ORDER-2022-111 : Appointment of Alaine Breen, of 18 Woodcrest Ave, to the City of Melrose Commission on Disability.

Transcript (~11 min @ 9:50)

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▶ 9:48 Jack Eccles: and I clicked away from the link. Order 2022-111, Appointment of Elaine Breen of 18 Woodcrest Ave to the City of Melrose, Commission on Disability. Believe, do we have the nominee with us this evening? You can step forward.

▶ 10:16 Speaker 2: Thank you for being here.

▶ 10:17 Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.

▶ 10:19 Paul Brodeur: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, members of the committee, other counselors, so this is kind of a bad news, good news situation. One of our members of the Commission on Disability who has family members living with disability, and that was how she engaged with the Commission, is no longer able to serve. Paula Weiner is stepping away. She has been an incredible resource for the community, quite frankly, far beyond her service to the Commission on Disability. And we will certainly miss her and wish her well, but I'm delighted to say that Ms. Breen has stepped forward to take over that spot and serve out that term and hopefully serve for many more years. She also comes to us, she's a Null Rosian for many years, I'm not sure, I'm very cautious about saying lifelong.

▶ 11:16 Speaker 3: There was a gap in there, a 12 year gap.

▶ 11:18 Paul Brodeur: Try to be, but she is the parent of an adult living with autism and brings a whole host of experience having raised that child and now facing what a lot of parents face as you get into the world beyond the city's educational responsibility, you may have heard the phrase turning 22, and that implicates a lot of important things for members of our community, including housing and access to employment. we have someone that by by profession as a as a as a cpa as a community member as a parent and as an experienced advocate will do an outstanding job with the work of the commission and i offer

▶ 12:11 Speaker 1: her for your consideration that's all you did you didn't tell me i was going to have to make a statement anyway um thank you um for having me um i've been had an eye on this commission

▶ 12:24 Speaker 3: it's kind of still fledgling right um but i've had an eye on it to see what what it was and you know

▶ 12:31 Speaker 1: it's a brand new brand new thing and so my perspective comes from um a parent of a child

▶ 12:38 Speaker 3: with autism and having to have to advocate for him pretty much all the time every day from the time

▶ 12:51 Speaker 1: he was three and a half he's now 20. um he had a wonderful ex in general a wonderful experience in the morals public schools it was up and down year by year depending on what was going on but most especially in the high school was wonderful he is now part-time in the postgrad program in the high school three days a week at the macy program at salem state university which is a partner funded by between the school district and the commonwealth of massachusetts

▶ 13:20 Speaker 1: so that has been fantastic for him it's a two-year program and what we face now as parents watching these kids come through become very integral parts of the community become very comfortable in their community you know build the skills that they need to to be very active members of the community um you know once they hit 22 and the school district responsibility ends um it's very unnerving to see the the gap that's facing you

▶ 13:54 Speaker 1: and the amount of time that i had to spend learning about what the district was going to provide what you know we as a family felt responsible to provide how to adjunct all those things i mean the school district isn't going to do everything it shouldn't do everything right and so as as a family we've got to pick up that responsibility well now it's a whole new learning process with other state agencies and nothing's guaranteed nothing it's all funded funding related budget related and yay these things would be nice but money's not there so sorry um so really trying to face the fact that my so my son's 20 he's very enthusiastic about working he's very enthusiastic about learning um he has significant verbal expressive language struggles so how do you convey that to an employer to a landlord to um anybody in the community that you know a doctor anybody he has to deal with the bus driver the uber driver he's mastered uber completely to get back and forth to salem state but you know so it's great um so that's kind of where my so my interest

▶ 15:05 Speaker 1: really lies in that young adulthood and how to continue to push them forward to continue to be active and vibrant members of the community that they know so well um you know and there are i know a host of kids around his age that he's come up through that have either similar presentations or different presentations that kind of all facing the same thing i feel like that positions me

▶ 15:30 Speaker 3: really well to advocate overall I joked with Paul when we met that I was doing

