December 17, 2025 – 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee – Video & Transcript
December 17, 2025 - 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee
We'll call to order the meeting of the 312-521-31, September 17, 2025, with us in the town building,
Ryan Gosia, Bill Brittany, Steve Milburn, and myself, Tom Faye.
Online, we have Stephanie Lynch, and we may be joined later in five hours.
Tonight's meeting is viewable through the Zoom link and will be viewable on WACAM at a later date.
Tonight, we're welcoming Marianne Henry, founder and executive director of the organization Supported Accent Living,
Sabrina Mano, co-founder of the Brantley Tree, and former Wayland resident Gary Cavallo,
and we'll talk about their experiences and work in the area of helping disabled adults in their housing needs.
I'm joined by John Thomas.
We'll consider minutes for our fire meetings on November 13th, and we'll discuss the draft report
completed by Gene Milburn, as well as possibly the request for the photo that was drafted by Bill Witt.
So, when we want a public comment, anyone on the line, why would you give a public comment that you see?
Now, even though, we're joined by Bill Adams, here in the C-way event now. Well, they just couldn't call these folks anyway. They still haven't seen, but I think it's the former. Yeah, it comes more aging. Exactly. Excellent.
It was a nice friend, too. So, seeing no one online for public comment or in the room, we'll move on to item three of our agenda. And I'd like to acknowledge Marianne Henry, again, founder and executive director of the organization Supported Access to Independent Living, also known as SAIL, and by way of background, I reached out to Ms. Henry as a suggestion of a prior attendee of our meetings as someone who might be of help to us to understand what we're exploring. So, Ms. Henry, do you have a sense as to what our committee is all about and what we're pursuing? I did briefly look over the packet. I believe you have four acres at 212, and I'm not even going to try to say it, although I should. Cituate? It's like situate. I should be able to say this. When I saw the name of the road, I was like, oh, you know, there's similarity there. And I think that you are exploring how to create supported housing for adults with intellectual disabilities, how to blend that into the fabric of your community, how to make it integrated, accessible, ADA. That's kind of the high level that I understand. Yeah, that's right. So, if you could tell us about your organization, what you do, how long you've been on, and maybe we can open up to questions, members of the committee. Sure. So, again, my name is Mary Nell Henry, and I'm the executive director of Sail Home. Sail Home is a nonprofit. We received our nonprofit status about two years ago, in October of 2023. Our founders are comprised of parents who have loved ones with IDD and or autism, and also health and human service professionals that have been in this industry for, you know, many, many years. And actually, one is a executive director of South Shore Support Services, which is an agency here that services this population. So, we all have the burning question of what happens to our loved ones when we're no longer able to care for them. And secondarily, how do we ensure our loved ones have full, enriched lives in their own communities? Many of our individuals receive services from DDS. However, they do not qualify for any kind of housing, a.k.a. a group home. If I told you the statistics, you would be blown away, that only 15% of this population over the age of 22 qualifies for a group home, which means the balance of the population really doesn't have any housing options available to them, and they live at home with parents and aging caregivers. And 25% of those parents are over the age of 60. So, it really is a housing crisis. There are many housing crises out there in the landscape, but nobody seems to be able to get this, you know, off the margins and into the center here. So, there are a number of housing entities out there. I think you've spoken to some of them. Branching Tree, I know Dottie Foley, and they're working on it. But getting back to sales. So, two years ago, we got our non-profit status. We were actively, we were trained. We went through four months of training to learn how to create housing through a non-profit out of Chicago called the Center for Independent Futures. And it's a daunting task, but through this training, they break it down into very digestible ways to approach this housing. You know, everything from, do you set up a non-profit, an LLC? How do you fund it? You know, how do you determine who's going to live there? What is your support model? So, in any case, it was very fruitful to us. We found a building here in Scituate in in October of 2023, right as we were filing for our non-profit status. 8,000 square foot building. It is right in North Scituate. So, it has proximity to a town center. It is about 500 yards away from the commuter rail. And it's perfectly nestled into this community. There are properties that surround us that will be under development. There's a whole revitalization in North Scituate. Sewer is actually coming to that part of our community, which will then open up more housing opportunities and all kinds of activity for North Scituate. The other thing is that it, when we purchased the building, we purchased the building through an angel investor, one of our founders. We had community connections with a builder, Bob Shepard of Shepard Construction and Development. Bob is very well respected and known in the South Shore. He used to work for Modern Continental. You know, he has a very strong resume. And he had been working on this with parents prior to COVID. So, we had him come to the building along with an architect that had been also working with our group. And as soon as we walked through the building, it's a one level building. Again, it's 8,000 square feet. It's much like a horseshoe. It sits on less than an acre. But the building itself lended it to an amazing, it just immediately lended itself to a vision of apartments, community space, and possibly lease space. So, we went to work crafting, you know, the architect crafted what would become three apartments. There will be eight bedrooms. Every bedroom counts as an affordable unit because of, you know, we basically function as a group home. We fall under that. So, for affordability, that counts for eight units. Every bedroom counts for a unit. Three bedrooms. Everybody has their own bedroom. Everybody has their own bathroom. Each apartment has its own kitchen. There is two live-in units, which we will have for caregivers. There are a one bedroom and a studio. There is a community space that I would say is about a little less than a thousand square feet. And then the other wing of the building has what will be lease space. We have an office lease actually with South Shore Support Services and another lease space that we're looking for a business, a nonprofit or a business that's aligned with our mission. So, it allowed us, the angel investor allowed us to purchase it. We then had to come up with the construction costs, initially projected at a million. So, I went to the town of Situate with a proposal for CPC funding. Situate had not really spent a good amount of money on affordable housing. We spent a lot of money on recreation and fields and conservation and historical, but they really had not invested in affordability. And they were very much embraced the mission. I have to say I'm very proud to live in this community. My son who has a disability. I had started a foundation when he was eight years old and the community embraced this population. They have done so much. I just, I can't even speak enough about it. But as a result, they approved that million dollars, which allowed us to get up and running with the construction. So, Bob Shepard started the construction. We started out fundraising, writing grants. We received an earmark from Senator Patrick O'Connor, who's our state senator down here for about $25,000. And South Shore Support Services provided us seed money to get off the ground, two of about $250,000. We got going with construction. And sure enough, when you open up that building, when you're doing renovations, you just really don't know. So, of course, the costs went up. And I went back to the town. I went back to the town to ask for more money. And they awarded it another $750,000. All of this, as you know, has to go in front of the town for town meeting and voted on. There was no issue. So, we checked a lot of boxes for the community, eight affordable units. We were under our affordability level for the town. We also checked off MBTA because as an MBTA near a commuter station, there is this multifamily initiative out there by the, you know, the state that they're looking for communities to fulfill those. So, it was advantageous to the town. The land is zoned as a multi-use, end use. So, that was good for us. As a non-profit, with construction and permitting and all of that, we really were able to sail through without a lot of difficulties. We filed under the Dover Amendment, which allows us to move through some of the regulations and permitting processes quickly. So, we started construction in August and we completed it this October.
We, this is private public. We are not getting funding from DDS. The way it works is we do our own, we had our own application process for the eight residents that will live there. Part of our application and a parameter around the application was that the residents would have to live within 15 miles of the development. They have to have DDS services, meaning many of them have community-based day services or day programs. That was a prerequisite. DDS services and also commitment by the families that they will participate and support their resident and all the residents in the community. We had 14 applicants, which we were brand new. So, we only had 14. We got it down to 10 and then we had to go through, we had hired outside assessors in this field to observe. I think it was like 15 hours of observations and interviewing with the 10 residents and drilled it down to the eight that were accepted. Another unique proposition for our development is we are embedding it with enabling and assistive technology. This is something that, you know, DDS is also exploring, but it's happening out there and there's a lot of technology and my son uses some of it that enables, you know, these guys to have more independence. It truly fosters independence. And with the workforce crisis that we currently face, especially in this particular industry, to be able to supplant some of that with technology is helpful. So, when I say technology, we have alarms, you know, throughout the apartments, we have fall alarms, we have overflow water alarms, we have door alarms that can be set in case someone elopes. Obviously, we have fire alarm, we have fire alarm, and we have exterior cameras, and we have interior cameras in common areas. We have many of the individuals that live there do get a service through DDS called remote support monitoring, which is a 24-7, seven-day-a-week platform, much like a tablet, where an individual can reach someone virtually 24-7. That person or that particular agency, South Shore Support is doing it. Also, proactively reach out, reaches out to the individual on a daily basis, a couple times a day to check in. So, for example, for my son, they check in in the morning, good morning, how are you? Is your lunch made? You know, did you take your medication? You know, it's cold out, you need a coat. That's it. And then he goes off to his day program. So, that alleviates the need for an in-person, someone to come in and cue and do all of these things. This is really set up for adults that need support in their individual daily living.
Not high need. We are not 24-7. We are not a clinical. We don't have a nurse on site. So, these are for folks that have the capacity to live independently with some support.
So, that's it. Like right now, we will have a community manager who will oversee the full operations of the building and the residents. We'll have two community builders that will live on site. Again, they're really there to support the residents by check-ins, being there when needed, companionship, getting them out to do grocery shopping, getting them out in the community.
