the short term, and connect them with the actual like longer term treatment. Some ways that's kind of what our role is. So Chris more hyper focused on the recovery stuff, but he'll even tell you that like the more conversations you have about recovery with people, that might be a place to start. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg for a lot of people. When you get them in the door to talk about, hey, let's go to an AA or NA meeting, And then you kind of lower their guard a little bit. And then they talk to you about this, that, and the third that's going on with them. And you start to realize that, okay, there's other help out there. So my job, I always say to people is to be a resource connector, not a resource provider. I am not your social worker. I'm not your therapist, your psychiatrist, your Councilor, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's kind of my job to get you connected to those things. So a lot of times when folks call me, They call me because they don't really know where to even ask the question of, but somebody told them, and especially now that I've been here for a little over a year, my name gets out there, my phone number gets out there, and if you help somebody, then they tell their neighbor, or they tell somebody at the senior center, or they tell somebody at the library, and then it kind of spreads word of mouth like that. And so that also means that no two phone calls are exactly the same.
[John Petrella]: Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Don't imagine.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, and so I try to figure out pretty quickly what the actual issue, what I think the issue is, but more importantly, what the person thinks the issue is. Because like all of this is voluntary, right? So anything that I do with people is because they called me and they want help. So let's figure out what you want help with. Now, sometimes because of my background or because of the experiences I've had, I know kind of that there's something else under the surface there, but we have to build up that rapport in order to figure out what that is. And it also includes phoning a friend an awful lot. One of the best things about this world is there's very few communities around that have municipal social services people. These positions really kind of only started during COVID. Particularly when communities had money, the ARPA money, that's kind of the origin of a lot of these sort of positions is communities said, well, we've been talking about getting a social worker, a human services person for a while, never really made sense necessarily to put on the tax roll, but now we have the ability to do that because we have ARPA money. So now's the time to do that because schools have always had school Councilors and adjustment Councilors and therapists, et cetera. And the senior center has the senior center and the social workers there, and they're wonderful, but there's kind of a gap in the middle. So I viewed myself as the gap in the middle. Now, obviously there's some back and forth there, but to help people navigate the services that they maybe don't know how to navigate. And yes, every single phone call is different, but we have created this little working group of other municipal social services people in the sort of greater Mystic Valley area. We all know that we don't know everything. None of us pretend to have all the answers. We just kind of know what the right questions are sometimes. And if I don't know, but I know that Tracy in Stoneham has a particular set of skills, or I know that Denise in Arlington or Bridget in Medford in Malden has a particular skill, then we'll all trade ideas back and forth and back and forth because none of us are reinventing the wheel, except that we are all kind of put into these positions and told to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't make sense. We're all doing the same work, so let's lean on each other.
[John Petrella]: And that's a good, that's a good thing that you have all these people and you can lean on them and super helpful. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay. You know, mental health. It's an emerging area. And, you know, Social services, this is my opinion, but it's also what I see. I'm just seeing, I would describe it as a significant surge in mental health area. What do you think is the cause? I mean, what is this increase? Why? And any ideas, anything you can offer us?
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, I mean, this could probably be a whole series. Yes, we could do three shows on it. Yeah, right. I think that a way to boil it down is a couple things. You can take pre-COVID and post-COVID. But I think particularly if you look at the data from NAMI or if you look at the data from SAMHSA at the federal level, There was a marked increase in the number of people, both adults and seniors and kids, between 2008 and 2017 that accessed mental health services. There's a variety of reasons for that. Increased funding for services means that more people can access services, right? So that is certainly part of it. Increased awareness, especially at the early levels, is certainly a part of it. Does that mean that prior to COVID that those problems didn't exist? No, it means that we were maybe a little bit better at catching them early and providing treatment. There was funding out there for treatment and for outreach and things like that. So that kind of, when you do the work, and this is true of the addiction field as well, which is sort of obviously a subset of mental health, but when you do the work, particularly in Massachusetts, like we're super lucky in Massachusetts that we've had these campaigns to reduce stigma and to increase access to helplines and things like that. Whether that means that the actual problems got worse, we don't know. We know that more people are able to access those problems. post 2020, obviously, there's been numerous reasons that there's been an uptick in mental health. COVID changed the game for a lot of people. COVID brought a lot of issues to the surface that maybe had been bubbling below before. Funding levels have changed in both positive and negative and sort of muddy directions. And the sort of general unrest in the world has created A lot of that. Again, I do