AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 04-28-26

[Joshua White]: Test one, two.

[Zac Bears]: Medford City Council, Committee of the Whole, April 20, 2026 is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Callahan? Present.

[SPEAKER_04]: Present.

[Rich Eliseo]: Councilor Leming? Present. Councilor Malauulu? Present. Councilor Scarpelli? Present. Councilor Tseng is absent. Vice President Lazzaro? He's absent. And President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Present. That's five present, two absent. Meeting is called to order. Action and discussion items 26-074 submitted by Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Community Development Block Grant Action Plan for Fiscal 27. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the city's community development block grant annual action plan for community development and planning. The action plan contains the proposed use of community development block grant funds for the program year, which extends July 1, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, is a program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, that began in 1974. Fiscal year 27 will be the City of Medford's program year 52 of CDBG funding. And we do have here... There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, April 20, 2026 at 6 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the city's Community Development Block Grant Annual Action Plan for Program Year 2026, July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, and the public services applications for CDBG grant funding. Copies of the plan are available for review and download at medfordma.org slash CDBG. The Annual Action Plan contains the city's proposed use of CDBG grant funds for the program year. City Council has invited Alicia Hunt, the Director of the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, and Laurel Siegel, CDBG and Grants Manager to attend. Representatives from the public services agencies applying for funds will also be in attendance. If you need reasonable accommodation to attend or participate in this meeting, please contact the ADA Coordinator, Frances Nwaje, at 781-393-2439, or via email at fnwaje at medford-ma.gov. Please note that while the city will make every effort to fulfill their requests, some requests may not be fulfilled due to the hiring and availability of outside contractors. and Councilor Tseng is present. So I will turn this over to Laurel, our CDBG and Grants Manager, to share a little bit more and then we'll go through the applicants.

[Laurel Siegel]: Great, thank you so much. So yes, we're here to discuss our annual action plan and also for an opportunity for our public services grantees to describe their programs and answer any questions that you may have. So we are a CDBG entitlement community, which means that we receive direct funding from HUD every year. Our allocation for next year is about 1.433 million. That does represent a reduction of about 32,000 or 2.2% from last year. In addition, we have about 300,000 of unused prior year funds. Those are just funds that for various reasons, projects get delayed or aren't requiring the full funds. So our available funds for next year is 1.733 million. And then we break that down into a couple of different buckets. We are allowed to spend up to 20% of our annual allocation on planning and administration. That largely goes to pay salaries for staff such as myself, our housing planner. economic development planner and part of the PDS head clerk. We're also allowed to allocate up to 15 percent of our annual allocation to public services and we do maximize that as much as we can. And then the remainder goes into various projects parks projects roadways and econ development programs as well as housing programs such as our housing rehab loan program. In the past, we did have CDBG CV or coronavirus funds, but those have now been fully expended. So those are no longer included in the annual plan. Unless there are any questions, I would love to just proceed to introducing some of our public services grantees.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you, Laurel. We'll take them in order. Cool if I use the table.

[Laurel Siegel]: I'm sorry?

[Zac Bears]: If I use the table for alphabetical?

[Laurel Siegel]: Oh, yes, please do. Great. And we do, for ABCD, we do have Josh White in the room with us, so he can come and join me here. Great.

[Zac Bears]: We'll start with ABCD.

[Joshua White]: I love the fact that my organization is ABCD. I get in and out for Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you folks tonight. Again, my name is Joshua White. I am the Director of Housing and Homelessness Prevention for ABCD. I'm here today to talk to you about the Medford CDBG program and how it helps support Medford residents in preserving their housing. Our program operates two ways. First is our emergency financial program that works with Medford residents on ensuring that they are able to pay any back rental arrears or utility arrears. And then we also provide housing counseling case management for those Medford residents, specifically our financial literacy program to ensure that Medford residents that find themselves in financial hardship have the tools and skills necessary to ensure that they become independent and self-sufficient. So that is ABCD in a nutshell. I also did want to add one quick thing that is not related to the Medford CDBG program, and that is we are coming to the end of our fuel assistance year. Applications will be accepted until 1159 p.m. on Thursday, April 30th. So any of your constituents are looking for fuel assistance, please have them reach out to our offices or visit our fuel assistance office in Malden.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you. Do we have any questions from members of the council around the ABCD proposal? Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: I'm glad you brought that up because this past week I've been working with an elderly young lady that lives in Medford that we realized very independent. So finally she allowed her son to look into her her finances and realized her last two months of heating was over $700 from a local oil company. And that's one of the. The first things that every advocate and supports members requested is reach out to ABC and they've been great. So I just bring that forward just because it's real life when it, you know, I've seen it firsthand just a couple of days ago. So we appreciate the work. Absolutely. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Joshua White]: And just to let folks know, we did move locations. So the new fuel systems office is located at Florence Street, directly across the street from the mall and Center T Station. Great. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Any other questions for ABCD? All right. Seeing none, we'll move to the next item, housing families. Great. I'll recognize you, Jaina.