▶ 15:40 Speaker 1: DEI before it was fashionable because I had to and you know what I'm seeing with that initiative with the woman whose name escapes me now that just spoke before me with affordable housing there are a lot of moving parts right now that ready to just click right into place work together and that's really exciting because what the disability commission is going to do can dovetail really well with what affordable housing is going to do with what this subcommittee is doing um i feel like it's a really good time here to really

▶ 16:17 Speaker 1: you know have us as advocates and advisors um be able to produce some really really positive things

▶ 16:23 Speaker 2: Vice Chair Karamcheti?

▶ 16:24 Manjula Karamcheti: Well, thank you so much for applying to be on the Disabilities Commission. And thank you for sharing with us your story, your background, and just your experiences. Given everything that you know and everything that you've gone through, and this isn't like a stressful question in any way, shape, or form, I'm just interested in like, are there things already that you would love to see the Commission on Disabilities do to support youth who are sort of transitioning out of the school system and in into like being more adult members of the community are there things you already have on your mind things you would like to see so it's a

▶ 17:14 Speaker 1: two-part answer because yes however I don't have enough experience knowing what the commission is doing yet to effectively answer that question but um and i've and you know

▶ 17:27 Speaker 3: i'm a new young adult parent right so i you know i i know what i see as needs but um but my what

▶ 17:32 Speaker 1: i'd like to somehow work on in spearhead and this might be a pipe dream i don't know we'll see how

▶ 17:40 Speaker 3: how much bandwidth I really have but I have this vision of an inclusive

▶ 17:45 Speaker 3: partially supported housing model that would allow for a mixed population of

▶ 17:51 Speaker 1: people some with disabilities some without disabilities different kinds of

▶ 18:02 Speaker 1: disabilities and the support needs could be met by the other people that live there that aren't disabled and there would be some kind of a pricing model and with that I mean I know this is a big thing right there's a lot that could go into having to make this happen so whether we could or not I don't know but

▶ 18:21 Speaker 3: but then allow for you know have that kind of be a little community within a

▶ 18:28 Speaker 1: community have that support for like social activities and you know Brian remember it's time to get to work or you know what time do you have to set your alarm for for tomorrow or you stuff like that whatever the little need might be

▶ 18:44 Speaker 1: so that's really that's kind of where what I'm thinking about he you know he's got a couple of part-time jobs so the flip side of that is how to convey that you know this population of people is very effective and has a lot to offer as as far as being in the workplace, volunteering, whatever the case might be.

▶ 19:12 Speaker 1: So that's, I guess, sort of an answer for you.

▶ 19:14 Manjula Karamcheti: Yeah, absolutely, that's a great answer. Something that you said I just wanted to note that I really appreciate, sort of, your thinking about how different organizations and groups and committees can collaborate together to make some of these things happen.

▶ 19:29 Speaker 3: And I think it has to. Yeah.

▶ 19:31 Speaker 1: that's the only way things will happen yeah right I appreciate that model so

▶ 19:35 Manjula Karamcheti: thank you for mentioning it council Williams I'm spring thanks for being

▶ 19:42 Ryan Williams: with us um I my colleague asked the most important question which is what do you want to do and you gave a phenomenal answer don't undercut pipe dreams because eventually one of the pipes is gonna lead somewhere and come out somewhere I think it's really great that you're bringing some of the neurodivergent experience into this council into this Commission as a person who is like mildly neurodivergent myself and I hear you when you say time to get up get and set your alarm I have 15 alarms on my phone because I just unconsciously turn them all off one after the other I just think it's great I think your ideals are great I think your goals are great it takes a lot of strength and courage to come out from a challenging situation and want to engage in public service to try and make things better not just for yourself but for others so I really applaud and respect you for that and at this time I'd like to make a motion to recommend for full passage motion recommend for passage by

▶ 20:40 Jack Eccles: council Williams seconded by vice chair Karim Chetty on favor all opposed