So, those will be the supports that will live on the premises. And we have selected our residents. They're currently transitioning, meaning right now they're spending a lot of time over there. They're meeting each other, developing their friendships. And we plan to have them all move in by March 1st. Money. I think I told you the majority of the money was through CPC, Senator O'Connor with 125,000 in total, uh, philanthropic donations, um, grants. And overall, we've raised, which, you know, 2.5 million in 24 months. The, I'll just, one more financial piece that you should know, um, the sustainability of the project operationally. Okay. So, these guys all receive SSI. They will pay their affordable rent or bring their Section 8 voucher with them, their mobile voucher. Their rent will be about $800 a month. There is an additional fee that is the responsibility of the families. And that is $2,000 a month. And that is to cover operationally, the building, um, the staff, insurance, management. Along with that, we have these two lease spaces. So that brings in income as well. The total income that will be generated on an annual basis is about $300,000. So it does help self-sustain it. Well, that's quite a project. Congratulations on the, uh, the work that you've done. I'd like to open up for questions from members of the committee. Uh, Stephanie, questions? Yes. Very, very interesting. Thank you. Um, as far as, um, are the residents cooking their own meals or how is that handled? Well, they can, they each, each apartment has a full kitchen. There are some smart appliances in there. So they do have the option to cook. Um, they can, that was part of our assessment. They can make their breakfast. All of them independently can make breakfast and lunch dinner. They may need support with that. When I say support, it means just being there, making sure everything's okay. Uh, we anticipate though, that while they have the option to cook their own meals, we have a community room that has a full kitchen and the community manager and the builders will have community dinners a couple of nights a week, but not every night. So no, these, these people are much, barely able to function a lot with that. Just a little supervision. It sounds like no, they, they're not like AFC, um, adult family care level care. Well, they are. My son gets AFC, um, how it's designed because we are not getting funding with DDS. And the reason we didn't go that, like there is no choice involved with DDS. Okay. If you're a priority one, if you even can get that, you don't have a choice where you go. Um, you could be in any community. It's basically wherever there is an opening as much as they try to match you up. Um, I sit on the citizen advisory board for our region or for our area and I go to group homes. So I really have a very clear eye picture of what group homes look like. Some of them are very good, but parents, we want our loved ones with their friends in their community, with the people that have supported them through their life. We don't want to change programs. We don't want to change our health and wellbeing, uh, providers. So this allows us to dictate who goes into the development, not DDS. The residents, the residents do come with all of their, as I call suitcase of services. So everybody has their community-based day services. Some have individual support hours. Some will come with PCA hours. Some will come with ABA and, um, um, you know, and then we have our community builders. So it's kind of, you bring your, your suitcase with you and then we build the supports around you based on your need and what you're bringing. All right. Let's see. Can I just ask, um, who funds the $2,000 a month for services? The parents. Yeah, privately funded. It's privately funded. Okay. If you have a section 8, that offsets a good amount of the cost because that covers based on the market rate of an apartment here. So, um, but many of our residents are on the list and have been for some time. So I think out of all the eight residents, only one has a voucher and we're not even sure if we can use it. Um, it might not be a mobile voucher. Um, he's a mobile voucher. Yeah. I mean, ideally, but not project based. No. Um, so if you were to have, um, get that ever loving mobile voucher, that would be ideal because that would offset pretty much the entire cost. So how do you, how does the housing authority steer the section 8 voucher holder to the group home? Um, we don't again, I don't know for us in situ. Again, there's a list. You have a list. You have a list. And, um, it's a lottery. So there's no guarantee. So again, we function really separately. So we're looking at the, um, the statewide mobile voucher where you can take into any community. It's not a community-based that we could access. Did you consider project based section 8 vouchers? Again, that puts us in a place where we have to have a lottery. We lose the ability to control who is going to live there. Thank you. John Thomas and Yeah. Thank you very much, uh, for the presentation. Very impressive. Um, you mentioned that early on you had a, an angel investor. Yeah. Could you talk about who, who, who actually owns the program? And does, does that person have any ownership or equity in, in the, the, the program? So how does that work? And I'm, I'm assuming there's gotta be some, some kind of a governing body, given what, what you've described so far. Um, transparency. It happens to be one of our founders and they hold the promissory note. Um, it's very friendly. And, um, basically it's, we pay interest right now, interest only at a very friendly rate. And then once it's revenue producing, um, we'll start paying towards the principal. Unless we, you know, if we've got, uh, a million dollars, you know, through any other philanthropic arm, you know, we would pay, pay down a good portion of that note. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for being here this evening. Um, I want to talk more about the organization sustaining itself after the parents are gone. What, what is your transition plan that you've put? After the, what is gone? Excuse me. After what's gone? The parents are gone. Oh. So we have, um, very robust service agreements with the families. Part of that service agreement is not only the parents, you have to, um, you have to name another person. So with the, except like the legal guard, there are many of the parents are the legal guardians, but we ask for a co-guardian, so to speak. So again, many of these families have siblings, the individuals have siblings. So it's whoever that person is, or if they have no one, then I currently have, um, I have a family that's looking into because they're aging, uh, a professional guardian. You can actually go out and find, um, find, um, a co-guardian, um, a legal person that will be responsible for your loved one. If you're no longer there to do so. Thank you. I had two questions. One is about location. So for the group that, that you're supporting, they seem to be a pretty high functioning, relatively speaking, group of people with intellectual disability. And, um, how does being close to public transport and a village say, uh, play into things versus maybe being a mile and a half out of town in a somewhat wooded space? Like, um, it does, it does impact, I would say none of our residents drive, none of them hold jobs. Um, they go to CBDS programs. We will have, we will have a van and have some transportation, but some of these CBDS programs do already provide transportation. The program comes and gets them and takes them to their program, but we will also have a vehicle. Um, the commuter rail is great. Um, if you know, a group of them want to go into Boston, that's, that's terrific. We also have local transportation situate through the GATRA and which is our local, you know, that'll come and take you to the grocery store or, um, to the barber shop or wherever you want to go within, you know, situate. Um, many of them also have been testing and also use the ride program and Uber. The ride program actually has programs for, um, individuals with special needs. So again, it's putting together, cobbling together different sources of support. Thank you. And so my second question is, um, about foundations or funding that's available to do some of this innovative technology that you were talking about. Um, say you found a developer that wanted to build something, but then you wanted to add some cutting edge technology that might save some money or be innovative. Are those foundations out there or is that a, and they are, I can't begin to tell you, I spent a lot of my time researching grants, um, and you can find them. Um, I would say that many of them now are getting really stressed because there's so much, you know, less funding, um, public funding. So, uh, we were fortunate because the remote support monitoring program that we're employing that's handled by South for support services, which is a DDS funded program. And I would say that, I mean, for the builder, if you're talking about builder, putting in technology, I did that. It's not huge amount of money. Um, you know, doing the wiring, if you're doing all that infrastructure, that's not huge. Some of this technology to be perfectly honest is like not super expensive or doesn't require a lot of infrastructure to do it. You know, you're talking about, um, door alarms, you can Honeywell, they're 50 bucks a pop. I mean, it's not, it's technology and you have to be learned. You have to be able to learn and schooled in how to manage all of these platforms. But, um, like I found, we found a security company, Basco that did all of it and they did all the programming and that was part of our, you know, our build with our developer was this was incorporated into it. But I would, you know, I'm, I personally haven't gone out to look for that, um, big grant money on that, but there are people out there. Would you say this one follow up question, would you say this level of technology is now standard of care or is it still like, should we be really looking to that as a requirement, not an option? I would tell, I would tell you to look at these two things. Um, there's an outfit called simply home and this is what they do. And they're based down in, I believe, North Carolina and they work with this population. They have implemented technology, um, for this population all across the country. Um, it's happening. It has become part of the repertoire of support because health and human service workers. I mean, you can't get them. We don't pay them enough. They're transient. It's, it's really difficult. So we're leaning into other things like assistive technology. So there's simply home. There's another outfit called safe in home and there's another outfit called night owl and night owl, for example, only looks to, um, a service like overnight for folks that need that overnight. And many of these technologies came from, um, the elder population. So it's here. Um, this population is using it and I can attest to you that it does work for some, uh, your, uh, your command of, uh, of the whole process of putting one of these together is certainly impressive. Um, I curious about, uh, sort of the capital costs, uh, you indicated that there was about 1,750,000, uh, available from CPC and another 125,000 from a state earmark. Yes. So is, was your total project cost something on the order of 1,875,000 plus the land cost? Uh, it probably eked up to about 200, the actual cost for 8,000 square foot. We took it down to the actual studs. I mean, everything is new, 93 new windows, all new electric, all new plum. Again, every, every, every bedroom has a bathroom. Um, we have two, we have one fully ADA accessible unit. The building itself, like the community room, um, is ADA accessible. Um, two of the apartments, there is actually, I said one level, but there's one that's like, uh, a second floor unit. Um, but, um, yeah, two million plus the acquisition cost. And, uh, how, how did you finance the pre-development costs, uh, the, the architectural, the legal, uh, uh, things to get it to a point where you're able to execute a construction contract? The, um, we had some seed money from South shore support services, sale home in order to get our nonprofit status started out as a subsidiary of this agency. And then they gave us the seed money. And then one year later, we decoupled. Um, and it was the right thing to do because doing creative supportive housing doesn't, it's a bit of a risk and it doesn't really align with, um, some of our agencies, you know, they're 90% funded through DDS and DDS. There's just a lot of rules and regulations and not that we don't follow best practices. I follow all of them, but, um, it's very regulatory. And again, I can't emphasize enough. If, if we were to work with DDS, they would determine who lived there.
And how many of the residents, uh, you anticipate moving into the place will be family members or associated with, uh, board members of, uh, uh, sale home. We had out of the eight, we have three that are, are individuals of the founders.
And the last question, um, in terms of, uh, the sort of long-term support, uh, you indicated that you have these, uh, service agreements with, uh, the families, uh, the parents, um, and, uh, uh, a second party who's presumably would be able to step in their shoes. Would that second party, uh, also be responsible for the $2,000 monthly payment or whatever it, it, it. Yes. Yes. So again, these service agreements, um,
they have to sign them as well. Whoever they, they determine as a secondary person, they're also a part of this agreement. Right. And do you look to the financial capacity of, uh, the, the people who are, um, essentially signing on the dotted line for their loved ones? Um, we do. These are one-year leases. I would also tell you that, that this is a lease agreement. So it's a one-year lease. Again, we have very robust terms in our lease. Um, so there are parachutes for both sides. And, uh, final question. How important was it that, uh, the, uh, that you have a patient investor on the, on the land? That is to say, how important was it that, uh, you didn't need to really finance, uh, the, the land cost as a part of the total project cost? It was big. Um, we had explored, um, financing, you know, while we were doing our research, there are funders out there, friendly funders to nonprofits. Um, and there was one, the disability opportunity fund, um, that we had conversations with, um, our problem was that, um, we didn't have, we needed 50% assets. We needed 50% of the capital. So that was problematic. Um, we worked with mass development too. Um, but we were fortunate. We had an investor, they were willing to step up because that would have taken a lot of time. Um, and we were anxious to get going with the project. Thanks very much. Sam, I've got a few questions for you. My first question is, you mentioned an organization in Chicago that was very helpful to you. Wasn't you with that group again? It's, I can email you the link, but it's the Center for Independent Futures. Okay. Out of Chicago. And they train hundreds of, they've trained hundreds of families across the country on how to create housing. And I've spoken to, you know, housing entities all over the country. Um, that was just part of our research and development. And then, you know, we just tried to, we took pieces of here, there, and everywhere to create our own model. You guys are probably familiar with Mainstay. Are you? Mm-hmm. Yes. They did come and speak with us. We, I'm, I would say that sale home is very much a mirror of that. Um, we, we have a lot of similarities. They're not DDS funded. Um, it's private pay. Um,
yeah, they're very, very similar models. They have live-in help, but again, it's not necessarily 24-7. It's not a clinical, it's not priority one. The needs are medium. Um, so in your research and creating conversations with the organization in Chicago, did you learn of a trend nationally or even regional on shared living environments or, or to put it another way, housing for adults with disabilities? Is there a trend one way or the other? Not necessarily. Um, if you mean just globally, yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're surfacing everywhere because the need is so great. So there are a lot of, um, community-based housing entities that are, that are being built everywhere across the country because there's just, the capacity is not there. Um, and there's many different ways and models to do this. Um, some, I think, uh, with somebody on here from Branching Tree, they're doing a shared living model. Again, that's a DDS type of model. Um, um, but we are not at this point aligning ourselves with DDS as far as any kind of funding. Can you tell us the age range of the residents will be living in the facility? It's in situate, correct? Correct. Um, we, our application was for ages 24 to 36. Our current residents are between 28 and 34. Okay. And, um, um, we like this building. I think it's super important to do an age in place if we were to ever, you know, and we will do another one. Um, it will be an age in place and one level. Um, we will, this building, if anybody ever wanted to take a look at, I'd be happy to tour it with you. I think one of the things that's really special is everybody gets their own bedroom and their own bathroom. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is a big deal. Um, we try to provide dignity, um, to our residents and, um, it really, it lends itself perfectly to replication. If I could just pick it up and put it in another community, I would do just that. And I like that we have lease space. If there's, if you ever look at a model and there's any way to integrate something that is a business that is aligned with the population where they can work there or, um, do a gym class there. I mean, it's perfect. And your vision to start another one, are you focused on the south shore only or not necessarily? Um, I, right now we're pretty committed to the south shore. I will tell you that this whole thing, we have a team now. I have a developer who's, you know, he's done it with us. He's committed to it. So we really have a team. Um, and so I feel like that's where we will, you know, when you're building all your community assets, you want to keep them in the community. If town of Wayland had an RFP that organizations like yours to submit an application, would you consider Wayland or just too far away? Honestly, it's too far. I would, if you had a group, like if you had an entity or a group of families that wanted to do this, I would be willing to consult with them and guide them. I do that now, like through our training, we now train, um, cohorts of families, um, through the NFI. Um, we went through it as founders, but now I, um, they've trained me. So I now train cohorts of families on how to start to look at it and build their particular pathway to housing for their loved ones. And is the vision that the residents that will live in this facility, is it the vision that they will grow old in that facility? Is that a hope or a possibility? I think it's a possibility and I think they can. Um, but it may also just be a stepping stone for some of these residents to, again, they've all been living at home. They're in their thirties. This is their first opportunity to have some independence. And I can say that there are a number of them that this will be a stepping stone for them to possibly get their own apartment with a friend, um, and with some supports, um, if that's what they so choose to do. You mentioned this already, but to what extent is staff involved in this facility? Overnight staff, um, staff during the day, morning hours, evening hours? There's always somebody there 24 seven. There will always be a person on site. Um, the community builders, it's really a shift type of thing, um, where the residents are out of the building from 8am to 3 or 4pm. So the community builders are really there for support and supervision and companionship from 4pm to 10pm. And then it's kind of like a lights out and they'll probably do a check in, make sure everybody's settled in for the evening and then weekends. So those are really the shifts that we're, we're filling. Um, they do live on site, so we do not charge them for rent. We pay them and we, we have a nominal rental payment. Um, but they live there and then they could theoretically, they could have another job during the day. We had the commission of mass ability with us last week. And one of the points she made was her desire to see these homes be innovative and have a real sense of home for the residents. It sounds like that's one goal that your organization is trying to achieve. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they're beautiful. They're really, the apartments are beautiful. I'll just share with you a little bit. Cause I think it's really important. The community is everything. Um, we were able to get, um, a local painter. Okay. Painted the entire building in and out for free. That's $50,000. We had, um, an appliance, George Toma donated all the appliance. That's six suites of kitchens donated. We had court furnishings. They're a Haywood or, um, Berkshire Hathaway. They're, they have a philanthropic arm where they give you furniture for free. So they're beautiful. I've had so many, we had 300 people go to our open house and they're like, I would live here. Um, so that, and also the outreach from the community that has said, I'd like to volunteer. I want to come in and teach a cooking class. You know, I want to come in and do yoga with your, you know, your residents. I've had people come in and say, you know what, what if we did an integrated, you know, we'll do a movie night. So, um, can't highlight enough that it's a community buy-in. In your lease space, not housing space. Is there a goal of leasing that space to a particular type of organization or not really? Well, one of the lease spaces is an office space and that's for South Shore support services. It's about, I don't know, 700 square feet. That's an office. It's actually going to house that remote support monitoring office, the call center. The other space, I had a tenant. Um, it was a perfect tenant. Uh, he does, um, health and well-being for this population. He has a gym in Brockton and he wanted to expand, but he couldn't do it. Um, so we're currently looking for the appropriate, um, for the appropriate tenant. Um, it would be ideal if it's a nonprofit. Um, but it doesn't have to be as long as it's aligned with what we're doing. There could be something that, you know, offers our residents jobs.
