City Council - Regular Meeting

Amen. Thank you for watching. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. so so Thank you.

For the record, my name is Brian Worrell, District 4 City Councilor, and I'm the Vice Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Education. And I will be conducting today's hearing in the chair's absence. Today is September 17, 2026. The exact time is 2.10 PM. This hearing is being recorded. is also being livestreamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. Reading comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.education at boston.gov. It will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on an order which they signed up. We'll have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison Megan at M-E-A-G-A-N dot C-O-R-U-G-E-D-O-M-A-T-R-I-N at boston.gov for the link. Your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0507. Order for a hearing to discuss strategies to prevent homelessness among students in the Boston public schools. This matter was sponsored by Councilor Ben Weber, Liz Braden, and Councilor Julie Mejia, who referred to the committee on March 11th, 2026. Today I'm joined by my council colleagues in order of arrival, Council President Braden, Council Weber councillor Flynn and councillor Coletta Zapata. We also have a letter of absence from councillor Mejia councillor Louie Jen and councillor Pepin. I'll now turn it over to the original Co-sponsor original sponsor council Weber and then then to the rest of my colleagues for opening statement.

Council Webber the floor is yours Okay, I thank you very much Chair Worrell my thoughts are with Chair Mejia today. I'd also like to thank Councilors Braden and Mejia for co-sponsoring this hearing. We're going to talk about homelessness today. I just want to level set. There's a really informative article by the Boston College of School Social Work report that came out I think in the spring of 2026 called School Housing Partnership Achievement and Challenges in Boston, Massachusetts. And they look at what we're doing and what we're doing right and what we need to work on. But in that report, they define homelessness. So I think it's important just to look at that. They say homelessness is lacking fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and living, and living in a shelter in public or private places not meant for human sleeping, at motels, hotels, trailer parks, or campgrounds, because no adequate alternative option exists. And one version is doubling up under financial duress. So that's where people are living with another family because they can't afford to live in their housing. And I think part of the reason why it's so hard to track how many students are experiencing homelessness is because we don't really know when families are doubling up. But that practice, we can talk about that. But that is part of what we're talking about. So the school social work lays out a lot of sobering statistics. Family homelessness is on the rise, but it's an especially critical problem here in Massachusetts, where, according to the report, roughly one in every 10 families experiencing homelessness nationwide are in Massachusetts. During the 2024 to 2025 school year, the report says 5,405 students were identified as homeless, a number that's increasing every year and increasing as a percentage of the students in BPS every year. Now it's more than 10% of our student body. I'm repeatedly told that that number is lower than the actual number because, again, it's hard to identify everyone out there who's experiencing homelessness. especially those who are doubling up due to financial distress. And the studies have shown that experiencing homelessness has a tangible negative impact on our students. A study of 15-year-olds found that they have lower grades, worse test scores, higher absenteeism, and more behavioral problems in school if they've had even one episode of housing instability by the age of nine. And even the studies show that those kids who have had issues of homelessness score worse than their peers who are merely in low-income households. So it's just that one episode of homelessness, we see the effects downstream. Another bit of data from the BC report I thought is worth highlighting is who we're talking about. So I had an issue in my district in West Roxbury opening up an emergency assistance shelter. The state was there. And there was a lot of pushback. And you go into these meetings, and people would talk about, well, they're going to bring mass and casts to the neighborhood. These people, they're going to be drug addicts. They're going to have criminal records. And from my experience, and I recommend anyone go to Horizons for the Homeless, which provides daycare and pre-K for people with kids in the shelter system, these are single moms with young kids. They're often still working. Some have just lost their job, or they've had some issue And they just have no safety net. And so they're placed into this system. And the data from the school social works report shows that these are primarily young moms with two to three kids. Over 80% of them have graduated from high school. 20% close to have graduated from college. And they need some help. And we, I think, have to do more to help them. And just this morning, I think I talked to you, Corey, I spoke to a woman who met that description. She's in an EA shelter here in Boston. She's a graduate of BLS. She's got two kindergartners, one with autism, and she's a registered nurse. Sometimes there's just no help, and now she's in this EA shelter. She was asking for help, and I think having set this hearing, I think I have some ideas for where she can go for help now and what we can do to help that. So BPS has a program. We started in 2019 pursuant to, I think it's the, correct me if I'm wrong, Danielle, it's the McKinney-Vento Act, which requires that school districts have help kids with homelessness. So here in Boston, we have what's called the Early Homelessness Intervention Program, Apologize chair. I'm going on a little longer than normal But just trying to like make sure everyone's on the same page here the programs designed to identify families and BPS experiencing homelessness Using family liaisons in the schools and homeless liaisons and BPS Corey correct me if I'm wrong there and then the homeless liaisons refer them to family aid Which then connects which has social workers that work with the families connect them with voucher programs All of us here have strongly supported the city housing voucher program program It's one of the uses for it, and benefits, applications, and other things like that. The problem that the BC study found was really twofold. One, we just don't have enough resources for the demand, and two, we have a problem identifying the people who need the help. We've seen this through the Access to Counsel program, that it's not always easy to know who in your school is at risk of homelessness, who's even been sent to a shelter. So the BC report points out that we need to do a better job identifying the people and then having the resources there when we do. In fact, the woman I spoke to this morning was in this shelter. She has a kid, a kindergartner at school at the Kilmer. and she's been in a shelter now since the beginning of the summer and has not heard from BPS. So, Corey, I'm going to get you her number, and you can talk, and we'll see how we can help. So, I've talked to BC BPS School Committee Chair, Jerry Robinson, I'm sure we all have, and she talked about how important it is that that while the school committee and the superintendent focus on curriculum and helping the kids during the time they're in the classroom, the city council really should be doing everything they can to help these kids in all the hours that they're out of school. And one tool in that toolbox is the EHIP program, the Emergency Homelessness Intervention Program, Another tool is the Access to Council program, which we started a couple years ago and which Danielle can talk about. But there are other tools out there, and we obviously need to put more resources into all of these things. And I think it just, you know, I guess the last part is for my colleagues. You know, I think we all have issues that are very important in our districts across the whole city, and we all do great work, and we all have, you know, honestly, like great staffs and we're all dedicated to helping people here in the city. I do think this is an issue where, you know, I think we all need to prioritize and not just, I know all of us, you can say in terms of working for affordable housing or, you know, many different things and they're great programs and they'll have sort of a knock-on effect to help kids in the long run. This number, 5,400 BPS kids each year experiencing homelessness, I think we could do a lot if we all work together to try to reduce that number. It could be by a thousand, it could be by a hundred, it could be by a dozen, it could be by one, but I think there are tools that we can actually make a concrete difference. for these kids and I don't want to see that number go up. Thank you very much, Chair. I appreciate the extra time. Thank you, Councillor.

I just want to also acknowledge that Councillor Fitzgerald has joined us. Councillor Braden, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Councillor Webber for co-sponsoring this hearing. I think this is something we've grappled with for many, many years. I know that Alston Bright and CDC produced a report like 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago, but rising rents, closing doors in the neighborhood. And the reality is that for many families, they're competing with groups of young adults who can afford to group together and pay much more in rent than a working family can. So we see it all the time that families are being sort of pushed out of our neighborhoods because they can't afford to stay anymore. So I think we really, in terms of addressing this in a bigger picture, more longer term, we really have to do more in adding, to try and add more mixed income, affordable family housing across the board. And again, that's something we've been working on out in our district with some success, but I think it is, really critically important that we should try and level the playing fields for families in the city so that they can actually afford to stay. Displacement of families is a really critical issue for our schools and for our communities. If we want to make the city a long-term proposition for families who really, really want to stay, then we have to address the issue about housing. But again, I'm really delighted to have folks from BPS and from the Mayor's Office of Housing Stability to really sort of tackle the problem, have a conversation about the problem, and see what other solutions we can bring forward in the shorter term. There's a short term issue, what we can do in the short term, and then what we can do in the longer term to try and alleviate this challenge that we have, which is ongoing. has not, we have improved, I think, but there's still a lot of work to do. And I look forward to hearing how we're progressing and how these recent initiatives have impacted our response to family homelessness in the city.

Thank you. Thank you. I also just want to acknowledge the work that Councillor Nisa Sabi-George has done on this work, and she's here in the chambers with us as well. Councillor Flander, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the sponsors. I'm glad you mentioned Councillor Sabi George and the work she did on this issue. I remember Councillor Sabi George would be in the curly room. There was actually a commission that was established, I believe, by Mayor Walsh and it was supported by the city council under councilor Sabi George, but the activist and the providers, the housing providers would frequently meet in the curly room and discuss, literally discuss individual cases, BPS cases, I believe, about families and how you support them and trying to get them into housing. But I do know that the city council one time was really the lead on homelessness in the Boston public school system. And that was under Councilor Savi-George. I would go in there and listen to the conversations, but they were helping so many families that needed support. And I'm wondering, Mr. Chair, and maybe, Maybe someone might have some information. But is that commission still in effect? I don't think a commission actually goes away, but if it's in effect, does it actually meet? I don't know the answer to it, but maybe someone here does. But I do know that that commission working group played a critical role in the city because I would go to those meetings frequently. They were open to the public. and you could go in there and listen, and they listened to the housing providers. They talked to BPS, and it was a fascinating conversation. But regardless, I do believe this is a critical issue facing so many BPS families. We should not be a city where children in our BPS system are living in their car or living in a van or living in a homeless shelter. Let's work together to provide housing options for the most in-need families across the city. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councillor Koleta Zapata.

Thank you so much, Chair. And I want to thank Councillor Webber for creating space to center our most vulnerable. And Councillor Flynn is right. I was also here to witness the greatness from our Councillor Anissa Sabi George in bringing all stakeholders together and putting forth some real tangible solutions for our kids. And that was informed by her experience as an educator. So thank you so much, Anissa. Your story about this BLS mom is just, it really got to me just now. I mean, she went to BLS, right? That's the best in the city. She's a single mom. She has two kids, one with autism, and the greatest seed in the world. That should not be happening. And I think it's indicative of the confluence of the many terrible circumstances that can happen. in this city where it could be a job loss even though she's a nurse, or the rising housing costs, or single income household, or just one emergency too many where people are literally that close to being homeless in this city. And so for me this conversation is really important like no matter what is happening and you all have done incredible work I work with you all the time Danielle and in East Boston, you know, we're acutely feeling displacement right now and and sometimes homelessness But no matter what we're doing we could always strengthen our safety net for our kids And so that's the perspective that I have coming into this conversation and just making sure no matter what we're doing We're leading with dignity and compassion for these folks. So thank you to Council Weber and everyone else who is always really putting forth people closest to the pain, as our Congressman says, within these policy discussions. So thank you.

Thank you.

Council Fitzgerald, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, panel, for being here. I'd also like to thank Council Weber for bringing attention to this. Being the chair of the Public Safety, Homelessness, and Recovery, we've had to deal a lot with this, but the best way to prevent it is to make sure that those experiencing it while they're young don't have to and don't think that that's the norm for them and give them the best chance as they go along. And of course, nothing's ever certain, but let's make sure that they have the most potential and pathways that they can. to know what having a home is, a loving home. And so I look forward to the panel. I just want to, again, thank you, Council Weber, and thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Weber, for bringing this forward. I want to also just thank my colleagues for all their opening remarks and also the panelists for all the work that they do. But we're here to improve the systems because it is something that no kid, no child in the city of Boston should have to experience. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to our panelists. to introduce themselves and to dive into their presentation.

