Letter To The Editor: Next Steps in Brookline's $43M Opportunity

Brookline MA

14 March, 2022

12:17 PM

Description

BROOKLINE, MA — The following letter to the editor was submitted by a group of Brookline Town Meeting members and residents. On February 8th, the Brookline Community Foundation (BCF) presented the Select Board with their key findings from the community engagement process pertaining to community members' perspectives on critical needs and opportunities for the investment of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The impressive engagement process included four live community conversations, 15 focus group discussions, and 438 survey responses over the course of 20 weeks. For those who have not yet read the final report, we encourage you to do so at the BCF website: www.brooklinecommunity.org. The findings revealed opportunity gaps in our Town that the pandemic has widened. Across allengagement efforts, these key groups were named as having been disproportionately impactedby and throughout the pandemic: Older adultsYouthLow-income peoplePeople living in public housingBlack, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community membersNonprofits, small businesses and town departments Based on an analysis of the findings, BCF recommends that the Select Board allocate ARPAfunds to: Invest in the public health department and the public health response.Invest in crisis intervention services to support key impacted groups.Invest in programs that address the social determinants of health.Improve access to early learning services, academic supports, afterschool programs,and support for students' social, emotional, and mental health needs.Invest in affordable housing.Expand programs that promote healthy childhood environments, including increasingaccess to reliable, affordable and quality child care programs.Assist households, workers, and families of key impacted groups to alleviate poverty.Enhance support for nonprofits and small businesses.Provide premium pay to low and moderate income workers.Improve broadband access and technology training to underserved households. The BCF engagement process is a model for what community engagement should look like inBrookline from this moment onwards. It offers us a commendable foundation to build on and acrucial chance to continue engaging in the following questions: How else might we continue engaging our community, particularly our historically excluded andmarginalized community members, in having a say in how resources are allocated in Town?How might we continue using these findings as a guide beyond the allocation of ARPA funds? But before we begin looking so far forward, we hope that the Select Board listens carefully tothese findings and make their allocation decisions based on this valuable and hard-won input.Such a response from the Select Board will ensure that our community can rely on our electedleadership to be responsive and listen to our feedback. This will allow for continued deep andproductive community engagement. We thank the BCF for their outstanding leadership throughout this process and thank the SelectBoard in advance for honoring the deep insights, experiences and feedback from ourcommunity by allocating ARPA funds in ways that align with these community-informed,community-driven recommendations. Emy Takinami (TMM10) - Beacon StreetBonnie Bastien (TMM5) - Oakland RoadDavid Lescohier - Winchester StreetNaomi Sweitzer (TMM10) - Griggs Terrace