9% of childcare centers and 10% of family care centers closed during pandemic. With low income parents already having to commute about 30-45 minutes to the nearest voucher accepting childcare facility in Boston, these conditions were exacerbated by the Covid-19. These four trips a day to drop off and pick up your child add up to 20 trips a week for the standard 5 day work week. Not only are these already low income families are losing upwards of 20 hours of income, quality time, and rest, they are also bearing the additional cost of transportation (about $140 monthly).
Inaccessible and unaffordable childcare options have resulted in:
Brookline is in dire need of affordable housing options for middle to low-income residents, and feasible homeownership pathways. I support the (intentional and informed) increase of density in single and two family zones and the creation of affordable multifamily units and understand that these projects cannot be done haphazardly. Equally important are community based solutions that put the agency in the hands of community stakeholders and promote self-reliance. It is possible to create a Brookline that fosters a diverse, productive community with a mix of socioeconomic backgrounds.
However, we must also address the real concerns of residents that may have hesitations and reservations about specific projects, often not due to a difference in values, but due to a difference in views on implementation. Not nearly enough is done to ensure that the public is informed, able to take part, or even regularly updated on progress, and yet many scoff at pushback.
The already disproportionate gap in socioeconomic status of racially marginalized residents that dramatically worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Within the black community of Brookline alone, 30.6% of residents were below the poverty line prior to the beginning of the Covid pandemic. That number has risen to 51% since.
Job loss, evictions, and many other markers of socioeconomic immobility increased even further during the pandemic and left our communities in urgent and desperate need for new community driven solutions. One such solution was workforce development & job training programs developed by those that know how to implement them accessibly and effectively. If the programs that the most marginalized communities in Brookline asked for were supported it would have not only decreased unemployment and poverty rates but also would have fostered increased revenue for the town as it struggles with increased taxes in recent years.
We need “diverse” representation that not only looks like us, but works to represent our concerns, and create a platform to hear our feedback & our solutions. The word diversity itself is far too broad and not an accurate descriptor of the benchmark. We need to support equitable diversity rather than performative measures that do not take into account the differences between marginalized populations and do not highlight solutions that come from communities that experience these problems.
For a community blessed with resources (both budgetary and structurally), we are behind the curve compared to our neighbors and the nation. A few weeks ago, a mother brought attention to her son repeatedly being called the N word at BHS. This is not a rare occurrence nor an isolated incident and yet, there have not been any substantial efforts by Town Governance, the School Committee, and other Town bodies to address this or many other repeated issues of discrimination in the Brookline.
After the Covid-19 pandemic devastated vulnerable communities in particular, 22 million in ARPA funding was awarded in Round 1 with no impact being felt in the low income Black and Brown communities. Transparency was all but abandoned as residents asked for clarity on the procedure that proposals were being assessed by and whether many of the allocations made were even lawful per the Treasury guidelines. Despite residents routinely coming out to voice their community's concerns week after week, none of this feedback was implemented in Round 2 and again, no impact was felt by Brookline's most vulnerable. When an ARPA Review Committee member came and spoke on public record at a Select Board Meeting that he was given papers and told to sign off on hundreds of thousands of dollars with no clue what the intended use was for, many were not surprised.
Several residents asked about this and other shocking revelations on public record at Select Board meetings and were ignored with absolutely zero response verbally or in writing. ARPA funds were specifically made available to be a lifeline for those that were most impacted by the Covid-19 Pandemic. Yet, these voices are the ones whose feedback is being blatantly disregarded, whose concerns are ignored, and who are still suffering to this day. The persistence of the people of Brookline to continue to try to engage with governance shows which entity understands the urgency and dire condition of our communities, and which has the ability to turn a blind eye.
Climate change affects all of us. Whether one wants to look at immediate effects such as negative impacts on indigenous and/or endangered wildlife and recreational green spaces, or long term impacts such as rising sea levels, extreme fluctuations in weather, and the rapid loss of ecological diversity, the situation is urgent. I have been involved in community organizing across the country, including promoting climate sustainability organizations and efforts, promoting renewable energy, implementing green tech, and making these fields more diverse so that solutions reflect the community that disproportionally suffers due to environmental racism. I am presently working to ensure that Brookline and the state of MA stay on the pulse of new, climate friendly, technology that will simultaneously reduce emissions & air pollutants, reduce fossil fuel consumption, and increase economic opportunities in green tech for the NE region through my work in the aviation industry.
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