 Right. Hi, Becky. How are you? Hello. We'll just wait a few minutes for. So tonight's meeting just to update everybody is to get a, an update from the 2021 recipients. And we'll go through. Hey, neat. Let them present for like approximately three minutes or so. And then we can ask any questions we have. And then we have just a little bit of business to take care of. At the end. Right. Judith, I see our hands raised. We can allow you to meet yourself. I just wanted to know if we could go on early in the meeting because I have a board member and a student here. And the student has to return to her family. I think you can go first. Let me just get the meeting called to order and everything. And then we'll bring you back in. Okay. Thank you. I can't see the audience. So I'm assuming they're, they've arrived, but I don't know. We can wait like two minutes, maybe just to see if wealth joins us. Going to be able to see people when they, can we promote them to panelists so that they can. Oh yeah. Yeah. I guess that's a great idea. We can promote whoever's speaking to a panelist and then they can. Hello, everyone. I didn't call the meeting to order so that we can start talking. Let me just do our official. Okay. The time is now 702 and seen as a quorum of committee members as an attendance. This public hearing is being called to order. I welcome everybody to the April 19th 2023 public hearing of the Amherst community development block grant advisory committee pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. And extended by the state legislature on July 16th of 2022. This meeting is being conducted virtually using the zoom platform. The meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken as usual. And then we can do a roll call. And just, if you can just speak for to say hello so we can make sure everybody's audio is working. I'll just call on Suzanne. Hi, Suzanne Schilling. Great. And we got. Yes, present Rika Clement. Lucas. Lucas hands come present. Yes, Nat Larson present. I apologize. I haven't eaten dinner yet. So I might go off screen for a while. I'll be here. Okay. So I'm not screened to eat. I hope not just to think hunger. Yes. And I'm Becky Michaels. I'm here and Nate is here. And so tonight what we're going to be doing is getting reports from the 2021 grant recipients. And I see a bunch of you in attendance. Thank you so much for coming tonight. We also did receive your reports. We're going to ask for you to present to us, you know, approximately three minutes. And then we'll ask questions if we have them. And then, as I just said to the, to the group here, we have a little bit of business to take care of at the end. That's mostly just logistics. So one of the things that I do want to talk about is that our, we don't really need to have another meeting anytime soon specifically, but I thought what we might do is use our time that we would have spent in a meeting doing site visits for different organizations that might be willing to give us a tour of their facility and just sort of show us a little bit of what the work is looking like on the ground. So I would just ask if any of the organizations and people who are here presenting tonight have would not be able to do that, or welcome doing that just let us know that as part of your presentation and I'll remind you as well. If we don't get to that. So, why don't we let Judith, do you want to go first I don't know doing it what are the names of, if we can bring Judith in and she can tell us the names of the people she's here with. We can say if anyone's here for the literacy project you just raise your hand, and then we could promote you to panelists. Hi, I'm Judith Roberts. Hi, Dan. I'm, thank you. I want to extend my sincere gratitude to the town for funding the literacy project and our adult education classes, and we are currently running our classes online so we would love to have any members of the committee or Nathaniel. Thank you for joining, and I'd be happy to send you a zoom link for that. I would like to give a chance to Fakria, one of our students who I'm hoping is in the audience to speak on behalf of the literacy project. And she's here as a panelist and Fakria thank you so much for being here you can either stay off screen, or come on whichever you prefer but we'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. I'm actually I want to turn off my camera because my kids is around so I don't want to bother anyone. So would you like to turn on my camera or that's fine. However, your most comfortable office completely. So, yeah, thank you. So I'm a Korean I'm originally from Afghanistan, and I live in Amherst. I want to share my experience with the literacy project. So, as you know, every person has a goal in life to reach the highest of taxes as a literacy project students I want to say that I found the way the light to the way that brings my me closer to my goal in literacy project. I have in the United States, and I didn't know any English as well. I only knew the basic. So my life was very hard new environments different traditions different language. I felt like a bread, but without wings like I wanted to fly but I couldn't. So until I found the literacy project and started my lessons with the kindness teacher. So today I had hope by reading and going to the literacy project. After a lot of hard work, I was able to learn the language to the extent that I can solve my problem in today's society. So now I can speak in English and I can make friends. It doesn't matter which language it is but I'm able to learn in English language. But this did not cause me to stop from the main goal. I think the language motivated me to learn more and better and to think about other goals, such as going to college. So once again, the literacy project helped me to continue my studies and prepare for college. The literacy project has provided students with a chance to get a high school degree if they pass the exam in subjects such as math, reading, science, social study or writing and writing. So fortunately, with the great effort of the teachers from literacy project and employees of the literacy project, I was able to pass for four subjects. One subject left that I'm still working on it so that I can achieve my main goal, which is going to college. That's my main goal. So needless to say, everything I learned in the United States was from the help and effort of the literacy project. Today I'm speaking in English and I'm getting ready to go to college. That's a big change in my life. So I shared my story and experience today with you so that you all know that the literacy project is one of the best community that always values the development and progresses of the students so that they achieve their academy goals. And I want to say thanks to everyone who support the literacy project for everything. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And what amazing work you've done. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for all of you. Thank you. I also have a board member Lisa Bonwell Williams who's a resident of Amherst. And I don't know if we've used up our time yet or not. You're good. Lisa, you'll be asked to enter as a panelist. Becky, sometimes when you speak, it's you're kind of soft. I don't know if you're speaking to your microphone or not. Okay, that's a do it. Can you hear me. Well, I mean, after after that wonderful testimony we just heard there's almost nothing that I could say, but as an Amherst resident, it's so easy to just default to the sense that this isn't educated community. And people can fall through the cracks so easily. And yet I know that some of my neighbors and probably some neighbors of all of yours have for a variety of reasons not achieve the educational attainments that they that they would like to. And it's so gratifying to have an organization like the literacy project who can fill those spaces to offer the educational advantages for everybody from people who need really basic literacy in the most literal sense through college prep kind of stuff. And I just was looking over the report that Judith did and well over half of the students in the Amherst program are in fact immigrants and the potential is enormous. An organization like the literacy project is essential to allow people to develop their capabilities and also just to pass the basic tests to to hit the benchmarks that we require of people in our sculpture to achieve career success and to participate in the community as active enthusiastic and content members. And those are the people that we want all around us and the literacy project let that happen. Everything you can do is much much appreciated by great many people. Thank you Lisa. Thanks Lisa. Thank you all. So Judith you have about a minute to fill in anything else that you'd like to fill in. Okay, if I have a minute, I will take it. So please, well Nathaniel knows how to get ahold of me. So please contact me if you want to attend one of our classes we would love to have any members of the committee sit in. I just want to tell you really quickly about today, we had one of our in person meetings, and it was Science Day at the JCA space that we use and students were, there was all these different stations set up and we welcome students to bring their kids our students or adults and because it's school vacation. They did come with kids and they did blood pressure both active and resting they made roller coasters for marbles. They wrote secret messages with invisible ink that they made. So it was Science Day, and there were all these different stations they learned about mimicry in nature for predators and pray. And it was just a lot of fun, and a lot of learning, and a great day. So, so thank you guys for the wonderful support you've given us to be able to do all this. Thanks Judith. I have a question that has any I was wondering, can you hear me better. Does it make a difference. Okay. You said you had in in in person learning today but is everything else pretty much on zoom and are there plans to bring it back in person. Yes, yes, so I think I shared with Nathaniel that we lost our full time lease at the JCA and, but we are looking for space. And of course I'm sure you understand that Amherst rent is is hard for a small nonprofit. And that's true in Northampton to but in Northampton we have a city owned building, but that we're in with the other with Center for new Americans who are partners by the way, and they. So, but in the Amherst we are looking for new space. Yeah. But we do still use the JCA and we have a good relationship and we still use them when we can. And teachers also meet one on one with students in coffee shops in town because the advising and the one on one is a very important part of our program. But if you can attend a zoom class you will see that they're lively and have a sense of community. Great, thank you so much. Does anybody else have any questions. Well, thank you Judith, and thanks for bringing. I think Nate was saying something. Yes, I'm not really a question but just a comment I was astounded by the more than 12 countries you listed where your students, your immigrant students have originated and I think that's just amazing work that you're able to do welcoming people from so many different places. Okay, I just want to clarify in case there's a question anyone's but we are not an ESOL program. So students come to us they can already speak English but as far as said, it wasn't good enough for her to pass the high school equivalency test. We, we do have what we call English language learners, which is at a higher level than the ESOL classes you know getting ready for college and so, but students do have to learn English, either one of the ESOL programs, you know the English for speakers of other languages. People learn some people learn from TV with subtitles, I mean, people learn all different ways. But thank yes, will you we have a large immigrant community that really enriches the city of Amherst. Thanks Judith. Have a good night. Like Laura is raising her hand. You can unmute yourself. Thank you I in the past that's how we've, we've presented is by raising our hands so I just figured I'd use that the process that tonight. I can make you a panelist if you don't