Good afternoon, my name is Corey McCarthy. I am the Chief of Student Support in the Boston Public Schools. Councilor Weber, thank you for acknowledging the conversation with the family this morning. My first response was a referral completed and also it sort of speaks to some of the symptoms around self-identification. I was happy that that family was able to feel comfortable enough to share that barrier with you. Please get our team in contact with the family. If you know our work and in student support and BPS, we're boots to the ground. I believe that the city council has set the macroscopic view, and myself and our partners and our collaborators and our colleagues are here to share some of the microscopic, boots to the ground, strategic views. I wanna start saying something that really grounds our approach, and when we talk about homelessness, housing disability, eviction, families doubling up, those can very easily become systemic and buzzwords. They could become numbers on a spreadsheet. But for us, these are children. These are children getting on our buses every morning. They're sitting in our classrooms. They're playing on our teams. They're applying to college. They are trying to pass the MCAS or portfolio. They're trying to be teenagers while sometimes carrying adult-sized problems. You know, many of the community, they don't even know what that young person has gone through the night before. You know, similar to the data is alarming around 5,405 students experiencing homelessness per the BC report. That number should make all of us uncomfortable. I also want the council and the public to understand that Boston Public Schools is not sitting back waiting for families to become homeless before we act. Our approach has become increasingly centered around three things, coordination, prevention, and a sustained response. And underneath all three is one fundamental belief that our families should not have to wait for policy or government to figure out how to help them. We have to be proactive and ready, obviously per the report. As far as coordination, You know, when a family's experiencing housing instability, the worst thing we can do is hand them a list of agencies and tell them to start making calls. It just never works that way. That is not support. Our responsibility is to help connect those dots. Within BPS, we have the Homeless Education Resource Network, and the acronym is HEARN. Many of our partners are in that network. It helps us create the infrastructure across the district. HEARM provides prevention, intervention, case management resources, school-based homeless liaisons, transportation coordination, basic needs support and connections to community partners. And one of the most important parts of the system in our school-based homelessness is our school-based homelessness liaisons. Those are the people who know the children. And I think one thing that tends to be absent when we talk about young people is the folks who drive the relationship. They know families and they know people who are experiencing sudden changes. And with sudden changes, one of the things that we do need to continue to talk about as we strategize is early warning indicators. And that's in the prevention side. How do we know? And sometimes we know by creating increased touch points. That's why the programmatic side of the work we do, the outside of school time, the before school time, the weekend time, you are able to see certain traits that are often affiliated with families who are experiencing homelessness ability. And our expectation is not that a parent comes to school carrying paperwork, proving that they're in crisis. We want to be as low barrier in this work as possible. If a school leader or a social worker, a family liaison or another trusted staff member learns that a family is struggling, there's a pathway to get that information to the HEARN network so we could begin connecting the family with support. The referral system, It allows for identification to happen after the enrollment because we know homelessness does not only happen on the first day a child registers to school. And I think that piece matters and I want to highlight that. A parent could have stable housing in September and be facing eviction in February. It's literally that critical. Family circumstances could change overnight. I think one of the points I want to continue to emphasize is we have multiple through lines of communication because families deserve it, right? We have our aforementioned homeless liaison, our social workers, the network, our student support hotline, welcome services, transportation department, family aid, our community programs, our food access events. And I actually believe that is a strength, because families should have multiple doors in the same system of support, multiple avenues to success. Our families deserve tremendous credit, and I want to be intentional about saying that publicly. There's a lot of struggle out there, and they're persevering in that way, and they deserve to be honored with the respect of having this sort of strategic work today. Family Aid has been a tremendous partner to the Boston Public Schools. Through our partnership, BPS staff identify families who are at risk of homelessness or already experiencing homelessness. Connecting them with Family Aid, Family Aid helps families navigate housing stabilization, case management, and immediate needs. Since the early homelessness, the EHIP prevention program started, Family Aid and this partnership has served 3,000 BPS families, more than 10,000 children and parents, for more than 100 schools. More than 1,300 families have secured new permanent housing with assistance from Family Aid and housing partners. I don't want to steal their thunder, they'll be up here soon. These are not abstract numbers. That is more than 1,300 families who have a different story to tell today. Some of these supports may include some financial assistance. The housing system is complex if you talk to families. It may simply mean having someone to answer the phone when a family is really scared. The same is true for Greater Boston Legal Services, the Mayor's Office of Housing, the Boston Housing Authority, Boston College of the United Way, our state partners, our shelter providers, and our transportation department. Most importantly, the people working directly inside our schools. In this network, we focus on prevention as our second strategy. The best time to respond to homelessness is before the families become homeless. This is an area I think that we've evolved significantly. I do not want us to sort of think about responding to the child when they become homeless. I think the prevention work is critical. I want us increasingly measured by whether we can intervene before it happens. This is why EHIP has been so important to us. Obviously, that was mentioned earlier, the Boston College research found improved housing stability and parent well-being among participating families, along with reduced chronic absenteeism and improved overall attendance. For me, that's connecting the dots, stabilizing the family. Students become more stable, attendance improves. We have to find families earlier. This is where I think schools have a unique role. A family may not just walk into the city hall and say, hey, I'm three weeks away from losing my apartment. It just doesn't happen that way. They might mention that their rent has increased. They might say that they're staying with a relative for a little while, going back to the early warning indicators. A child may tell a social worker, hey, we had to move. Those bells immediately start ringing. One example that we have in our district is our community eats food access programming, which is attached to many of our programs. So see, Boston is going to have a food access network, as well as some of our programs on Saturday and Sundays. A family might initially come in because they need groceries, and they end up in a welcoming space where they meet people, they build trust, and then they share, and they self-identify, and then we get them in the process. We also have access to council. Our access to council partnership is another example of trying to move upstream. This partnership includes BPS Family Aid, Greater Boston Legal Services, and the Mayor's Office of Housing. As of early September 2026, this initiative screened 248 households, generated 225 EHIP referrals. They're here in the building. They can share that data themselves. I don't want to steal their thunder either. That tells me our schools are increasingly understanding that there's a path for our families to get the support they need. But when we're talking about funding, I also want to be transparent. Some of these resources that previously were supported in this work came through ESSER and other grant funding. These resources have sunset, but the need did not. The need still exists. This year we're using earmark funding to continue supporting portions of the work, but one of the conversations we need to continue having is the sustainability. Homelessness is not temporary, housing instability is not temporary, and we have to have a clear message that our commitment has to match that energy. And then finally, response. When a family is already in crisis, the speed matters. When you send a referral, typically in a political scheme, you have to wait for somebody to process something. I think the value of us having our partnerships is that folks are responding quicker, folks are, our phone call away and families are feeling that support right away and there's nothing greater that warms the heart than when a family is grateful for the work that you put in. I think our transportation department has worked alongside significantly with the homelessness infrastructure to coordinate transportation for students who are farthest away from opportunity and who are experiencing homelessness who do not live in Boston. The Her Network, in our current overview, we have to recognize that our response has to be bigger than housing. One thing I want the counselors to understand is that the needs do not stop once we identify where a student is sleeping. And we have to be more intentional about how we support them. So where do I want us to go next? Right now, we try to be innovative, as I mentioned to Councilor Weber earlier. We are working towards building a college residential concept. I want to challenge everybody to think differently about this approach because the reality is some young people, especially older adolescents, do not fit neatly into the systems that currently exist. We are currently exploring the idea of involving a local college that has vacant residential capacity. That concept will be designed around eligible students approximately between 16 to 19 years old, potentially including young people involved with foster care or experiencing significant housing instability. Imagine a young person being able to live safely on campus, receive three meals a day, participate in an early college experience, remain enrolled and supported academically, and having consistent adults around them, and begin seeing themselves as a young person experiencing, not as a young person experiencing homelessness, but that they are now a college student. We obviously would need the state and the city at the table. We would need some funding. We would need clarity around eligibility, supervision, child welfare, safety, programming, and long-term sustainability, but we are thinking about it. We are innovating around it. We are ideating around it. I'm not presenting this as a finished program. I'm presenting this because this problem is too serious for us to recycle the same solutions. And I am going to, I have a large closing statement, but I will defer to my colleague here, Danielle.

Oh, hello, okay. Yeah, don't, whoever's back there will control the mics.

Right, right. Well, thank you. to my co-panelists, and thank you to the members of this committee and the counselors that are here today to give me the opportunity to testify on strategies to prevent homelessness amongst Boston public school students. My name is Danielle Johnson. I'm the director for the Mayor's Office of Housing Stability. Many of you are familiar, but for the public, OHS is a small but mission-driven office. Our job is to keep Boston households stably housed, connecting families emergency financial assistance, legal support, and housing search help before a housing crisis becomes a housing loss and help them maintain or find a path back to stable housing when it does. We already see every day some of the points that my co-panelists made and how closely housing instability and school stability track together. Over the past two fiscal years, OHS has supported 2,292 households with children under 21. And where we're able to capture it, 1,321 of those households were flagged as having some sort of BPS connection. And that connection isn't just something we observe anecdotally. Research, as you mentioned, Councilor Weber, from Boston College's School of Social Work and United Way, studying the Family Aid School Housing Partnership, found that as participating families' housing stabilized, parents' stress and anxiety went down and children's school attendance improved. and that research directly helped inform the growth of programs like our own Access to Counsel program. So thank you for bringing this important topic to the community. Happy to continue to talk and answer questions on how we can think about different strategies that are different than what we've been doing in the past.

Thank you. And again, thank you both for your work. First, I want to just start off with Council Mejia's letter. And my prayers and thoughts are with Council Mejia and the Mejia family during this time. Dear Vice Chair Worrell, I'm writing to inform you of my absence during today's 2 p.m. hearing on the strategies to prevent student homelessness in Boston Public Schools due to unforeseen circumstances. My staff will be listening in and will review upon my return. I'd like to please submit the following questions for today's hearings and ask that they please be read and to the record. If any questions are not answered at the hearing, I request that the administration please respond in writing following the hearing. Below are the questions for the record. Here goes. Four questions. Is the school-based homeless liaison list on the BPS website up to date, and what is the district doing to ensure families are aware of this resource? Question two is, how is the district working with housing stability and community organizations to ensure that students remain housed in our city? Question three, can you explain what in-district academic supports are available for unhoused students? And then the last question is, is the district part of the team working on the anti-displacement plan If so, how has the plan directly impacted BPS students and family? Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Julian Mejia, Boston City Council at Large. I'll give you opportunity to answer any of those four questions or submit the- You go one by one. That's four questions in a row. Yeah, so the first question is a school-based homeless liaison list on the BPS website up to date, and what is the district doing to ensure families are aware of this resource?

To my knowledge, it is up to date. We use ParentSquare as a critical vehicle for us to communicate with our families. We use our family liaisons. We use our homeless liaisons. Many of them double as family liaisons. So the messaging is clear and obvious. Could it be better? Absolutely. We're here for continuous improvement, but our homeless liaisons are critical to the work because they have the relationships. They are our credible messengers in this piece. Very rarely you run into someone that we ran into that they will just trust in that way. You have to build those strong relationships, and our homeless liaisons are doing that.

All right. And then I would just ask this last question, then you can submit the rest and write in. How is the district working with housing stability and community organizations to ensure that students remain housed in our city?

Well, I think that's represented here today and other panelists that will join after our time is up. We have had significant amount of meetings. The network has been strong. I think in all of my other areas and other departments, that we work with. This is the strongest coordinated effort to get support for families, and that says a lot about our partners. It says a lot about Access to Counsel. It says a lot about Greater Boston Legal Services. It says a lot about Family Aid. It says a lot about the United Way. It says a lot about the City of Boston. But once again, we're here for continuous improvement in strategy, and we're gonna continue to do that. But I think there's strong momentum and advocacy in our in our ecosystem right now.

Thank you. And now I'll go to my council colleagues, starting with the lead sponsor, Councillor Weber. The floor is yours.

Sure. Thank you very much to the panelists and really thank you for all your work. I just, you know, if we look at the BC College of Social Work, if I have that right, they're It's got like nine key findings, you know, and the first five are basically like families who participate in the EHIP program, I think as Danielle said, you know, they have improved housing stability and access to higher quality housing. They have higher levels of parent well-being. They've got better child well-being, reduced chronic absenteeism. I mean, those are great things. And that, you know, families still have challenges. That's finding five. Then parents refer to the EHIP program. for housing vouchers shared that they appreciate how the program staff connected with them, though some desired improved communication. They found, the parents said that the housing stabilization positively impacted their family, though some navigated challenges using housing vouchers They're outside the control of the program. And then eight and nine, BPS staff were asked questions, and they asked homeless liaisons what they thought. And they said, number one, they experienced challenges in identifying students experiencing housing hardship. And number two, they recommended that systemic screening might help with that. I want to first thank you for the great work you're doing and the positive impacts. I'm just going to focus, unfortunately, on the last two parts. We're having trouble identifying people, and what are—I guess the homeless liaison suggested systematic screening, I don't even know what that is necessarily, but what are we doing to identify people?

When I hear systematic screening, I think that's— pointing towards my point around early warning indicators. You know, if you have a conversation, if you are in spaces and we create multiple touch points to have conversations with families in the academic space, in the environmental space, in the programmatic space, and someone comes to grab a bag of food and, you know, and you, recognize that they need more than that, right? That immediately is a conversation that needs to be had. That immediately is the question then becomes like how many students do you have in the system? Where do you live? What help do you need? How can you support? Here is our number. Call us immediately. Our student support hotline, you could call that. And then if it tracks, through that early warning indicator, you call the school. And whether it's a Sunday or Saturday, the Monday, the school needs to know, and then the referral has to be in place, and then we activate. And hopefully, for the most part, things have been very strong through family aid and some of our other partners, but I think, the awareness through advocacy and that sort of early warning indicator those signs and what trends around families who are experiencing homelessness is critical. Kids sometimes don't want to go home, need something to do. That's why in the summer or some of the other programs that folks are committed to, they stay and we try to extend the hours as much as we can because we know they're going to a shelter or they need something extra. So I think it's a fair point to really have the screening, but the early warning piece is critical as well.

Who's asking those questions about the screening questions? Who is asking them? Who's doing the screening in this? Is this the homeless, is it the family liaisons?

The homeless liaisons are, it happens inherently and organically. However, I think the improvement areas will be around the self-identification tools. I think I met with some of our partners the other day talking about Some other steps in terms of identifying are creating a tool that helps family self identify without feeling the humiliation of. Naming that the homelessness, I think, defining that. And that allows us to have the true conversations with families. And honestly, as someone who has conversations with families about homelessness and homelessness instability, a lot of families don't even know that they are experiencing homelessness instability. So the red flags are there.

But to your point, go ahead. Yeah, they think, okay, like I've got this covered, you know, I'm going to. move in with my cousin's family or something for a couple weeks, and then I'll go to a hotel room. So they haven't quite admitted.

That is not stability, right?

Yeah. I guess so to dovetail with it, with access to counsel. Like, so I do a little, you know, every time I'm in a school and I meet the family liaison, I say, oh, how's access to counsel? And I think more often than not, the answer is, what's that? And so, you know, I think, A, the family liaisons may not be, they might not understand, I'm using the wrong words, but I don't think parents know. Like, I just thought, like, you know, we get flyers, you know, my kids in their backpacks all the time, like, even just to tell every parent in the city, if you get an eviction notice, call Danielle Johnson. But call us, and we will help. I haven't quite seen the sort of outreach. And obviously, it's helped hundreds of families connect to services. you know, it's 40 to 50 actually, like, avoid eviction. I'm sure we'll hear from GBLS about that. But, you know, I feel like we could, oh, sorry, just, I guess, you know, I think we could do more.

I think you're speaking of quality control, right? Like, how can we improve the quality of how those pieces are communicated? I think... to the everyone here believes that it should be the access of the work that we're doing, identifying that level of stability because it contributes to the conditions for them to be successful, come to school. do academically well and feel stable the whole nine. I think that, to your point, having an increased level of communication that is not just trusted to the schools, I think we have to look at you know, further utilizing a lot of our CBOs, our community partners, and to getting spaces, whether it's our faith-based community, getting spaces where resources are even more accessible. You know, this conversation is about continuous improvement. I think that's one thing that we have started some conversations on. However, you know, we're here because we're not there, and hopefully this will lead to us doing that.

