City Council - Human Services Committee Hearing on Docket #0285

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Okay. Good morning, everyone. For the record, my name is Erin Murphy, at-large city councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Human Services. Today is March 3rd, 2026. and the exact time is 10.09 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.hs.boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you're interested in testifying in person, add your name to the sign up sheet at the door

and if you're looking to testify virtually please email our central staff liaison Megan at Megan I'll spell it M-E-A-G-A-N dot C-O-R-U-G-E-D-O at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 0285, order for a hearing regarding navigating city services for residents with complex family and caregiver needs. This matter was sponsored by myself and Councilor Flynn and was referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026. We are joined by Councilor Flynn now and we do have Wonderful panel that we're looking forward to hearing from. We will start off with opening statements from our colleagues, and then we'll turn over to the panelists. So, Councilor Flynn, if you would like to start.

Madam Chair, at this time I don't have an opening statement.

Okay, awesome. So I'll just, I'm going to give a little background. I always say that my hearing orders almost always come from a call or, you know, a visit with the resident to kind of sparks that if you're having this issue, I bet other people are having this issue. And I got a call from a friend, an older man, a retired firefighter from Alston, who has a son with special needs and was just kind of sharing that he was having difficulty trying to make sure he could connect to lots of different city services and with his care at one place and then needing other services that you know just didn't seem to all mesh together and if there was kind of one central place so if there was an easier way for him to kind of connect those services to make sure that You know, like all parents fear that when they move on, are their kids in a place where they can continue to care for themselves? And you know, my response,

I always is when people call like we we do we have these services we have departments we have people in the city who are doing these things so let's find ways to connect you and if he's calling right we know there's so many other people and Council of Flynn and I We're talking about how he often is at BHA residence, so thank you for being here. And many times our most needy residents, those who have either, you know, students at schools, maybe special ed concerns, just different departments that need to kind of work together in some ways or talk to each other so families feel as though there's a smooth transition to get the needs they want. Just looking forward to hearing from all of you so that we can then take that information and properly share that back to the residents who want to make sure that there's a smoother way to just get connected to so many wonderful things we offer across the city.

So I will introduce the panel and then you guys can decide who wants to go first and how you're going to present. We are joined today by Chief Masso from Human Services. Thank you for being here. Kenzie Bock, the administrator from BHA. Lydia Argo, who is the Chief of Engagement for BHA. Dr. Ana Tavares should be coming here. She's the Superintendent of Equity, Community, and Family Advancement at Boston Public Schools. And we also invited Christine Trevizzoni from BPS because One of the important things, making sure BPS is here too because many of our families are also dealing with students in school. And we have one other person from BHA. So if you just wouldn't mind introducing yourself on the record when it comes time. I appreciate that. Thank you. So you can start if you want.

Sure. Good morning and thank you so much for allowing us to be here today. Councilor Murphy, Councilor Flynn. For the record, my name is Jose Maso and I'm the Chief of Human Services here at the City of Boston. I'm joined, as was mentioned, by my colleagues in the city, Administrator Kenzie Bach from BHA, Lydia Argo, and from Boston Public Schools, Christine Traversoni. I'm pleased to be here on behalf of my cabinet, which, as you know, has six departments, Boston Public Libraries, Boston Centers for Youth and Families, Age Strong Commission, Veterans Services, the Office of Returning Citizens, and the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. What binds our departments together is the fact that they provide direct services to residents every day and help connect them with community-based resources that they need in order to help. As I like to say, our cabinet is where the people are. We have 1,000 employees in 70 locations across the city. The benefit of having all of our teams together in one cabinet is that we are able to easily and seamlessly work together to serve complex households.

We regularly support households across departments and cross promote each other's programs using our communications channels. In addition, we collaborate on community engagement opportunities, knowing that many veterans are also older adults or many returning citizens, also have children living in their households. I look forward to hearing feedback about how we can do better to support all families in Boston. as we are always seeking to improve. With that, I will turn it over to my colleagues at Boston Public Schools, Christine, Travis, and me. Thank you.

Thank you. My own?

Yes. Kenzie knows how those work.

Thank you for having me. Christine Trevisoni, I'm the senior advisor to the superintendent for specialized services. I also oversee transition programming for the district and the new next program that we've created for transition. I really appreciate being here today to talk about our partnerships with the city. This is such an important thing for our families. As you know, the biggest concern is they're so well taken care of until they're 22 years old, and then it really moves to State agencies for the most part and those collaborative things so I look forward to talking about the work that we've been doing.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the record. I'm Kenzie Bach. I'm the administrator of the Boston Housing Authority. I'm joined here today, and I'll talk in a moment about the reorganization that we've done, but by my deputy administrator for... of Resident Programming and Advancement, Lydia Igro, and also we're supported here today as well by our Senior Director for Resident and Community Affairs, Elizabeth Aguilar, who's over on the side. Yes, we did a little presentation, so I just wanted to So if we go to the next slide. Oh, I think I control this. There we go. I think all the councillors are well aware that the BHA, you know, we're the largest housing provider in the city. and one of the sort of slogans that the Housing Authority and a few years back was the phrase just we are people, not buildings.

While it is true that the BHA has a large portfolio of physical buildings, those buildings exist for the people that we serve. and they're really the heart and soul of our mission and so you know as it mentions on this slide here the folks who we support through our housing services there's about 17,000 who live in the BHA communities that are generally known as public housing and then there's another 44,000 who we serve through our voucher programs and some of those are in project-based voucher buildings so also buildings that people might know as affordable housing and many of those individuals are scattered throughout the housing stock in the city and the region. So that's really, you know, those are the folks at the heart of our work, and we're really proud of the fact that we're really the main reason that low-income people are still able to live within Boston proper in a lot of cases and also in a lot of neighborhoods the only way that seniors and that families with children are able to live in the neighborhoods and we're also proud to serve a large number of people with disabilities.

both in our elderly and disabled portfolio and also in our family housing. Next slide. So I mentioned Basically at the beginning of the year, we did a bit of a reorganization at the Housing Authority where I pulled a lot of our resident service programming focused pieces all together into a new vertical. and promoted Lydia Agro, who has been at the Housing Authority for a long time, and many of you know, to Deputy Administrator for Resident Programming and Advancement, as I mentioned. And really what that came out of is the fact that the history for the Housing Authority is that in the late 1990s, early 2000s, all the money for resident services was cut. This was part of federal decision making. And so because of that, The resident service coordinators who used to be employees of the Housing Authority were laid off. The youth workers who used to be employees of the Housing Authority were laid off.