[Jayna Stafford]: Hi, everyone. Good evening. Thank you so much for having us here. I wish that I were with you in person. I'm a little under the weather today, which is why I'm on Zoom. We have been located in the Tri-Cities area since 1991. So our program, this is our 35th year. We originally started out at the Tri-City Community Action Program, which would be a sister program to ABCD. So when that program closed, we moved over to Housing Families in 2015. So we have a long history of serving the Tri-City area. And we are still the only legal services entity that is located here in the Tri-Cities. We offer a full range of legal services, which includes legal advice, referrals, advocacy, limited assistance representation, full representation, and financial advocacy. We find that combining legal services with financial assistance really makes the difference. So we can get a lot done with not even always a lot of money. but just a little bit can really, really help us kind of move the ball towards keeping the family stably housed. And we work all along the points of someone that's stably housed, but has some concerns. Maybe their landlord said that they're gonna be selling in a year, all the way through the constable is coming in the morning. or we also have families sometimes who are unhoused, and we have advocacy services try to get them into emergency assistance. The other services at Housing Families also help us deliver this holistic model. We have our resource hub, we have clinical supports, our children's programming, we have permanent supportive housing, we have emergency shelter units that we contract with through HLC. And we have our individual supports for, I don't want to say individuals again, but individuals experiencing homelessness. So we have the shelter space, we have our street outreach team, and this full array really helps us deliver what anyone primarily could use to stabilize their tenancy and, or become housed if they are experiencing homelessness already. In calendar year, I just pulled a little bit of data. So in calendar year 2025, we were able to deliver $17,699 in rental assistance external from the city to the residents of Medford. And I say external because we also participate with the Medford CPA program. And that's been super helpful in offering that full array of services. I think that's pretty much all I wanted to cover. That's us also in a nutshell. I'm happy to answer any questions or elaborate on anything if that's helpful.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'll go to Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I talk about the work that Housing Families does kind of a lot. I really appreciate your work. services that are provided by housing families, and this is true of ABCD too, are really critical, important services offered to very vulnerable residents in the region. And these services are definitely used by Medford residents. And that being said, especially homelessness is a regional issue because once you are threatened to lose your home or you do lose your home, you become a resident of the area. You find services where you can find them. So these programs operate across this region, but I can say when I worked in Malden in this area, there were many Medford residents that utilized the services. So I just wanted to say how important it is to do the kind of work that, excuse me, I'm sorry, I missed your name. that you were describing to try to catch people before they go fully into homelessness or if it's something where somebody might need legal assistance but wouldn't necessarily be able to afford it because sometimes that stuff snowballs and, you know, a few bills pile up and then suddenly, you know, people can't get out of it. So, always, it's always easier to help somebody avoid falling into, a trap like that than pulling somebody all the way out of it. So I just wanted to say how critical that work is and how much we appreciate it here in Medford. I was wondering if you could clarify for me something. This grant, will it just support legal services or all of the work that Housing Families does for Medford residents?

[Jayna Stafford]: This will be for our legal services program. Our full name is Legal Aid for Wellbeing and Stability. So we bring in those other supports as part of a holistic model of serving the entire person rather than just fixing a quick legal issue. We want to know why they got behind. Are they receiving everything that they can to help them be stable moving forward?

[Emily Lazzaro]: Great. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Leming.