think we're still better, we try to be better about diagnosing issues and making treatment available. I mean, if folks have noticed, there's been a couple of mental health counseling agencies that have opened in Medford or are opening in Medford within the next couple, one that opened like two weeks ago, one that's opening next month. So there's more services generally available for people. We've done, we try to do a lot of work to continue to decrease that stigma about accessing services. We know that there's a population of people that probably had what we would call depression, that probably had what we would call bipolar disorder, that probably had what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder through the 50s, through the 60s, 70s. But you didn't reach out for services like that. A, they weren't available. And B, you managed things in other ways. So again, that's not to say that those problems didn't exist, but I think that our awareness campaigns have done a lot about getting people to the point where now I'm going to reach out. Hopefully that is a very, very scaled down answer of the real answer. And again, it could be like an entire podcast itself about emerging mental health trends. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: No, I mean, I like that answer, because I know, you know, when I was growing up, it was different. I mean, you didn't have a You didn't have the access that you have today. That's a good point. I never thought of it that way.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, you didn't have the access. You didn't have the diagnoses that you would have kids in your school that nowadays might be diagnosed with. a variety of different things. And back then they might've been like put in a special classroom or whatever, or hidden away, or they were the troublemakers, or they didn't last in school very long. So this sort of points back to those prevention factors, like the increasing the awareness and the ability for people to access services earlier, mainstream, a lot of things that can be mainstreamed and hopefully they don't become problems for when you're in your forties or fifties or seventies. And now it's maybe too late to address them.
[John Petrella]: Right, yeah. No, I hear you. That's a good answer. I like that. I appreciate that, put it that way. I really do.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, yeah.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, that makes sense. All right, so I'm going to go back to, you know, the community, you know, the Connects, the engagement team. Can you briefly tell us more about them and you know, your prevention and wellness groups. I know that there's different roles, you know, what separates them from your group? I mean, it's really complicated.
[Jason Stone]: It is, but I think that the important takeaway is that it's all collaborative, that we might have a one or two Haitian Creole connectors, right, or liaisons, rather. There is a difference between liaisons and connectors, and I joke that I get it backwards all the time. We have community liaisons, who are people that are out in the community that are liaisons for a particular population of people, whether it's Brazilian Portuguese, whether it's Spanish, whether it's Arabic. And then we also have connectors. So the connectors are exactly that. They are the people who connect, the liaisons kind of bring people in and the connectors connect them to the other things out there. And I kind of help when there's stuff that kind of a little bit below the surface level or things that are a little too complicated. So we have Haitian Creole liaisons, we have Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic liaisons. And they do a lot you'll notice from time to time that there'll be like a Brazilian Independence Day celebration. There'll be a Haitian flag day celebration. Our Black History Month celebration sort of falls in part under that. Events at the senior center. And a lot of that is sort of the public facing stuff to say, hey, we're here as, whether it's part time or full time or grant funded or like city role funded, like we're here as the city. And these are the things that are available. Let's have an event that just gets you in the door sometimes, right? That gets you to see City Hall is a cool building, but it can be a little formidable for some people. And so it gets you like access to City Hall that way. And then if there are more specific needs, then the liaisons can help really tailor some of those events to the specific needs. So they'll do events at the library around immigration or around financial literacy or around they'll team up with the folks at MassHire and do a collaborative event that gets people to sign up for MassHire so that they know what MassHire is, so that they know they'll do them with DTA, so people know how to access DTA. So they try to really connect Like once the people have already been brought in, right, then we try to connect them to the other things that are available. Prevention and wellness. So Matisse does a lot of that stuff at the school level. So a lot of Matisse's groups are in the schools. She works with middle school and high school in putting together groups, putting together one-on-one sort of activities. And then our wellness group is probably would be like our recovery group, our 430 Wednesday night recovery group that has been in existence at City Hall for a long time. It's generally in room 201, so second floor. And that is, the way Chris runs it is the terminology in the halls is a checkup from the neck up. Like you can be, if you say you're in recovery, Good. You're in recovery. Come on in. We got a stack of pizzas. We got some salads. We got chicken fingers. We'll sit down. We'll break bread and talk about what's going on. Sometimes that is like, how was your week? What's going on in your week? How's things at home? How's things with the kids? Like what is going on that either is a stressor to you, but you managed it successfully, or do you need a little more help? Do you need to find like additional resources? And if you do, Jason's right down the hall.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. So you're becoming, you know, you mentioned all these events, so your presence is there at all these events that are going on.