And that kind of whole vertical sort of just disintegrated. because there was no money for it. So the idea from Washington was that the Housing Authority was only gonna get money for housing programs. And over a couple of decades, we've seen the real challenge of that because exactly as you're hearing is drawing attention to today, So many of the people we house at BHA are the people who are in need of services and supports. And so it's a really challenging thing for us whenever people kind of think like, oh, once somebody's in BHA housing, they're all set or they'll have services because We don't get that service funding. So what's been great over recent years has been, I think a lot of partners have recognized that many of the folks they're trying to serve are in our buildings. There's been a renewed focus from both partners and the city and the state on kind of like figuring out how to work with and serve our populations and especially coming on to our public housing sites and doing that. And so even though the federal money hasn't come back,

We've sort of started recreating a lot of these programs, like we've found ways to reopen some of the youth centers. We're working with our ASAP partners and others around elder services and just trying to figure out, you know, and so on. And so we've had so many of those programs going in recent years It's sort of, but they had mushroomed in kind of different parts of the agency and so it was great to start having those things again but they weren't all talking to each other and we felt like when somebody, when a resident was sort of looking to figure out what they could be plugged into, you had to talk to like Six different parts of our organization. And so I really wanted to make sure that we would have a more coordinated and strategic approach to this stuff, especially because it's such an important part of the Housing Authority's mission. So I promoted Lydia into this role.

And as you can see on the slide, the sort of program categories that her area of the agency is over now are elderly and disabled resident services, youth programming, Education and Workforce Development, Family Economic Mobility and Independence, Resident Engagement, Community Safety, and Language Access. So that's a lot of things. and my, you know, my one sort of like note and plea and it will come through in the rest of the presentation which Lydia is going to give is just that Having a vertical for all these things doesn't mean that the Housing Authority can do these things ourselves, right? This is really about us having a way to partner actively with others who have the resources, the staff, the capacity, and that's really something that we do every day with city departments and beyond. And so definitely it's a space where we've been really grateful for council partnership that's actually led to a bunch of the city funded pieces of this puzzle. and it's something that we're going to continue to want to build.

So I'm going to pass it now to Lydia Agra, our deputy administrator, and ask her to continue the presentation.

Thank you, Kenzie. So I just need to make sure. Yeah. All right. And I'm going to switch to the next slide. What I'm going to do is go through some examples of partnerships and programming that BHA is currently engaged in. It's not a complete list. It's primarily focused on the partnerships we have with City departments, as Kenzie said, we have a number of other partnerships with private entities that I did not include in the slide for purposes of this particular hearing. So this is not all encompassing. So one of the pieces, one of the areas we do a lot of work in is with Age Strong. Age Strong, we regularly coordinate with them to hold coffee hours at the site, at the elderly and disabled sites.

Come out and talk to residents about the services that are available through the city to residents and they also provide some funding to the BHA to run our Wellness Connects program. which is basically like a social emotional program where staff go out and do activities with the elderly residents. It can be an art project. It can be... They're doing a petting zoo with like little farm animal kind of things, different projects like that with the elderly residents and the slide here has a picture of one of those activities. We also do direct referrals sometimes to Age Strong. So for residents, if we know they're struggling with something and they could use some resources that Age Strong may have, we email directly and do a direct referral.

The city was very generous in providing us some funding to Rebuild the Franklin Field Youth Center, which Kenzie alluded to had at one point in time many years ago a full-time staff person and a program there that fell by the wayside and we wanted to bring it back. So we now have an afterschool and workforce program at that center. There are a number of other activities and intersections with city departments. So the Office of Green Infrastructure came out. Summer before last and did a rain garden with the youth that the youth helped maintain. We provide information about city resources like job training programs such as Power Corps or other job training programs coming along that are provided by the city and other partners to those youth.

The Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement has also done activities at the Youth Center. So there's a lot of engagement there. What did I just do? I just messed up the slideshow. I can keep going. We also have a very robust program out in Charlestown called the Charlestown Education Center. They coordinate for funding with the Neighborhoods Jobs Trust, the Office of Returning Citizens, MassHire, and other partners. And the services they provide are in the following areas. We provide reentry and diversion programming for court-involved youth and young adults, workforce development, which includes workforce preparation programming, work search,

Job search, entering job training programs, as well as educational programs, if that's what young people are interested in. They have an adult basic education program, a HiSET, and an ESOL programming. and they also serve as a mass hire access point. That program sees residents from BHA sites across the city. So we also refer young people to that program. Different city partners that we work with are aware of that program and young people get referred to that program quite often. In the area of economic mobility, the BHA and the city assisted more than 100 BHA residents and voucher holders to become first time home buyers through our first home program. which is a substantial number. It was a very successful program. It's ongoing.

BHA also worked with the Office of Workforce Development to enroll almost 500 children in grades K through five in Boston Saves, which provided them with their first bank account and up to $550 in seed savings to start, so that was a direct You know, collaboration between a city program and the BHA to enroll BHA residents. Thank you. Also on economic mobility, we have a very robust family self-sufficiency program. The partner there is Compass Working Capital. It's grown from the 47th largest family self-sufficiency program in the country to the third largest. During this partnership, BHA has graduated over 185 families who accrued over $1.2 million in escrow. There are about 1,500 FSS families who currently have a combined escrow of 10.2 million.

And again, that program is ongoing, so residents can sign up for that if they're interested. Community Safety is another area that we're very actively involved with different city departments. I have on the slide Mayor's Office of Community Safety and the Boston Public Health Commission, but also working very closely in this area with Boston Police. So it's a collaborative partnership. to coordinate around safety-related concerns, trauma response, referrals for young people, events that they hold called Village Vibes, different activations, say activation events to try to make spaces more activated and lively and deter crime, resident leader meetings and more. And on the BPD side, they're also coming in and doing

There's stop the bleed training, CPR trainings, getting to know the residents better, that kind of thing. And also there's a lot of referrals kind of behind the scenes that happen in this space as well to programming for young people who might be struggling. In terms of BCYF, we have three BCYF community centers co-located at three BHA sites, so they're literally right there. They're the primary. The Gallivan Community Center and the Gallivan Development the Johnson Center at the Alice Taylor Development and the Menino Center at the Archdale Development. And because of their proximity,

They work very closely together, the staff at both the BCYF and the BHA management office staff. around Unity Days, summer events, holiday toy distributions, meetings, that kind of thing at those locations. And we work with BC WAF more broadly as well. Many of you know that we hold at the family developments in particular Unity Days every summer. Those are a great opportunity for partners to come in and table and share resource information for residents at those sites. City departments often table. as well as do a number of other partners but city departments you know are all invited to it to table at those events and often do come in and table and share their resource information with residents