mind and then. Okay. I would be able to but sorry my zooms. There we go. Okay. Hello. Yes, hi. Thank you for funding our program. This past quarter we served 37 households, which was 112 beneficiaries which means everybody in the family because obviously if we can't help someone with their housing and they become homeless everybody becomes homeless. The families first came to us because of the town emergency funds. We do the intakes for the emergency funds we have an agreement with the town to do those which is a natural partnership, given that we do the emergency housing support to keep folks housed. And that has been a really great partnership because it definitely brings more folks who really need our help in the door. And we what we found is that we then tend to work with those folks, many of them beyond just helping them fill out forms and get their paperwork together to be eligible for the emergency funds. Sometimes folks aren't eligible but we can still help them in other ways. And then we've had a couple of cases where we had one very young mom, a single mom who's 17 years old, who had a long trauma history and had had fled domestic violence and was really struggling to stabilize your life. But we helped in lots of different ways. We helped to find a job. We helped her with a household budget. She had no furniture in in her apartment except a bed. She and her baby were just basically sitting on the bed. And so we were able to do donations to help her get her whole apartment furnished. So there's lots of ripples that have come from this program that I'm really proud of that I think really helped the citizens of Amherst in lots of ways, and not only just making sure that they don't become homeless. What else, I guess, ask me questions if you don't mind. I think that's fine. I read the report. It all sounds like you're just doing such great and important work. Does anybody have any specific questions? Yeah, that kind of general question the Massachusetts COVID era housing restrictions and eviction restrictions. Those expired I believe have you seen impact of that. And what, how do you assess that. I mean, that's, but they've been lifted for quite a long time now. And so, yes, we had real quite a flood of folks that were struggling. We didn't lose any anyone we nobody got evicted, we were able to help everybody. I mean, judges were very, very cautious to that folks because of COVID, COVID related issues so there's there's certainly that as well but we were able to find we were able to get help for everybody. And I think that the biggest issue that's hitting folks now, we're seeing folks that never had problems paying their rent before. So people who lived paycheck to paycheck, but we're getting by, you know, but then, but they were one crisis, I mean, you know, you have a job where you literally depend on a paycheck every week to pay your rent, and your child gets sick, and you have to stay home and so you can't work that week. There's no unemployment for one week off, but it does set you back so those are the kind of things and then things like the high cost of gas and the high cost of food and people who are on the edge have kind of fallen over that edge and I mean that's one of the reasons why the survival center is so important. And I would say why we're so important because if there's a short term crisis like that, we can often step in help we have, you know, volunteers that can help with things and there's the emergency fund and there's, you know, there's short term help and it's I'm sure folks get to us and get that help and know about the survival center and because it's a, it's a kind of a group of people who didn't utilize those services and now they are, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm sure in survival centers reports their numbers have jumped and our numbers have jumped just, you know, things that folks that were used to getting by are not getting by anymore. Laura, if we wanted to come and do some sort of a site visit, does that make sense for your organization? Is there like a place to come or would it be? Well, it would be boring because some of the cases are in the field, but saying that I think we probably could arrange to have somebody that we've worked with and who's comfortable, meet with a couple committee members. We've done that in the past with, you know, and we could also even I think, you know, meet with caseworkers even and just sort of hear about there, you know, that might be an easier. Yeah. And just sort of hear about the day in the life, you know, a great thing to do. Yes, you'd be most welcome to do that. Absolutely. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Take care. Right. Thanks for your hands raised. So we'll promote you to panelists. I see there's average connections also as their hand raised for the next presentation. Yeah. Hi, thanks. Sorry, not sure why that me a minute to figure out how to how to rejoin. Thanks so much for giving this opportunity to share some updates. I really echo a lot of what Laura was just sharing in terms of certainly the surging numbers that we're seeing at the Emma survival center and also the prevalence of folks accessing us for the very first time and kind of people navigating resources and just have to really appreciate the folks that family outreach of Amherst for some really incredible connections and collaborations that have been able to happen and really, you know, just sort of the cross support that I think is able to really hold a family that's a beautiful thing so really appreciate that. Yeah. So to share a little bit more of an update. I talked some about the trends that we were seeing in February, when we had that meeting specifically about the recommended funding levels. And I think my update at this juncture is sort of fortunately and unfortunately, very similar. Unfortunately, and then I think we have adapted in a bunch of really key ways that are turning out to be really successful but very unfortunate in that the numbers that were soaring in February have just gotten that much worse or that much higher. And we're also really contending with