You have eight units at this, at this site. And the reason you can have eight is because you're not working closely with DDS. Is that one of the rules that you understand exists that would limit you probably to five? Yeah, there is, there's a lot and that that's kind of been out there. It's the Olmstead Act where, um, there is a regulation about how many people can live together. Um, and that was the result of deinstitutionalizing, but I have to say that, um, we haven't run up against that. I think that's even DDS and they're like a little softer in that respect because there are fair housing laws too that override some of that. Um, but yeah, and, um, that's, I don't mean to be, but that's a part of the privatization of this gives us a lot more freedom to, um, determine who lives there, what it's going to look like. Bill, um, are you finished? I'm done. Okay. Uh, question about new construction versus renovation. Could you have pretty much done the same thing if you had just been given the land or how do you balance the costs? Yeah. Well, um, we couldn't really pass it up because the location and the actual, the building itself just lended it to it. That's what the builder was all about. Um, this builder and the architect have actually, uh, before COVID they had drawn up architectural renderings. Um, if we were to do a build and, um, I think, you know, we're trying to work on something with the town of Hingham where we can lease, um, a plot of land from the town and then do a build. Um, and I think the build will be less expensive for the same amount of square footage, just because we've done it. You're not renovating it, tearing it up, demoing it. I think we've heard that from people too. They prefer to do new construction if they can. I would, I don't like, I mean, we did it, it was great, but I have a lot of people come to me with building prospects, you know, and I think a lot about age in place and they, they show me, you know, um, homes that are, you know, second level, third level. It's like, that's not really going to work long-term. Stephanie or John, any questions, a follow-up question though? No, I don't think so. I just had a quick follow-up and I'm sorry if you, you already responded when, um, Bill was, was covering this, but just in terms of the capital costs, how much did the angel investor put on the table? And I'm sorry, did you say that there, there was community preservation funding as part of it? Yes. So the land acquisition, it was 1.6. Okay. So that, the, uh, the angel investor purchased it. Okay. And how much did you get from the town? CPC was 1.75 million. Okay. Okay. And then O'Connor, Senator O'Connor earmarked was 125. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Anybody in the room have any follow-up? Um,
now Ms. Henry, do you have any questions for us? Do you have families that are pushing this? Is there a group of families or is this just a town initiative or your community are looking to create housing for adults with disabilities? That's correct. Tommy voted to utilize, uh, some or all of this land for that purpose. That's great. Um, that's great. Any other questions?
You good? I don't think so. Where, where do you stand in the project? You're doing a lot of exploratory. Do you have a developer? Um, No. So our committee is charged with advising, recommending best use of the land to the select board and the select board will consider recommendations and possibly issue an RFP for projects of some sort. So that's, that's kind of the process.
Great. Well, if you have families that are looking to organize to work with you, if this project does, you know, go to fruition, I would be happy to work and consult with them or speak with them. Excellent. Thank you for that suggestion. And thank you for your time this evening. You've been extremely helpful to us for understanding, um, the type of projects that are out there and, and you're a wealth of knowledge and, um, recall upon you in the future. Uh, um, hopefully we won't be a burden. No, I hope I was helpful. That's, that's all good. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Happy holidays, everyone. Thank you. You too. You too. Bye-bye.
So comments on, on that project, anybody? Great. She obviously has embraced it in a very professional way and just become an expert, you know, got herself trained and is really, yeah, figured out how to mobilize all these people. Very impressive. It's clear a project like that needs a strong leader. You know, it's one thing to have a group of families who would like to do it, but you've got to have somebody like that who commits to being the project manager. And it was nice to hear the town was supportive. I think Situate at one point was one of our peer towns. And what I mean by that is as far as size and other factors. I'm not sure it is today, but I think at some point it used to be. It's similar, similar to Whalen in some respects. Other comments on your topic? Yeah, I think it's interesting that she's kind of a bandit, you know, that don't want to get bogged down in regulation. And I know how that can be, and working in public housing. But, um, so I, I kind of admire her for redemption of, uh, doing this on their own and without government regulation and, uh, and the funding that comes along with that. But I, I do wonder long-term, I mean, she's very dynamic. Right now they have a dynamic board or whatever it is. And how that would work in the long term and these service agreements with, uh, guidance. And, uh, it seems like that could much rather work long-term. I mean, I suppose you could terminate the lease if the Guardian doesn't come up with the $2,000. Uh, but I know everybody signs on to be a Guardian and then they kind of disappear. When, when the pedal hits the metal. But, um, but I, I do admire her, uh, individuality and entrepreneurship. I grew up. I grew up in Needham and the Charles River organization. It's not far from where I did a lot of and what struck me as I was going down was how invested that organization was. And, um, in the town, people really respected the organization and, uh, was into play. I wonder whether that will happen in the situation that this project will be respected and people want to be involved in it and will work hard and make sure it's accessible. Well, you know, she said that they, applicants had to live within 15 miles of the project. So you're getting a focused group of the local identity bringing to the project. It's going to get much more community support than if you've got people coming from 200 miles. It would, when that, we, the Housing Authority built, um, a unit on Plain Road. It was amazing. She was talking about donations. Uh, we, it was built with the students from Mantech and, uh, so that saved a lot of money. But, um, you know, a lot of the plumbing was donated, furnaces, um, kitchens. So it was, it's amazing. People wanted to donate, uh, to this project, uh, I was impressed with that. I think that spirit's still around. You know, it's interesting what she said, that they were able to find 14 applicants within 15 miles. So, um, the population down there is probably a little lighter than it is here. Maybe not. Um, maybe not. But, um, it kind of gives us a bit of a, um, you know, metric, if you would. Mm-hmm. There's, there's a lot of water in that 15 miles, right? Yeah.
These have been a bloody storm. You're saying that one of the publicans are the normal weather.
Um, I think that's, I think I agree with you. That's, that's pretty impressive. The, the fact that they were able to come up with that number of people in such a short period of time that were willing to commit to putting $2,000 a month on, on the table. Um, impressive. But the individuals that applied appear to be relatively high functioning. When you get, you get that sense shown, they get. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But by the same token, they don't drive. And they, from taking her at her word, they, they don't have full-time employment.
So, Brian, you mentioned, uh, you had a question about the $2,000. So, is the $2,000 a month, is your understanding $2,000 a month is for, so their, their adult child can move there, but it can be offset at some point if they get Section 8? Was that your understanding? Well, I, I think, I see it as being separate from the housing voucher, but, uh, okay. Because you said $800 a month, $800 for rent plus $2,000. You got $1,500 from Section 8 and that would drop your $2,000. Okay. That's what I heard. Yeah. Other comments? But, uh, that, there would be the, the fee for, the $2,000 isn't part of that? The fee for the live-ins and that kind of the services? I wonder how much that is, um, is that? The, the shortfall from DBS, maybe? I got the sense from her. I think she did answer that, but they, they pay for the staffing from that $2,000 a month, times four, times eight. Times eight, so. Which would make sense. I mean, you could do that. So if, maybe if they got a Section 8, that would reduce it by $800 a month, maybe? And then they'd still have to come up with $1,200. Uh, the family would have to come up with $1,200 if they got a Section 8. But she didn't give a breakdown as to how many of those eight residents had vouchers either. I mean, we didn't press her and she didn't specify. So we don't, we haven't, don't have any idea what the breakdown is. I was also going to just say, and just to piggyback, I think Tom, you said this also, uh, that it does, uh, illustrate the amount of support in the community that they were able to go, go to the town for 1.7 million in community preservation funds. And you don't just go to your state legislator and get $125,000 state earmark. I can tell you that from personal experience. I mean, it, it takes it, you, you, you need to have political capital to be able to do that. So they clearly have community support. Well, I just thought it was a couple of observations. Uh, one is they're on sort of the exact opposite side of the table for NOS in terms of where the property owner, right. And they're the, uh, they are whoever we ended up working with, by God willing, we'll be in their shoes. Uh, but also aside from the, the land cost, the land share of the project cost was publicly financed. Uh, so it gives you a sense of how involved it is to put these things together, you know, money is a fair chunk of it is available to meet the capital costs. So then the challenge is the operating, whether it, you know, it's sort of client-based support, public support in terms of SSI or state money or section eight vouchers or whatever. So
it's complicated. It was interesting that her estimate of $300,000 is above what we heard about the 350 from high spirit, which for this level of, um, service is 300 to 350 per year. Yeah. It's very, very consistent. So their number is based on three residents. Right. But they have a high spirit. Oh, well, I think he was speaking about the Great Barrington site. Maybe not. Yeah. That's right. Oh, that's true. Yeah. I'm sorry, I saw you were referring to it. And I feel like he also said it didn't really matter if you added, like, the total number of people. Right. But it was kind of the same cost in almost a moment. Yeah. Um, because of the people time in that's cost. Um, our next, uh, guest doesn't arrive until 745, so I want to, uh, bounce to two other agenda items. Now, the first is item four in our packet. We have minutes for the meetings of the meeting from November 13th, 2025 and December 3rd, 2025. Happy to entertain the motion for approval of those minutes. So moved. I have a second. Thank you. Thank you. So, uh, Whitney, Bill Adams, any discussion on the minutes? There are none in favor of approval of the minutes. Uh, Stephanie. Hi. John, Bill Adams. Yes. Bill Ritten. Yes. Brian, motion? Aye. Yes. Tom Fedde, yes. Um, unanimous vote. Uh, thank you. Next, I'd like to move on to, um, a report, draft report that, um, Gene Milburn was kind enough to put together. It's also in our packet. Um, like, uh, open it up, uh, comments, um, uh, on it, uh, suggestions for additions, subtractions, um, and we'll start with John, anything, John? I have to admit that I have not had a chance to review it. Okay. Stephanie? Stephanie? It's wonderful. I was so impressed with it. And, um, and, uh, I think it caught a lot of the spirit of what we've been talking about. And I, I don't have any particular, uh, changes to think of right at this moment now. Um, Bill Adams?