In addition, sometimes a city department wants to have a particular meeting that might affect a certain neighborhood or community and wants to make sure that BHA residents are part of that conversation. So we help bridge the gaps in those areas and often either have a meeting on site or distribute information to residents about a community meeting that might be happening or also we share out on social media that information that goes out to our channel. So this particular picture is of a meeting that the Boston Transportation Department wanted to have about some activity happening in Charlestown. and then I alluded to this just in terms of coordinated communication so all the

The BHA reposts all the city resource information that goes out to our own social media channels and in some cases directly distributes information to residents at the sites. And then this last slide is just some additional examples of collaboration because as I was writing this, I kept thinking of other examples. So staff attend and coordinate around the mayor's Neighborhood Coffee Hours and Office Hours. We also work with the Office of Food Justice related to food availability, summer eats programming, that kind of thing, with the city's engagement cabinet Office of Neighborhood Services and some of the City Council offices around provision of toys and turkeys and holiday meals during the holiday seasons.

We're currently working with the Boston Public Health Commission to apply for a dementia Alzheimer's grant for elderly disabled residents and staff. Excuse me. with BPS around notifying families of the early enrollment windows so that families can make sure that they're enrolling their children, they have the same access I mentioned Boston Police and BHA Police also some of the activities that we have going on with Boston Police already. Staff at the local level sometimes work with their local neighborhood libraries as well, bring the youth over, they get library cards, they do some cross collaboration there. also with Do It around digital equity. There's a lot of coordination and collaboration there.

And the Office of Youth Engagement, Youth Advancement Engagement, we work closely with them. related to our BHA Youth Council, related to holding Boston After Dark events at BHA sites and other opportunities available for youth. And then we also have a SuccessLink program, so we hire BHA youth through SuccessLink. and that's there I'm sure there are other examples of partnerships but this is what I included on the slide deck for today.

Thank you.

I just want to add that unfortunately Deputy Superintendent Ana Tabarra is not able to join us this morning, but we do have representatives from the Office of Family Engagement here with us and community advancement. Inez Fusco, and her colleague Mahalo. If there's any particular questions. Sure.

And if any of my colleagues have questions directly to that, we could call them down. Absolutely. Did you want to add anything to just what you're doing in BPS and what you see as some barriers?

Absolutely.

How we can support?

Happy to. You know, as a public school district, we service students until the age of 22. Part of our work in working with, so I'll talk first from students with disabilities. We start to work on what we call transition planning by law. When a student turns 14, obviously we should be talking about that beforehand. We're starting to think about what is the student's vision and the family's vision for the future. That may include housing, that includes what type of work they want to do, any particular training or things that we need to provide. We also begin to reach out to adult agencies such as the Department of Public Health, Department of Mental Health, all different things. And one of our greatest partners has been the Disability Commission for the city.

We work very closely with them, even when creating the next program, which is our new transition program that we created for students 18 to 22. They were partners with us and part of our task force to ensure that we're providing services. We often rely on the Disabilities Commission when families with students with disabilities or people with disabilities have particular questions to Link to resources in the city. We do reach out obviously to housing and for employment and summer employment and things like that. But in talking with the team, Our greatest connection because they know when they talk to the families what some of the concerns are and where they can access that. I think when it comes to family engagement and the family liaisons for the district, Again, Ofka can speak more about it.

But the family liaisons work very closely with the city around concerns that families bring to them at the schools, and they will help to support them Thank you.

If I can just add quickly on that, I think it's worth noting that Unfortunately, we haven't been able to continue this at the same volume because for the last about year and a half, the federal voucher program has been so oversubscribed that we haven't had the funding to issue new vouchers. But the last time that we did issue new vouchers, we and BPS, including the family liaisons that you mentioned, worked together. And actually, out of that partnership, 1,500 BPS families and many more. I think that was an extremely successful partnership and that partnership has continued in terms of the connections, it's just that at the moment we don't have the housing All of us involved.

But I just wanted to note, I think that partnership is probably one of our most significant achievements together in this area over the last few years.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. We have been joined by Councilor Fitzgerald and Reverend Culpepper. Thank you. We will start with questions from my colleagues. So we'll start with Councilor Flynn.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the administration panel for being here. Let me start with the BPS related question. Students with disabilities during During the summertime when BPS is not necessarily in school, what is your main focus in terms of providing services and support to students with disabilities so that they can continue their academic achievement, they can get some exercise, they can be engaged Socially with their peers. Tell me a little about how that interaction is going.

Absolutely. Also have from our office, Felicia Saunders, who oversees the program as well. If there's any particular questions, I can answer. So during the summer we have extended school year so that is part of students IEPs for students with disabilities in which teams including parents have determined what services and supports on the IEP students need to receive. Weiss, Service. It could be anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 students in the summer based upon their IEP needs. That can be anything from for maintaining their school year. So especially if you're at a preschool level and you continue to need those services, ABA or substantially separate programs continuing throughout

We provide all related services such as speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, anything that teams have determined students needs as well as academic We've also, in regards to that, when we're talking about older students, we do a lot of transition planning and trying to support our students in having jobs over the summer as well. We work with the city on getting jobs. We also provide jobs for them if they're in ESY and transition. Part of their transition planning is that. We've also worked with, from the public, You know, non-special education sector, the general education area is called fifth quarter. And fifth quarter in BPS provides a full range of enrichment programming and services to students.

that many students with disabilities can also participate in and depending upon the services they require can access those services at fifth quarter.

Thank you. Now to the BHA team. I know, Lydia, you highlighted some partnerships you have with Age Strong Veterans Services. Again, with the Disabilities Commission, there's probably not a The issue I work on more so than equal access for persons with disabilities. I take that issue very seriously. Unity Day is something you mentioned. It's important to me also. Mayor Flynn, as you might know, established Unity Day, especially during difficult times in the city. That was a way for residents to come together in public housing and be with each other and have a fun event, a cookout or a basketball game. Lydia, on Unity Days, and I know you said the public is included or age-strong events.

Can I get a list of those please?

Certainly. I mean we don't have a list yet for this year and often because Unity Days really are partly directed by the residents, especially the resident task force at the site. It does sometimes take a little bit of time into the year to get the task force to agree on a date. But once we have the dates, we can get you the list.

for the Chair, may I request that? Okay. And also, upcoming events as it relates to Age Strong, I have a large Well, let me start over. I represent the most residents in public housing of any district city councilor. So public housing access. is important to me, equal access is important to me, ensuring persons with disabilities and seniors have equal access, including respecting the Americans Disability Act. is something I take very seriously. Madam Chair, on Aid Strong, could I request to the Chair any events that...