[Matt Leming]: Thank you. There was an incident that happened a couple of weeks ago, which I hope can just, for any other residents who might be watching, illustrate why some issues like homelessness, eviction, legal services around housing is necessary for this community. I got a panicked call from a from a resident, a fellow who I had canvassed during the election, saying that the apartment complex he was living in, a family had just suddenly been, like, literally half an hour before, evicted from their apartment building. all of their belongings in about 60 boxes were literally inside the lobby and they didn't have a place to sleep that night. And it was unfortunate. And you know, that's not something that city councilors normally deal with. And so I was great. And so it was basically, what we are left to do is to connect them to social services. I connected this family with Jaina. I reached out to her. I connected them with some of the housing advocates I'd known that I'd worked with in the past. When these things happen, and they do happen, And you never know when it's going to happen, but it happens all the time. I'm sure Jayna has plenty of experience of seeing this stuff. You do need people who can handle this situation. You do need people on the line when suddenly there's a family that just doesn't have any other place to go. And so I'm glad to see the city putting some money. I wish we could put more, but I'm glad to seeing us put some money towards services like housing families. So once again, Jayna, thank you for all the work you put into your job and thank you so much to your organization for partnering with our city.

[Jayna Stafford]: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. Councilor Malauulu.

[Liz Mullane]: I also want to thank you for all of your hard work in this area. I can only imagine the amount of people that are reaching out to you. And I noticed in here you had said the program will assist an estimated 175 Medford residents. I was just curious, kind of two questions on it. Have you seen kind of a rising uptick in terms of the number of people reaching out to you? If so, are there more than that 175 that you anticipate coming in for this next year that you'll probably need to give assistance to?

[Jayna Stafford]: I started doing this work in 2006, and every year, I keep thinking this is the hardest year. I wrote out that first foreclosure crisis in 2008 through 2010. We saw COVID, we saw so many things. We saw the rents just go sky high. When I first came here, people were coming to our area because they couldn't afford like Cambridge or things like that. And now it's so expensive. So it continues to be very difficult for families. So we see A lot of people that need help. And sometimes the issues become more and more serious, especially when there's job loss. And then when you have a high rent plus job loss. If you can't pay it just adds up so quickly. And so we we try to stem it as early as we can and get people back on the right track. But there is a lot of need out there right now. There's a unique, the way our supports, our contracts and grants are layered, even when we do exceed a goal, we just keep working. So we are able to, we have other grants that cover parts of things. And so we're able to just keep working in our communities, even when we do exceed the number of people that we were expecting.

[Liz Mullane]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any further questions for Jayna on the housing families proposal for CDBG funding? Seeing none. Thank you, Jayna.

[Jayna Stafford]: Thank you all so much. Pleasure to be here.

[Zac Bears]: We'll move to the Medford Council on Aging and I see our director Pam Kelly. So I will recognize you director Kelly.

[Pam Kelly]: Good evening, everybody. I'm sorry I can't be in person tonight. But I do, I'm very happy to be a continued recipient of the CDBG grant. As you all know, the Medford City has a very high demographic of seniors age 60 and older. We have over 12,744 people that are eligible to use the senior center's resources. And not that we see all of them, but we want to make sure that they all know who we are and what we have. This particular grant assists our social worker for additional hours so that she's able to outreach throughout the city of Medford to get the people that are unable to come to the senior center, to meet them at their homes, and also to offer services even at the library. The social worker works very close with many different resources in the city of Medford, whether it be with Jaina at housing, ABCD for oil, Mystic Valley Elder Services, and pretty much every department within the city. The handyman that we do primarily, his role is to assist seniors to stay safe in their own home. For example, climbing a six foot ladder to replace the smoke detectors or the batteries in them, putting curtain rods up, fixing stuck windows, replacing doorknobs, things to keep people safe in their home, handles. And that has been increasing because we're making sure that we get the word out that that is a service that is available to all Medford residents, whether they're in a home or an apartment. The third thing that we do offer with the grant is recreational transportation option. So we do many day trips throughout the year, and we're able to reduce the price of the overall day trip with this transportation portion that will allow people to go on guided trips and tours, whether it be to North Shore Music Theater, to have a luncheon and a show, whether it's to a, Blaster Cruise, or any, we have many different ones. If you see our newsletter, you'll see that pretty much every month there's something different going on. And we do assist approximately 50 people per trip, and we do, with the funding, about 10 trips per year. Our final and fourth program, program that we offer is the Mystic Valley Elder Services Title III match. Many of you are aware Mystic Valley offers services to the Medford residents, whether it's meals on wheels, in-home services, guidance to keep them safe, in-home care, this helps match that money, the funds that are due throughout the year. And they do represent very close to 8,000 people a year in Medford. So we are very grateful and thankful that the CDBG grant is available to the Medford Senior Center to offer those extra services that would not be covered normally through our regular funding. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Pam. Do we have any questions for Pam, on the Medford Council on Aging proposal. All right, seeing none. Oh, Councilor Scarpelli.