Nothing right now, but can I have a little more time? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no. Do you want me to respond to you independently by email before the next meeting or wait till the next meeting? Whatever the method the chair prefers. You know, I, I, I, I think, um, That's to do it at the meeting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll, I'll give that some more thought. I think that's, that's course. So, what are you thoughts? Uh, well, I thought the, uh, the format was, was excellent. And, uh, they, it's a very good armature, if you will. Um, I think that it might be helpful for the select board to have a little more background about the, uh, the, the fact that, uh, there's a very substantial need, uh, that there is a wide variety of, um, potential or rather a wide variety of, uh, disability types and, uh, extent of the disability and that, um, that the committee is, um, cognizant of that, but that we're not not, uh, deliberately making a recommendation as to which population to serve specifically. Um, you know, unlike, uh, our, our prior speaker, they had a very specific population in mind, uh, fairly high functioning people and so forth. Uh, whereas the, uh, some of the models that we've heard are, uh, differed in that some are higher functions, some are people with, uh, more civil disabilities and, and it's maybe well to sort of point out the fact that it, it, it's perhaps a good idea to keep an open mind as it were about those responses and to invite responses from, uh, proponents, uh, serving basically different resident populations. I, I, I, I, I, I agree with those comments. My question, Bill, is does it make sense to suggest some sort of preference, uh, uh, uh, how I would think that, that might not be the right word, it's not a recommendation, but, but, but the sense of the committee that this type of model would be more ideal than this, and this more ideal than this, was that pretty much doing the same thing? You know, my own thinking has evolved as we've gone through this process, and I'm just, I'd be very interested in time permitting to hear each of the members of the committee sort of articulate their view of what an ideal partner would be or an ideal development would be. I think that's a good idea, so I'll put that on the agenda for next meeting. Yeah, I, I, I thought it's very well done. It's all the salient points. Well, the topics we've been, uh, discussing, um, uh, it's interesting that, uh, affordable housing consideration is under Section 8. That wasn't planned, even though I do have a sense of humor. But, uh, I just wanted to convey to this committee that the Housing Authority Board met last week and discussed briefly, um, this 212 particular road, and their recommendation is for, we don't talk about the numbers of units again, but their recommendation would be given the size of the site to maximize, uh, what gets, gets the bill there as far as affordable housing goes, because this is a rare opportunity, uh, for the, for affordable housing. And they felt that 8 to 12 is a small number given the size of the parcel, so they wanted me to convey that to you. Right. Thank you. My concern with that recommendation is, I'm not, based on what I've wanted to speak for myself, but I'm not sure that reflects what's best for the residents that we want to house. You follow me in other words. More isn't always better. Yeah. In some communities, I think this is one. Yep. And, well, they, they also mention that maybe if you have a multi-use, uh, development there, uh, the group home and maybe some affordable housing built into it, so it wouldn't just be a group home. It was nice to hear, um, um, um, Ms. Henry that all the units in that object are all considered, uh, towards affordable housing. That's true. And they're, uh, they're a non-profit. So, uh, Jean, any, any questions for us, or comments from your project? Um, well, I'm, I'm glad that everybody is taking this draft calmly. I haven't directed it, stepped in any beer traps here. Um, you know, it really is fairly bare bones at this, because we haven't come to any strong conclusions. We're all evolving as we hear more and more. Um, I, I do like the idea of helping the select board understand, um, it's less, there's such a huge population with all these different needs. I mean, we're going to serve somebody, but we really have to be driven more by the competence of the organizations who would make this happen than by the subset of the disabled population who will be served. And so, I didn't know we'd be doing that when I first started on this journey. I really thought, oh, we'll decide to do an autism house, or we'll do an MS house, or we'll do a IDD house, or whatever. Um, so yeah, I'll find a way of building that in. Uh, I, I do think it would be, so I have looked it over now. Um, it would be helpful though, to describe the potential, you kind of what Phil was saying. Um, uh, in, in my field, we call them use cases, but like, um, vignettes, like a potential, like, what could it look like? Because they haven't sat through all the meetings that we've sat through. And, you know, I could imagine, uh, affordable housing for functional people with jobs who need affordable housing. I could imagine, um, relatively high functioning people who especially benefit from walkability to public transport, but also with some busing transportation support could live there as well. And that's kind of what we just heard. And then there's the, you know, high intensity, medically complex, mostly stay in one place, but I'll sometimes move around type of scenario that with the group home that we've heard about. And then somehow to teaching this, the select people about the, the complexity, the financial complexity of these things. And we can't cover everything, but what are key considerations or what are, um, features that make a success? What did we learn from all these people who spoke with us about the features that make them sustainable or successful or something like that? Is that too much to put in their document? I'm going to put a Pandacy through four.
You know what, Bill, and riffing, riffing on that a little bit also, I think it might be helpful for the select board to hear from our experience, hearing from all of these folks.
I, I, I'm not quite sure how, how this would look, but to give them some kind of recommendations as to, again, sort of building on what you said, if we, if, if the select board were to consider this particular model, it would come with these particular risks and challenges and degrees of complexity, right? I mean, we've, we've seen such a wide array of presentations and different types of models. And I think we've all sort of been thinking sort of the same questions, how complicated is this, right? Um, you know, what, what we just heard, I think we could agree is a pretty complicated, pretty sophisticated model, right? I mean, and there, there aren't a lot of them out there. So I think, you know, that the complexity level meter for that would be pretty high. Um, the, the degree of sophistication needed to pull it off would be pretty high versus say the traditional group home model, which has been tried and true for a long time. And it would come with a, with a lower, lower threshold. Uh, and you know, another, another consideration, build time. I'm, I'm sort of kicking myself that I didn't ask her, how long did, did it take you to sort of get this project off the ground from soup to nuts? How much time did it take? Um, I don't, I don't know if we're in a position to, to make a recommendation on that, but yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, a user's guide to all, all of the things that the select board should probably consider when looking at these different models would be helpful. My only comment is, um, possibly a section on the history, um, relative to town meaning and, and even the amendment of town meaning is to, you know, about history that might be helpful to throw in there. But I see our guest is here, but just a couple additional thoughts. One is, um, it might be well to, uh, uh, suggest to the select board, uh, that it, uh, be, uh, flexible in its, uh, uh, in how, uh, the land is valued and what cost would be, uh, it could reasonably be afforded by a developer, i.e. I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't want to create an expectation that this will be sold to market value and, uh, give some advice that, uh, the board ought to be flexible in thinking about the consideration that it would expect, uh, but rather think about what's needed to make the numbers work. Uh, and also, uh, should we think about recommending criteria to the board? What, what's the relative importance of accommodating Whalen residents that would sort of cut against the typical DDS model, uh, experience, uh, number of residents that are going to be accommodated, that kind of thing. Okay. Just thinking as a select board member, getting the same kind of cold, we put up this RFP, how are we going to judge what we get back? Yeah. So I'm going to, uh, interrupt our discussion and, and, uh, welcome Sabrina Mano to our meeting. Is it Mano or Mano? It's Mano. Thank you for asking. Certainly. You're co-founder of 193. Um, um, welcome. Nice to have you here. As I think you have a sense our committee's been around since August of this year and we're exploring, um, uh, options and ideas for developing housing for adults with disabilities on a four-acre parcel here in Whalen. Town meeting has authorized the select board to develop the property, some of it for that purpose. And our committee is charged to recommend, um, ideas to the select. So your presence here tonight is very helpful to us. And, uh, uh, uh, when you introduce yourself, tell us about your organization and, uh, uh, anything else you'd like to tell us. Um, thank you for, uh, having me. So Branching Tree is, um, a nonprofit that, um, is relatively new within this year. Um, and we are basically creating a, uh, an inclusive shared living community that will, um, end up housing a total of nine adults, um, with disabilities and nine non-disabled adults under what is called a shared living model. So within DDS, there are three major models, um, that are available for adults with disabilities who qualify. There's, um, group homes, there's shared living, and then there's also self-directed, uh, self-directed is when, um, an individual may remain at home or, uh, the family purchases some type of, uh, an accessory unit or an apartment where they provide a, around the clock caregiver depending on the level of needs and supports that are required. So that self-direction basically means that the funding goes from DDS to the family to help, um, organize, coordinate, and pay for the support and services that that individual would receive. Group homes, um, you may be familiar. Group homes are basically, um, congregate care, um, and can house anywhere from sometimes three adults. And I've heard as many as six adults, um, in a group home with round the clock staff. Um, these are staff that are, um, none of them live there. They are, um, staff who are paid and they're shift staff. So they come in usually three different shifts during the day. And again, depending on the level of need for the individuals that live there, um, the supports can range anywhere from, you know, uh, for individ, individuals with disabilities to one adult, to one adult with disabilities requiring one full-time person, um, helping, assisting, monitoring them. Um, and then the last is shared living. Shared living in the traditional sense is when, um, um, anyone, uh, individuals in the community, anyone can raise their hand and say, I would like to, um, have an individual with disabilities come and live in my home and you pay me the money, DDS, and I will arrange for their care and their services while they're living here under my roof. It could be a family. It could be an individual. So those are the three available models through DDS. What we're doing is we're actually creating a little bit of a hybrid of that. Um, typically shared living is only made available to individuals with disabilities who are much higher functioning. Um, they don't have as many, um, um, support needs. Um, and so they are able to access a less restrictive environment. What we're saying is that in our shared living situation, we are going to have individuals that live there in the home that are getting paid a salary or stipend to be their, their family of caregivers, living with them alongside them. But we want to, we're layering in the supports of a group home, which means that if an individual has a higher level of needs, they may get, um, additional staff person during the day that's brought in. If they have medical complexities, um, they may get nursing assistance through a VNA who comes in and helps with changing medical supplies or, um, medications, things like that. Um, so it's with those layered supports in a less restrictive setting. We are not the first ones to do this. Um, there has been an organization out in, uh, Western Mass, who I believe you met with Bob Swain, High Spirit Community Farm, who's been doing this for 12 years as a pilot model under DDS. Um, it remains a pilot model because DDS has not formally created it as its own housing category. So we are, um, we have gone a little bit different route, um, than I think some of the other groups who are hoping to do this. We decided rather than seeking land and building something, it would be much faster for us to go and purchase a property that had a home on it and then build that property out to add two additional homes. So in our case, we're starting with one house already. Um, we've purchased the property. We've already received zoning board approval to, um, uh, build two additional structures on the property. It's about a 12 and a half acre lot. And we are in the process right now of contracting with our different agencies, um, who are licensed through DDS to supply the staff, the training, the billing, the policies and compliances to make sure that DDS is comfortable with the level of support and provision that's going to occur in our model. So there it is in a nutshell. Just wondering, um, you're talking about three residences and talking about DDS, but that doesn't that come up against the, um, they're having too many people in the same area? No, the, the maximum right now is a total of nine individuals, um, within the same property, property or, um, uh, in the case of high spirit farm, they ended up purchasing three properties next door to each other. Um, because it's shared living, you can have nine. Yes. So we can have nine, um, nine individuals with disabilities living there together on the same property. Um, there are, um, in the case of group homes, um, in some cases it's as few as three and in some cases it's up to six in a group home. Um, however, I will say that DDS is, has recently made some, um, uh, concessions in the sense of there is a new property going into Needham where I believe they're going to have something like an 85 unit apartment building, um, where individuals that are much higher functioning can navigate taking a bus or the train, maybe even having a job, you know, part-time or full-time will be living in an 85 unit building together, which goes against the traditional DDS rules and guidelines. But because of the, because of the housing shortage, they're allowing it. And did, what are they, what is DDS actually going to provide as far as, um, support for a living situation like that? And what, what would be the criteria for the residents? Um, would it be hard to qualify for that? Um, uh, I don't think it would be hard to qualify for. I think that, um, the fewer supports that are needed, the less costly it is for DDS. Um, my understanding is that they will have some level of onsite, um, supervision, someone that they can check in with like a front help desk. There might even be nursing onsite. Um, just again, to remind the residents, did you take your medications today? Or if you're running low, come check in here, we'll help you with medications. So in that particular scenario, because a lot of these individuals are working part time, DDS is actually going to be charging them back rent, a very nominal amount of rent, um, that will help to cover the cost of the onsite supports that they're going to receive. Um, and those onsite supports are what DDS would be paying for.