I would like to attend more of those. Lydia? The snowstorm we recently had, was there any issues as it relates to persons with disabilities trying to navigate any BHA spaces?

I mean, so I'll say I did not personally hear about that, but I will also say that I grew up with a father in a wheelchair. My father was a paraplegic. And so what I would say is I would imagine, given the amount of snow that we had, that it was challenging for anybody with a physical disability to navigate in this kind of weather.

That's right.

Right. So I will say that much.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just add, Councilor, that, you know, so we had teams out for all the All of the snowstorms we've had recently have been very proud of their work and really want to, since I have the moment to thank the teams, you know, they don't always get thanked as part of the bigger sort of public works world, but our Laborers, Resident Custodians, Maintenance Supers. They were up at the crack of dawn for all these storms and working really hard. And I think we monitor very closely the 311s related to BHA properties. We were really pleased through all the storms of the cycle in terms of we didn't see many, and when we did, we addressed them very quickly. One thing that came up that we did just to your point and out of interest is technically, Per the long-standing BHA form leases, residents who have private entryways, like entryways that only lead to their house, they're technically by the lease required to clear those themselves.

but we made an executive decision this winter to just have our teams go ahead and do that too. We had our teams do it after they did the common area accesses since obviously there's a larger array of people We just felt like, again, because you don't know what the accessibility needs are of the person behind the door, that that just made sense for BHA to do. And so that was a thing that we did proactively and might have prevented some of those complaints from arising otherwise.

Were there any complaints from any residents that BHA spaces weren't shoveled out, weren't plowed, that limited access for persons with disabilities or seniors?

None that I'm specifically aware of. But again, the team monitors the 311s throughout the day. So somebody might have seen something and dealt with it immediately before it came to my attention.

No, no, no, no one. sent in an email to BHA about a particular street that needed or sidewalk that needed to be shoveled on BHA property.

No, we had, I know there was, like, in the first snowstorm, one road where a plow broke down, and so it was a little delayed. But again, we got to that while the snow was still falling. But that's one that I remember coming up. We had one instance that I know of the day after the first snowstorm where a school bus had a challenge accessing and so we cleared that out but also made sure with the next storm to sort of My final question, Madam Chair, do I have one? Okay.

My final question, are there any Elevators and BHA that are not currently working?

Well, there are several elevators that we're doing modernization projects on, so those ones are offline.

Okay, besides one that there's a modernization plan, are there any BHA elevators that are down and awaiting service right now?

I will Madam Chair, and through the Chair to the member, if you give me a moment to just confirm, I want to answer that accurately. Not that I'm aware of this morning, but as you know, we have a hundred and depending on how you count the sort of service staff elevators, about 104 elevators, and so I gotta check, thanks.

When you get the answer, you can just let me know. Are you okay with us coming back to you on that one?

That would be great. And Madam Chair, I do want to reiterate my plan. I'd love to have an elevator. Commission in the City of Boston that reviews BHA properties so we ensure that our elevators are running properly, that seniors and persons with disabilities have equal access elevator Safety, elevator access is important. It's important to residents and it's an issue I take very seriously. In my opinion, it's a civil rights issue. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Flynn. We've been joined by Council Louijeune and Council Fitzgerald. You're up next.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you guys for being here today. Trying to think of solutions. I don't know. Tell me what is possible or what sort of the pros and cons of this idea is. But when I read the hearing order here today, it talks a lot about... Navigating and coordination across different departments, right? And how that sometimes can get confusing. Would it be helpful if Certain families, certain individuals, those with the complex needs, those with disability, were given a caseworker, so to speak, by the city that could help Thank you. Thank you. Is it worth trying to put forth sort of a caseworker for...

You know, and we can define what the limits are of the family or the individual where someone actually holds their hand through the process of, you know, from BCYF to safety to housing to... All the other things that the city offers to these families to sort of take that load off of them. I don't know, it's just sort of something I was thinking about while sitting here. Didn't know a knee-jerk reaction from you all what pros, cons, hurdles may face if that were the case.

I'm just trying to think that question through because I think like for BPS, and to some degree, BHA. But there are staff that work directly with families that can help them navigate resources even outside BHA. BPS to some degree like so we do do some of those kinds of things I would say at the BHA so at the BHA currently as Kenzie alluded we don't have funding for that kind of a A resource, we have resident service coordinators at the elderly disabled sites that do some of that kind of work. So if a senior at one of those sites needs services, they help. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

would defer probably to the city folks to answer your question about whether the city should have that kind of a resource. So I think the departments, to some degree, do have some of those resources. And we talk to each other. If we're working with a senior that we know could use resources from Age Strong, like the resident service coordinator would make that connection, right? And I'm sure BPS does the same thing.

Right. We use our parent liaisons at every school to support families at the school. They have the relationship. They know the connections from special education. We also use our team members to support and all those aspects as well. But I understand what you're saying, someone from the city that would oversee all aspects of it.

Yeah, and just I guess like for those liaisons that you have at BPS, you know, how are they trained? What is the extent of the other departments that they are learning about to be, you know, if I can understand from an education standpoint and all things school related, and many more. If the family needs non-school transportation help is your liaison the You know instead of a dotted line a more of a direct line or someone who can say hey I have a good overview of all the departments and what they offer for the needs of a complex family complex family needs and You can always come to me and I can help direct you everywhere. Again, I know that's more money and times are tight right now, but still just thinking and going ahead into the future if that's sort of something that's

Anez, would you mind coming up and talking a little bit about the training and what family liaisons have to support families? Would that be helpful? No, you're not the person?

Okay.

Yeah, if you can just give us some broad stuff, that would be great.

She can sit right next to you. Sure, come on over.

And again, I'm just spitballing here, guys. Yeah, no, I totally understand. I'm not expecting any, right, I'm throwing curveballs at you that I don't even know what I'm throwing, so.

But I do. Some of how you came back, so.

Oh, sorry. Can we get her mic on? Yep.

Oh, I was just going to say, Councilor, that I do think even just the evolution of Age Strong in the last few years reflects an effort to do something more like that. Age Strong didn't used to have the kind of case management structure that it does now. Even I think like, you know when I was a counselor it didn't have that yet So I do think like you see in that instance, obviously that's just with a subset of the population but you see the city moving more in that direction and

Hi, I'm Ines Fusco. I'm with Language Access, Office of Language Access. So what I'm familiar with that our family liaisons do do, they are They are trained. They meet on a regular monthly basis to ensure that they are making those connections with families. Our family liaisons typically are hired to speak the predominant language that are spoken within their schools so that they can make those communications with families and they They are the conduit. They help families to make the connections with the other city departments and state departments as needed. So they are trained to understand what the departments do and who to connect the families with.