And I would just add to that, related to sort of how do we connect households to this type of resource when we were first working on implementation of access to counsel specifically. And meeting with the homeless liaisons, it was clear that there needed to be ongoing training in terms of what's a notice to quit. I think the legal process in general can be very convoluted, especially if you aren't a lawyer such as yourself, Counselor Weber, and myself. But I do think there is that added need of, OK, it's a notice to quit. We can explain what it is. But visually, they look different. And then especially as the eviction process proceeds and moves on, there can be a shaming of I don't want people to know that I'm involved in housing court and I'll figure it out when I get there because there will be resources that are available to me. So I think something that we're definitely taking back with us and working on proactively is how do we create visuals so that people actually understand the eviction process that they're actually going through without it being overly legally, so it's feedback that we've heard and something that we're working on.

And I want to highlight really quick. I'm just going to make a comment. I want to highlight really quick that in many schools, there's not just one homes liaison. There's some schools who have four, and those folks don't just double as family liaisons. They're school counselors. It could be your social worker. It could be your family liaison. It could be your dean. it could be your CFC. So this is not one individual in a school and what they are doing is they're connecting, they're managing and facilitating the connective tissue for support for the family. And I just want to highlight that. There's not just one person sitting there managing all of this. It's just not going to help any family. I think it triggers the red flag for us to get an all-in approach. to support our families.

Okay, yeah, thank you. Just one comment is access to council and eviction prevention. Even if we upstream stopped 100% of those, I think, just for Daniel, what's the percentage of people who are homeless not as a result of an eviction? It's more than half, I thought, but...

I'm not sure I understand your question.

People who end up in our EA shelter system or that, you know, they haven't necessarily been evicted through a formal process. They've just left their housing or, you know. Right, right. So again, the need to like, you know, have a lot of different tools upstream. It's not just access to council because it wouldn't even catch a lot of people.

Right. Yeah, and I'm happy to talk about some of the tools that we're actively working on outside of access to council. Councillor Pepin isn't here today, but we briefed him on the Eviction Prevention Action Plan, which we can get into that includes some sort of upstream eviction prevention measures, whether it's engagement with landlords or better tools for tenants or a place-based strategy. So happy to talk more about what the action plan is and what are some interventions that we're considering.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Braden?

I think I'll maybe pick up where you left off, Danielle, and just continue to think about eviction prevention because access to council is a really important tool that we have and hopefully we'll be able to continue to financially support it and keep it going because it is impactful. But eviction prevention, like, people end up in unstable housing for all sorts of reasons. Are there particular triggers and what's the most effective way that we can try and prevent evictions?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yes, different triggers. The action plan that I was mentioned, it's built off of over 10 years of eviction data. So we looked at where evictions are happening in the city. We looked at the reasons why people are being evicted. We looked at the amount of money that people are being evicted for and found that nonpayment is the number one reason why people are getting evicted. We found that evictions are concentrated. So there are three zip codes, two in Dorchester and one in Roxbury, 02119, that are most impacted. They account for over a third of the eviction activity in the city. And we also found that many people are being evicted for modest amounts, sometimes less than $5,000, sometimes even less than that. So all of those pieces helped inform the action plan of, okay, we know where evictions are happening. We know for what reasons people are being evicted. So what are some different strategies that we can think about outside of the normal strategies that we know of, refer them to RAFT or, refer them to the tenancy preservation program that's based in the housing court. And we established these three strategies that I highlighted of what does it look like to actually have a tenant resource that tenants actually can use and understand. So if their situation is, you know, I'm one payment away, as Councilor Coletta Zapata mentioned, I'm one payment away from not being able to afford rent, what does a resource for that particular tenant look like compared to, a tenant who is behind in arrears in the thousands. Their intervention may look different than that person that I originally described. Similarly for the landlords, you can't have eviction prevention without having a conversation with property management, with owners, both big and small. So what does it look like to engage with owners of a larger portfolio? That strategy looks different compared to our smaller mom and pop landlords around, do you know the tools? Do you know about a payment plan? Do you know that you can call the Office of Housing Stability for landlord tenant mediation? And then this place-based piece that I mentioned, if we know where evictions are happening down to the zip code and oftentimes down to the building, how do we have those conversations with owners around We know the activity is high here. Can we saturate this building with some resources that are different than the other resources that we provide to the rest of the city? And think about some upstream eviction prevention opportunities, because a lot of access to council is a great program, but it's meant to be downstream, right? Because you're already in housing court. So the action plan thinks about ways on the other spectrum of upstream.

And I like the idea of working with landlords because very often they want to be helpful, but they don't necessarily have the access to our understanding of the tools that are available either. You know, they almost, you know, they're not all bad.

Of course, yeah.

So it's important to sort of look at that.

And I will just add briefly on that. In implement or setting up the action plan we surveyed, Landlords and heard from them. So that's part of what's in the action plan currently, which is open for public comment. So that's a plug But a lot of landlords mentioned just exactly what you described We're housing providers at the end of the day. A lot of us are affordable housing providers. We're not in the business of evicting So, how can we come to the table to have a better conversation so that it's cohesive and in terms of navigating like the financial support like RAF program I

I don't always hear good things about how easy it is to navigate. Have you any thoughts on how it might be improved or what sort of snafus we have, what sort of obstacles are in the way in that process?

Yeah, definitely. Part of the action plan includes better coordination with financial assistance programs, given the fact that non-payment of rent is the number one reason our residents of Boston are getting evicted. And in that, we need to talk to all of the PROVIDERS OF FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE, WHICH INCLUDES METRO HOUSING, WHICH ADMINISTERS THE RATH PROGRAM. WE HAD A PRELIMINARY CONVERSATION WITH THEM IN TERMS OF WHAT WE'RE HEARING WHEN PEOPLE CALL THE OFFICE OF HOUSING STABILITY FOR SUPPORT, AND THEY'RE ON BOARD AND TRYING TO FIGURE OUT, OKAY, HOW DO WE MAKE THIS SYSTEM A LITTLE BIT BETTER? BUT ALSO OUR NONPROFIT PROVIDERS WHO PROVIDE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE, AND THAT GOES TO THE TENANT RESOURCE TOOL I WAS DESCRIBING OF TENANTS MAY CALL ROSIE'S PLACE, THEY MAY CALL ANOTHER AGENCY AND FIND OUT THAT THEY DON'T HAVE support. So they're like, I guess that's the end of the road. Um, so bringing all those partners together to better understand what resources are actually available for whom, when they should reach out, et cetera, understanding, uh, the eligibility components.

I think the other issue that we have encountered is that when the families are, you know, depending on the neighborhood, but especially in Austin Brighton, like, as I said earlier, my comments that are competing with students and young professionals who can afford together, they can afford $5,000 for an apartment as a family can't. And just the sheer availability of family appropriate housing in certain parts of the city. Have you any thoughts on how we might tackle that? I know we sort of chip away at it in terms of getting more IDP units that are family size units, but I think it's a long, that's like emptying the ocean with a cup at the moment, so.

Yeah, and our other divisions within the Mayor's Office of Housing are thinking of some different strategies around how do we make housing more family-friendly based off of the current stock that we have and have some innovative ideas around that piece. But as it relates to sort of thinking about how we support families and making sure that they have the housing that they need, I do think it's... understanding the landscape of housing, like what's available. Obviously the mayor's office of housing, we have the Metro list, we have housing search workshops. So making sure that people know about those resources and can talk to a live person to understand this is, these are the dynamics of my housing and these are the types of rooms I need, or this is what I need and being comfortable with sharing that, you know, you need a three bedroom as opposed to a two bedroom. And then, you know, many households have vouchers. So understanding the, parameters of their voucher and do they have the right housing that they need so it's also a partnership with our subsidy administrate administrators bha metro housing the state thank you thank you thank you mr chair thank you uh council flynn the floor is yours thank you mr chair thank you thank you to corey and danielle for being here for the important work you are doing

my opening comment i did mention that commission that was established specifically on this issue do you have an update on that is that commission still in existence which one councilman if it was a commission established by mayor walsh i know councillor sabi george did a lot of work on it but basically it got BPS families and housing providers together to discuss this specific issue. It was, I believe it was a formal commission that was established and they did, I thought they did great work. I just want to know if it's still meeting or?

I think, sorry, I think as a part of the HER network, yes, the Homeless Educational Resource Network, I think it, the I have so I've never attended one of those meetings okay our previous opportunity opportunity youth director led that we are now we have shifted in our department where we have moved our the Education Resource Network, into Succeed Boston, into a more holistic approach with the intervention center, with the counseling, with social workers, with the supervisors of attendance, with the home assistance ability and the food insecurity, all under one roof. Jamila by grandson is our new senior director happy to have her on board she just started last week and she's off and running and she will lead that work in just sort of like making sure that folks stay connected and partners you know from DESE all the way down to family aid are supported and maintaining car maintaining communication okay but I'm still trying to get to the end that answer and I know

It might be difficult to get. But there was a commission established by Mayor Walsh, and they did meet frequently here at the Curly Room. I don't know if it was quarterly or monthly. And all the housing providers and educators and nonprofit leaders and elected officials, they came together frequently to discuss homelessness in the Boston public school system. But it provided a wonderful opportunity to solve a lot of problems. I understand it's probably not meeting, I guess, but it's still a commission. I don't know if any of the housing providers that are here have information about this when they have the opportunity to testify. But my point, I guess, is I thought it was effective, and it was helping people, and it was a critical way for the city council to play an important role in working to ensure that students that were homeless had an opportunity to be heard with housing assistance. And city councilors, especially Councillor Sabi George, they advocated for these students. But I'll leave that for another time. So my question would be, when students are homeless and they're going through a challenging time, their family's going through a challenging time, maybe they were evicted and they're looking for a place of a staying home. on someone's couch for a period of time, and then they're in school, they're assigned to a school, and then maybe they have moved outside of the district to Brockton or to Quincy or to Weymouth somewhere, to Malden. How do you support that student that is a Boston resident but is kind of temporarily relocated to a

particular city or town outside of Boston good question through our through lines of communication based on the referrals at transportation they will receive through a successful referral they will receive transportation from their displacement space to school, to and from school. From there, they will also have the additional services that come along with that said referral, making sure that they've got sneakers, clothes, food, also working with family aid to make sure the housing is stabilized, but they do receive transportation. Okay.

I do remember a case, someone was a Boston resident and they actually had to move south almost towards New Bedford or Fall River area and it was obviously a major transportation challenge and also a challenge to provide critical services for that family as well with the goal of hopefully getting the family back to Boston where they wanted to be. But how do you provide social services? Or do you partner with a particular city and town? Is that also acceptable to partner with a city or town that could provide some services to that family while they're living in a particular city?

It actually depends on the need. And, you know, we have our clinicians and other folks in our schools as well as central office support that are able to support families along with our partners. But it's also—it really is truly based on the need. For example, if a family needs If a family is awaiting a placement, we coordinate with partners to make sure they have a temporary housing, whether it's a hotel or another space like that. But the bottom line is that we are actively working with folks to make sure that they get the services that they need, whether it's self-identified or part of our protocols, whether it's through our social workers or other folks, that will allow for us to sort of assess and diagnose and support families.

I will add, Councillor, the situation that you're describing are usually households who are in the state shelter system through Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, formerly DHCD. And those are households that are placed in a shelter, which to your description could be New Bedford or somewhere else. In those instances, and we've had households reach out to our office with certain needs and requests such as, can I get closer to Boston? So I would stress that those households in those particular situations reach out to their homelessness provider, which is provided through the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. They're supposed to work with the family, make sure that all of their needs are set. Obviously, they'll coordinate with the public school system. But I just wanted to state that families that are in EA shelter have case managers that are assigned to them that should be responding to any needs, especially ones where it requires them to be closer to their community, which obviously would be the City of Boston.

Thank you. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you, Corey. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair. Much appreciated. I was actually going to ask the same question. I was going to take that different tact and talk about what are you categorized as and if you are in homeless and then have to leave. I think you guys answered that. I also know you just mentioned the caseworker piece because when I think about the stuff that we've done around addiction, especially down at Mass and Cass, and a lot of this is the continuum of care. And it's really the same care we're talking about. One might be for addiction, one might be for homeless, but it's that continuum of care for the child while they're experiencing this homelessness. And a lot of these things can sort of get over-involved or super complicated, trying to go through the process. And I know you talked about upstreams and downstreams and the work that we have there. I guess one question I will ask is, do we feel that... we have caseworkers that are with from from the moment that we understand that we can identify right that they that they're experiencing homelessness is there one individual that stays with them or are they sort of passed along from one group to another because i feel that's when things fall through the cracks And if we have someone that stays with them in the continuum of it, explaining each step or piece of what they might need to do. And I know parents a lot of times with language barriers and other things that they don't understand and can't get to that next step. So I'd ask that. And then I guess my second overall general question is, Do we believe in the services that we have currently to address this situation, or is it the funding that's more the issue? Like if you could just say, hey, if we had the money to fund what we have, we'll make a big dent, or is there core things that we need to change in the services offered? And I guess that's a good track for me to understand. Is it just about backing this up with money, or is it about fundamentally changing some of the approaches? So I'll do that along with the caseworker issue, and that'll be really all I have. My colleagues ask great questions otherwise. Thank you, guys.

Once they get the family aid referral, they do get a caseworker, that caseworker stays with them. But on the back end, on the school-based side, the critical piece that we have yet to mention in the continuous improvement realm is the coordination. Coordination is critical. The through lines of communication are critical. Things happen so fast and you wanna slow things down so things become more clear to how the families gain their independence to sort of like land in a space that's comfortable for them. So I think having that coordination, and this is why we're all here, strategically thinking about how we can improve that, and then leading on the preventative side. And then the second part of your question was?

There's the continuum care and then sort of really the, do we believe in the services we're offering and it's just the money needed to continue and expand them? Like are we offering the right things to address the right problem or are we missing a piece anywhere along this? In your experience, I should say, it'd be great if we had this additional thing.