So not the residents, but the supports. And I, I do think that because it's such a nominal amount of rent, um, that DDS is somehow subsidizing the cost of that. Um, my, my guess is they're probably going to have to modify or update the apartment building to some degree. I don't know if the town of Needham is doing that. I don't know if Charles River Arc is doing that, but my guess is that there would need to be some level of updating. Um, required to meet DDS regulations. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Jean, questions? Um, back to your, your model. Um, so nine adults and then nine adults who are not disabled. What's the housing unit situation? Does everyone have their own unit? And, or how does that work? So really this is designed to be, if you think of like a, a cul-de-sac with three homes on it, it's really designed to be almost like a neighborhood community. There will be three homes. Each home will be somewhere in the area of 2,500 to 4,000 square feet. Um, it will have a total of six bedrooms. Um, those six bedrooms will be occupied by the three adults with disabilities. Two of the bedrooms will be what are called, um, the live-in resident co-workers. And then the, the sixth bedroom will be what's called the householder. The householder is the, um, house manager for the house. So they handle all the bill, the utilities, paying the bills, supplying the house, the schedules, um, uh, medication supervision. And then you have the two live-in resident, uh, co, uh, co-residents. They're really, um, more charged with the day-to-day support with daily living skills, making sure that, um, the adults with disabilities are getting, um, in and showered and doing their, um, hygiene routines, that they are getting their meals during the day, and then also assisting with transitioning them to a daytime program where it may be that they're picked up by, uh, a van, or they may actually go out in a van, um, that would be owned by us. And they may go out and do a combination of, um, volunteer work, recreational activities, and also enrichment activities. Some of those will be out in the community, like they might be, um, volunteering for meals on wheels, delivering meals. They might be volunteering at the food pantry, packing, um, bags of food. They might be going to the YMCA and doing swimming. Um, go to the library out in the community for a meal, go out to the store, and they have a list of groceries that they are going to be tasked with finding and bringing them back to, to make their sandwiches for lunch. So there's an educational component of it, which is ongoing education of mastering those daily living skills, mastering kind of daily life and activities, and continuing to enrich them so they have a meaningful day experience. So these aren't people going to a day program there. You have it right there. The day program is built in, um, but we definitely want, um, a big part of it will be going out in the community rather than just keeping them, you know, kind of hidden away on the property. Um, where this is, this community model is really about ensuring that long after all of the, the parents have passed away, that these young adults are embraced by the community. Um, they see them out at the grocery stores, they see them at the restaurants, at the library, and that they are, um, um, you know, continuing to, to support and interact with them.
John Thomas, any questions? Um, yeah, Sabrina, thank you very much for speaking to us. Um, so this was really a, a parent sort of created and driven, sounds like a passion project. Could you talk a little bit about how it all came to be? I'm assuming somebody didn't just snap their fingers one day and, and that this concept was black and white there, there in front of you. How, how did you, uh, get to know each other, develop a relationship? Uh, you know, and could you talk a little bit about how long that took from inception to where we are, uh, today? Sure. Um, great questions. Uh, so, so yes, because this is a, um, newer pilot type model that's really only been, um, proven with one, um, you know, there are, there are other communities out there. They're not in Massachusetts. There's Camp Hill communities. There's some in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York. Um, but not those options don't exist here. DDS, um, are really facilitators of housing. They don't necessarily go out and create housing. So somebody, some organization, some parents have to create more options because there just aren't enough right now. So we went, um, we, we toured high spirit. Um, high spirit has been really working proactively with an advisory, um, uh, advisor to go out and help groups and families raise awareness about this model, um, and help connect us together. Um, it's not for every parent, um, because it, it does take, um, a fair amount of rolling up your sleeves and tenacity and perseverance. Um, but we were connected with, um, uh, another parent who actually works with the, um, Arc of Massachusetts. Um, she has a son who has been in every different form of residential care from, um, um, hospital setting institutions to group homes to living at home and then living semi-independently. What we're all looking for is something just beyond the caregiver, um, and, uh, care receiver relationship. We're looking for a community where they can feel belonging. They have more than just four walls to look at all day long, um, some level of enrichment and meaningful day. So we started meeting with, um, another group of parents, probably back, uh, fall of last year. Um, we added on, um, another parent by early February. I'm sorry to interrupt, but how did that process of, uh, introduction happen? So, um, how you came together. So that was actually a high spirit advisory, um, helped bring us together. They had parents who had come out to tour, um, had an interest in the model and were very interested in meeting other like-minded parents who wanted to create something together. Um, so we were introduced with our, uh, now co-founder, the first, um, set of parents, uh, dropped out because they wanted something a little bit different. Um, and so since February, we have been working very hard, very diligently, um, closed on this property in October and we are slated to open the first house in, uh, beginning of May 1st of next year. So it's been, it'll be just over a year from kind of start to opening. Um, our, our plan then is to, we've already started a committee of families who are interested in homes two and three. And, um, we actually just met with them last night. Um, we have 12 families who are interested in six available slots. If that gives you an indication of the need. Um, and now we're in the process of having people self-select in or out based on some of the, the work that they're going to be tasked with in helping with fundraising, planning and development. We want them to have a stake in the development of the second and third homes so that they have a value attached to it, um, a role in it. And, uh, so our plan is to have the second and third homes built simultaneously, uh, because it will be more economical with the infrastructure needed for sewer and water and electrical. And the plan would be to have the second and third homes open 12 to 15 months from May of 2026. So that's where we're at. And I do, I do have to say that, uh, my husband and I, um, as well as our partner, we have, um, both, uh, all, uh, created nonprofit, a nonprofit in the past, um, both very successful. Um, but we have moved from those areas where those nonprofits were created and we are here now and our, our children are older and there is a need and a necessity to, to create something for them so that it's around long after we're gone. You good, John? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Sabrina. This is a, it's interesting. Can you just give us an overview of the financing of, uh, branching trade? Yeah, sure. So, um, so really it was, it's based this first time very much on, um, uh, what, uh, some of the initial budgets that we received from high spirit community farm, what it takes for them to operate, you know, one home with three individuals with disabilities and three non-disabled on an annual basis. And that's, we took that budget and then we started to work within that budget. Um, it costs roughly around $330,000 per year to run one house. Okay. And that's for, um, um, the live-in staff that's for everything from insurance, groceries, utilities. Um, and so the funding from, for that comes from a few different places. It comes from DDS. So DDS supports each individual. If you think of someone with a disability arriving at the house and they each come with a price tag over their head, it's just the facts, um, based on their level of need and supports, it can vary from $40,000 a year to $80,000 per year that they need in supports 24 hours a day, um, to help them navigate daily life. Um, so those three individuals receive that DDS funding. The day program component of it, um, is paid for by MassHealth. So MassHealth provides funding for the, the day program that might be three days a week. Um, um, but the hours are spread a little bit differently depending on how many days per week that might be. And then the third, uh, component is with SSI. So each individual receives social security, um, as an adult, um, 70% of their social security goes to cover their living expenses. Um, and then the remainder, which will end up being around 55, $60,000 a year is what we will end up fundraising through grants, campaigns, donations, supporters, et cetera. So, um, at the end of the day, you end up with, um, three houses at $330,000, you know, a year you're close to a million dollar annual budget. Um, and that funding is coming in to pay for primarily, um, in terms of staff, the householder gets a salary. Um, but that salary is offset by the fact that they're getting free room and board. And then the two live in householders in each house get a stipend. So that stipend is relatively low. It might be $400 a month, but they're getting free room and board. And in many cases, if they are say a graduate student who's studying, um, special education or studying behavioral psychology, they see it as a practicum experience where they're getting credit for their experience, their co-op experience.
Just to follow up, can you just, uh, mention your capital costs, how you acquired the, uh, property and, uh, built it? Well, that was, uh, we put in, we have, uh, three families for the three young men who will be living there. We each put in a hundred thousand dollars as, uh, basically the down payment, um, for the home and to cover the first six months of mortgage payments. Um, the remainder we got in a, uh, uh, commercial loan, um, as a non-profit and that will ultimately be covered by the different funding that's coming in from DDS and SSI. So that's more based on the individual client, right? DDS and SSI? It is. So each, uh, but, but the funding will all come in to the same pot. So the other component of this is that there is, um, there are two agencies involved. Okay. So we are the non-profit. We own the property. Um, then there is an agency who manages the recruitment, hiring, training, and billing with DDS. They are the licensed DDS agency. So they take a small portion of the funding that comes in to cover the cost of managing all of those things. They also have to do all the compliance reporting out to DDS, which is a big undertaking. And then there is a day program agency. Um, so the funding comes from DDS, MassHealth, SSI. It goes into, um, a pot through those two different agencies. And then a portion of it goes directly to the, um, live-in care providers. And then the remainder goes into a bucket to pay all the operational costs and overhead for the property in the house. Uh, let me add my thanks to those of, uh, my colleagues. This is really very interesting. Um, to follow up on Brian's question, um, the, the debt that you've incurred, uh, for the, uh, down payment or rather for the, uh, property acquisition, the construction, uh, is the, uh, to the, uh, will the residents pay rent, which will help, uh, pay the debt service? Nope. Uh, we, um, as the, the, the founders and, and purchasers of this property, the, the founders of the organization are $100,000 each is considered a straight donation into the nonprofit. So that money goes into the nonprofit, it never comes out of the nonprofit and it never, um, is repaid in any way. Um, the, because the funding for the residents and their, uh, monthly annual care costs, food, you know, cost of living, because that is all covered under these other entities of DDS, Mass Health and SSI, there is no ongoing cost to the families or to, um, the individuals themselves. So how does Branching Tree pay its debt service? So that is covered through the funds that come in from those three entities. Well, that's actually two. Um, DDS and SSI funds can go towards the mortgage payment. Mass health funds cannot, um, those are earmarked specifically for the, um, day program component. Um, so that goes into pay basically the, the monthly mortgage fee insurance, um, and the, the utilities and the operations of the house. And, um, given the involvement with DDS, are, are you able to, uh, is, is your board, is the nonprofit able to have a preference for, uh, residents of the local community, uh, for family members of, uh, the board members? So with the, the board of directors, um, we, within our bylaws have stipulated that, um, there is a, um, uh, a portion of the board that can be, uh, parental or family members. Um, but then the rest of the board needs to be made up of, uh, uh, uh, professionals with experience in, uh, serving individuals with disabilities. Um, and also having some type of, um, profession or, uh, experience or services in things like, uh, banking, legal, you know, CPA, um, pediatrics, um, so that we have representation from all those critical areas. Um, but the, the, the families, um, the families, uh, will only have, um, a few seats on the board. Um, I guess my question was more directed at whether, uh, because of DDS's involvement, there is any restriction on, um, identifying, uh, individuals to be the residents. So in this case, no, um, because we, um, own the property and, uh, we have a nonprofit, uh, status with a board of directors, um, DDS can make referrals to us for individuals within the catchment area. Um, but we have, um, the right of approval or refusal in terms of whether or not they are a fit and that we can support their needs. So for instance, if we have a community that is, um, um, made up predominantly of, you know, 25 to 40 year old, uh, young individuals, they are all very able-bodied, um, uh, and active, but we have a referral for maybe an individual with disabilities who is, you know, um, much higher in age, who is wheelchair bound, who might be blind. Those are, that becomes difficult for us to support given the other members of our community. And also some of the restrictions that we may have within the house facilities that, you know, it may not be ADA compliant for wheelchairs, it may not be, um, compliant for an individual who is vision impaired. So that's where we do have the option of, uh, identifying and bringing in, um, families, uh, and individuals with disabilities that we feel are a good fit within this community. How close is your 12 and a half acre site to grocery stores, restaurants, library, uh, fitness centers, that kind of thing? So we are about five miles away from the major grocery store. There are a few, uh, chain, you know, fast food places there. I think there's a, a CVS there. And then we're probably about