Thank you. Yeah, that's all my time, all my questions. I appreciate just, again, in these sort of smaller, more intimate hearings, I like to try to throw out solutions and talk about and help you guys in live time. Try and help me figure out whether it was even a good idea, bad idea, or what I can go back and help you all with. So thank you very much for the feedback. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Fitzgerald. Councilor Culpepper?

Thank you, Madam Chair. What percentage of families in the VHA developments are you servicing with disabilities? What percentage?

Let me get you that statistic because I don't want to make it up. Yeah, we didn't bring that with us. It's a substantial number. Yeah, it's very substantial. And again, that's especially because there's... There's both members in, you know, most of our elderly disabled portfolio buildings are about 20% non-elderly disabled members, although obviously there are also elders with disabilities. but then across the family portfolio I don't know the percent off the top of my head so I'll see if we can get that.

So you mentioned Youth in DYS, what percentage of the youth are you working with that are in BHA developments transitioning from DYS?

So I didn't specifically mention DYS. I mentioned the community safety partnership we have. and within that network there certainly are youth that are in DYS that both transition out to go back to school and to come back to BHA properties. I don't know that we have a percentage number though. So I would have to go back and see if I could collect that information as I don't have that number.

And so what are the challenges as you work with the youth? And I think you did mention DYS. But what are the challenges, the major challenges as these young folks are struggling with the transition?

I mean, I can speak on the housing side, and then I'll let BPS speak on, I know there are challenges on the school side as well. You know, I think for young people in that situation, They're coming back to in some cases a situation that was challenging for them to begin with that may not be the most conducive situation in terms of helping them Thank you for joining us. Get them into programming outside of school programming that they can engage in that might help redirect them and also potentially have them get some pay or a stipend. Thank you for that question.

It's an important thing that we face every single day for our youth. especially those transitioning from DYS. I will say that Chief McCarthy, Chief Cory McCarthy and his team from the Office of Student Supports work very closely and they have many different levels of support for our youth. And so part of their role is really working on starting that transition. What is it that the student needs? Sometimes it's a mentor, sometimes it's something else. Looking at from a school basis, we want to look at what the student's needs are. You know, at this time, sometimes they're coming back and they're older and they're undercredited. So we're trying to look at, is it right to put a 17-year-old, let's say, back into the ninth grade, right? How can we look at Working with the student and their family, how can we look at what their needs are and their goals are?

Sometimes it might be an alternate program where they could do some work or some community-based stuff. and have the education at the same time. So I know that Chief McCarthy and his team work very much on that. I can get you some more information if you'd like.

Please. And the other question is, as the youth are transitioning back into the BPS. How are decisions made, if you know, whether they go back into a regular classroom or whether they go into an alternative classroom?

I would say that part of that is a conversation with the student and their family, knowing what's happening. We look at... Who's in the classroom? Do you know what I mean? Are there peers in the classroom that they may have struggled with before? Other things that need to happen? We often do what's called a safety transfer. Sometimes it's not safe for a student to be in a particular place. We don't ever want to assume that a student coming out of DYS or a student who's struggling should go to an alternate placement. We really want to know what the goal is for that student, what their future is, what they want, and to build the best programming and ensure that they're part of that and that whatever they choose to do that we will support them in that area. The other thing to add is some of these students are in substantially separate programs for special education

Some of them could be in a program based upon their disability and so we would make sure that they access that but we are working to increase some of that program at our alternate education sites as well for students who would be more successful there.

So I just, this morning I met with the superintendent. We talked about King Academy. And you're familiar with King Academy? Talk a little bit about the transition of the students that you work with may end up or may transition into King Academy and the challenges at King Academy that they might have.

Unfortunately, I'm aware of King Academy, but I don't have enough knowledge to answer your question thoroughly, so I will take that back and be happy to reach out to you myself or have someone reach out to you if that's okay.

Okay.

How can we help?

Always a good question. The needs of our youth are extensive. It's important that for all our youth know that we as a community are here for them and see them as people who bring so much rich and enrichment to all of us. and I think that that's a struggle when youth struggle or may have gotten in trouble or may have made a bad decision or may have done something for them to feel that when they return, right? Sometimes people say, Oh, well, they can't come here because of this, or oh. And I think it's really, I think it's as a community, how do we work together? And we talk about students with disabilities. These are also students that have made decisions. Some not such great decisions, but how do we accept them and how do we honor them who they are and ensure that we're providing that?

I know in Boston Public Schools we're working very hard on that and really trying to work with our partners throughout. A lot of this is relationships, which is difficult with Department of Children and Families, right? Working with them, working with all different agencies for that to happen. I think as a community, that's the biggest thing. These youth have made decisions that have not been the best for them or for the community, but they're still our youth and we still have to wrap around them and offer them supports and services.

I'll come back to you.

I was just going to tag on in terms of just something I think that we see. I think One of the reasons that the BHA has focused on inculcating some of our own workforce development and youth programs, and Lydia mentioned both the Franklin Field one and the Charlestown Adult Education Center, which she's been supervising for a while now, We do see that kind of out in the world, if programs are funded just to serve X number of young people, they tend to not get to the young people with more challenges and especially young people who have been court involved or who have been at the department you know I think that What we often see, because with BHA, like if we're their home, they're part of our community, right? Is that they're getting systematically excluded or kicked out of programs or like there's somehow not space for them or whatever. So I think, you know, we've,

really at the Charlestown Adult Education Center specialized in a lot of ways at helping to support those young people when a lot of other programs don't. And I think that's a really important work for us to do, but I also think that Everybody who's sitting on your guys's side who funds programs and stuff can always like think about How do we help make sure that success is defined as actually serving those young people as opposed to success being defined by you served a certain number of young people and nobody kind of reads the fine print of the folks who are left out?

And can you talk a little bit more, Kenji, about the programs that you have at the BEJ specifically for this population of young folks?

Yeah, so I'll actually have Lydia's really the expert on it, so I'll have her speak to that.

Yeah, so in particular, the Charlestown Adult Education Center works with a lot of young people who are court-involved who... In some cases have agreed upon diversion programming that they're going to engage with at the Charlestown Education Center, which could include them going to high set classes and getting their high set if they don't already have a diploma. It includes some forms of like therapeutic workshops and things like that. And then there's a lot of resources attached to that center so that if the students both both city and private funding so if the students need help with transportation You know, that can be resolved in terms of a T-pass or an Uber to a job appointment. Or if they need help in terms of food, there's some resources there, or clothing.

