Our community assessment effort is being led by Ted Trevorrow, who made the report to us based on the meeting held at Longwood Gardens a few weeks ago.
The meeting was attended by a total of 36 community leaders, including municipal officials, police, school administrators, and the leaders of essentially all the non-profits in our community. The needs assessment meeting was the first time all of these people were in the same meeting. Attendees found this alone was helpful as many were able to find points of shared interest and activity as the discussion progressed where they could coordinate services and activities. Ted knew the meeting was going very well when this started to happen. That impression was confirmed when the attendees volunteered they want to attend any other such meetings we organize and said they hope we will organize such meetings.
Dave Haradon led the discussion by asking a series of selected questions of the attendees, Their comments and suggestions were recorded and displayed for all to see, helping the conversation develop. This developed a long list of ideas which Ted, Dave and Karen Ammon have summarized into the following major areas of concern or need:
- Gentrification is good for generating tax revenue and community growth by has the backspin of forcing those with lower incomes out of the community. This needs management.
- Housing affordability is a major issue and is impacting major industries such as mushroom growing by making labor scarce
- Public transit is non-existent, increasing the impact of the housing affordability issue
- The Hispanic residents are being adversely impacted by deportation and immigration issues. They fear talking with the police and interacting with government, and is reducing their opportunities in general.
- Greater community collaboration is needed among service providers. A specific need identified was having a common database to coordinate services among non-profits.
- Child care is very limited. The impact is disruption in the labor market
- Youth issues such as drugs, drinking and vaping are of concern.
The next steps are to develop a list of project ideas built around the areas of concern identified for our membership to choose from. An early idea developed was to select one family each year for Rotarians to mentor. Nothing will be brought to the club for consideration until the list is fully developed.