nine, nine miles away from, um, a major, um, uh, route where there's everything from Kohl's and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and Home Depot and Lowe's. Um, there are also, um, the reason we selected that area is that there's an extensive rail trail in the area. Um, there's a huge community park where there are paddle boats on the river and there are, um, tennis and, and, um, all kinds of different activities. There's a YMCA that's just a few miles away, um, to, to have the individuals go over there and get a membership. So again, that's the reason we've selected it. It's, it's about, um, I would say eight to 10 minute drive outside of downtown Northampton. Sure. I have a couple of questions and we'll let you go. Um, earlier we had Mary Nell Henry with us from sale home organization and she mentioned your organization. Do you know each other? Um, I don't know her personally. I have heard of her and our co-founder knows her and has, uh, corresponded with her. Okay. So you haven't exchanged notes on your different projects, for example? No, uh, we have our, our, again, our co-founder is part of a innovative housing consortium. Um, and so there are a number of groups, including sale. Um, our group, I believe there is a, a group out of, um, Plymouth potentially. Um, there are about five different housing model groups that are all part of that consortium. And so our co-founder does sit on that, um, consortium with, um, sale home. So you kind of, um, leads me to my next question. My next question is, do you consider your program an innovative program in that? Yes, very much so because, um, and part of the reason that we have chosen to, to do this is to create a pathway for more models and programs like this to be created. Um, because it doesn't fit neatly within the three checkboxes of DDS right now. And, um, um, it really is, um, there is a, a shift occurring right now within the disabilities community to make sure that we don't return to the congregate care institutional models of, you know, groups of individuals with disabilities sitting in staring at four walls with nothing to do during the day and being kind of, you know, hidden away from society. Um, so we are trying to make headway in terms of providing, um, what DDS will tell you their objective is to find the least restrictive environment for individuals with disabilities. And that's what we're trying to do. Do you sense that this, that the state likes your ideas? We do. We actually, um, I would say it was probably back in summer. Um, uh, our, again, our co-founder Dottie Foley, who works for the Arc of Massachusetts and, um, uh, whose colleague, um, was at the time the, um, the, the CEO of the Arc, Leo Sarkissian. Um, he actually, um, was able to get us, uh, uh, uh, an appointment with Tim Cahill, who at the time was the interim director of DDS. Um, and we were able to sit down and talk with him about our model and about our plans, uh, hoping to get some level of a nod, you know, we're going to go spend $900,000 on a house, you know, can you give us some indication that you're going to support this? Um, so, uh, you know, in so many words, he said, we're excited about it. We think this needs to happen. Um, we know we're very familiar with High Spirit Community Farm and the success that they've had. Um, and if you create it, we will, you know, and, and follow our kind of rules and, and compliance and regulations, we will support it. So that's, so with that nod, we move forward. Mr. Mayor, congratulations on the project and your hard work, um, your credit, uh, in so many ways. And on behalf of the committee, thanks for your time this evening. We've learned a lot. Great. Thank you so much and good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. So in a moment, uh, Gary Cavallo will join us. Uh, Gary used to live in Whalen, moved out to Arizona recently, and he's with us right now. Uh, Gary, good evening. Hi, Tom. How are you? Very well. Thank you. Thanks for joining us this evening. Um, I'll just give him, giving committee members a bit of background on you that you were a long time resident of Whalen and recently moved out to Arizona. And, uh, you've been, uh, you're willing to join us this evening to chat about your life experience. And, uh, I, I, uh, turn the floor over to you again. Thanks. Um, I just wanted to say it was, um, you know, Sabrina, I don't know her. I don't know her background, but when I did hear the last, um, probably 10 minutes, um, very well informed. And it was just, um, great to hear that there's organizations that continue, right, to come up and provide solutions for the community. Um, we lived in Whalen for, as Tom mentioned, for a little over 30 years, two boys, uh, our oldest is on the autism spectrum. Uh, Alex is 31. Um, and, uh, what Sabrina mentioned too, right, is as you get older, right, into that population, um, you come out of some of the, um, what I'll call well-formed structures, school, and so forth. And so once the person hits the 22 age group in you, then what's next in your life, right, that's very different than what we think about for our parents, right? And how do we find places for our parents to live for later in life? Perhaps the, the last 20 or 25 years of their life. What we're talking about for this community is 50 years, right? It's a larger piece, uh, to solve, uh, and it can be daunting for the families. Um, even the ones that are well-informed, um, and there are many who are not. And as, uh, Sabrina mentioned, we, in our time, uh, in Raising Alex knew that that was the most difficult piece of the puzzle. Where does he live in the quality of life after we are not here? Um, what do we do to put things in place for him now while we are here to make sure all the pieces are there? As Sabrina said, for quality of life, um, no restrictions. She used the word institutional, right? That, that's a scary word, right? That existed for folks. Uh, it doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter your challenges. It doesn't matter your standing in life financially. That's a scary word. Um, what groups like her have done is continue to come up with solutions, but they are not alone, right? The parent has to figure this out. DDS, the SSI organization. It's, it's a complicated piece because there's a bunch of things involved. Uh, the finance part is by no means, uh, the easiest, nor the most challenging. There's just many pieces. What we found in our research in Massachusetts, and I'll talk about Arizona, is just the places. Where could Alex go? Where could folks like him go? Where are those options? And as Sabrina mentioned, I think one of you asked the question, did she know the other individuals you're talking to? Very often the answer is yes, because the community of solution providers is so small. They know each other on a first name basis, or they are aware of each other. So that's great that they have that network, but it's a little scary that it's that small for a very large growing population, uh, that this short or list of solution, innovative providers know each other and work together. That's great, but it's a big task that they have, that you have, that parents have to resolve this. And so it isn't a quick answer. It isn't a simple answer. Finding the place of where these folks can live, where our kids can live, is the most difficult part. Uh, and when you have folks that step forward with funding, or places, or solutions, at least it gives you a target and an opportunity to problem solve, as opposed to everything. Um, and, and so that's encouraging that, you know, she and others continue to do this. Massachusetts DDS and SSI, there's different acronyms now that we're in Arizona. Um, we didn't leave Massachusetts because we didn't think there was support. That wasn't it. We have more family out here. And as we get older and our kids get older, the added family is a good thing to have, as you all know. Um, you know, I think one of the things she mentioned that probably doesn't get enough is the fit. We all like to choose who we live with. We all like to choose, uh, where we live. And so part of that has to be a positive experience and not everybody gets along with everybody, but nevermind the physical or the emotional needs that this community need, you know, requires more so than, uh, say typical or more able individuals who adjust probably a little easier. Uh, these, uh, kids, at least on the autism spectrum, change is not a good thing. So once they find something and, and we did not make the move to Arizona lightly, we talked about it for years before we did it. Um, and it was just time and we did a lot of research here. Uh, and, and so those decisions are no different when you're choosing where you're going to live with young children, where they're going to go to school, uh, where your aging parents are, uh, senior citizen living scenarios. Again, where they go to school is maybe a 12 to 18 year decision, uh, where a retirement community is maybe a 20 year decision, where somebody from 22 lives until they go to retirement, you know, 30, 40, 50 year decision. So it's a, it's a big undertaking. Um, you know, just here in Arizona, uh, we have found in a good way, um, the most important thing beyond the living is what Sabrina also touched on. She's a day program scenario. What are the folks doing every day? What do they do that's productive, that's rewarding, um, gives them a sense of accomplishment, right? Contributing. So that piece is significant, right? That, but it's only 40 hours. It's just a work week, what we're talking about. The rest of the, your week is the most significant time. And that's what this living piece of the puzzle is. It's more substantial than the day programs. And again, it remains daunting. Here in Arizona, as I mentioned, all the acronyms are changed, all the, um, organizations, but they're still trying to solve it the same way that Massachusetts is, you know, private funding, nonprofit, so forth. But I will tell you, I think Sabrina says she's out in Northampton. Uh, if I heard that correctly, you know, the cost in North, Northampton is a little different than Wayland and, and some of the areas closer to Boston for acquiring these, um, places to, to live and making it work. Uh, out here in Arizona, it's been a huge boom in Scottsdale and Phoenix the last 30 years that we've been coming out here, but there's still a lot of land and there's still a lot of building. And so there's an opportunity and, and our research shows that we and Alex will be in a good place. So, um, a move that we talked about for many years, um, finally occurred as Tom mentioned within the last year. And Gary, I'm going to open up, uh, so members can ask you questions. Uh, Stephanie, any questions for Gary? Um, can't think of any at the moment. All right, John. Gary, thank you for, uh, speaking to the committee. Appreciate it. How old is your son? And could you maybe talk a little bit about the, I mean, you, you began to talk a little bit about the needs, the distinct needs of people on the spectrum, but we've been hearing from a lot of, uh, different provider groups, agencies, families that have talked about different, um, housing models, congregate, mostly congregate models for people with, um, developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities. But I'm curious, I'm curious to hear your perspective on what some of the constraints around, uh, serving people on the spectrum in that kind of a model versus, uh, serving somebody maybe in a more, um, into individualized model where they're not, you know, cheek to jowl with, with other roommates. Sure. Um, so John, Alex turned 31 in November. Um, he was diagnosed, uh, autism at three and a half, I think four, somewhere in there. So it's been a lifetime, uh, uh, for that. He's made great strides. He's very capable. He's verbal. So the autism spectrum, uh, it doesn't go from zero to 10. It probably goes from zero to a thousand. And so, you know, where do you, where do you fit? It's, it's, it's fairly, uh, diverse just even in the autism spectrum. Um, and people are very, very capable, uh, you know, some drive, lead very rewarding careers and all of that don't have all the challenges. They would probably fit in the quirky bucket. Um, and then you have others, uh, at the other end, uh, non-verbal and have significant needs. And like you said, very difficult, right? How do we service such a diverse community, even if you put them just in the autism spectrum? And so one of the things, uh, Alex, from the time he was 23 until removed, um, just this past May, went to a day program, Jewish family services. So for us, it was great. It's right on the wall 10 Western line, but we didn't choose it because it was that convenient. It just happened to be there. Um, I'll be honest with you. We knew it was there. We didn't know if you weren't Jewish that you could take advantage. And, and, but that organization is so well connected in Massachusetts and it was so gracious and so rewarding, right? For Alex to have that right every day. So again, it was convenient. But it didn't matter. It was the right place for him. Um, that program grew in the time that Alex was there over the last eight years. And to your point, started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, and it grew because of need and the amount of people that could come into the program. It wasn't just for autistic. It was a diverse, uh, population. Getting the folks to be the peers, uh, me, the, um, on the servicing side to actually lead the program. That was one of their most difficult challenges. Where do we find the people? We have this audience that needs help, but we need to have, you know, a certain amount of folks in order to then allow people to come in. It grew and they did a great job. But once it gets to a certain size, there's too many variables for people on the autism spectrum, right? For changes in the program, changes in the schedule. I will tell you that in the program that Alex is in now, when he walks in the door, there's a schedule. First thing he looks at, he doesn't even get two steps in. What is the day? What are we going to do? We all have that in our head. But for them, it is in stone. And so when something changes again, depending where they are, it can be a small change. It doesn't mean it'll be a small reaction. You know, it depends on the importance. Again, that varies greatly. Um, you know, he's made some great strides over the years to be flexible. But if you have, as I mentioned in the house, if you had four or five people, that would be great. If you have 15 people in a program or whatever, think of the variables for that community, never mind, you know, the physical restraints or whatever that could come in. Think of all the variables in there and just the inherent word of change that occurs in a day to handle 10 verse five, 15 verse five. And so the program that he's in now here, again, nothing against what was going to Massachusetts. It grew because the audience, there was a demand. Here, the one we chose, they are only going to keep it at maybe six, in the day program, because they will then spawn a different day program. The woman that runs this program, uh, her name is Andy Robinson, her daughter. Um, and she created a law called Lexi's law. It's now in 27 states. It started here in Arizona. It has to do with funding and all of the things that go on in certain states. So it was a mom who advocated for her child on the spectrum because there was nothing here in Arizona that fit. Instead of putting her daughter in a situation that didn't fit, she reinvented, uh, and I think the word earlier was, you know, a creative, innovative approach.