[George Scarpelli]: Again. Thank you, Mr. President, and through the Chair. Pam, as I mentioned, ABC did the fuel assistance. I think the support that we have from your department, your leadership, I think this is the connection that we received through your office, through this social worker. And I think that it's so vital when you see the number of aging residents here in the city of Medford. Has there been talk about increasing that position to a full-time position? Because I'm sure we need it. Again, like I said, this is a senior citizen who's a very independent person, but really needed support for her son who lived out of state. and reaching out to a city councilor because they didn't know who to talk to at the time. So my question again, first I want to thank you and your team for being there with such a small number of support staff, but is there any hope or wish that we can increase that position to a full-time position and maybe more?

[Pam Kelly]: Thank you for the question. Yes, actually, we did and have been able to increase her hours from 25 hours a week to 30 hours a week. So it's a gradual process, but we'll be working on that as well.

[George Scarpelli]: OK, well, I thank you. And again, I thank our colleagues that are supporting our senior citizens. So again, thank you, Mr. President.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. And I believe we have you back tomorrow night. yeah for your budget as well so we can get into that more absolutely thank you awesome all right we'll move on to the next we have medford public schools Sure, if you could just say all of that again.

[Laurel Siegel]: I'm sorry. It looks like we do not have a representative from Medford Public Schools with us tonight, so I will go ahead and just read the description of their program that we're funding. Funding from CDBG will provide much needed tuition assistance to up to 20 low income families who need after school care for their school age children. Though tuition is kept affordable, some families still struggle to afford the cost of the program. The consequence for families who cannot afford to send their children to after school programs can be detrimental if it means children are left unattended or unsupervised or that a caregiver cannot work. The CDBG scholarships will serve as a safety net for families whose financial circumstances change, providing program continuity for children and keeping them in a safe, supportive environment.

[Zac Bears]: Awesome. Do we have any questions about that that you can answer, Laurel?

[Laurel Siegel]: Likely not, but I'm happy to entertain them if there are questions. Sure.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Seeing none, we'll move to the next item, Mystic Valley Elder Services. And it looks like we have Carla here from Mystic Valley Elder Services. If you want to share a bit more about your proposal.

[Carla Madute]: Sure. Good evening and thank you so much for having me. I do apologize I'm not in person. My little girl is on the way so I'm on home rest until that happens. But I wanted to thank you so much. I just wanted to thank City Council again for your time tonight and to thank Medford for its continued support in our nutrition program. So our program is, I'm the director of nutrition Carla Matute and what we do is we deliver home delivered meals to 11 cities and towns and to the residents of Medford, older adults and adults living with disabilities. We also provide congregate dining sites in the city of Medford. We support the dining site that is run through the Medford COA by the amazing Pam Paley and the amazing community that she's built. at her center. Really, we are in crucial times as a lot of programs are dealing with our seniors. Due to the federal cuts, we have seen a reduction of 30% in federal funding and nutrition funding. which has created a significant service gap, which leads us to requesting the 10,000 to help stabilize this program for us. In the last year, we've delivered over 71,000 meals to older adults in the city of Medford. What we really try and do in our program is not just serve a meal, but we provide wellness checks and socializations. We provide emergency shelf stable meals for when we have any winter storm. This winter was, we were not prepared. I don't think any of us had had a winter this past quite some time. So it was really essential and crucial that we were able to supply so many shelf-stable meals to ensure that for all the closings that we had due to the conditions out there that our older adults were safe, had food and whatever necessary to make sure that they had the nutritional support they required until we were back on the road with them. And we really value our partnership with the City of Medford. and respectfully ask for your continued support in this program. We do see that our program is proven and accountable. More than 95% of the individuals we serve are low or moderate income, and annual consumer surveys show that participants are healthier and better able to remain living independently because of these services. We currently do not have a wait list for Meals on Wheels, but there are wait lists in the state home care programs at this time. which means we are serving Meals on Wheels system consumers who are looking for more services and supports in their homes. And we really want to prevent there ever being a wait list for our program and services, because at least in interim where consumers are waiting for supports, they're able to receive a meal, a daily safety check, and ensure that they're being followed through Mystic Valley until we are able to get them off the wait list. So that's just a little bit about our program. Are there any questions that I could answer?