This is a Corey McCarthy answer. Gotcha. And that answer is you can fund year away as a community, as an ecosystem, we could essentially fund our way out of this issue. And where folks don't have to, they could demonstrate that they have the potential economic infrastructure to cover their rent long term, but all the things that come along with homeless instability is it is actually, it's like a virus, right? Like you have the impact on the student in schools, the sort of like anxiety and stress of debt, owing, right? That hurts the mental health. So it's all those pieces, what funding will do is allow folks to be represented well. It would allow more touch points for families. It would allow landlords to be more amenable to some of the changes that you all are capable of making. And while money is not the end, is not the end all or the ultimate solution. The people who drive and with the well-intentioned people that I know in the room that I barely know some of them because I'm transitioning folks into the other role, but I could guarantee you additional funding would allow great people to do good things for struggling families. I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

Yeah, just on your first question around the case manager, because I want to be clear in terms of which programs you're referring to. So if it's referring to access to council, what Corey mentioned stands, but if it's related to a family that has entered into the state shelter system, that's a different type of mechanism. Usually the case manager does stay with them, but it depends on whether they are in an actual shelter or choose home base, which is a subsidy that the state provides for families that want to not be in shelter. So the different programs under EOHLC vary in terms of what case management is provided, but for access to council it's the same. Similarly for the services that OHS provides, the case manager remains the same unless they no longer need that type of service, then we need to reassess to understand, okay, you don't need landlord tenant mediation anymore, you need something different. So that's, I just wanted to clarify that on that piece. To your second question on the different tracks of is it funding or is it something different that we need to do related to our programming, I think it's a combination of both. I'll never say no, we don't need funding, but understand the ecosystem that we're in where it's not as robust as it once was. So one of the reasons why I wanted to highlight the action plan is because it addresses that. If we aren't receiving any new investments, we don't have additional funding that we can actually tap into, then we need to do something differently. We can't continue. That's the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing, hoping for different results. So that's what the action plan tries to do is we've tried financial assistance during the pandemic. It was $20,000 and it dropped to 17, then it dropped to 10. Now it's seven. Now it's five. So obviously financial assistance isn't working. It's working to some degree, but are there things that we need to think about differently in terms of what does economic mobility look like? So we understand that there are a lot of households, and I think one of the counselors mentioned it, who are one paycheck away from not being able to afford rent. So what would it look like to sustain that household while also giving them the tools that they need to think about economic mobility and upward mobility? So I do think it's a combination of both, and you sort of have to play the game to when to understand exactly what resources you have available. If you can't have funding, that you need to think about your programs and how do you change those?

Yeah, and that's just some of the hard decisions that sometimes we have to make as a body, right? Where, yeah, it is both and I know it was both, right? But it's like, but sometimes, you know, we're forced, hey, we can only do one or the other, right? And that's why I just want to ask what, from what I think I hear, the more important is funding what we currently have. We believe in the programs and the people there currently. And if I would put from what I hear from you all funding above that. And I'll just end with saying, you know, think about addiction and homelessness and well often they're paired together even in a standalone how to address them and the work that we're doing around addiction and having a caseworker from the get-go and no matter what you know house they go to a program they enter into or detox they go and I feel like having someone consistently there throughout I think that applies on the on the homelessness end too and then so whether it's the state or but that's exactly what you just said. Well, if they're in this one, then maybe they don't have it and they can't. Then they come to the new one and these folks don't know, oh, you were just over there, and what went wrong? How do we know not to make sure to repeat that mistake? When I think of funding, or at least maybe not the funding piece, but a change would be how do we just keep one person throughout that can stay with them no matter where they go, what they do? to really see it through to the end and that's the only way you can really make sure like you go from homeless to stable housing is you have to see it through the entire way so i would love to work with you guys on any type of way to help fund a continuous case worker no matter what system that they they find themselves in but thank you so much thank you for the extra time chair i appreciate it absolutely thank you

Can I say one more thing about Councilor Braden's point around eviction, which was eloquently answered by Danielle. I think another indicator is home visits. If you see how people are living, our supervisors of attendance who manage the chronic absenteeism, they go to houses. Our team goes to houses, and we have a specific script around You know typically it's like wiring shake, you know in other states right other places this well They immediately into homes telling people what they're supposed to be doing I think the beauty of our approach is tell us what you need and Then the living conditions are often the indicator as well And then I cannot underscore the relationships enough the the one thing more powerful than social media is young people. They will tell you if they trust you. And I think that is, in my opinion, is a true eviction evasion strategy, is to be credible messengers getting into the houses. And whether or not a family is in a home is not enough. Living comfortably with the appropriate conditions for their children to be successful is the end goal for us.

Thank you. And I wholeheartedly agree with you, Chief McCarthy. I think a lot of the work that you do, you create that space not only for the student, but also for the family member to open up and let you in to provide the resources that is necessary. So I think the more that we are investing in those after school, before school summer programming, I think we're creating more of those spaces for people to be connected to resources that they so desperately need. One of my questions is around eviction ceiling. How is that coordinated, if at all, into access to council? Because we know that sometimes The unfortunate does happen and the tenant does get evicted. However, that could be a barrier into them to be able to get housing in the future. Yep. Is, are we automatically helping that tenant seal their record?

Yeah. And luckily, GBLS is here and they can explain more about what the laws around eviction sealing are, which are very complicated. But through the access to council program, part of if you are actively housing court involved, you likely aren't eligible for eviction ceiling under the rules of the actual law. But separate from access to council, we do offer that as a resource. So as a GBLS is one of our partners that do other eviction prevention work for the Office of Housing Stability. So we have residents who call, I need my record sealed. We refer that to GBLS, and they look at the housing court docket to assess does this person or is this person eligible to have their record sealed? So likely not under the Access to Counsel program because it's a program built for people that are actually housing court involved, at which point you likely aren't eligible to have your record sealed versus if you were someone who had an eviction case a year ago and it was dismissed voluntarily. Head can speak more to the nuances of the rule. then you may be eligible for eviction ceiling. But it's a resource that we provide to residents and it's on our website so people know about it.

Thanks. And then Council Weber and the BC report stated it was like 5,405 students that are experiencing homelessness. would love to get deeper into the numbers so then we can advocate for the type of housing policy to build the inventory to support our students. How much information do we have on those families, whether it's like how many bedrooms they need, what is their income? Because I think that's the information that could be helpful for us to advocate for the type of inventory that we're building.

There's significant data on each family. You know, we have, We have information on families even before the referral comes in. So compound that with the needs based on the instability, that gives us even more data to sort of track how we need to appropriately support them or what should be, how we could sort of like who we should refer them to or what partners we should get them involved with. It's so nuanced, right? However, when you're dealing with homelessness, it just looks so much different. And you just have to be ready. You have to be ready. You have to honestly be restorative. Oftentimes, some folks would rather be homeless than to talk to us. So you have to be restorative in your approach as far as repairing some of the fractured trust that folks have with the community. So all those pieces matter when it comes to it. Because after a while, as a community, one thing about the Boston folks, once they trust you, they'll tell you everything. And they'll let you in.

And I would just add, in my opening, I mentioned over the past two fiscal years, we've supported over 1,300 BPS or households with BPS students we may be able to run the numbers in terms of income, not necessarily your other question of how many rooms do they need, that sort of thing. So I'll take that back to see if we can run some numbers on that.

Awesome. And then, Director Johnson, you mentioned that nonpayment of rent was the main reason. What are some other reasons why people are being evicted?

Yeah, so there's three types of evictions in Massachusetts, nonpayment, fault, and no fault. So fault, you breached the lease, you had a party, damaged a lot of things, et cetera. No fault, the owner wants to sell the home and they need you to vacate or they need the unit empty for them to sell it. So those are the three main types of evictions in the city. What we're seeing just based off the data is just nonpayment is overwhelmingly The reason why, over 70% of filings within the city are for non-payment cases.

Got it. And you said 75%? Over 70%. Oh, wow. That's a lot. Um, and then my last question is around how do we work with our tenants, um, who are in affordable housing, um, or the landlords on any eviction cases? Are we getting like the heads up, um, from them? Can you talk about any coordination around that?

Yeah. So our, um, our office works pretty frequently with various, um, property management who run affordable units. We also have our housing compliance and asset management team, which manages the compliance of our IDP units in the city of Boston. Usually we receive a email from property management. We have this tenant that hasn't been responsive. Could the city reach out to offer services? Or in some instances, some property management send us a list of the residents that are either about to receive a notice to quit or are at that later stage in the eviction process and are going to receive execution. And then we coordinate with our housing appliance and asset management team to say, this resident is an IEP unit. Doesn't seem like they received proper notice because there are certain requirements certain units have an affordable rental housing agreement that they have to abide by. So we coordinate with them. And then we also have eviction prevention plans, which require any project in the city that is receiving MOH funding, they have to submit an eviction prevention plan to our office. And we review that to make sure that it's congruent with sort of what our mission within the mayor's office of housing is. If it's not, we have a conversation to say, this plan doesn't meet the muster that we need it to meet. Are there some other pieces? And the prevention plan includes things like if someone needs a reasonable accommodation, how are you making sure they have access to that? What are your rules around recertification? Do people understand what they need to do when, that sort of thing. So those are the prevention plans. So that's another measure we have of holding property management and developers accountable for eviction activity. Obviously, we can't catch everyone. So that's something that we're trying to fine tune and make it known through communication channels that this is something that if you're having trouble with an eviction, regardless of whether you live in market or inclusionary units to reach out. But especially if you live in IDP units, just given the data, our folks that are living in income restricted units are being evicted at higher rates or faster rates rather than those in market. So making sure that we make sure that they know that they can reach out to our office and use this as a resource.

Okay, my last question, and I'll go to my council colleagues for second round. You know, kind of piggybacking off of a recommendation that Council Weber put forward is communication about the resources. Like, you know, every student getting, you know, maybe it's at the first day of school and halfway in the middle of school, getting like all these resources on, you know, what, what's out there, right, for them. So similar to like those individuals who are in some of these affordable units, like maybe, you know, a mailer, like once a year, like do you know that, you know, here goes office housing stability, right? This is, you know, the resources that are available to you. And then my last question is the eviction prevention plan, is that for the site or is that an individual plan for an individual that's going through eviction?

Yeah, so it depends what the developer proposes. So sometimes it's portfolio-wide. So it's one eviction prevention plan, let's say when, management, and they want their eviction prevention plan to be for all of their properties within the city of Boston, within the nation, or it could be I want it specific to this particular project. So it really depends, and part of the revamp of our eviction prevention plan process makes that clear so that when residents do reach out either to Office of Housing Stability or our Housing Compliance and Asset Management team, we know exactly, okay, they don't have a eviction prevention plan on this particular property or this is portfolio-wide and they didn't do what they were supposed to do. So we need to have a conversation of how they're going to rectify the harm done to the tenant.

Thank you. Council Weber? Thank you. Just a couple follow-up questions. So one is we talk about the EHIP program. And so last year we were notified, I think it was like $750,000. That was the funding we were losing. Maybe it was because of ESSER. I can't remember. And that it's being funded under earmarks. So when we got that, when I got that information, I called Rep. Bill McGregor and State Rep. Sam Montano. And I think when you're talking about earmarks, I know there's, I think they both put in for earmarks. I'm not sure, you know, I think they came in, but I'm not sure it was the whole amount or, so what, I guess, what is the? The number? It's $450,000. Yeah, so they, thank you to Reverend Greger and Rhett Montano. So what's the plan for next year for the funding for EHIP?

Well, the hope is to continue to use forms like this for the advocacy. As I mentioned before, it was ESSA-funded and grant-funded. I think what we are able to do today is to really land the plane on identifying that this is something that needs to be... It needs more attention, right? It needs to be operationally funded. You know, I... can't be a young man that came up in the city of Boston and have this opportunity to be in front of you and not mention the economics of this situation of homeless instability and the community not having the and connected with the economics of the situation as well, where we don't mention the impact of not having rent control or anything like that. We have to say those things out loud. And when you do that, you educate the community. They start reaching out to you all and empower you all a lot more to do exactly what you did and establish and get the funding for the support. That's the next layer, but there's been significant investments from BPS on the school-based level to schools that allow them to support students who are experiencing homeless instability. Over the last three years, that number was $1.9 million. FY26, $1.8 million. And this current school year, $1.8 million is distributed to schools based on the students who are experiencing homelessness. We spend, I think we're in the top 10 in the nation in spending per student for homelessness, $600 per student. Obviously it could be more, but we're just trying to do our part with what we have, and hopefully this advocacy could lead to us, to this being an enhanced priority from everyone, because homeless insecurity and instability is a community issue.

I would just add, in terms of what's next for access to council and the EHIP program in particular, which Access to Council is a part of. But we've, through this program, been able to identify a few schools that have had pretty high rates of referrals to the program. So really thinking about, again, going back to how do we make sure that we're getting people the resources they need. So if we know, for instance, that Joseph Lee K-8 is one of those schools that have the highest referrals for the Access to Council program, How do we make sure that the school is getting the resources they need? Are there some pieces or are there some components? Are there households there that we really need to focus on? And similarly, how do we evaluate the success of the program? So we're in the process of submitting or we have submitted an application to the Bloomberg City Exchange to get an idea of We know that the statistics in terms of representation, over 90% of landlords are represented compared to less than 5% of tenants in the city, not only in the city, but the state of, or the Commonwealth. So understanding just that statistic alone, what does that mean for the families that are able to have the GBLSs of the world come in and support them? So I just wanted to chime in there and provide that context of what's next for the program.

Okay, yeah, and I think private funding is, something that we should be looking at and advocating all for. So if you see somebody who could maybe help, I'm sure we'd all be willing to make the pitch. Then I guess, so just two more questions, sorry. So Corey, what happens if we don't have EHIP? What does that, in terms of advocating for funding for next year, what does it look like if we just don't have that?