Staff, the director of that program, Laurie DeLiva, works with them on whatever court charges they have pending and goes to court with them and helps them clear warrants. And if they have a problem over at the RMV, helps them you know deal with that situation helps them get driver's licenses if that's something that's needed for a job a lot of the kind of supports that you think you might get you know through your home or traditional family sometimes we see our young people are not getting that for certain reasons and just to go back to the BPS example I think it really is very individualized based on what the young person that you're currently working with really needs. And so when you're looking at programming, you do need to kind of look at, well, what is it going to take for these kids or these young people Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. At least to the degree possible, keep them in the program, right? As opposed to saying, you're done, you have to just go. And when you do say you're done, connecting them to something else. So it can get very intensive, I would say. So that's what they do in Charlestown. That's one piece of it is that whole diversion, reentry. Peace supporting, you know, court-involved youth. Some of them will be coming out of DYS. They go see them when they're incarcerated as well. So visiting the youth when they're incarcerated. The last graduation they had for HiSAT, one of the youth that was graduating actually, unfortunately, was incarcerated at the time.

He was on Zoom with his cap and gown and graduated with the rest because they continue working with the young people as much as possible. So even when they make a mistake and end up

And is it the same kind of program at Franklin Field? Is that an adult education center?

So the Franklin Field program is a little bit different. It skews to a younger group. So Charlestown Adult Ed is really 16 and up, and they end up working with a lot of like 18, 20, Mid-20 year old and even older residents, depending on what they're going in there for. The Franklin Field Center is more of a youth center and workforce development program for youth. The age range there is more like 10 to 18 year olds. And so they do have a program at that center where youth are actively engaged in Like workforce development, career readiness, job readiness, you know, future, what do you want to do with your life kind of programming, right? To try to get them to think that through at an earlier age. Help them, again, like we take advantage

We take for granted that all our young people are going to know how to fill out their financial aid form and do it. That doesn't happen. So helping them with any forms or documents, sometimes coordinating with BPS, sometimes referring them to other programs if it turns out they need more Services or Resources in addition to that program that also happens. So that's a little bit more of a like a teen youth center with workforce development programming built in and if it turns out that any of the youth, there have been some youth at that program that I have personally driven out to Charlestown. So sometimes they end up at Charlestown for different things. They could get referred there, yeah.

And my final question. Nope, go on.

No, I was just going to say we, you know, as Lydia says, Charlestown Adult Ed is really serving our whole population. We have, the BHA has been pursuing funding around how we could have a sort of satellite of Charlestown on the mainland, as it were. Because it's a really incredible program. It's been very successful. But we know that there's transportation challenges for getting there. So we've been looking for how we expand that to other neighborhoods.

And this is my final question. With regard to policies that would be restrictive, let's say if someone, one of the adults, if they have a criminal conviction, They may be restricted. Are there any policies, the BHA policies that apply to those young folks coming out of DYS that would restrict them from coming back to that housing?

So there's a difference between the, you know, as you are well aware, Councilor, there are federal rules around this and there's been some federal back and forth on how those rules are interpreted in recent years.

But you decide, you decide.

Yes, and the BHA operates a very kind of individualized case-by-case approach to that at entry. like when families are entering the program and people are being added to family composition. It's really a different situation if somebody is already a part of a household and then something happens. So obviously, if something were to happen that and so on. Thank you. Thank you.

So it's kind of like on a case-by-case basis.

Yeah, I mean, they're not, if a youth comes back from DYS, that in and of itself isn't a reason for us to take action. As Kenzie said, it is a case-by-case basis, but something else has to be going on other than them just coming back to the household.

Something like it would have to implicate the family and then it would trigger Triggered the lease issues. Right.

And that wouldn't typically be happening at the moment of them returning. That would typically be happening at the moment of, like, if there was a crime, right, that happened at the time.

Great. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Of course. Thank you, Reverend Culpepper. Councilor Louijeune? Thank you.

And I want to say thank you to the panelists here. I know how incredibly hard you all work, especially you, Christine. We have been in the trenches on some very hard issues for our constituents and I just want to say thank you for always being available. always being at the ready because I think that really is what makes the difference. I always say the most important thing on the city council is to just solve problems, the everyday problems that residents bring to you. We should just be in problem solving mode and you help Thank you. And I wanted to, I didn't know BHA was going to be here, but I want to thank you, Administrator Bach, for the work that you do and Lydia for the work that you do for our most vulnerable residents. I don't have an active grievance with you right now, Administrator Brock, but you've always been really helpful Whenever BHA residents have come to me with issues and helping get them solved. So I just want to thank you.

Oh, someone who also grew up in Mattapan. and the Gallivan site, you know, even though I didn't live there, I grew up playing basketball there and I now as a city councilor get to go back there to support a lot of the programming that happens at the Gallivan Center in Mattapan. I just want to thank everyone for their work. That happens there. I think it's important that we give people life navigators. I think everyone needs them. And so however we can best support people as they navigate through difficulties. is important. I think I just want to uplift the question that Councillor Culpepper asked, is that what more can we be doing on the Council to support your work in dealing and helping solve complex problems and situations?

I mean, so I have two thoughts. I mentioned I think certainly that this we were just talking about the workforce work and especially in support of like you know young people who have been court involved and I think that that's a space that does genuinely need it needs More funding, and it also needs dedicated funding for programs that really work with that population. And that's certainly one thing. I think on the senior side, because we were just talking a bunch about young people, but we A continued frustration of ours at BHA is that we have these buildings with all these elderly and disabled residents who are, you know, a huge number of them are on Medicare or Medicaid, MassHealth, right? In theory, the health center has sort of recognized housing as social determinants of health. The health center? Sorry, the health-like sector is what I meant to say.

And sort of like in theory, I think in the last 10 years, you've seen a shift in terms of how the health sector talks about housing. But we continue to find that in terms of the dollars that I feel like should be there to, for instance, like have, you know, like, Thank you for joining us. Folks will raise, including elected officials, will raise the issues they're seeing with us, the BHA as the houser. But I think we share sort of the frustration of where are the resources? If we've got a building... That's got all the people who all of the health system indicators are indicating would be helped by some you know pre-emptive care or like some social programming or whatever like it continues to be really hard to get the dollars in to serve that population and I think like just because we're in such a health hub like you know institutionally here in the city

Anything we can continue to do to keep sort of like working on those partnerships, we'd really love to see more wraparound support for our elderly and disabled population at our buildings, and we're not gonna, be able to squeeze that out Thank you.