Well, I, I don't know if I answered your question, but yeah, you did. Yeah. Um, I'm just curious though. Um, so your, your son is currently living with you at home. What, what do you think the ideal residential model would look like if you could sort of wave a magic wand tomorrow? I mean, so I know say saying irrespective of funding is, is you can't really say that, but if you could, what, what would it look like? I think in this, this is a, a maybe that I didn't know would exist that the current day program that he enjoys greatly would have the ability for him to live there. It's actually at a house, um, that's occurred here. They acquired a house, you know, as same as, you know, via nonprofit. And so it's a house, but this house is kind of unique for the Scottsdale area. They have animals. It's like a small ranch. They have animals. And so he loves going there. So it would be great if he could live there, right. And, and figure out that piece and the folks do that. If that's not the case, because that day program has been such a huge impact on him over the last few months, we need to find something close to that. And, and so again, in this particular area, there are already options being explored and, and to keep it small during the day and especially small to live would be the goal. And I think Sabrina mentioned that, right. It's a handful of people living in a house where you can't do a fraternity approach. It's not going to work for this community. It has to be small, um, you know, handful of people that that's our goal. And that's, we're not going to make the next move, if you will, him out of the house until we can accomplish that. We feel confident that we're going to accomplish that, uh, in exploring options here, to your point, the program that he's in now was better than we would have drawn up. So when you asked me that question, I'm not going to put any limits on it. I'm just going to say if he could go to a place that he smiles when he goes and smiles when he stays there, that's the goal. The structure of that will be probably very similar to what you guys talked about earlier tonight. Thanks Gary. And Brian, any questions? Yeah, it looks like Arizona's agreeing with you.
Do we saw cold weather up here? Yeah, I was, um, just wondering, um, so do you think a mix of, uh, population would work in this situation? It's different, you know, kids on the autism spectrum versus, uh, kids with intellectual disabilities, cognitive disabilities. Would that, would that work? Yeah. You know, for Alex, um, you know, he's 31, but he, I would tell you intellectually, right, he's still, uh, elementary school in some cases, but in other cases more sophisticated. So I think the mix from an intellectual standpoint is fine. Um, I do appreciate Sabrina's comments about some of the physical limitations and how that all solved. I, to be honest, I hadn't even thought of that, but I thought that was a compelling point. Um, and, and I think that's the thing, the fit, as you said, it's a, it's a diverse group on the autism spectrum. Alex is in a program right now. Uh, one of four at the moment. Um, um, the other three are non-verbal. One communicates with an iPad, uh, another one, sign language. Um, and then the third, uh, woman, I always going to say boy or girl, but they're men and women now they're in their twenties. Um, she's not verbal, but she's able to communicate. And so for Alex, he's okay with that. You know, some folks in the autism spectrum don't crave a lot of conversation. It's a need-based communication. And so he's fine communicating with them and he's already in the time they've all figured out a way to communicate with each other. It's really cool to see, um, not only with them, but the folks that are, that are working in the home. Um, it's a, it's a diverse group. Um, cognitively, it's a diverse group, as I said, verbally and, and their needs. It's kind of fun to watch and he goes every day. Uh, and, and I, I'll tell you one quick story. We came back to Boston a couple of weeks ago for just a long weekend. Normally, when we come back, um, it, it requires the folks on the autism spectrum a lot to travel and to change their routine. And so often when we come back on Sunday, Alex would take Monday or Tuesday off and not go to the program. You know, when we were in Wayland and he was going to Weston, I mean, excuse me, to Waltham, but he likes his program so much. We asked him, say, Alex, you know, tomorrow, he's like, no, no, I want to go. And so that's the goal, right? Is, you know, when you tell your parent, they're going to leave their home and they're going to go to the retirement community. As many parents don't want to do that and they will want. And so just as the, the, the 60 something year old leaving home, doesn't necessarily want to go to that retirement community. Uh, my 31 year old is, he's only lived in one house in Wayland his whole life until we moved. So big change. I think I'm good. Thank you so much for sharing all your experience and insight. Gary, um, apart, apart from, uh, the number of residents, uh, in a given home, uh, as a criterion for, uh, the, this committee or the select board to consider, what other factors would you look for, uh, when evaluating a proposal that the town may receive for the development of, uh, housing for people with disabilities? You know, I, I think it's really touched on the proximity to things, right. To, to make the trips to the grocery store easy, you know, to places like the YMCA, just like we all want, you know, we want it to be convenient when we leave our home, you know, for the different things that we do in a given week. And that's not always attainable. So, but I, I think from a convenience, because they don't navigate the outside world as easily as, as many. So that convenience factor, however it's accomplished, I think it's important. The quality of the living, uh, having your own space, like we all want on, on certain days, right, on certain difficult days or difficult weeks. So you do need your own space, right? So I I don't think you can put, you know, have roommates in the same room, you know, that that's a different mentality. So, you know, large enough to, to have your own space, but also come together for meals and do other things. So, you know, if something can be structured or built along those lines, that's great. If you're retrofitting something, then I understand, right. There may be some limitations with that. So those are some of the things that come to mind, uh, Bill, you know, we're researching things here, uh, and we did a lot of research in mass and we just weren't comfortable that Alex was ready. It wasn't necessarily that we didn't think there was anything available or appropriate. We weren't ready, right? He wasn't ready. And this move has gone better for him and for us. So it, it kind of embolds us to think, you know, the next move, which is even more significant, um, we can accomplish. So those are some of the things that come to mind. Thank you. Well, Gary, we appreciate your time. We need to give a couple other things and close up my meeting, but we appreciate you coming on today and, um, giving us some insight into your personal experience, which is something that our committee desires to do, appreciate what recommendations will make the slide board. So thank you very much for appearing tonight. Yeah, my pleasure. If there's anything that comes up or I can help in any way, please let me know. Waylon was very good to us. Um, and so the, even though we are here, uh, we do come back and I continue to root for the town and for the people and the solutions that they provided our family. So thank you. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Happy holidays. Thank you. So we want to have, uh, the neighbors in again, I'm thinking that I want to have, not so true early. I think the questions that the neighbors will want is what do you recommend? And, um, and I think, I think, um, we'll have an answer for them. It won't be terribly persistent,
but hopefully we'll be able to give them a sense of things. So I'm thinking maybe the, maybe the 8th, which is, uh, we meet on the 7th of January, the 8th of January. I think that's too early. We're kind of approaching the 20 yard line here, uh, as far as the committee and our work. Is that, is that your mind work for you based on what you see in this report and what you see in the RFP? I know it will be tweaked further, but, um, what would be helpful? Yeah. I think, um, the RFP is pretty clear. I think, um, the background, and we still have some work to do on the, the, uh, informational document and summarizing that and the different models that might be considered. But, um, I think if they had these two documents in, you know, penultimate draft or something like that, that they couldn't react to with the idea that some of their suggestions might be still incorporated, if they had some stuff to say, um, that would be a good thing. Well, let's aim for that and maybe we can get that in shape of the 7th and we, and maybe we can have the neighbors in on the, on the 8th. And if it doesn't work out, we'll move it to a different, um, different to a meeting day. Um, I do intend to reach out to Ms. Kessler, um, again, since we ask her about statistics, um, not names, but statistics, kind of, kind of like for the very night and I'll report back on that aspect. Um, and I wanted to ask the committee members, you know the answer right now, but if there are members, if there are people who are on, who appear before us in prior meetings, you think, you know what, been nice to hear from them again, just send me an email and I'll reach out to them to see whether they can appear again. And, um, hopefully that's fine, but I just want to throw that idea out. Um, so that's, that's all I have. Anybody have any other comments? Could you do a quick report out on the, um, DDS meeting this morning? I forgot about the meeting. So, um, less than a quorum of this committee met with I was in this room this morning, but there was no meeting.
So, less than a quorum of individuals, uh, met with two members of DDS, uh, this morning. They were very gracious, uh, to spend an hour with us, um, and, uh, uh, what, what, what, what, what, what, what were your takeaways from that meeting? Well, um, I got this, uh, I had the sense that there was a little less flexibility than I had anticipated. They were being taped, but they felt like they were thinking. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, you know, these are regional people, not home office folks. Um, but, you know, they explained to us about the, uh, the sort of five-person little fact that, uh, really the federal government, uh, reimbursement is, is a, is a consideration. Uh, uh, they also talked, uh, and they talked about, uh, this, this whole notion of, uh, saturation. They don't want too many people, uh, living in too close proximity. And so, we said, yeah, well, we've heard that there are some other models where, you know, there are greater numbers of people and threw some cold water on it, I think. Yeah, I mean, that was my sense. But they did say explicitly that the group home from 20, um, would not be a problem. That's right. Proximity to it. Yeah. Um, what did you pick up, um, John, other than what Bill said? I mean, I, I, my, my takeaway is that I, I, you know, I, I didn't really learn anything new. Um, she, uh, Deb Johnson, the area office director, uh, just, I thought did a really good job about talking about what some of the budget constraints are that they don't have, uh, 20, you know, they're not able to look into the future, uh, and understand, you know, with a lot of clarity right now, what's, what's going to happen, um, with next year's budget, with federal reimbursement, with the rules changing, with, um, Medicaid. Um, she did mention that they are working with a vendor organization right now around serving, uh, creating a group home to serve, uh, four to five individuals. And that's something that's, that's currently happening. Um, but again, In Wayland. In Wayland. Excuse me? Right. In Wayland, correct? No, no, not, not specifically in Wayland. Oh, I thought it was in Wayland. That's what I thought I heard. Um, That'd be a problem. I, I just know from having the conversation with her previously that that's not the case. Okay. And I didn't hear that. So maybe you heard something that I didn't hear. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, just, just to amplify what, what, uh, you or Bill said that, you know, she is the Middlesex West area director. Uh, she is sort of the, you know, um, overseer over that geographic region. So that being said, uh, she doesn't necessarily speak for the rest of the state. She certainly doesn't speak for the deputy commissioner, which has sort of given his blessing to some of these more innovative programs. I mean, he, she, she doesn't have that kind of flexibility. So, um, you know, she, she is for all intents and purposes, sort of, uh, a higher echelon worker bee. And again, you know, she's going to be very careful about what she, uh, you know, what, how she reveals her hand. So, um, yeah, Stephanie, any, I guess. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I, it was, it was very interesting and helpful. I had to leave at the end of their visiting nurse showed up and J and, uh, so, but, um, I was impressed at how hard it is, um, to get, uh, I guess, to get the, the housing that the people have to be a certain level. And, um, and there wouldn't, there wouldn't be any control that it would go to what Wayland residents at all. Um, they, they would kind of put some people up for, and they'd have to be, um, needing a whole lot of care. And I just, uh, it seemed like the constraints were, were very great, um, for that. Um, and I was thinking of the waiver because JJ has the waiver, but he's specifically not, does not have a waiver that would, would provide residential services because he's getting AFC and he's being cared for. Um, so it just seemed like it would be, it would be limiting a lot what people would be, um, would be able to, where they'd be able to live. Um, so, so it, I guess I was feeling less like that would be a given or, or, you know, a comfortable, uh, model to, to work with, uh, for what we're trying to do. Thank you for the comments. Um, it is, uh, 8 59. Like, I like to end these meetings on time, so I'll, I'll, uh, end the conversation here. Appreciate everybody's participation, participation this evening, and I hope everyone has a great holiday, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, uh, 2026. But that, at this point, I'll entertain motion to, uh, adjourn. So I move. May have a second, uh, second. Thank you for Gene. Bill Whitton made a motion at, uh, 9 o'clock. Uh, all those in three with a roll call vote. Stephanie? Aye. John? Aye. Phil Adam? Yes. Bill Whitton? Yes. Aye. Gene? Aye. Yes. Thank you all.