[Jason Stone]: To the best of my ability. We've always got people from the Connectors and the liaisons that are out, and to the best of my ability I'm there too, but they know where to find me if not. So I'll get calls from our Connectors and liaisons all the time about, hey, I ran into so-and-so at Target and I gave him your card or can you go meet so-and-so at the housing authority or because like they're all always out there and I don't like to be chained to a desk. So I'm happy to go meet folks out in the community where they're at if they don't want to come to City Hall. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: And I have a feeling you're not chained to a desk.
[Jason Stone]: I don't like to be. No, I like my office.
[John Petrella]: I have a feeling you're not. I have a feeling you're not.
[Jason Stone]: am out in the woods, I am under train bridges, I am along the river, I'm at the library. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: I like you're where you need to be.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah. But I've always got my phone on and people can call me and we'll get into that after. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: No, like I said, I think this is, you know, this is one of the reasons this is an, to me, it's an awesome show. And I know Myself and the guys that do this, you know, it's all volunteers for us, but where I can't tell you how happy we are that you know, you decided to come on and we're really proud of getting this out there because. You know, I still, I know a lot of people are finding out about you, but there's still a lot of people that need to know. That's all.
[Jason Stone]: Absolutely. And you think that you kind of like spread the word as much as you can, but you don't know who you don't reach. You don't know who doesn't know about you. And like I said, part of the reason I came to Medford is the work that they were already doing here and knowing that I could have a place in like helping to support and lift that.
[John Petrella]: You're actually doing something, and that's great. Okay, so now here's another question I have for you. That's the way my mind works. At what point, okay, do you decide that something is beyond your group's resources, and maybe the residents should just call 911? I mean, I know you've got to get some really tough situations,
[Jason Stone]: Oh, sure. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: So, so when, when, when, I mean, is there any way you can sort of explain to us, like, what might, you know, why you may call a 911 or, you know, what something needs to be handled immediately so on and so forth.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, I think that safety of the individual and safety of the community are always paramount, right? And so, and we do this, which is a good point. And this is not under the umbrella of the health department, but it is worth pointing out that in Medford, embedded in the police department, we have a couple of mental health clinicians. There are two of them right now, Rachel and Jose, and they're awesome. They're wonderful. They're fully trained mental health clinicians. And so, they are co-response. So if the PD gets a phone call that somebody's got a mental health crisis going on, they'll go out with the PD and they'll sort of triage the situation that way. And as long as the officers that respond realize that there's no weapons involved, there's not an immediate imminent danger to a person or the community, then they'll sort of pull back a little. They'll still be a presence, but they'll pull back and they'll let the clinicians sort of actually take the pulse of the situation. I kind of view my job and the calls that I get the same way. If somebody calls me in a situation is really an emergency, then I help figure out what kind of an emergency it is and who should call. Sometimes it is the PD by calling 911. Sometimes it's the non-emergency line because it's still critical, but it may not be emergency, emergency. Sometimes it means calling protective services, like elder protective services. If you've got somebody who, like a senior who had a pipe burst and has got nowhere to go and no resources to get there, then sometimes protective services has to get involved. And that's not to be negative, but sometimes like that's the resource that's available. So the way that I always handle them, if I think that a person is in jeopardy of harming themselves or someone else, then that's above my pay grade. If they're not in imminent danger of harming themselves or somebody else, then okay, let's figure it out from there. And triage, again, is sort of the right word as long as it's not in a crisis. If it's a crisis that a person has to get to a mental health counseling center or to a shelter, then we'll do that and then follow up afterwards. But if the person's safety or the community's safety, that's always going to be paramount. And so the rest of this is all trying to, like, rising tide lifts all boats, right? So the rest of the work is trying to raise the tide. So as long as there's not an immediate danger, then I can come in and make the phone calls and go from there.
[John Petrella]: It's good to know you guys are working with the police department too.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, they're great. Police works with us, fire works with us, the new ambulance provider works with us. I mean, I know it's been only a couple of weeks, but they've been really responsive so far. They've been, they kind of hit the ground running and they've been real communicative. So it's nice to have.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, well, what you're doing is very important. So it's nice to have you guys, you know, yeah. And sometimes you're not appreciated enough. That's for sure. No, I mean, you're just not. I know. All right. So, you know, you've covered a lot of stuff here tonight. There's a lot more. Boy, I can go on and on with you a lot more questions, but we can't. Yeah, you got a certain But, you know, one of the things I wanted to know is, you know, and you obviously have a lot of challenges that you guys deal with, all of you, I mean, not just, so, you know, what is the biggest challenge, like you would say your operation faces? Is it funding? You know, I don't know, like employee retention? You know, what, I mean, aside from helping people and doing all you do, What about the, you know, I kind of look at like the internal operation, there's gotta be challenges for you, right?