some other key challenges at this point. March was another record breaking month for the food pantry and that we served more people in the month of March than we have ever served in any month before. We are consistently seeing about 25% more people every month than during the peak surges of the pandemic and about 65% more than we were prior to coven. And the additional challenge that we're really grappling with is food sourcing. So due to supply chain issues and huge issues of that has caused with USDA food, and also the rising cost of food their food bank has not been able to source us or provide us with many of the key staples that we are accustomed to getting free of cost from them. The other kind of issue that it relates to the numbers really have been those cuts in pandemic snap that have happened. The last estimate that I saw was that the reduction in snap amounts to more than $260,000 and snap benefits lost every month to Amherst residents who are enrolled in snap, not even including those who are eligible but not enrolled. And so, to really to meet this demand and compound that we have successfully added another evening that was one of our goals that we have laid out for this contract year so we are food pantry is now open both on Tuesday and Thursday evenings until seven o'clock on site and with curbside pickup until 730. We have also added new delivery households and are on track to add some additional Amherst delivery routes as well to increase access there. And we have really increased our food purchasing at this point we're spending about four times as much on food each month than we were earlier in the fiscal year, just to ensure that we have key staples like tuna and peanut butter and beans and grains. In stock while we're navigating those food shortages. That's something that we are able to do in the short term, but it's certainly not something that we're able to sustain long term and so are really continuing to figure out our options and sourcing potential and funding options, moving forward to sustain that. We have already well exceeded the number of Amherst residents that we predicted to serve in the contract and obviously there are still a couple months left. And we did expand several months ago to the full two weeks of food, which was by adding that second monthly delivery of fresh boost or sorry second monthly shop or delivery of produce and eggs and cheese and milk. And that has been really really popular folks are really enjoying that and appreciating it and it really serves a core mission of, of course we want to provide quantity of food but we really want to provide quality and nutritional food and providing more produce and those items are some of the opportunities that we've been able to have a good kind of culturally diverse array of options and also foods that folks can select and prepare these that works for them and that are healthy and really good so that's been a really great win. And we have also continued our focus around language access at the pantry, reinstituting a bunch of the different pieces that had, I don't want to say had been lost during COVID but definitely had like, we're happening with varying degrees of consistency, maybe that's the best way to put it or just some of the things and so with more people coming on site and with the choice shopping and just so many more volunteers we've really been able to reintroduce a lot of those initiatives. Incredibly grateful to the CDBG committee for your support and also to just a truly phenomenal team of volunteers and staff who have been endlessly creative as we're kind of continuing to navigate on a week to week and month to month basis how to meet these rising challenges, and also feel really humbled by the level just this over and over and over again, rise in, rise in need that we're seeing. So, yeah, that's kind of where things are at and I'm more than happy. Sorry, I wasn't watching the clock, but I was going to ask do you imagine a time when you'll start making meals again and and being able to have people in for meals. Oh, we never stopped making meals. Yeah, and we reopened the dining room for indoor community meals last October. So, yes, no our dining room is open and busy and bustling we have community programming again we have had several fabulous live music events. And now I can't remember if it's this Friday or next Friday that we have a performer coming in our clinic medical clinic is back open and we've recently expanded the hour so no indoors at the center is is is bustling and going I think we hear so much about the, the program that you've been applying for or to for this. Yes, totally the pantry piece. Forgive me I know the funding is specifically focused on Amherst residents accessing the pantry so that's what I tend to talk about here but yes, happy to share updates about all the rest of it as well if helpful. That's fine I just I'm glad I'm glad to hear it so yeah. Does anybody else have any other questions. All right, well thanks so much Levin thank you for your work and actually is there could we come in and do a little tour of the center and you can come for lunch. And also a tour and also to see the food pantry and action yes, we would love to have you so let's let's check in and find a will you email or do you want to be we'll be in touch with you. Yeah, perfect. That sounds great yes we would love to have you. Okay, thank you. Good night. I think Amherst puny connections have their hand raised next and we'll promote you to a panelist. I'm going off screen for one sec but I'm here. Hey everybody. A little bit of technical difficulties here so I'm glad that I figured this out. Hello Rika, Susan, Becky, Lucas, and Nate and Nate. I have to Nate here, Nate Larson and Nate Maloy. Thank you so much for having me. Nat and Nate, it's very hard for me to hear the difference. So thank you so much for having me here tonight and really appreciate the family outreach of Amherst and survival center for the work they do, because we send our folks there to receive their service. We have a resource center. We connect them with resources out in the community. So, for