I don't see a world where we don't, where we don't,

make some sort of financial con, or it's... No, no, I just meant like, God forbid, like, you know, we just don't fund it, it doesn't exist. What does it look like in Boston?

For BPS. So, and this is an educated guess. I think if there is, I think we would have to reevaluate our internal investment in In schools that we have, that sort of funding that we contributed, that 1.8, we would have to look at that to see how we can... And that's a tough thing to ask, to remove that piece from the schools. And that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that that is... the funding that's allocated this year going directly to schools to cover supplies, cover stipends, overtime, those pieces. I think that's the next step, but we have to be very loud about the need. We have to engage our families and our communities, our CBOs, our nonprofits, our critical partners, to really work with you all to get to, on the city and state level, to really really put our best foot forward, whether it's financially or programmatic support for our families. Yeah, just one thought.

When you're talking about teenagers, I do wonder, BPS athletes, how many are experiencing homelessness, and to think about kids achieving, whether it's on the baseball field or a basketball court and going through this in their lives. Anyway, in terms of advocating for the need for it, I think that might help. i i did have an idea for my chief of staff who's just had a baby and there's been a lot of uh pediatricians offices you know they they asked people in the beginning you know with the ipads now like you know what or do you are you worried about your housing why why i think to chair world's point about you know doing that you know identifying our kids here in the district you know maybe just employing some of those questions and and getting that information maybe even on a some sort of basis where they don't feel like they're, you know, outing themselves in front of everybody. But, you know, I appreciate it. I appreciate the chair. And thank you for everything.

Thank you. Looking to my colleagues to see if they have a second round. Okay. Councillor Brayden?

Yeah, just a quick one. Just in terms of your thoughts on how we might improve coordination between BPS and the Mayor's Office of Housing, housing stability, legal services and community partners, like sometimes Sometimes you just don't connect the dots and people fall through the cracks, if you excuse all these analogies, but how can we improve things in terms of the coordination and cross?

Well, I think we have to, we all have our meetings, right, that you have, and I think sometimes, folks, you could become all meeting up because we all have things to do. I think we just have to when we design, like when we have our cross-functional or cross-partnership meetings, I think we have the best way to improve things is to really like mine down, instead of trying to do 20 things, you focus on, as a collective, you focus on three things. Can we focus on identification? Can we focus on recognition, not recognition, can we focus on prevention? Can we focus on response? And that gives you some alignment, right? Not to say there's this alignment. I think we're all here because we're aligned on the on the purpose and the cause. But that improvement on the efficacy and the overall commitment to like improving on the quality is the best way for us to get it done. Everybody's hearts in the right place. But I think. You know, it's sort of like if you have, you know, sometimes everybody's in a, not to say this happens in these meetings, but sometimes you go to a meeting and you're just not talking about the main thing. And I think, like, having the quality, having the efficacy around that, I think that'll allow us to really mine down and scale it out, scale the support and the solutions out to a broader range if you just say, hey, here are the three things we're committed to, and then take the steps after that.

Do we have any sort of actionable goals that are we saying, let's reduce this by 10%? I know it's sort of nebulous, but do we need to be more goal-oriented in terms of thinking about eliminating or reducing as much as possible homelessness for our families?

I think given the severity of this, I think... if you would, there's only one goal, and that's to have no one, right? And I think when we start placing those sort of KPIs on things, it sort of like dilutes some of the other specific areas, because for every single metric we throw at folks, there's another form of homelessness stability that pops up. For instance, more recently, your couch surfers or your students who aged out of support. And that adds, so that you bring in another metric to the party and then it's like more numbers. So I think, you know, we just have to truly keep focusing on mining down in specific areas, not just baby steps, but sort of like the larger support for the ecosystem while continuing on a school-based level with the baby steps of the identification, the prevention, and the response.

Okay, thank you. I know we've got another panel, so I'll limit my questions to now. Thank you.

All right. Thank you to the panelists. Thank you for all your work and thank you for your testimony and looking forward to continuing this work and this conversation with you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Now we'll go to our second panel.

Thank you.

All right, well, thank you to the second panelist. What I would love to do is, from my left to right, if you could just briefly introduce yourself and your organization and also your title.

Great, thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Christy Staples from United Way of Massachusetts Bay, and I'm the vice president of what we call our Safe and Stable Housing Impact Area.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dr. Brandi Brooks. I'm the executive director of Boston's Higher Ground, and we focus on supporting homeless students and families get housed and stay housed, educational opportunities, and health and wellness access and supports.

Good afternoon. My name is Tom Byrne. I'm an associate professor at the Boston College School of Social Work.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having us here. My name is Luciano Ramos. I am the president and CEO of Family Ape. And we are an organization that focuses on preventing homelessness whenever possible and trying to minimize the negative impact when it's not. So we provide homeless services as well as prevention services.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm Head Ehrlich. I'm the managing attorney of the housing unit at Greater Boston Legal Services, GBLS.

Hello, everybody. My name is Vinnie Schmidt. I'm a member of the Boston Youth Action Board.

Well, thank you for being here, and thank you for your work in this space. Does anyone have a presentation or remarks to provide?

I think we all do.

OK, absolutely. We'll go from the right to the left now.

Okay.

Actually, I think we're supposed to go from that side. Oh, okay, you guys already have a... Tell me that.

I'm over here ruining things. There you go.

We'll just flip the script. We'll flip it. Well, first of all, thank you for having us and thank you for raising this really important issue. Appreciate the time and appreciate the ability to share some insights that we have As I mentioned earlier, my name is Christy Staples. I'm the vice president at United Way. And here at United Way, we see safe and stable housing as foundational to thriving, healthy communities. The most important lens that we come at this conversation through is that we bring people and partners together around solutions that are bigger than any one organization can tackle alone. So really, when you think about everything we talked about for the last two hours, It is United Way bringing together multiple organizations and that lived expertise and that community voice that's really important to us. And I just want to start off with that. We also believe that every child in Boston deserves a safe, stable place to sleep, to learn, to grow and to thrive. Yet too many families are facing housing instability, as we just heard earlier today, entering shelter or trying to navigate fragmented systems during the most stressful moments in their lives. Family homelessness is not inevitable, as we know. It's a solvable problem when city, state providers, community partners, people with lived expertise and community voice align to keep families housed and help children and parents avoid further trauma. What I'd like to focus on today and what you heard a little bit about in the earlier panel presentation are four areas where we believe this cross-sector approach can make a difference. So first, and what you heard from Cory and Danielle, is prevention and diversion. Many families are living with very little financial cushion. According to a recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 35% of households surveyed in greater Boston said they do not have enough cash on hand to pay for a $400 emergency expense. That emergency expense can quickly lead to a missed rent payment, a notice to quit, and then homelessness. Families need access to flexible resources, deployed nimbly. Mediation, legal support, we'll hear. Rental assistance and problem solving before a financial crisis becomes homelessness. United Way is working with community partners to pilot and strengthen upstream approaches, EHIP, as you all heard earlier, to reduce evictions and help families remain housed and keep kids in school. We've learned that earlier identification of families at risk of homelessness is needed to make prevention programs more effective, and that there are specific interventions that work. We heard a little bit about that school-based screening tool, which I think Dr. Byrne will speak a little bit more about. We encourage the Council to consider how Boston can strategically invest in upstream prevention and diversion to reach more families. Second issue I want to touch upon is that we need a more coordinated response when families do experience homelessness, the crisis and trauma that is homelessness. When families need shelter, they should not have to navigate a maze of disconnected systems on their own. Research on BPS's early homelessness intervention, the EHIP program, offers an important example of what's possible when schools and housing providers work intentionally around the needs of the whole family. As you'll hear from Tom and Luciano, from Family Aid, who participated in this program, the families who participated experienced improvements in housing stability, reduced chronic absenteeism, and improved parent and child well-being. Boston City Council can play an important role in ensuring continued funding, as we heard earlier, so that promising models like EHIP can build on those strong results. third and you heard this from danielle we need to expand the pipeline of affordable housing for families to remain stably housed and exit a state of homelessness once and for all boston must increase deeply of the supply of deeply affordable housing united way is working to advance innovation like innovations and flexible funding strategies to accelerate the pipeline expansion and create opportunities for moving into market rate housing all while using a family-centered, trauma-informed assessment. We know that major cities across the United States have utilized this model, and it's known here in Massachusetts as the flex pool, to get the right stakeholders around the table, identify priority populations, and strategically administer resources more efficiently. Boston has the opportunity to implement these funding strategies and can identify where resources and barriers exist. and create more pathways to supportive housing and affordable housing. And fourth and last, I would recommend United Way, our families, our community-based partners would recommend that there's a tremendous need to strengthen access to all social determinants of health that families need to thrive. They need access, families need access to childcare, education, healthcare, behavioral health support services, employment pathways, and culturally responsive services that help build stability and create opportunity. That's why we're also building a housing stability and behavioral health collaborative, United Way and partners, with major health systems, community health centers, MassHealth ACOs, and community partners that will better connect screening, referrals, and navigation of those systems. We know that the interventions work. We've heard it today. We know that the strategies that lead to better outcomes for individuals, children, and families also exist. We need to scale and sustain them to reach more people. United Way stands ready to partner with the city council to stand up these strategies, and we believe that we can do more than any single agency can do alone. That is the power of our network and our ability to bring all the components together. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you so much. So as I said when I introduced myself, again, my name is Dr. Brandi Brooks. I'm the executive director of Boston's Higher Ground. And I am thankful to be here today. Thank you to the city council for inviting us. Thank you to my fellow panelists. And thank you to those at home that may be watching today's testimony. I want to begin first not as the executive director of Higher Ground. I want to start first as someone who, when I was a child, I experienced homelessness. My family experienced homelessness. So I know what it feels like when you are unsure of the place you are staying at today will be the same place tomorrow. I remember vividly the shame and stigma of not wanting to share with my peers that we were unhoused. And even once my family and I, we got the keys to our home, we still needed support after then to make sure we stayed stably housed. That experience stays with me even today as I speak before you. That's why this conversation, it can't just be about how do we house students and families. It has to be about, as Christy said, how do we make sure they stay stably housed. Through Higher Grounds Family-Led Stability Initiative, we have housed more than 650 homeless students and their families. And we're proud of the fact that from referral to housing over the last two years, we've averaged 11 months. So once a family's referred to us, we're able to get them housed in 11 months. At the same time, I'm reminded that 11 months is a school year for a child to not know whether they will have a safe space to sleep. And at the same time, I'm reminded while we've been able to house families, 650 students and families, when we follow up with them, because stability is very important to us, we find that 80% of those families are still stably housed. So there is still work we need to do with that 20%. But I know and I stand before you as knowing systems do change the process. Corey spoke about that, Danielle spoke about that earlier, Christie remarked on that. And you've heard several times today about the EHIP program. Well, BHA administrator, Boston Housing Authority administrator, Kinsey Bach, she shared with us that the reason why Boston Housing Authority got involved in that program was through their experience with Higher Grounds Family Led Stability Initiative. It was through that experience that Boston Housing Authority said, you know what, we do need to prioritize homeless students and families. We do need to allocate vouchers. And that led to hundreds of families throughout Boston public school system getting housed and being able to stay housed. But again, as I say, and I will reiterate many times, being housed is but one step. We do need to focus on stability. Because behind those numbers are grandparents taking care of grandkids. It is single mothers that are fleeing domestic violence and human trafficking. It is veterans that come to us. It is unaccompanied young adults, this year as young as 15, that are being referred to us. And everything in between. And this is what we need to do. And when we look at the numbers and on your screen and provide it to the counselors, this is why we need to continue to focus on this work. In the last school year, ending in June, Boston Public Schools saw their homeless number around 4,300. What that means is 10% of students in BPS are homeless. And one thing we know, looking at the numbers across the state, is that Boston disproportionately has the greatest number of homeless students. As of last school year, it was 16%. 16% of all students in the state of Massachusetts that are homeless are in Boston. Let me put this another way, one in six, one in six students that are homeless in our state are attending Boston Public School System right now, today. And so when we talk about some of the solutions which were mentioned earlier, the response needs to rise to the scale of the problem. And so what do we need to do? First, we need more vouchers. For families, their income supply simply cannot compete with the cost of housing in Boston. Vouchers help fill that gap. Second, we need more investment in prevention, rental assistance. legal representation, as you'll hear more about later, and flexible emergency assistance for our families. Third, we must continue to sustain the bridge and collaboration between organizations like ours, like Family Aid, like United Way, that collaborate and connect with the schools, with the liaisons, with the deans, with the school nurses, or whomever else may be the referral source. This system works, we need to continue to invest in it. And last, we need to invest in what happens after a family gets keys. Children still need academic, mentoring, transportation, mental health and wellness supports, and many other things to make sure that they remain stable. Parents may need employment support. They may need childcare, benefits assistance, or financial coaching. And one thing I do want to stress is we cannot just ask our schools to solve all problems. Because when we look at housing and family instability, There are so many things that involve it. And so it's very important that we have that coordinated response. And so I'll close with this. Higher Ground was founded 16 years ago with a simple question. What do you need and what can we do? And so what do our families need? How can we help them? Every child in the city of Boston that is experiencing homelessness needs that village that says to them, we see you, you don't have to navigate this alone, there is family aid, there is United Way, there is Higher Ground, there are so many other organizations, and we will stay alongside you. Not only as you find a home, but until you get to a space and a place where you are thriving. Again, I know this experience firsthand, and I am so grateful and thankful for being supported and having folks wrap around me, schools and community-based partners. And so I thank you for inviting us. And I do wanna close with this, is if we truly wanna break the cycle of being unhoused, we really have to look at issues that go beyond just getting a key. The key is the first step, but we need to think about how do we make sure families and students remain stable after that. Thank you so much.