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Carla about the Mystic Valley Elder Services CDBG funding? Councilor Malauulu.

[Liz Mullane]: I don't have any questions. I just want to say thank you very much for all of your work. I know quite a few people who utilize your services, and certainly when you mentioned not only getting meal service delivery, but it's also the socialization and being able to have contact with people throughout the day has been a really important and critical piece to it as well. And I just, again, just want to thank you for your work and being able to serve as many people as you do. I know that we're continuing to see this rise, and knowing that we have your services is, I know, puts me at ease, because I know, personally, people that have utilized your services. So thank you.

[Carla Madute]: Thank you so much.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mullane. All right. I'm not seeing any further questions, so we'll move on to our next item, the Mystic Valley YMCA and Medford Community Market. Thank you, Carla.

[Carla Madute]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: All right. I will go to Lisa from the Mystic Valley YMCA. Lisa, let us know a bit about your program and how this will support the Mystic Community Market.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, thank you for the opportunity. The Mystic Community Market opened in early 2020 at the Walnut Street Center on Mystic Ave, and it's the largest free food market in the area. It's become a vital food access resource for Medford residents. In the past year, we've served nearly 5,000 residents. We've distributed 1.5 million pounds of food in the past year alone, and each visit to the market results in fresh produce, lean protein, dairy, and shelf-stable items. One in five Medford residents currently struggles with food insecurity, and food insecurity impacts people across income, not just people below poverty guidelines. Rising food costs and inflation continue to push more families into need, and we've seen that dramatically this past year. Nearly 100% of our shoppers are low or very low income. One third of the people who benefit from the market are children. And 79% are members of historically underrepresented communities, including newcomers and first-generation Americans. We're open six days a week, We offer both appointments and drop-in access. We deliver weekly groceries deliveries to 135 homebound seniors through partnerships with Medford Housing Authority and Medford Council on Aging. And CDBG funds supports core operating costs, which makes this work possible. Our short-term goal is to ensure consistent access to healthy supplemental food for the residents of Medford. And our long-term goal is really to connect individuals to the services and opportunities that they need so that food assistance is no longer needed at some point. The MISD community market is a proven effective response to food insecurity in Medford and continued CDBG support is essential to sustaining and expanding our impact. And we want to thank you for your partnership and commitment to the health and wellbeing of our community. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Lisa about domestic community market funding? Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I have to say I love these CPG meetings because you find out about so many like truly remarkable programs that serve our community. And I'm just curious about this one. How do you reach out to people? How do you, you know, what's the way that you identify the folks that need your services the most? Thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes. rely on referrals from other community agencies. Um, we advertise through our membership. Um, we, but we have a lot of partnerships. So we, we partner with, um, Medford schools, Medford housing, elder services. We have lots of community community partners, um, who, you know, help us spread the word.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm seeing no further questions. Lisa, thank you so much. And we're going to move on to our next item. All right, we've RISE Multicultural Services. Is there, is that Monica? Are you here from RISE? All right, Monica, I'll ask you to unmute.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, everyone. It's always nice to see people from Medford. My name is Monica and I'm here to represent RISE. This project focuses on expanding multilingual mental health support circle. for low and moderate income resident in Medford with a strong emphasis on senior and especially immigrant community. Right now, many of those people seeking support are older adults who live alone, rely on fixed income like social security, or nothing, and face barriers like language, transportation, and stigma around traditional mental health care. Because of this, many don't feel comfortable accessing clinical services, but they are open to community-based here support groups offered in their own language. We have seen a growing demand for those groups, and currently our sessions are full with awaiting lists, mostly immigrant seniors experiencing isolation, anxiety, and emotional distress, especially what was going on with ICE. With this funding, We plan to expand the program by increasing meetings from monthly to weekly, which is especially important for seniors. Regular, consistent support helps reduce isolation, improve emotional well-being, and build a sense of community and stability. The support circle provides safe space for conversation. They feel okay to talk to us, to be in a small group. Copying strategies and connecting to others. Essential services like housing, food, and healthcare, so we refer them to the other organization. The goal of RISE is to create a presentative impact, reducing loneliness, improving mental health. and helping residents stay engaged and stable in their community before issue become crisis and be able to introduce the resources available for them, like the senior center. We do a lot, send them a lot there. Overall, this project directly support low income and senior residents. removes cultural and language barriers, and strengthens the wellbeing of some Medford most vulnerable population. One thing I wanna share with you, when we have those people, we have something with the Haitian community, they don't like to talk about healthcare. So when they are with us, they feel comfortable. they can express themselves and our meeting doesn't have to be the agenda. We not follow the agenda all the time because it depends on what's going on. Like it's war going on and then they worry about it and we talk about it. If somebody has somebody who lost and loves one, we talk about it. And then sometime we came in, we play games. So they enjoyed it and then they want to come. We want to have more people and do it more often. And I thank you for that grant. And I thank the city of Medford for that grant. So which that will allow us to have more meetings and more people. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Monica. And I want to thank you for all the work that you're doing. You know, you're a new applicant this year. And so our first chance to hear from you, many of the other folks we've worked with in the past and heard from, but really appreciate the work and the services that you're providing to our community.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Do we have any other questions for Monica and the RISE Multicultural Services proposal? I'll go to Vice President Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Hi, I do have a question about RISE. Are you located in Medford Square? Do you have an office in Medford?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, we do. We are on 11 Salem Street and Suite 11 on the third floor.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Yeah, I think I came to a ribbon cutting for your office.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes, I remember. Yes, I saw you. I remember that. Yes.