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, I mean, I think that the most frustrating thing or the most challenging thing for me, and I've thought a lot about this over the last couple of days and figuring out like, what's the best answer to a question like this, right? And I think that when there's a situation where there's not an immediate fix, right? When somebody actually reached out and called you because they were finally ready to get help with whatever. And when there isn't an immediate fix, right? When the help that's available and the help that they're looking for aren't the same. Now, sometimes funding is obviously the biggest issue and it has been and it always will be. And that's not just at the city level, that's at the state level, that's at the nonprofit level, that's in the private sector. There's never enough money to go around for all the services that we need. And so, I mean, if we wanted to paint with a broad brush, right, it's always that. We always need more resources. And the more resources that we have, the more resources that we need. The more people like me, or the connectors, or the liaisons, or the recovery coach that we have, telling people, hey, look, there's help available. Like, we have to make sure that there is something available when we ask that. Otherwise, it's empty, and then we look we look back, right? Yeah, you can't do outreach and say, hey, come to this group, and then the group doesn't exist. Or, hey, apply for this grant, but the grant doesn't exist. When there's not an immediate fix, and when the system is just bogged down with a sheer volume of cases, sometimes it's not usually staffing on our end, but staffing at other nonprofits. Folks are historically understaffed, and have been since COVID, right? That changed the math for a lot of people. And so the reality is that if somebody calls today because they need X, Y, and Z, hopefully I can at least connect them to some letter of the alphabet. It may not be X, Y, and Z. And so really the biggest challenge is when you've exhausted the options, right? And that it's really just hurry up and wait for something to open up. again, probably another thing that could be a series of podcasts, right? It's like, how do we fix the various different issues? And it's not just funding, like funding is the easy way to explain it. But that has to be targeted at the right places and spent in the right ways and developing the right programs. And so Those are the things that frustrate me. It's one thing to reach out to a person, to do outreach, and say, hey, there's stuff available if you need it. And if they tell me they're all set, they're all set, fine. You know where I am if you need me. if and when they come to me and say, okay, now I need, especially if it's housing, like whatever, I could stand on the tallest soapbox in Medford and scream it as best I can. We don't have enough housing and there's not enough housing that folks can afford. And a lot of the calls that I get are about like, I can't find immediate short term, immediate cheap, immediate housing. Like, it's like, yep, no. And that's the sad reality.
[John Petrella]: It's sad. It's been going on for a while. And, you know, I don't have the answers. I don't pretend to have the answers. But that that's got to be, I know a few people personally that had some problems with that. It really is. That's the worst
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, and I trust... It's a tough thing to try.
[John Petrella]: It is.
[Jason Stone]: And part of sort of what I appreciate about doing things like this is that maybe it gets somebody to pick up the phone earlier. rather than, you know, I'm being evicted tomorrow, or my lease is up tomorrow, or the movers came 12 hours ago, now I need help. Well, like we're kind of like, it's gonna be, it's a miracle to find something in the short term. But so hopefully what it says is that, you know, somebody realizes that six months from now their lease is up, their landlord is selling the house, or they know that their job is ending or whatever. And so now's the time to sort of, to sort of make a plan for when that happens, so that then whatever happens, like you've got things you can do. You've got steps. We've already made the phone calls. We've made the connections. The earlier, the better. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. So you have time. Yeah. I mean, that's the right way to do it.
[Jason Stone]: There's never enough time. But the more time we can get, the better.
[John Petrella]: The early, starting things early is always better. And I know the housing is probably one of the toughest ones. I keep hearing about all this affordable housing coming, but then when you I don't even know what affordable housing is anymore. That's for another show.
[Jason Stone]: It is, it is. I have said this before that a lot of the folks that I interact with, and this was true in Wakefield, this was true here, this is true of my colleagues across the region. There's a lot of folks that come to us, have resources at some level, right? They have enough coming in so that they don't qualify for a lot of the programs that are out there, but they don't have enough money to make ends meet, to pay whatever it is. So then it becomes, okay, how do we chip away at some of that? Let's sort of put a plan together. Let's connect you with the people that can put a plan together and like chip away. If we can't get this, maybe we don't need this, but let's get this and this and this and sort of like piece it together.
[John Petrella]: Yeah, a lot of times it is that, you know, maybe get them help with heating for the winter, whatever it is. Yeah, I hear you. There are people that make, you know, I would say decent money, but the rents and things, the affordable housing, I mean, like I said, I don't know what it is anymore. I have no idea.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah. I shake my head a lot.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. No, I don't know what it is. Yeah.