I'll lean over a little bit here. Good afternoon. As I mentioned, my name is Tom Byrne. I'm an associate professor at the Boston College School of Social Work, District 6 resident, and a former Boston Public School student myself. Thank you to the council members for the opportunity to speak with you today. My research at Boston College focuses broadly on the causes, consequences, and policy solutions to homelessness and housing insecurity. I've been doing applied research on these topics for nearly two decades. Today, I want to share what existing research tells us about two things. First, how homelessness negatively affects children's educational outcomes and well-being. And second, what actually works to help families and children at high risk of homelessness and currently experiencing homelessness. The evidence is crystal clear that homelessness and housing insecurity create substantial barriers to children's educational success and broader wellbeing. We heard some of this evidence earlier, but I'll reiterate it here. Studies conducted throughout the country consistently linked homelessness with higher rates of absenteeism, increased school mobility, and lower performance in math and reading. Homeless students also have lower rates of high school graduation and college attendance. These trends are apparent in the Boston public schools as well, with data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education showing that Boston public school 10th graders experiencing homelessness were less likely to meet expectations on MCAS exams than their low-income host counterparts. Homelessness is also associated with adverse physical and mental health outcomes among children. In sum, although many students experiencing homelessness can and do succeed academically, they face substantially greater obstacles to doing so than their host counterparts. Second, research suggests that homelessness prevention programs hold great potential for helping families maintain stable housing and improving children's educational outcomes and well-being. One increasingly prominent approach nationwide involves formal partnerships between school districts and housing agencies to meet the housing and educational needs of housing unstable children. The EHIP program, which folks have already heard about today, is one such program. And recognizing its unique approach, a recent report by researchers at the University of Southern California highlighted EHIP as an innovative example of a school housing partnership. Together with my Boston College colleagues and in partnership with United Way, we collaborated with both BPS and Family Aid to conduct a multi-year study of the EHIP program. Our final report from this study, which Councillor Weber mentioned earlier, was published in April of this year, identified several important findings, some of which have been shared already, but I'll try and reiterate the key findings from our perspective here. First, we found that EHIP families experienced increases in housing stability and housing quality over time. The share of EHIP families living in their own housing increased from 49% to 84% over a two-year period, and families reported significantly fewer housing quality problems. Second, parental well-being improved over time. Two years after referral to EHIP, more parents repeated good physical health and high psychological well-being, while anxiety and depression symptoms declined. Third, for EHIP children, we identified some promising improvements in selected learning behaviors and reductions in emotional distress. Fourth, we found significant improvements in school attendance. The rate of chronic absenteeism among EHIP children declined from 61% to 52%. We also found that students referred to EHIP in one school year had a five percentage point increase in their attendance rate in the following school year relative to a comparison group of students identified as at risk of homelessness who were not referred to EHIP. This equates to nine additional days of attendance in an academic year for EHIB students. Finally, as has been mentioned, one last thing that we identified was, as Councillor Webber mentioned, our study surfaced challenges in identifying students at risk of homelessness. And in following up on that finding, our team has been doing some additional work talking to homeless liaisons and developing and pilot testing a series of questions that could theoretically be included in a screening tool to identify students at risk of homelessness, which I'm happy to talk more about. So in closing, our study findings are encouraging. They suggest that school housing partnerships like EHIP may help improve housing stability and support students' academic success. While more research on the impact of these types of programs is needed, our findings are consistent with a broader body of research demonstrating that providing families experiencing homelessness with safe, affordable and stable housing is the most effective way to support their housing stability, educational success and broader well-being. EHIP is one promising pathway for helping families, but we need to invest in other solutions as well, such as expanding the availability of long-term rental assistance programs, increasing the supply of affordable housing, and ensuring that once housed, families have the supports they need to be successful over the long term. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to any questions you might have.

Good afternoon. Again, Luciano Ramos with Family Aid. We are a 110-year-old organization that was originally established as Traveler's Aid, helping to recent immigrants and migrants who are coming to the country to get settled in. We experienced a number of booms over our lifetime, which also included the Great Migration, families moving from Jim Crow South up to the North. as well as, you know, all the waves of immigration that the city of Boston has welcomed. Around the 70s or 80s, we did pivot our work to start focusing in on housing because what we realized was that it was one of the number one issues that was challenging families from getting settled in their communities and building prosperous lives. And so about family aid, our mission really is to work with families, parents and caregivers, who are facing homelessness and help them secure and sustain housing while also building strong foundations for the future. As you've heard a lot of data already, and I've been trying to edit my presentation a bit, you know, Boston has the third highest number of homeless children and parents in the country. We know that the moment a child experiences homelessness, it reroutes their entire trajectory, right? And despite this, most homeless interventions today are reactive or they're designed for adults. And our approach really does focus heavily on preventative care and support. And we are designed for children. Really focusing in on how can we support both generations You know, make sure that we take them. We help prevent homelessness whenever we possibly can. But when homelessness strikes, we take them from crisis to stability. We really have a trauma-informed approach in which the family is in control. They're the ones telling us what it is that they need. And we bring the expertise and the partners to the table to try to respond, right? And so, we really do focus and have over the past few years than focusing on self-sufficiency because the old models just haven't worked. And so self-sufficiency, housing stability, housing placement, and new housing retention. Our retention rate when we're able to help families get into housing is around 88%. Compared nationally, it hovers between 59% and 85%. And our housing placement rate is actually around 63%. which most organizations across the country, our peers, if you would, call 25% success. So we have a pretty good track record. We've been doing a lot of good work. Our 2Gen strategy focuses in not just on housing and prevention, But when we meet the families, we're actually trying to help them build their social capital. We're helping them get connected to health and well-being services, build their economic assets, as well as find or map out their own path to economic mobility through education and education partners. And so we are the largest provider of comprehensive services solely focused on homeless children and parents in Massachusetts. And we provide everything from prevention and diversion to emergency shelter, housing search and placement, housing stabilization, wraparound case management, service navigation, rapid rehousing, and supportive housing as well. Last year we served over 5,000 children and their parents. But who our families are, you know, the average size is about three people. Ninety-eight percent are people of color. Seventy-five percent are led by single mothers. Average household income is around $13,500 a year. We have 65 percent of all of our clients actually being children under the age of 18. Forty-five percent are legal entrants and new arrivals. know these are the numbers and we've heard the statistics right and um and i'm actually in day 29 of my job uh so relatively new uh president ceo um you know and and uh but to help like paint a bit of a picture around this on my second week on the job um i was heading into the office it was around 8 30 and we have kind of like a one of those intercoms that you have to dial in to get access and as i was pulling up i saw a woman Who wasn't distraught and she was having a hard time with intercom which everybody does and and what we found I went up to her I talked to her a little bit and come to find out she was a current client and she needed help because the night before Her mother who she had been staying with with her boyfriend and her son was sleeping on the floor in the kitchen her mother told her that she needed to leave and And so I brought her upstairs, got her a cup of coffee, sat down with her for the next couple hours, come to find out she has a son who she's incredibly proud of who just started Boston Latin at the beginning of this school year. She is college educated, first in her family to go to college, had purchased a home of her own. And really, just through no fault of her own, she was working at a financial services industry company, local company, who laid off her entire level of management. In addition to that, she has been harassed by a former employee who she found out was clocking in and wasn't reporting to work. And so the trauma and harassment that's continued to bombard this woman had resulted in her going to her last resort, which was staying with her mother. But the harassment had moved to her mother's house, and her mother said she couldn't take it any longer either. And so we were in very short order. We met her. We, again, tried to meet her immediate needs, right? As a client, we were able to shift some of what she was receiving as far as services go. You know, before we sent her off, we connected with her case manager. We also connected with her healthcare providers because the trauma that she experienced, she started having counseling, and she had expressed multiple times in her conversation with me that if it weren't for her son, she didn't know if she can continue on, right? This was a woman who held up her own keys to her house not too long ago and recently lost that because they couldn't pay the mortgage. And as we sent her out, we found out that she hadn't eaten in a couple of days because she felt bad taking food from her mother and from her mother's place. And so we gave her a gift card to Duncan while her kid was at a camp. And then we gave her a gift card to buy groceries as well. I'm happy to report that we also, through some of our partners, she was able to secure a job interview and she actually has been hired. She's still staying with her mom. Her mom gave her a little extended time. Her son has started school and he's doing really, really well. But these wraparound supports is part of the solution. You asked earlier, how do we do this? We definitely need to increase awareness of the programs that we have, but we do this through our partners. the hundred or so partners that have come around the table to work closely with BPS. You know, Corey said he didn't want to steal my thunder, but he kind of did. He actually had a lot of it, but he spoke my language because we have worked so closely as partners. Everyone up here has worked so closely as partners that we all speak the same language. You know, and we also have a shared experience. You know, the majority of my team that I get to work with, you know, about 46% of them have lived experience, including myself. You know, I called 18 different places home by the time I was 17 I didn't grow up here in Boston, but I love the city And and returned back recently You know and just I'm very proud and happy to be a part of this work and I'll move on to the next speaker But this is a little bit about family aid the work we do And we look forward to continuing to engage in conversation.

So thank you for having us today Thank you, good afternoon, mr. Chair and members of the council Thank you for the opportunity to speak in front of you today. As I said, my name is Ed Ehrlich. I'm the managing attorney of the housing unit at Greater Boston Legal Services, GBLS. We're one of the oldest legal aid organizations in the nation. We've been here in Boston for 126 years now. We provide free civil legal aid to low income individuals and families in a wide range of areas, including housing. And within our housing work, I want to focus on two areas of work that we do. One is we provide legal assistance to families seeking to enforce their rights within the state's emergency assistance shelter, the EA system, and home base. And we receive approximately five calls every week from families who have been denied access to shelter or are facing termination from the shelter. And through this work, we see firsthand how a system intended to promote family stability can instead fail families at the very moment when they need help the most. I want to recognize my colleague, Liz Alfred, who's here, and she leads that work. And she can speak in greater details about all the issues that we see within the state shelter system. Second, I want to highlight our eviction prevention work that is an upstream intervention which helps us prevent homelessness Help families to not either not need EA shelter or work cases in cases where we cannot prevent the eviction Ensure that they can actually at the end of the eviction process enter the EA shelter because there are a lot of barriers of entry to the shelter system and I want to particularly highlight within that work our access to counsel work that we do together with the City Mayor, Mayor Office of Housing, Family Aid, BPS, and I want to recognize Councilor Weber's leadership in helping making this program a success. Since the program launched in January 2025, we were able to provide full legal representation in court to more than 170 families. Most of these families were referred to us through the EE program. We also accept other referrals and individual callers. For us as attorneys, the most important part of this program is the wraparound services that our clients receive we cannot resolve any underlying issues we can help them in you know this most traumatizing period of their lives facing eviction or or being evicted with enforcing their right, ensuring that the legal hurdle is being addressed. But all of our partners here in the ecosystem within we work here in the city really is what important, what makes this program and all the programs that we work on a success. I also want to state at this point one critical caveat. The success of this intervention, of any legal intervention, depends on us getting to the families that are being evicted as early in the process as possible. The later in the process we reach, the less likely we are. to connect with the families and provide an effective legal intervention. Sometimes families come to us after a judgment had entered, after they already signed an agreement to move out. And it is really important that we get connected with these families as early as possible. I will go shorter because I know we're running late. I also have to leave early, so my colleague Liz will be able to answer any question. But thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to speak with you today on this very important issue. And I'll let Finny speak next.

hello council i just want to first off thank uh councillor mejia for inviting me here um to be a part of this um and also i want to thank my colleagues here um it's an honor to be here with you guys um you know i If you told me a year ago or maybe even this year that I would be sitting here, I'd definitely believe it. I have lived experience within this issue, both before high school, during high school, and as recently as this year. So I have a fresh insight of the active shelter system in the Boston area and the epidemic across the state as my work spans to the Merrimack Valley as well. I'm in the process of putting together our first event for the Boston Youth Action Board, which is going to be October 23rd. Our location is currently pending, looking for any resources and help when it comes to that. Our time is going to be, we're expecting from 5 to 8 p.m. the week before Halloween, so a way to try to encourage the kids and the youth to get out and maybe encourage different conversations and get them involved. I also want to make sure that Councillor Fitzgerald's point I'm able to touch upon, whether it's the funding or fundamentally change things. I think both are very great questions. But with the fresh experience I have, understanding that, yes, we need the funding most importantly, but we really need to focus on the system and how do we fundamentally change it. I have too many experiences of my peers reaching out to me and telling me circumstances of them trying to show up every day, whether it's in a shelter and not being able to receive the proper respect and the treatment. or the regular resources of daily hygiene. I've witnessed it myself this year. I've seen a lot of antagonizing from staff. I've seen temporary staff members ultimately be placed in these roles where they have no idea what's going on and that ultimately becomes a liability for the safety of the young adults that they're supposed to serve. I've seen medical emergencies happen daily without proper attentiveness because unfortunately, those incidents do happen daily. And unfortunately, there's an ongoing, problem of not having enough people with lived experience in this position. Somebody told me when I was in the shelter system that they've been doing this work because they worked with DCF for a while. Or no, I'm sorry, they worked with the juvenile court. And I think that's two total conversations than what we're having here. A lot of people who ultimately end up homeless feel and though it's not, as if it is their fault. And then when you go into a place seeking services and they don't want to give you those services and there's backlash, you sort of feel like a burden on them. And ultimately, you shut down even more. I know you spoke about being able to meet them when they're most vulnerable and being able to either accept them with welcome arms or ultimately they get pushed away completely. I've seen that happen too many times. It's happened to me personally. I'm grateful that I have the courage and the willpower to continue showing up for myself and my peers to be able to be an advocate today. And I also feel like there's a lack of educating these students. A lot of people think that they want to be out doing whatever else, but I know a lot of these young students and young people who would love the opportunity to just have a fair shot at education. Education, being an entrepreneur, and just being empowered. I think those are the three things that I want to bring into this space. education, entrepreneurship, and empowerment. I was only empowered once I lost my voice, I lost everything, and I had nowhere to go when I was in this circumstance. And I continued seeing the neglect, and I was expecting to get served, and I wasn't getting served. Ultimately, There was a transition period of when I did get my keys. And I did get keys. And this is proof that the system does work. But also, in that time with me getting keys, I spent too many days in the one shelter. So I had to transition. And I was on the streets for about two weeks in the middle of the most recent snowstorm this year. And that was a whirlwind for me to deal with. And I just want to... piggyback on what Corey said when he mentioned, we need to make sure that, I forgot. Okay, I'm gonna spin back. But yeah, so I just know that there's a lot more that needs to be done. And yeah, I wanna be in the conversation. I look forward to working with you guys in the future as well. I'll leave it there, thank you.

thank you um thank you to all the panelists uh for your service your work um bringing you know your lived experience um and all the knowledge that you have to this conversation and looking to dive into that uh with these rounds of questions i'll start oh i'm trying to navigate all right yep perfect uh start with counselor weber

OK, I think this is going to start with a question for everyone. So when we first started the access to counsel kind of discussions here, and I think it was Harvard Legal Aid Professor Eloise Lawrence who talked about this being like an emergency room. And we were talking about how can we help. And with stuff like access to council, it was, well, folks are in dire need of help. You can't just sit around and watch as they suffer. And so just trying to get to this at the emergency room level you know, what are the things that the city needs to do more of or that, you know, I mean, I'm not just coming from the city, but everyone, what you need to do to help people who are, you know, with kids in BPS who are facing homelessness. So I guess, you know, that's my sort of, it could be a rapid, you know, obviously you can extend this really far, but I'm just trying to think of this, like, You know, this number, we have 5,405, I think, from BC from two years ago, and we're over 10%, and the number of students are going down. It seems like, you know, I feel like this is an emergency, and maybe it's, you know, I'm not going to plant any ideas. Obviously, you're all more experienced in this field than I am, so I guess I'll just go left to right. If you have There's one, two, three things I don't know you want to highlight of what do we need to be doing? And you could all have the same answer. So I apologize to folks to my right. You can just repeat. But anyway.