example, the ARPA money for the town emergency funds channeled through the family outreach of Amherst. So on average, every month, we send about five families, individuals or family with in our family members to receive their ARPA emergency funds. And I have to say that our case workers have such great review of your service. For example, we have one participant had a hard time trying to make her case about why her loss of income recently tied to COVID-19. COVID has been long time ago, but it turned to find out that she had long COVID and she could not go back to work. So, Francine over at the family outreach of Amherst, just willing to dig in further and further, and finally was able to come up with a statement that's true and also legit. I want to give a shout out to the family outreach of Amherst, treating our participants who are referred to them from the Amherst community connections and help them receive the funds that they so desperate need. And speaking about the Amherst Survival Center, it's almost part of our program feels like if we find somebody, either meal, the first thing that came to mind, not, not for the loan where I used to run the program, but it's the Amherst Survival Center. Go down there to pick up a hot lunch or go there to have lunch there. So I want to really appreciate my colleagues providing this very essential services to residents of Amherst. And what we do is something a little bit different. So, we basically is a social service program, helping people access money, access housing. These are the two biggest things that we do do the CDBG grant. So money, we'll talk about raft application. So on average, we send about 15 people, apply, complete the entire process for their rent a rearage, or for moving cost. As you know, if you live in Amherst long enough, you know, Caymans is the biggest real estate property management company. And the rule of thumb is, unless you make four times of the monthly rent, they are not going to rent to you. So many people who need to rent, but they have a housing voucher, but they can't have that kind of money. So what we do is, don't worry, we go to the wayfinders, because, you know, our Amherst residents, they are in a catchment of wayfinders. So through the raft funding, they are able to secure first month, last month, and security. That's three months of rent. Now for an apartment, one bedroom, the going rate right now, it's at least $1200 for one person or one couple. Who has that $3,600 sitting around, especially if you have sectioned voucher. You are income eligible. That's why you get your sectioned. So we are so pleased. Money talks, in this case, on average, we send about 15 families, individuals to apply. So we are able to complete the entire application from the beginning to the end. After we figure out all the pieces of puzzle, such as if they don't have a birth certificate, we need to secure the birth certificate. If they don't have money to pay for it, we dig into our pocket, come up with $25 to apply for birth certificate, so that they can complete the raft process. So having money, have access to funds, we are really happy because it allows us to do the work that we need to get done in order to save them from being experiencing housing instability. So that's one thing, raft funds and the emergency funds by those two agencies. And we have a new phenomenon I want to share with you. We're just at five minutes. So a quick share and then thanks. Great. Wonderful. So the final piece I'd like to share with you is about the UMass spillover effect on the tongue of Amherst. We have so many undergraduate students, graduate students, they are behind on rent. And they don't live on campus. These are students who could not afford, who could not find housing on campus. So they would go into the community. So they compete the housing that we have for the residents, and they cannot find affordable housing. So they find housing for a one bedroom apartment, $2,300 for two people to squeeze in. And yet after three months, they cannot afford the rent, for example. So they come to us for help. And graduate students, same situation. So it's a problem that we do as much as case management as we can. But the crux of the matter is we just don't have the housing for both students and for residents. So that increase the demand for housing increases need for our service. And we are at the busting point that every case worker we have 11 of them. They have 27 cases. So we are having a hard time making sure everybody, you know, get that service that they need to avoid being evicted. So thanks again for really give us the funds we need. We really appreciate it. Any word to come and would it make sense to come and speak with case workers also that's I hate to take them away from their 27 case load person case load but you know, it's so important for them to meet with time officials to talk about what they do without any names, because these are young people have ambition, they want to help the world. And by you coming to see us asking us questions. It shows that you value their work. So in the course of a day, we might have one or two interns. They are interns inspired to become social worker. They will be more than happy to sit with you and me. They will ask questions and they share with you what they walk away with for this two semester, 12 hour a week of commitment. So I would love to and want to invite everyone of you, Rika, Susan, Nate, Becky, Lucas, and Nat, please come. Okay, we'll be in touch to set that up. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, thank you so much. Bye bye. Good night. Good night. I can't see your hand raised, but Big Brother Big Sister had I lowered their hand just they wouldn't be raised for a long time. We'll promote Susan, you can become panelists and then we'll move on Bruce to you. Everyone. That's great to see you all tonight. Yes. And yeah, again, Susan Nick Castro, director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County where I was just so appreciative of the support that you all provide that makes our programming possible. And yeah, also we would welcome a visit any anytime with the committee we have our offices that, you know, we're been set up in Hadley for the last year and a half now and but we also be happy to meet anywhere in the community that you would like to meet and we're really proud to have, you know, our staff is, you know, after going through quite a bit of transition, we're really pleased to have, you know, very well established staff with our three case managers, our program supervisor, our director of their development and development and relationships manager. And yeah, so we're kind of a fully assembled team and we're, you know, always happy to just welcome the bill. Come rock climbing with you on Friday. What's that you can come rock climbing with you on Friday. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of one of our many partnerships that we've been developing as giving opportunities for our matches to climb at at the rock climbing gym in Hadley so yeah you can join join in on that. Yeah, and that this this past quarter we've served 53 children and families. I'm sorry, 43 children and their families and yeah we've been making steady progress over the year with all the support we've been providing to our ongoing matches and continuing to make progress in setting up new matches. And, you know, I think a lot of, you know, continued progress has to do with the strong partnerships that we have set up with a variety of services and supports in the community. One that I wanted to highlight in particular is with UMass Amherst our partnership with the community engagement and service learning department. We've been doing the class through that department for many years and, you know, the pandemic really, you know, the interrupted the, you know, the group programming that we were providing through that class but we've managed to keep it going through doing community based matches and So a lot of planning for the course this coming fall and we actually had 76 UMass students who signed up for our recent info session, which was a great way to engage more students to sign up for the class and the more students who sign up the more interest we have in potential mentors who are going to come on board to be mentors as part of that class. So, you know, we're really excited to see kind of those numbers really coming back with students, UMass students stepping up to show their interest in mentoring and so yeah that makes us really confident about, you know, having, you know, having the recruitment wave that we need to, you know, to continue to address our waiting list and provide more and more qualified mentors to the children and Amherst. Yeah, so that was just exciting to see a large group of students, you know, coming forward and that was just a few weeks ago. We also have reestablished partnerships with some of the campus groups we have a reestablished partnership with the student organization through the Eisenberg Business School, and they've come on board to help us with a couple of our match activities that we've been hosting most recently two weeks ago we had a field day and egg hunt activity right on the UMass campus and a lot of fun we had over over 40 kids and we have an adult who signed up to participate and that student group at UMass led along with our staff a variety of field day activities and pizza together and, you know, really fun egg hunt so it was a really great afternoon of, you know, being able to showcase that program to the UMass students who didn't know about us as well as, you know, this large group of volunteers who helped out as part of their community service beyond being mentors, you know, wanting to help with our group programming as well. So we're really excited to be growing that. We also volunteered to do our gingerbread workshop that we hosted in December and that also attracted a really large group of our matches who came together to celebrate the holiday season with gingerbread decorating and some holiday crafts so yeah so we're just excited to be reestablishing a lot of partnerships that, you know, had been interrupted during the pandemic and to have this, you know, really going strong and really flourishing this year. So I just wanted to highlight, you know, some of the, you know, the families that we're serving and the level of need that we see with the families that we're serving. We had, you know, and our family where we had several. There were two sisters who actually three who had matches. And then it came to our, came to our attention through actually one of the mentors reporting to us that her, her little had reported some physical abuse happening in the family and as a result of what the mentor reported. You know, we got DCF involved and DCF actually provided very supportive and helpful services to the family. We didn't interrupt because we're always concerned that how will our role as mandated reporters potentially interrupt our relationship with the family but we're really pleased that our relationship was not interrupted and actually we saw many positive services happening for that family as a result of the report and the, you know, the new supports that came into the family as a result of that whole process as difficult as it was. Oh, yeah. Okay, well, yeah, the last thing I'm going to say is, you know, just, you know, seeing a lot of, you know, many kids with, you know, mental health issues and, you know, still, you know, isolation from, you know, the results of the pandemic and, you know, anxiety and things that make, you know, having a mentor that much more helpful and really, you know, integral to their functioning that a mentor coming into their lives and, you know, helping to interrupt some of the isolation and anxiety that we see more and more kids experiencing. Yeah, so I'm happy to answer any questions and thank you again for providing these resources that are really helping our program continue to grow and flourish. So thank you so much. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions. All right. Thanks, Susan. All right. Thank you all so much. We'll be in touch about setting up a time. Sounds great. Wonderful. Take care. And so Bruce is going to come in and give an update on the town projects, right? Amherst housing authority. Yeah. I can speak for the town. Okay. Oh, he just, okay. Hi Bruce. Hello. Thank you for inviting me. This is a, this has been great to hear all that's going on and am I hearing me okay. Yeah. And so it's my first time to one of these meetings, although we've been the beneficiaries of CDBG support and many different projects at the housing authority. I am Bruce Budrick, director of facilities for Amherst housing authority. We have many, many houses, housing units that we support. This particular one is our federal property. We only have this with this one federal property. It's 15 family units at on Main Street at Watson farms. When I came on board about a year ago, they were just getting ready for their big react inspection. They were getting ready to do, you know, have the HUD was going to come in and do their inspection. And I had just come from doing pre react inspections for a company called us housing consultants. I'm covering from Washington DC, Buffalo, New York, up in New Hampshire, training, teaching these people how to pass these inspections so I came on board and it was two weeks from an inspection. And I looked at the sighting at Watson farms and it was in horrible shape. I'm like, there's no way we're going to pass this inspection. Unfortunately, my predecessor Chad Howard had worked with you and having grants come in and we were getting ready for the sighting project but I had to invest thousands of dollars to repair this one out sighting to pass the inspection, even though we had this big huge sighting project going. So hopefully you've seen the reports as well for the sighting project that we just now are wrapping up. It's it got moving right through the winter since we had a nice mild winter. And so it's very important to us that we fix the whole building envelope, because we just put new sighting on we'd hate for the buildings to be falling apart with the roofs in bad shape. And what we're looking at now is putting all the new roofs on, and this is moving along very nicely. We, fortunately, because of the funding you're providing we're able to get these roofs done because we spent so much of what we spent all of our HUD capital funds for the sighting project, three years worth of capital funds, plus a lot of our reserves, along with your grant, and we were able to get the sighting done so we there's no way we could do the roof without this grant and it's very important because it had already started to leak. And it's in, you know, you can see it already starting to buckle and it just needs to be done. And as far as a tour, I would love to give you a tour of the, the sighting, you know, that's been done at the, at the facilities is there's seven buildings there. And the roofing is just getting ready to start so we are actually working with we had the bid go out. We, we have the low bid was JD, the construction. We've been working with the project manager. Jason, I don't know how to say his name or chalky. Yes. But we've been working with him. He's definitely been doing this before Roy Brown is our architect, and he's been kind of getting all the submittals and they've been going back and forth approving everything. So it's kind of exciting get ready to go the weather is, you know, the perfect time of year to get this done. We were a little bit concerned about the timing of the project because this these funds were really supposed to be spent by June 30. And so I was a little concerned because he was going to start the project a little late and I kind of coaxed him to let's move it up. Let's move it up. So he's actually just been submitting the schedule and we're going to be starting the project within the next few weeks. Really, it's kind of going as far as already picking the colors of the roof and things like that. So, I'm actually some do he I saw an email today he's got some deliveries coming on Monday as early as Monday to start staging the project so we do need to get that the sign up over there. And, but it's exciting to be getting the, the building envelope done for these 15 families that are that are living there at Watson farms. And again, we're just very thankful for it. We'd love to, I'd love to, you know, arrange a meeting where we could, we could show you around see what we're doing. And then it would be nice if it was a couple weeks out we had actually had the roof going up that that might be nice. But if we do it before then that's okay too you, you can just see the shape the roofs are in now. But again, were you were you able to, or have there been significant leaks yet or is the roofing going on to before people have before apartments themselves have been impacted. I've been on board for about a year, and like I said and I took over for Chad Howard, and he has had some patching done. So the leaks that since I've been here, I have not seen any leaks. So, so that it's good because we don't need any more damage. Going into the units as I did come on board there was one of the bathroom ceilings had a lot of So we had to get that remediated and repaired we basically gutted that bathroom had a company come in and do the abatement forming. And hopefully that wasn't from the roof, you know we, it could have had some influence in it previously but we've got that place all fixed up now. And so I don't believe we have any leaks now that they're not telling me if they are and I'm sure they would tell me. But we will absolutely take you up on your offer to come and tour and I think, you know, we certainly can wait until the roof is up and get the, or at least, you know, mostly up, you know, further into the summer. There is seven buildings so you know it'll it'll go in phases so, you know, once, once the first couple are done you'd be able to get a good idea. It's going to look really nice with the new with all the new siding already up. We included with that project the the soffits in the fascia. So it's really looking a lot better unfortunately there was not enough funding to do the little sheds that are there. So we're going to get our guys to try to spruce them up as much as we can with some paint and things we didn't have enough funds to do the siding on the sheds it was more important where the tenants were living, you know, to get that building envelope taken care of. So, yeah, we're, we're excited about it with thankful so much that we can, we can accomplish this. Great, thank you. Does anybody have any questions for first. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for coming tonight. It's great to hear how it's all going. Thank you very much and I'm sure Nate or someone will be in touch with me about a meeting and arranging a tour. Yep. Thank you. And the next meeting is everybody. Nate, do you want to do a quick update on the town projects. Yeah, there's two town projects there's the sidewalks on Kellogg have and then there's the trail at Hickory Ridge. And so the on Kellogg have they've already started they started the other week. We've gone by the, you know, they're, it's well underway so that that product is moving pretty well we bid it last year with a 2020 activity. Mill Lane sidewalks of Taylor Davis we combined grant years and it worked out really nicely though just to be able to do that otherwise we'd probably just be awarding contractor again you know we'd be behind where we are so that that's going really well Hickory Ridge is a little behind schedule the community activity for block grant needs and environmental clearance and with staff change at DHT and then been leaving staff change last summer and then been leaving. They never actually issued our environmental clearance for that one activity. It was they just realized it and at the end of March. I completed some more paperwork and really we can't do any physical work on the site until that is cleared which shouldn't be an issue we're actually doing finishing up the design and going through permitting in the next few months. So we're not it hasn't delayed it too much but we you know we have to kind of sit tight. So it's a finish all 21 activities by the end of this calendar year so the idea would be to get someone on board starting in August or September on Hickory Ridge actually installing the trail and have it be done by December one. And so, you know, we have until Bruce had the idea was trying to get every activity done by June, we do have some, you know, an expenditure requirement by the end of the year but I think all activities are moving so well that we're, we're pretty good shape. I think if something happens with Hickory Ridge. We'll know about it in the next few weeks the HCO let me know, you know, based on the environmental review. But you know we had to follow something is in the floodplain, bend it all that I feel like we're in really good shape to keep it moving forward. So nothing, you know nothing of concern yet, but great. So in terms of setting up the site visits. I'm not sure it seems like it might be I don't want it to turn into a scheduling nightmare for for Nate and I wonder if it makes sense to. I don't know like every month say on some particular you know like the fourth Thursday of each month or something that there would be something set up and everybody who can go can go and picking that out of the blue. But to try to do something like that or just to pick one and start there and then. I was just thinking that we could have it do be like a half an hour site visit for each activity. And then I could just set up a doodle poll with the committee and I could confirm with the agencies what days are good and just I would I could, you know, I don't mind doing it so I can try to get get that going. Maybe we could try to do two in an afternoon if people are free or something. Yeah, be an hour and a half apart just so that one goes over we have enough time to get to the other one. That sounds great. And we would do the Monday to Friday is that what you're envisioning. Right, right. So, right. Yeah, I mean, for instance, if you know Wednesdays is better or not for the survival center for instance right if they're too busy, getting ready to do like a Thursday afternoon and then maybe we pair that with, you know, family outreach and, you know, main street housing is not too far from family outreach so we could go that and see Watson farms. You know, if you pretty try to coordinate that way. Great. That's terrific. So what we thought we would do is, we won't plan a time right now but we'll probably meet again sometime in late September early October. Just to kind of touch base, see where we're at, because the funding cycle we just did is to cover two years we sort of have this strangely long period of time. I mean, they are, I know, Greg's not here tonight but I'm assuming he's still with us as a committee member because he hasn't said otherwise. But I think we do have an open seat so if anybody knows anyone who's interested I think that's still, and I. So, that's, that's there but not a lot of heavy lifting for a while. And does anybody have any updates or anything they want to talk about. I was going to say we can meet as needed it may be that you're depending on what feedback we get with Hickory Ridge or you know that money may need to be reappropriated and then September up would be a good time October to meet again that's when we typically get under contract for the new grant that we applied for this winter so you know we may just want to meet just to have another start up meeting. And if we're not, you know, getting ready for another outreach process for a grant application just to kind of get together and talk about the new grant and, you know, I'm not sure what you know what changes will be had but we never really had this two year cycle before. So, you know, do you see my have some other requirements in terms of just, you know, public follow up or some meetings throughout the year so. Yeah, that sounds good I thought it was helpful to have that kind of schedule this year. Thank you everyone. All right well we'll look forward to hearing about the schedule. Yeah, and the doodle poll. Thanks for taking that on. Thank you. All right yeah appreciate it Nate. Okay, good night. Thank you. Thank you.