[Emily Lazzaro]: You opened very recently, and I remember learning about your organization and how I was so excited about it because you offer translation services, and you're open in the evening when people get off work, and you do all this wonderful work for newly arrived people in this area who have—like, the people who are speaking these languages, the most common languages in Medford are not necessarily—what's going on? We're losing our lights, sorry. We're being so exciting. The lights are turning off. The languages that we need translations for are not necessarily the languages you would expect, but your organization is really meeting our residents where they are, and I'm so excited to hear that you're doing so much mental and behavioral health work because, of course, it would be so critical for somebody, especially older people who are, you know, hearing about things that are happening back home. Just so much important work. I'm so grateful for the fact that you're doing that and that things are going well in your office space. So I'm very glad to hear that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. Thank you. That's mean a lot to us. Thank you so much.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Good.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Seeing no further questions for RISE Multicultural Services. Thank you, Monica.

[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: We'll move to SCM Community Transport. And I will recognize you at the podium.

[Laurel Siegel]: We have John Keegan here from SCM.

[John Keegan]: Hi, folks. Thanks for having all of us here. And it always reminds me what a great nonprofit community we have in these local areas. So it's good. So SCM provides transportation primarily to seniors and some folks with various disabilities. We focus mostly on hospital visits, doctor's visits, et cetera. We also do food shopping. You know, behind the scenes, we kind of think we help people maintain a presence in the community through our clunky and big white vans. And so we, what did I want to say about that? We really don't have a great deal of excess capacity. We don't hardly need to advertise because we pretty much overshoot our contracts every year. This year we're doing that also. I wanted to mention one thing. an unusual grant from MassDOT, Mass Department of Transportation, to extend some of what we've been able to do. And I was just looking at what we were able to do in Medford, and we have a couple things that we're doing here. A little hard to read on my phone, but so we did an additional 148 shopping trips. We started a shuttle to Target and Walmart because people were looking for a shuttle to Target and Walmart. I've been working with Laurel on the Transportation Committee for a year, a year and a half or so, so some of the things come through those discussions. So the Target shuttle and the Walmart shuttle have brought about 512 additional rides that were unfunded. So they are funded through MassDOT. So they didn't cost anything to the Medford CDBG contract. In addition to that, We've been able to do a little bit of social transportation, hairdressers, the places that seniors want to go. All of our folks are low income. And basically, they can't transport alone. So we do a door-to-door service. So our folks basically walk up to the front door, take arms, walk to the van, get people seated, clip on seatbelts, et cetera. And finally, there was one other item. In MedFed, we did an additional 170 medical trips under the MassDOT contract. Again, these are over and above and to the side of the CDBG funding. SCM's been doing transportation in Medford since 1981. Not that I've been there since 1981, but the M in SCM is Medford, so Medford was one of the founding cities. So, I guess, we also do one other thing that doesn't come through CDBG. We do trips to adult day health facilities, and that's about half of what we do, usually in the morning and the late afternoon.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you. Do we have any questions on the SCM community transport proposal? All right, seeing none, thank you.