[Jason Stone]: Right.
[John Petrella]: Yeah. All right. So now the most you know, we're going to have you back on the show. Of course. I mean, we're coming near the end. Yeah. And believe me, I would have loved to go another hour or so. Yeah. From this, I have a lot more questions. But on the same On the other hand, you did a great job. I want to thank you because you answered a lot of questions. And we really reached out and we try to get questions that are going to help people. And you did a great job. I appreciate that. I wish we could give you more time. We're going to have you back.
[Jason Stone]: We'll have a part two and a part three. Yeah, sure.
[John Petrella]: We're going to. We're going to. So, you know, probably of all the shows we do, this is probably the most important thing, you know, as far as you, your organization. And I personally want to thank you because you do great work. You really do. And I mean that. I appreciate it. And it's it's it's a great feeling to know that you're out there doing that. It makes me feel good. So. Here we go. How do people reach you? And, you know, like a website, phone number, I mean, we wanna, I mean, we'll put that out there, but we really wanna put it out there, you know?
[Jason Stone]: Yeah, people can always go to the Medford website under the health department. All that information is there. There's a lot of information on the website. You can always just call me. I'm in room 210 at City Hall, so if you're in City Hall, if you're looking at the chambers, I'm immediately to the left of Council Chambers. People can call my cell, which is, you know, I'm sure it'll be in the literature. 781-654-5635 is my cell. My office number is 781-475-5646. Yes, I do have to read that because my cell and my office numbers are too close to each other. I always transpose it. You can email me jstone at medford-ma.gov. I do office hours at the library every Wednesday from 10 to noon. I'm in study room one every Wednesday.
[John Petrella]: You're at the library every Wednesday.
[Jason Stone]: Every Wednesday, 10 to noon, study room one. It's open office hours. Come in, hang out, talk about what you want to talk about. Sometimes that's a little more palatable for people than coming to City Hall for whatever reason.
[John Petrella]: We have a great library. They can
[Jason Stone]: you know, if they're on Facebook, the community engagement team has a Facebook page that they're always pumping out literature about what's available and what they're doing. And I can't keep track of all the events that they're doing. So check the Facebook page, especially because Samia keeps that pretty up to date. Yeah.
[John Petrella]: OK, that's nice to know. That's good to know. There's a lot of different places people can hook up with you.
[Jason Stone]: Usually because of where I am at City Hall. So if folks just come into City Hall and come up to the second floor, they kind of don't really know where they are. And they'll look around and I can see them from my office. So I'll go out in direct traffic. Yeah. So even that way, if you're lost, just come into City Hall. I'll find you.
[John Petrella]: I appreciate it. I mean, this is good. People know. I mean, you know, hopefully it It works out for people, that's all. I think knowing, I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't know where your office was. I hate to admit it, but I did. Now I do. So, and it's good to know, you know? And I'll be giving out information, that's for sure. Yeah, please do. Please do. So, listen, I can't thank you enough. We'll call it a show now. And I am, we're gonna have you back on. Yeah, please do. This was, I think this is a, You know, we're doing a service to Method by having you on. You do a great service to Method, and that's what this is all about. Absolutely.
[Jason Stone]: Yeah. It's a great place to be able to do the work. So I thank you for this opportunity.
[John Petrella]: Thank you so much for joining us, Jason. And if I need a lawyer, I'm not going to call you.
[Jason Stone]: You better phone Stone, but you better not call me.
[John Petrella]: All right. Have a great night. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. You know, I want to take a minute Now, I want to thank Jason again. I think that was a great show, interesting show. I want to take a minute to thank everyone who has been watching the show. I want to thank you for your feedback. We appreciate it. We really do. If you would like to share a comment, or opening a new business, or have an existing business, or you represent an organization, you have an upcoming event, you would just like to appear on a future show, please do contact us at methodhappenings02155 at gmail.com. Once again, methodhappenings02155 at gmail.com. I also want to say you'll be able to see replays of this show on Method Community Media, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. And also, you gotta go look at, and I say it all the time, it's a phenomenal website, methodhappenings.com, very easy to get to. And you can also find us on YouTube, YouTube.com. And right now, our Facebook page is down. It's going to be coming back up. But you can find us on YouTube as well, Method Happenings. So for the Method Happenings team, Paul, Marco, Bruce, and everyone else that helps us along the way. And boy, we need help. I just want to say, I'm John Petrella. And remember, Method, stay informed. Thank you.
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