Yeah, it's a great question. I appreciate it. And so I would say why we're here today, we're doubling down and learning more about a program that we know works, EHIP, right? The research is there. We know the numbers. We know the intervention. I think we need to make sure that it's sustained and financed. And I think that's a role for the council to come in and have these conversations around.

Okay, that's good. And I guess if for you or for anyone else, if EHIP is your answer, like is EHIP, properly sized? Does it, you know, would it, should it, does it need to grow? Yeah. Yeah.

It needs to grow. It needs to have tools as was indicated in the report that allow for early intervention. Um, and so, yeah, if we're doing rapid, I'll keep it to one.

Yeah. Let's do, let's do rapid. So everyone, yeah, you get the chance. Oh, yep. Okay, now I'm on. When I do rapid, it makes it hard for me.

Yeah, so if I'm thinking about triage and being in a hospital room, you go from emergent to, okay, we can get them stabilized and get them some help. So I think there's a couple of things. One is with respect to the hotline services that do exist at the Mayor's Office of Housing, Department of Housing and Community Development. So making sure that we resource them to have folks on the line. Because when I'm talking triage, I'm talking to folks that come into our office, like was mentioned here, that literally Feel they have nowhere to go today. So those services we still need to continue to support and continue to make sure their resource. Now, if a family has a stable safe space, like the family you mentioned, they were staying at their mom's house, even though the mom told them to get out, but they were able to go back. In those cases, in those situations, then yes, I do think programs like EHIP, I think the program that we do at Higher Ground in terms of providing housing support and stabilization, we need those. And other providers like your bridge and et cetera. to be able to get folks into shelter. And then I would say third last thing is more for families once you get them stabilized, is thinking about what are the next step of things and resources needed, the vouchers, making sure we resource and have the mass voucher rental partnership and program, MRVPs. And that we also look at, as Corey and Danielle mentioned, some of the other supports that are needed for our homeless students and families, like the wraparound of out-of-school time programming, mental health and wellness. But it starts with, literally, do you have a place to stay right now, tonight? And then the EHIPs, and then from there.

Yeah, I know we're doing rapid and not so rapid, but I have a follow-up to make it less rapid. So we talked about EA shelter. And so, you know, we, I, I, the EA, the state wanted to open up a shelter in West Roxbury, created a lot of, you know, as Professor Byrne probably followed pretty closely. Yeah, it was a, it was a big issue. And then the shelter opened and nobody even knows the shelter's open because it's, it's, it's young families and, you know, but it's also, it's like, 10% full. So I don't know what is happening in the EA system. There's just, you know, it's 48 family capacity. I think there's never been more than 10 families. Maybe at some point it'll have more, but like has the changes, the EA system, you know, I assume everyone in BPS would qualify because they've been here, they're Massachusetts residents and they have kids. But is there some issue with the state EA system that makes it harder to get people in to the shelters?

So I would not say there is an issue with the shelter system. I've been on record saying this before, is that when you talk to other cities around the nation, you find that Boston, Massachusetts in particular, is bar none above and beyond in terms of providing wraparound supports and services for homeless students and families. I think what we are seeing now is that When we looked at the 2024-25 school year, that's the number that's been referenced a lot in terms of the number of homeless students and families. It was over 5,200. But when we look at the last school year, that number went down to 4,300. And so what I think we are seeing is a lot of different factors is that, yes, enrollment numbers have gone down in our BPS schools, but we're also seeing the conflating of and more fear in some of our newly arrived, our immigrant, our undocumented families in terms of accessing services and supports. And then as was mentioned earlier, Corey and both Danielle talking about unaffordability. And so it's not the fact that families don't want to access shelter or whatnot, they're just choosing other options right now. Because again, there is that fear if I identify will that put me on a list? Will that put me in jeopardy of potentially our family being in danger? And so we're seeing some of that. And I think there's a concerted effort too, the governor has come out about that, about making sure families have access to home base. So those families that are in shelter, that they get access to that $35,000 over two years to be able to you know, exit shelter and into homes. And so that's where I think some other work needs to be done. But I don't think it's a matter of families not needing shelter. But I do think there are several factors happening right now.

Okay, and just so I'm clear, you don't, because under the rules, you need to be a Massachusetts resident for the EA program, but you don't need to be a citizen.

For the Massachusetts program? I think somebody else can, the DO. Yeah, you can answer that. Yeah, greater. Yeah, I was like, legal, is here.

Yeah.

So there's actually a lot of things that you have to do in order to be eligible for the EA shelter system. So you don't have to be a citizen. That's true. You do have to be a Massachusetts resident, and that can be proved in a lot of different ways. But you also have to have an income of under 115% of the federal poverty level. You have to have assets of less than $5,000. You have to have a qualifying reason for why it is that you're homeless. Just like if you're sleeping on someone's floor, they're probably not going to find you eligible because they're going to be like, well, you have a floor to sleep on. And so we wouldn't consider those families stably housed or healthily housed, but they are not able to access the shelter system. You also can't be barred because of your reason for homelessness, which means like what I heard Danielle Johnson testify about was that most of the evictions are nonpayment evictions. And it seemed like she said that a significant portion of those are for people who are in housing that is targeted towards low-income housing, whether that's low-income housing tax credit units or whether that's other types of low-income housing. But if you're in a low-income housing tax credit unit, you may make 60% of AMI or you may maybe like together you and your partner made 60% of AMI, but then somebody lost their job or their hours were reduced or they got sick or their kid got sick, or their parent got sick, or they broke up, and they don't make that anymore. And so now you're in this unit that is intended to be something that is supposed to be affordable for you, but you've now lost your income, and it's not a deeply affordable unit, and so you can't afford that unit. So we might even think of those units as being relatively affordable. We may be talking about two bedrooms in Mattapan that are like $2,100. If you are making $36,000 a year or $42,000 a year, that's not actually an affordable apartment for you, right? And so you, I think that part of the issue is that for Boston generally is that there's not enough housing that is naturally affordable or there's not enough housing. There's not enough ways to keep that housing even if you're in that housing and you have like some sort of catastrophe that happens to you. But it is also significantly harder to get into the EA shelter system than it used to be. And that was a change that the legislature made. They used to have families be able to access shelter if they had no place safe to go. And they appeared to be eligible. And you were able to access shelter for up to 30 days while you proved that you were eligible. And that doesn't exist anymore. They got rid of that in 2025. And so I think what you see is actually a lot of families who are applying, and then they maybe can't get a document together that they're being asked for, or they didn't realize that they needed a document until sort of close to that 30-day deadline, or they're being asked for something because the field office maybe is asking for an over-verification. Some of this is also, I think, on the system itself. And then they hit that 30 days, and they're told, well, now you've timed out. you can start the process over again. And once you've done that three times, then you're not going to continue to apply. And you've not accessed shelter yet, right?

So I guess in response to my question about the emergency room kind of level, one thing is at the state level to advocate for easier access to these systems. You can't remember the cap. There was a 7,500 person cap, I thought, in EA. Is that still the cap and we're not even near it anymore? It's not the cap anymore. What's the cap? Is it 4,000?

Yeah. So under, I think, the line item, it's now at 3,500. But the shelter system itself just re-procured. And so they have created a system or they're in the process of creating a system right now at this moment this month. that is significantly smaller. It's going to be closer to around 3,000 units statewide.

Okay, this is from the governor when we're talking, I don't know, say they, who's they?

Yeah, I mean, this is at the state level. And so this time last year, what I've been told, again, day 29, is that we had family aid had about 160 some odd units of shelter, emergency assistance shelter. By November 1st, we'll be down to 77, with very few actually in the city of Boston. And that's in part because of the state changes. One, the rates were so low that it just wasn't sustainable. And you have a lot of EA shelter providers who aren't, who are in the process of eliminating their scatter sites, the sites that kind of represent opportunities for families most closely representing the home, like an apartment or something like that. And the rates were dropped significantly. And so so we're actually in the process of shutting down another 33 units what we've been told Because we connect with the emergency assistance shelter Network folks is that current state if a family is trying to get into a scattered site and there is no real medical They don't deem it medically necessary for them to have. And the other option is congregate, which is kind of like going to a hotel, right? One mass place, we just opened one that's low enrolled as well. And part of it has to do with the policy changes. It's really, really difficult for families to get into it. and they also shortened the duration. So it went from various time limits to six months. The House passed last year an extension to nine months for people to be in the emergency shelter system, didn't pass the Senate. Things haven't been fully implemented, right? And so the policy have changed, the funding models have changed, and what we've been told is that people, current state or city of Boston residents who want a scatter site and they are able to enter jump through all the hoops to get into the system at the state level. I've been told that families are being rehoused and scattered sites up in Peabody, current state, because of the- You're not moving your kids to school in Peabody.

Yeah.

Yeah, so there are challenges. And so I think advocacy piece, to answer your original question, is a major piece of this, is that we really need to better define what I would classify as the hidden homelessness, which are the families who are sleeping on the sofas, who are staying up with friends or whatever the case is. But then these policies, the pendulum has swung really far, and we're hoping to see a swing back in the opposite direction.

I've just gone way over my time, but just one quick thing, Chair. So, yeah, so we're talking about losing, you know, funding for EHIP and, you know, we have access to council. Losing these like sort of upstream tools where at the other, at the end of the stream, you know, there's no shelters or fewer shelters or it's harder to get in to a shelter. I mean, it just, I think it highlights, you know, these upstream measures. But I guess my, so I just, my issue has been when we hear from BPS, like we're going to identify people, like I'm now wondering like, well, how do you identify somebody who hasn't paid their rent in three months or something, you know? I don't know how they're, and my sense is that it's hard to do, and we don't have a magic wand. I don't know, other than doing this outreach and having flyers in the backpacks or having parents answer questions or something. Am I crazy that you can't just magically know when somebody is in that upstream position where they're going to need the support.

You are definitely not. And I know the professor will speak to this too. But one thing we found is that oftentimes, even though we say the number is 4,300 as of the last school year, we know that number is higher. Because that 4,300 represents students that appear in the Aspen system that Boston Public Schools use, the student identification system, that that family, that student has a homeless tag in the system that says, this family at some point in time went to someone and said, I need help. And I think what you're talking about is maybe those families that don't have that identifier in the system. And I think one of the things we've tried to do, much to my diet's chagrin, is over the last couple of weeks with school starting back up, we've been to dozens of back to school barbecues, popsicle parties, and everything just so families know the resource exists, in addition to putting things in backpacks, in addition to those other things. But there is no magic wand to this in terms of letting families know, but there are pieces that we've been trying to do is make sure the information is out there as much as we can. But again, the 4,300, we know those students. They have the identifier in their student identification system. Same way on the back end for teachers, you see their grades, you see how many absences, that type of thing. You can see that as well. But it's what about how do we make sure they get coordinated to family aid, to United Way? That's the piece, I think, as Corey and Danielle said, we still have work to do to make sure that those families get referred to us. And then once they are, we wrap them around with supports.

So real quick, counselor, the challenge of accurately identifying people at risk of homelessness, it is, it's really difficult. And I've done some research on this and lots of other folks have as well. You can have two people who look very similar, like they're at a high risk of homelessness, but because of things that were mentioned, things that can trigger a housing crisis like a job loss, a medical crisis, those things are hard to predict. So it's actually very difficult to accurately identify people who are at risk of homelessness. One of the things that we're doing in following on the study that we released in April is trying to develop a screening tool, and we talked to BPS liaisons and families about this possibility of having some questions that could be deployed widely. And we're in the process of testing those out to actually see how accurately they can identify people who are experiencing homelessness. The other challenge about this is What was voiced to us by the liaisons is you don't want to ask people about whether they are at risk of homelessness unless there's some resource on the back end that you can offer them, right? Because if you ask people these questions, it's very sensitive. People have immigration concerns, lots of other things. And so if you don't have anything to offer on the back end for people who say that they're worried about their housing, then that can erode trust. And we've heard from earlier just how important it is for these trusting relationships to get families connected. OK, thank you. Sure.