Thank you. Fairlawn Apartments in Mattapan and how a lot of the hospitals that a lot of the entities that helped save Fairlawn were hospitals and institutions of that nature. And so I do also agree with you that I think they're waking up a lot to housing be a social determinant of health, but I wonder if there is and I'm just going to say that some of these were in your former district have large endowments and ability to step up. So I think that's a really good idea. It shouldn't be a tall order to have a nurse visit housing. I think there may be probably some privacy issues, probably some patient-client issues.

But on the social isolation factor, you not only have age strong, you have ethos, you have Another one whose name I'm blanking on right now, but that can work, that do try to address some of these social issues.

Yeah, there's Boston Senior Home Care and Central Boston Elder Services and Ethos.

But there's also like Friendship Works. There's also, right, there's Little, Little brothers and friends of the elderly. Exactly. So I wonder if it's also just like a coordination issue and helping. Because I mean, I ran into this too when I was trying to do an event at one of are the BHA buildings from my office, which we are all capable of doing our own events and helping to sponsor and support. that it was better to work with this organization, this elderly organization, than that elderly organization. And some claim we work with these buildings, but not these buildings.

Yeah, and that fragmentation has been a challenge. Also on the health side, the senior accountable care organizations are splintered. And so who is in which one then affects. And this is something I should say that I They've renamed it, but maybe it's age now. The Office of Elder Affairs, formerly at the state side, is also trying to solve for it. But I just think it's the coordinations. It's got to happen. All those partners you name, they work with us, but the resources that they have to work at our sites and to send resident service coordinators to our sites compared to, like, what a really like fully resourced elderly building would look like. It's just, it's really, really not at the scale that we need.

Thanks. Where do you think that efforts for that coordination should live?

I think, well, I do think that the state is an important partner because of the state's involvement in MassHealth and the sort of healthcare universe generally is like really regulated at the state level and not at the city level. and so you know I think that's a piece I think if it seems like part of the issue is that um each of the each of the care providers in the health ecosystem is just like They feel like they only get credit for things that they do for their own folks. And so I think you need the state to set up some kind of system where if there's a building of ours that's got 15 of your patients, but it's got 80 people in it, and you help run some programming there that you get some kind of like credit for the fact that you're running programming for 80 people. I don't know the exact details of it. I think one of our challenges is that the housing world is full of

I'm just articulating is a huge felt need that we see and one of the things that before you You came, Councilor, I mentioned that Lydia has been promoted to Deputy Administrator and she's sort of over a new vertical for us on resident advancement and programming. But one of the things that we're trying to do on the BHA side is to really articulate like what are the sort of Cluster of services that we'd like to see in every elderly and disabled building but even as we're articulating that we know that we don't have the public housing funding to fund that but we feel like at least putting on the table what it is will help us all work together to find partners to do it.

Thank you. Thank you. And thanks again. Congratulations, Lydia. Thank you, Kenzie. Thank you, Administrator Brock, for all your work, and Christine. Thank you.

It's always great to go last because my colleagues ask good questions, but a little some follow-up from What was already said and I really liked when you went through the slides the list you overviewed because it kind of lined up with all of my like on my hearing order about things questions so it's like the work you're already doing. One thing I know just from being a teacher for all those years that so many city departments, especially schools, BHA, they wear too many hats, right? That they're expected, their job may be one thing, You know expected to and in this social service world always take that on. It's just who we are and what's expected so that's one of the concerns and thank you for sharing what the family liaisons are expected to do but I do think when we put people in these positions you know we know a school nurse never just provides the help like oftentimes they're You know, confided with families that have some, you know, really complex needs.

Or even you mentioned like your resident service coordinator. How do we give at the BHA level? I would say they're probably the most forward facing maybe ones. But at the school level, is there a clear channel for when They know like, hey, you know, the secretary's getting questions or the teacher is like, how do we make sure that families don't feel like they kind of hit the block? Because we also need to make sure that it's someone they trust because many people aren't going to share the things they need unless it's with someone they trust so it is a relationship they made so just making sure that you know we're equipping people who are expected to kind of I know you kind of already touched on what you do, but if there's ways for us to support in any way, or if you've had ideas as you see that there's kind of this burden on these different positions.

I'll just speak for a bit. I think that it's a great, great question. We're also in customer service, right? And I think that sometimes we forget that. You know, in order to support our students we have to support the whole family and provide wraparound services. And I think part of it is our constant reminders, training, with school leaders, secretaries, all members of the team. The family liaison is really the center. And we don't want to put that all on the family liaison either, right? But typically, Because they may speak the language and that's something that we really try to do, a lot of families feel really connected to them. But again, some families, as you said, Thank you.

Thank you. and making sure that we continue to have that connection. I know I spoke to a school leader yesterday who called me that someone started talking to her thinking they were the family liaison. So then we talked about, because I always think of as customer service, the last thing you want is for someone to call me and me say oh I'm sorry I can't help you call this person I should be saying let me connect you with this person let me have this person call you because we just keep passing families along as if their problem is not important to us. So I think that is our biggest challenge and thing that we have to face every day.

Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I think it's collaboration, communication, and soft handoffs when you do need to hand somebody off and make sure that that connection is really made so your team and it needs to know when to elevate things right and you know telling the staff like prioritize the really important things and some things you know you just kind of have to let go so yeah yeah

one thing that came up the youth summer jobs I'll be having my fifth hearing I've always held the hearing to you know get ready for but really advocate and as we expand and we can really Pat ourselves on the back that we've been offering more youth jobs during the summer to our students and children but you mentioned it and one of the concerns I often have is The students who need these jobs the most are often the ones who aren't getting them. And we do have open jobs at the end. So how can we make sure if it's like, Days that we go directly to BHA Housing to help kids sign up for youth summer jobs or other things at the school level. Like I've often said that a lot of times it's the paperwork which is the barrier. And we know the nurses in our schools hold the same information that the paperwork to get a job has. How do we not kind of communicate and relieve that hurdle for many kids?

I know in any family there's definitely been times where you know I'm down to the deadline when my kids were younger and they needed their health record to sign up for a sport in time and so every family faces that so It's no judgment in any way, but we know many of our families who don't speak the language, new to the country, that have other concerns that are Greater than that, how do we make sure we're connecting these opportunities to those kids who need it most?