[John Keegan]: Thank you for having me.

[Zac Bears]: We'll close it out with the welcome project. Oh, I see a couple people here from welcome. And I'll recognize you if you want to present on the ESOL program that you are working on this year.

[SPEAKER_06]: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mary Beauchard. I'm the ESL program coordinator at the Welcome Project. I'm here with my colleague Suwani Lima tonight. CDBG funding is used at the Welcome Project to support our English for Parents program. This is one of three programs that we offer that serve immigrant residents. This program is held in collaboration with the Medford public school system. Our classes are beginner level classes open to parents and caregivers of children in the school system. These classes are held in person and online to best accommodate parent schedules. Our classes use a standard ESL curriculum, but also focus on navigating the school system, learning how to advocate for your children. finding resources. Parents want to be able to support their children. This program empowers Medford parents to take an active role in not just their child's education, but also their community. Through English for Parents classes, our students gain comfort speaking up at parent-teacher conferences, participating in school board meetings, and engaging in other school-related events. Our EFP classes are taught by experienced teachers, and CDBG funding is used to compensate these educators. At the Welcome Project, we also have an ESOL a broader ESOL program, and a youth interpretation program. As an organization, our work extends beyond education. Much of what we do is supporting students outside of the classroom by connecting them with resources and local social services in areas like housing, legal support, food access, and more. Thank you for your continued support of our program.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Mary. Swanee, is there anything you'd like to add?

[SPEAKER_16]: I would like to extend my thank you for this program. It's been helping a lot of immigrant parents. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Thank you both. Do we have any questions for Mary and Suani from the Welcome Project? All right. Seeing none, thank you, and I'll turn it back over to Laurel. I think that's all of our projects, so if you want to close us out. Did I miss anyone?

[Laurel Siegel]: No, that was everybody. Great. So yeah, that was everybody, and the plan is available for public comment through May 13th. And you can download a copy of the plan at medfordma.org slash CDBG. We have our own CDBG webpage. There is also a link on that page to a form for submitting comments. But people can also submit comments by email directly to me at lseagle at medford-ma.gov. So unless there are any other questions, that's everything I have to present.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you, Laurel. Do we have any questions from members of the Council for Manager Laurel Siegel before we go to public participation and then close this meeting? Seeing no questions from the Council, are there any members of the public, either in person or on Zoom, who'd like to speak at this time about our CDBG Action Plan? Seeing none, is there a motion to report this to our regular meeting on May 12th?

[Laurel Siegel]: May 12th.

[Zac Bears]: That's when we'll take our final vote on this. and adjourn on the motion of Vice President Lazzaro to report this paper to the regular meeting and adjourn, seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor? Opposed? The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. We're using the same Zoom link for 7 p.m. So if you're on Zoom and you want to stick around for the regular meeting, stay on Zoom. And if not, come down and join us in the chamber or watch on YouTube or Medford Community Media. Thank you and we'll see you back here at 7.