You're just getting me in trouble. Sorry.

Sorry. I think building off of what Tom said leads to opportunities for further coordination, right? So I'll give you an example. We fund a partner working in East Boston, United Way does. And what they do is they partner with their local housing authority, and that housing authority flags any family that is either at risk of missing a payment or expresses some sort of a, I'm gonna be late this month or whatever the issue is, that housing authority has a relationship with a local community-based organization calls them, they wrap around that family, come to whatever resource it is, $400 for making the rent, a car, connection to some sort of a job employment, and then they're able to actually upstream, wrap that family, and have that early identification. That's one example, but it just highlights the importance of coordination, not just through the schools, but also through the housing authorities. So I just wanted to lift that example as a tangible something that could be thought about and scaled.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor President Braden?

I don't think Councillor Weber should apologize for taking more time. He's asking excellent questions. You know, right now in Boston, and this is always sort of going to more figuring about opportunities for housing. Right now the market's softening and I hear anecdotally of renters, a lot of them are small landlords who've got one or two extra apartments available for rent and they're really looking for tenants. Is there a way to, how does the voucher system, how do we take an, I think this is an opportunity. There's less demand for housing from overseas students. Sadly, a lot of immigrants have decided to voluntarily leave or they've been forcibly removed. So there's more apartments available perhaps there than we might imagine. Is there a way we can take advantage of this moment? In the last few weeks, I just keep hearing, since September 1st, landlords are looking at their inventory and saying, oh my goodness, I've got empty apartments. We didn't have that problem anymore. There was always more people wanting apartments than there was apartments. So is there a way we can take advantage of this moment? Any thoughts? I'm just throwing it out there.

Yes, and. So yes, in that there is a way for that. But as you mentioned, they would need a voucher or the unit would need to be subsidized for most families. I mean, if you look at right now, the two bedroom average cost is I think it was mentioned earlier, $2,100, $2,200. So if a family is making, most of our families make below 15,000. So what can they afford per month? So yes, it is absolutely possible to be able to get them into those units if there is a subsidy or a voucher that is able to make up the difference between what the family can pay and what the rent costs every month. But I absolutely think some of the conversations around small mom and pops that have units or conversion conversations, converting commercial into residential, all of those are necessary, but we also have to make sure we have the subsidy to be able to support families. Because what we're finding is some families that got supports and got the subsidies, home base is one example, the $35,000 over two years, now they're at the end of their $35,000. And so now we're having different conversations with families about how can we make sure to get you into a unit you can afford now that you don't have that subsidy.

I was just going to kind of add to that. I mean, part of the challenge of what we're seeing at the national level is, you know, the MIT living wage calculator. I'm sure people are familiar with that. They say a single mother with two kids needs roughly $160,000 a year in order to be able to make ends meet. Well, if you're making $13,000, $14,000 a year, how do you get to that number, right? And actually, part of it can be through public safety net programs. Unfortunately, with all the cuts that are coming down from at the federal level, you know, whereas it was possible, you know, housing voucher at 45,000, childcare vouchers at 30,000, Medicaid at 25,000, all of them have been cut to the point where it's anticipated that it's going to go from, you know, if you subtract out or if you add in the 13,000 they make, a family's making 160,000 through the safety net programs. That safety net program is actually going to drop down to roughly $80,000 to $90,000. And so the gap is wider. But the eligibility for you to be able to qualify for those safety net programs remains the same. So then we talk about the benefit cliff. If I start making more money, I lose eligibility, I lose my childcare voucher, right? And so getting back to your original question, is there room or space for us to do it? There could be with some creative solutions. Absolutely. Actually, I heard Mayor Wu speak yesterday at the chamber event and was thinking about those 22 commercial properties that are going from business conversion to residential. And I'm wondering, is there something there that might be possible, right? And so I do think that we have to be smart enough to figure this out, but we just have to do it together.

I think we also have to work with our nonprofit sector you know, or CDCs or whatever. And in this moment, just like there's going to be inventory of naturally affordable housing that people are going to try to divest from. They're not going to stay in the business anymore and they're going to sell these. So it's an opportunity to purchase through acquisition naturally affordable housing that we can actually make it take it out of the speculative market and keep it more naturally affordable over the longer term as well. So I think to your point, I think we have to be very, very creative in this moment and figure out what else we can do. So acquisition funds, like it might take $6 million, but you get units that cost, you know, under $100,000 for a unit when you can't build a unit for that amount of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I may add, one additional thought might be, thinking about the system churn, so you have available units that are market rate, let's just say, to Brandy's point about the lack of voucher, perhaps there's an opportunity to move families, but they make the choice, right? It's all driven by families. to move on if they don't need those valuable resources that provide that voucher and intense services, right? So there is a federal voucher that's called Moving On that's available that allows that ability for the family to move on to those vacant units without the voucher and opens up the space for the family that needs the voucher to come in at a different point. So I think if you look at your data and do some crosswalking, there could be some opportunities to do just that, to move the families that say, I want to, I'm ready. I'm at a point where I'm going to be losing my voucher because I've gone over the limit for eligibility, whatever. And then that would be an appropriate opportunity to move so you have that back end to be able to backfill.

And I think one of the stories that we heard earlier was the parent who had a really good, pretty good paying job and just her whole department was wiped out and she ended up unemployed, she lost her mortgage, she couldn't pay her mortgage, she lost her home. There are, and now she's re-employed again, so there are people within the cohort that would be able to take advantage of these more affordable units that are coming available now because the market has softened up a little. You know, there's many, many solutions to this. I think we need to put all our heads together to keep thinking.

That's right.

Yeah. But, you know, thank you. I'm really impressed with all the great work that you've been doing. And, you know, I think this is an incredible conversation we're having. And hopefully we can keep kicking the tires and keep coming up with more solutions. Because there's no one way to do this, you know. Go ahead.

I just want to thank you for mentioning involving the local nonprofits. I've had the opportunity to get served and also work with and alongside and just volunteer just out of the passion for this and just for the work that goes across the entire Commonwealth. And one of the things that I've been working on, and this is stuff that is directly aligned with my professional career, but also what I do, a little bit about myself. So student athlete at Bunker Hill. About five years ago, there was this beautiful piece of legislature that was passed into law allowing college athletes to capitalize off their name, image, likeness, pretty much be able to be just like everybody else on campus, no longer were these universities taking advantage of their labor and telling them to go fend for themselves with the scholarship, with the meal plan, with the housing, and taking the revenue and the profits of their jersey sales and things of that nature. So what the entire business model is, is even though it's contradicts itself, and it's not exactly what it should be. The business model is these college athletes are going to get paid for their name, their image, and their likeness, what they bring to the table, who they are, what they represent, their marketability. And then there's the opposite side of it where they're saying that, hey, we're going to do this, but we're just going to pay them because they're really good athletes. And unfortunately, I don't go to one of those schools that have a really big budget to pour into me as an athlete. But I've done the due diligence. I've been around in the industry. I've built the network. And I've also received this past summer an award. I was nominated and selected by GoFundMe for Community Builder of the Year out of all the entire college athletes in the country. I've seen that I've really put myself in position to align with the market value of the rest of the college athletes in the country because of my worth and my understanding of what I'm doing now, but also the impact it's going to have in the future when I'm no longer a college athlete. So all that being said, and going back to the funding portion, that panel, before I realized I was selected, nominated, and received an award for them, they ultimately had another athlete who had a nonprofit in which a brand was having a conversation with him. And they said, hey, we want to give you $10,000 to represent our organization. And he said, thank you very much. That's awesome. I'll take that. But what I want you to do is I want you to double that and match it to my nonprofit. And they did. And he continued that motto going forward. And some brands were able to double it, and some were able to split it in half. And he was able to take five, and he was able to give five to his nonprofit. So just to let you guys know, that's what I'm looking to bring across the state with some of the networks that I have. in Boston and outside of Boston to try to alleviate this, but also to use me, my lived experience, my platform, and my network within this space in Boston, but also across the country, because people know that this is something, this is a part of my story. This is what I'm here for. And that's what the industry is about. So Boston is a place that's born on just It's a union city. I was also selected as one of the 16 athletes in the country last year to represent why NCAA needs a union. There's a lot of conversations that I've been in, I've been taking part of, and a lot of things that I've been watching and learning and also applying to get involved to make myself an asset. And I've already worked with multiple national scale brands such as GoDaddy, the website. I just secured a partnership with Allegiant Airlines over the summer. and a couple different drink companies such as Local Energy, Underdog, and a couple more. But it's just a new conversation and perspective because I know at the moment all of the non-profits across the country, are fighting over a lack of grant money. But I want to change that conversation to being able to access sponsorship and different type of private funds to be able to pull into my own accord. And that's actually what I'm going to be doing for October 23. I'm going to be looking to partner with deals that are not only going to pay for my name image likeness to promote their business, but also I'm going to ask them to match some donations and resources to give back to the homeless youth on October 23, in which I'd love to see you guys there.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I had.

Thank you. I had one question. And President Ramos, you mentioned you gave a breakdown of the clients that you were serving. Are you able to submit that information? Absolutely. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, happy to do that. Awesome. Council Weber?

Just a couple follow-up questions. So I think this is for United Way and Higher Ground and Family Aid. Do you have the capacity to provide services if we can get notice to all the people who need them in Boston right now? What do you think? So 4,300 students, let's say a number of families,

Roughly 3,500 families represent those 4,300 students. I will say not now today does Higher Ground have that capacity. That's why I think what Corey mentioned and Danielle mentioned is a coordinated response so that some families get referred to Higher Ground. Some families get referred to Family Aid. Some families may get a referral to United Way to be able to get to their network. But I don't think there is any one organization that could take on that capacity.

No, I meant all together.

Oh, but all together. I would say it is if we had additional resources, because one of the things that was mentioned earlier was having a navigator that helps that one family navigate everything. And so we need to make sure we have the staffing levels, the language capabilities and other things to be able to support the families. So I would say right now, again, I'm speaking from higher ground. is I do not think there is the capacity, particularly with some of the other resources being cut as well. But I do think if we put in the investment, we could absolutely tackle it. And I would like to be bold and as us collaboratively say, five years from now, if we do what's necessary, we will see a decline by this percentage.

I guess, do you agree?

Please, you're the provider.

I would agree. Current state, to support the families throughout the entire school year and even into the summer, no. The capacity just isn't there yet. However, what I will say is that I am, again, relatively new. We're in the process of developing a new marketing communication strategy because we actually want to run out of resources early so we can turn around with the data and say, hey, listen, there is this need that has gone unmet. And we serve as many families as fast and as quickly as we possibly could. The city, the state, philanthropy, everyone needs to step up to try to provide those resources. And that's a big piece of the push, right? But but I will say like one number that I hadn't heard so far Thrown out is you know that old saying like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? You know you invest five thousand dollars in prevention to support families It's estimated that keeping a family in the in the first year keeping them from actually becoming street homeless You know you're gonna say between thirty to eighty five thousand dollars for that one family with $5,000 worth of prevention. Then if you sit back and you look at the amount of money that we're having to spend because of McKinney-Vento, the amount of money that we have to spend busing kids from other communities that come into the city, right, and the transportation costs. That's a little bit more than what you asked for.

17 million, I think, was the number that we've heard that the city spends on.

Exactly. So I would say that there's probably an appetite to step up the prevention work much more quickly. And not to mention that once a kid does become homeless, as I said, it reroutes their entire trajectory. Even kids who spend short periods of time in homelessness, after they have been permanently housed for six years, they still maintain the absentee rates as well as some of the academic performance issues that they had when they were homeless, right? And so it stays with the kids unless we're able to wrap around these services and provide additional support ahead of time. So the actual cost to our community, goes much more broad than just the 80,000, 85,000 a year.

Okay. And then I just, so for GBLS in terms of getting the services earlier, I guess, you know, what's, do you have any suggestions for how we can Is it just identification? Does it have to come from the individuals who are experiencing the issues to reach GBLS or reach the access to council program?

I mean, hopefully not. I mean, I think the idea about partnering with housing authority, like the program sort of partnering with housing authorities, we're not going to necessarily partner with housing authorities, so that there is somebody that they can identify when things are starting to go wrong or housing providers. that that might be an effective way. I mean, I personally, I think I'm sure that all of those folks from BPS are awesome. I think if I was a parent experiencing homelessness or about to experience homelessness, I would be afraid to tell the school personally because I would be afraid about like DCF maybe being called or being asked whether or not, like if I didn't know that McKinney-Vento existed, I would be afraid of being asked whether or not I still could stay at that school. Right? So I think that it would be, you know, and OHS also, like, refers people to us, and so sometimes people do get to us through them. But I think the more places that people could maybe enter the program, it's not just the school.

Okay, yeah. I mean, Mr. Schmidt, there's a need. You know, if you see there's a gap here and looking for ways. Anyway, we talked about a commission that apparently existed, but, I mean, I feel like We can form a new one, and the panel, obviously, you cover all the bases, and I look forward to continuing this conversation with everyone here. Thank you very much, Chair.

Just to add one last thing. The $17 million figure that we mentioned in terms of what's spent on transportation, if we were able to be able to house folks in the city, that $17 million would turn into 700 families. their students being housed.

Thank you. Councillor Brady, you have a second round of questions?

No, I just wanted to thank everyone. This has been a great conversation. I think we should keep it going and keep kicking the tires and see if we can find other new solutions and figure out what works and keep doing it. Thank you so much for all being here today.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, thank you for not only being here, but the work. I also want to thank the administration on their panel. I want to thank central staff, my colleagues, and the lead sponsor, Council Weber, for bringing this forward. And looking forward to continuing this conversation. And hopefully we'll be meeting in either the Pia Monte and Curly room to dive deeper into these incidents. So thank you, everyone. And this hearing on document number 0507 is adjourned.

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