I mean, I can speak for the BHA and we distribute the SuccessLink job information very broadly and have some come and sign up for SuccessLink jobs with us events at different sites leading up to it. I agree that paperwork is a challenge for some of them. So staff try to do what they can to help sort that out between the youth and the parent. That's sometimes challenging, but that's what happens on the BHA end.

We make sure that youth know about those jobs. And I do think it's one of the benefits we've seen of starting to have the on-site youth centers again, both at Franklin Field and... With Boston Children's and Boys and Girls Club, we've reopened the youth center at Mildred Haley as well. Because one of the things it does is it means that you're working with youth throughout the year. Nudge them, frankly, to fill out their SuccessLink application.

You can start them early.

Yeah, you can start. And even what that meant, even last summer when we were still working on getting the youth center at Haley fully up and running. There was a bunch of paperwork and stuff related to that that was still lagging on. We actually had the young people who were going to be involved in it as Success Link employees working on like picking out the furniture and decorating the center. So it was sort of like, how do we get them involved before we're even able to open the center? And I just, I think that you know the more I mean it's all very relational right so like the more relationally we're able to be involved we we also do I mean Lydia mentioned like we We do push out things like the success link deadlines, including through our One Call Now system and working with families directly. So it's definitely something we're focused on.

I would add for Boston Public Schools, Our STRIVE staff who are with the transition along with our community connectors work very closely with students and families to ensure they have a connection with these jobs. Again, paperwork is a struggle. They need an ID, a passport or a picture ID, and they need a social security card or a birth certificate or something like that, so that can become challenging, the paperwork that we do try to help them with those.

And Madam Chair, I'm sorry, I did cancel my 11, but I can't cancel my 1130. So I just wanted to say, and Lydia will be staying on our behalf, but just that there are no, to answer the Councillor's question, there are No unplanned outages of elevators right now. So all the elevators that are down today are ones that there's an active project underway.

Thank you for that. One other question, more of a comment. We've already held a hearing with the libraries and just, you know, equitable access of programming at all the branches and also with senior services across the city. And one thing that came up with both of them, and I know is true, Just in this age about Pushing out on social media, and I know, Councilor Flynn, you asked, and I do always like to know, like, when are the events, when are the collaboration with Age Strong or BHA happening at different, not just BHA, but across the system, so do you have Someone dedicated to because it seems like now our departments are like dedicating someone because it's a full time job to keep up with like The social media and sharing that out. Is there someone who shares that out publicly in those ways?

Yes, on the BHA end, yes. There is a person in our communications department that does that regularly.

Things like the Unity Days and the different events are shared on the web?

Things are shared that are more citywide related to services that might be helpful for residents.

More just kind of pushing out what the city's pushing out?

Well, the city or other services, not necessarily City of Boston services, but other programming or opportunities that would be of interest to residents. We don't necessarily always put the Unity Days out on social media as an advertisement to come because they're really site specific events. We would send Instead, a phone call to all the residents at the site telling them to come to Unity Day. So I think it depends on what the event is, but yeah.

I would add for Boston Public Schools, we have a large communication department has really stepped up all of their communication, websites, social media, etc. It's been great to see.

Okay. Thank you. I have no other questions. I'm just thankful that I think it's important that we continue to collaborate and make sure that any person you know like the family liaisons or others that are expected to help connect that they know like It's not just like calling 311 or like how do we make sure we're supporting them because we often get calls here about you know just very complex needs and needing more than one thing and let's we started off saying you know Trying to get one thing scheduled or connect to one city department can be a lot for anyone. So when families have disabilities, school, housing, food insecurity issues all at once, how do we make our city more accessible? Councilor Mejia always says, right, we're resource rich and coordination poor oftentimes in this city. So how do we get that to a place where families fail? Because I never like when we hear people, you know,

Concerned or upset about things we're not providing, I'm like, wait, we do have that. We do provide that, but we're just not connecting you to it. So it's definitely something that I think we could do a better job at. But Councilor Flum, would you like closing remarks?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, with your permission, I did want to ask one question about language and communication access.

Of course, you can have a whole part.

I know the person. Is it all right if the person... Is it okay if you come back down? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. I believe this is one of the most important departments in the city and respect the work you and the team do here at Language and Communication Access. As you know, I represent a large Cantonese speaking community and I represent a large Spanish speaking community as well. But on the Cantonese speaking community, in Chinatown, for example. When a student is in BPS and the parent

The parent speaks Cantonese, but probably does not speak, or may not speak, I should say, English. And the And this is maybe a combination of language and communication access and BPS as well. But can you talk about how we can assist the family and the child has disabilities. But how do we communicate? How do we assist the family knowing that the parent may not speak English But they need services such as food access. They might need help with disability rights issues or follow-up services. But can you talk about the communication

BPS in Language and Communication Access plays just generally speaking on how you improve the quality of life or how you effectively advocate for You know, people that may not speak Spanish as their language.

Yes, of course. So in addition to offering Live interpretation and translation services, interpretation being verbal and translation services being written. So anything that goes out to our parents, our schools, is also being provided to our families in written form. We are doing training on rights. We also have the new Parent Square platform that is available through the schools for all parents so that they could put in their preferred language of communication and that platform works similar to an app where parents can go in and see what's happening at their schools. Their schools each have a page, communication goes out through those. We have interpreters for The Cantonese Chinese community, we also have hired three additional interpreters to be able to serve.

We also have the Isla Pro, which is which is a device that school leaders and anybody in the front office, nurses can also use that provides instant interpretation, whether written or spoken verbally. and the Office of Language Access Services is there and available ready for anybody that wants to Pre-meetings, scheduled pre-meetings for any of the languages that we service all of the nine languages. But in addition to that, we have the capability through our language service providers to service over 140 languages, including by telephone, for meetings, virtual, in-person.

Okay. Does the office now has someone that does speak Cantonese? Is that right?

I believe that we do, yes.

Okay.

So in addition to going out to language service providers, we have someone that we could reach out to additionally.

Okay. And just wanted to offer... I do have someone on my staff that speaks Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. If there is ever a need, including on the weekends, that you need assistance from my staff that might help support a resident in need, You can always contact me directly and I'd be glad to ensure my staff assistant is able to help your team on any particular issue. Thank you very much. The best I can during the budget process for language and communication access because I know how important it is to the residents of Boston. Madam Chair, thank you for this important hearing.

Thank you. Thank you again for being here. I think the conversation needs to continue, especially as we head into budget season. Every year we say it will be tight, but we know this year we can't be making cuts that are gonna negatively impact our most vulnerable students and families and residents so thank you for what you do all day every day for our residents that being said um docket number let's remember the docket number number docket Thank you. Thank you very much.

and many more.

Thank you.