So, when we want a public comment, anyone on the line, why would you give a public comment that you see?
Now, even though, we're joined by Bill Adams, here in the C-way event now. Well, they just couldn't call these folks anyway. They still haven't seen, but I think it's the former. Yeah, it comes more aging. Exactly. Excellent.
It was a nice friend, too. So, seeing no one online for public comment or in the room, we'll move on to item three of our agenda. And I'd like to acknowledge Marianne Henry, again, founder and executive director of the organization Supported Access to Independent Living, also known as SAIL, and by way of background, I reached out to Ms. Henry as a suggestion of a prior attendee of our meetings as someone who might be of help to us to understand what we're exploring. So, Ms. Henry, do you have a sense as to what our committee is all about and what we're pursuing? I did briefly look over the packet. I believe you have four acres at 212, and I'm not even going to try to say it, although I should. Cituate? It's like situate. I should be able to say this. When I saw the name of the road, I was like, oh, you know, there's similarity there. And I think that you are exploring how to create supported housing for adults with intellectual disabilities, how to blend that into the fabric of your community, how to make it integrated, accessible, ADA. That's kind of the high level that I understand. Yeah, that's right. So, if you could tell us about your organization, what you do, how long you've been on, and maybe we can open up to questions, members of the committee. Sure. So, again, my name is Mary Nell Henry, and I'm the executive director of Sail Home. Sail Home is a nonprofit. We received our nonprofit status about two years ago, in October of 2023. Our founders are comprised of parents who have loved ones with IDD and or autism, and also health and human service professionals that have been in this industry for, you know, many, many years. And actually, one is a executive director of South Shore Support Services, which is an agency here that services this population. So, we all have the burning question of what happens to our loved ones when we're no longer able to care for them. And secondarily, how do we ensure our loved ones have full, enriched lives in their own communities? Many of our individuals receive services from DDS. However, they do not qualify for any kind of housing, a.k.a. a group home. If I told you the statistics, you would be blown away, that only 15% of this population over the age of 22 qualifies for a group home, which means the balance of the population really doesn't have any housing options available to them, and they live at home with parents and aging caregivers. And 25% of those parents are over the age of 60. So, it really is a housing crisis. There are many housing crises out there in the landscape, but nobody seems to be able to get this, you know, off the margins and into the center here. So, there are a number of housing entities out there. I think you've spoken to some of them. Branching Tree, I know Dottie Foley, and they're working on it. But getting back to sales. So, two years ago, we got our non-profit status. We were actively, we were trained. We went through four months of training to learn how to create housing through a non-profit out of Chicago called the Center for Independent Futures. And it's a daunting task, but through this training, they break it down into very digestible ways to approach this housing. You know, everything from, do you set up a non-profit, an LLC? How do you fund it? You know, how do you determine who's going to live there? What is your support model? So, in any case, it was very fruitful to us. We found a building here in Scituate in in October of 2023, right as we were filing for our non-profit status. 8,000 square foot building. It is right in North Scituate. So, it has proximity to a town center. It is about 500 yards away from the commuter rail. And it's perfectly nestled into this community. There are properties that surround us that will be under development. There's a whole revitalization in North Scituate. Sewer is actually coming to that part of our community, which will then open up more housing opportunities and all kinds of activity for North Scituate. The other thing is that it, when we purchased the building, we purchased the building through an angel investor, one of our founders. We had community connections with a builder, Bob Shepard of Shepard Construction and Development. Bob is very well respected and known in the South Shore. He used to work for Modern Continental. You know, he has a very strong resume. And he had been working on this with parents prior to COVID. So, we had him come to the building along with an architect that had been also working with our group. And as soon as we walked through the building, it's a one level building. Again, it's 8,000 square feet. It's much like a horseshoe. It sits on less than an acre. But the building itself lended it to an amazing, it just immediately lended itself to a vision of apartments, community space, and possibly lease space. So, we went to work crafting, you know, the architect crafted what would become three apartments. There will be eight bedrooms. Every bedroom counts as an affordable unit because of, you know, we basically function as a group home. We fall under that. So, for affordability, that counts for eight units. Every bedroom counts for a unit. Three bedrooms. Everybody has their own bedroom. Everybody has their own bathroom. Each apartment has its own kitchen. There is two live-in units, which we will have for caregivers. There are a one bedroom and a studio. There is a community space that I would say is about a little less than a thousand square feet. And then the other wing of the building has what will be lease space. We have an office lease actually with South Shore Support Services and another lease space that we're looking for a business, a nonprofit or a business that's aligned with our mission. So, it allowed us, the angel investor allowed us to purchase it. We then had to come up with the construction costs, initially projected at a million. So, I went to the town of Situate with a proposal for CPC funding. Situate had not really spent a good amount of money on affordable housing. We spent a lot of money on recreation and fields and conservation and historical, but they really had not invested in affordability. And they were very much embraced the mission. I have to say I'm very proud to live in this community. My son who has a disability. I had started a foundation when he was eight years old and the community embraced this population. They have done so much. I just, I can't even speak enough about it. But as a result, they approved that million dollars, which allowed us to get up and running with the construction. So, Bob Shepard started the construction. We started out fundraising, writing grants. We received an earmark from Senator Patrick O'Connor, who's our state senator down here for about $25,000. And South Shore Support Services provided us seed money to get off the ground, two of about $250,000. We got going with construction. And sure enough, when you open up that building, when you're doing renovations, you just really don't know. So, of course, the costs went up. And I went back to the town. I went back to the town to ask for more money. And they awarded it another $750,000. All of this, as you know, has to go in front of the town for town meeting and voted on. There was no issue. So, we checked a lot of boxes for the community, eight affordable units. We were under our affordability level for the town. We also checked off MBTA because as an MBTA near a commuter station, there is this multifamily initiative out there by the, you know, the state that they're looking for communities to fulfill those. So, it was advantageous to the town. The land is zoned as a multi-use, end use. So, that was good for us. As a non-profit, with construction and permitting and all of that, we really were able to sail through without a lot of difficulties. We filed under the Dover Amendment, which allows us to move through some of the regulations and permitting processes quickly. So, we started construction in August and we completed it this October.
We, this is private public. We are not getting funding from DDS. The way it works is we do our own, we had our own application process for the eight residents that will live there. Part of our application and a parameter around the application was that the residents would have to live within 15 miles of the development. They have to have DDS services, meaning many of them have community-based day services or day programs. That was a prerequisite. DDS services and also commitment by the families that they will participate and support their resident and all the residents in the community. We had 14 applicants, which we were brand new. So, we only had 14. We got it down to 10 and then we had to go through, we had hired outside assessors in this field to observe. I think it was like 15 hours of observations and interviewing with the 10 residents and drilled it down to the eight that were accepted. Another unique proposition for our development is we are embedding it with enabling and assistive technology. This is something that, you know, DDS is also exploring, but it's happening out there and there's a lot of technology and my son uses some of it that enables, you know, these guys to have more independence. It truly fosters independence. And with the workforce crisis that we currently face, especially in this particular industry, to be able to supplant some of that with technology is helpful. So, when I say technology, we have alarms, you know, throughout the apartments, we have fall alarms, we have overflow water alarms, we have door alarms that can be set in case someone elopes. Obviously, we have fire alarm, we have fire alarm, and we have exterior cameras, and we have interior cameras in common areas. We have many of the individuals that live there do get a service through DDS called remote support monitoring, which is a 24-7, seven-day-a-week platform, much like a tablet, where an individual can reach someone virtually 24-7. That person or that particular agency, South Shore Support is doing it. Also, proactively reach out, reaches out to the individual on a daily basis, a couple times a day to check in. So, for example, for my son, they check in in the morning, good morning, how are you? Is your lunch made? You know, did you take your medication? You know, it's cold out, you need a coat. That's it. And then he goes off to his day program. So, that alleviates the need for an in-person, someone to come in and cue and do all of these things. This is really set up for adults that need support in their individual daily living.
Not high need. We are not 24-7. We are not a clinical. We don't have a nurse on site. So, these are for folks that have the capacity to live independently with some support.
So, that's it. Like right now, we will have a community manager who will oversee the full operations of the building and the residents. We'll have two community builders that will live on site. Again, they're really there to support the residents by check-ins, being there when needed, companionship, getting them out to do grocery shopping, getting them out in the community.
So, those will be the supports that will live on the premises. And we have selected our residents. They're currently transitioning, meaning right now they're spending a lot of time over there. They're meeting each other, developing their friendships. And we plan to have them all move in by March 1st. Money. I think I told you the majority of the money was through CPC, Senator O'Connor with 125,000 in total, uh, philanthropic donations, um, grants. And overall, we've raised, which, you know, 2.5 million in 24 months. The, I'll just, one more financial piece that you should know, um, the sustainability of the project operationally. Okay. So, these guys all receive SSI. They will pay their affordable rent or bring their Section 8 voucher with them, their mobile voucher. Their rent will be about $800 a month. There is an additional fee that is the responsibility of the families. And that is $2,000 a month. And that is to cover operationally, the building, um, the staff, insurance, management. Along with that, we have these two lease spaces. So that brings in income as well. The total income that will be generated on an annual basis is about $300,000. So it does help self-sustain it. Well, that's quite a project. Congratulations on the, uh, the work that you've done. I'd like to open up for questions from members of the committee. Uh, Stephanie, questions? Yes. Very, very interesting. Thank you. Um, as far as, um, are the residents cooking their own meals or how is that handled? Well, they can, they each, each apartment has a full kitchen. There are some smart appliances in there. So they do have the option to cook. Um, they can, that was part of our assessment. They can make their breakfast. All of them independently can make breakfast and lunch dinner. They may need support with that. When I say support, it means just being there, making sure everything's okay. Uh, we anticipate though, that while they have the option to cook their own meals, we have a community room that has a full kitchen and the community manager and the builders will have community dinners a couple of nights a week, but not every night. So no, these, these people are much, barely able to function a lot with that. Just a little supervision. It sounds like no, they, they're not like AFC, um, adult family care level care. Well, they are. My son gets AFC, um, how it's designed because we are not getting funding with DDS. And the reason we didn't go that, like there is no choice involved with DDS. Okay. If you're a priority one, if you even can get that, you don't have a choice where you go. Um, you could be in any community. It's basically wherever there is an opening as much as they try to match you up. Um, I sit on the citizen advisory board for our region or for our area and I go to group homes. So I really have a very clear eye picture of what group homes look like. Some of them are very good, but parents, we want our loved ones with their friends in their community, with the people that have supported them through their life. We don't want to change programs. We don't want to change our health and wellbeing, uh, providers. So this allows us to dictate who goes into the development, not DDS. The residents, the residents do come with all of their, as I call suitcase of services. So everybody has their community-based day services. Some have individual support hours. Some will come with PCA hours. Some will come with ABA and, um, um, you know, and then we have our community builders. So it's kind of, you bring your, your suitcase with you and then we build the supports around you based on your need and what you're bringing. All right. Let's see. Can I just ask, um, who funds the $2,000 a month for services? The parents. Yeah, privately funded. It's privately funded. Okay. If you have a section 8, that offsets a good amount of the cost because that covers based on the market rate of an apartment here. So, um, but many of our residents are on the list and have been for some time. So I think out of all the eight residents, only one has a voucher and we're not even sure if we can use it. Um, it might not be a mobile voucher. Um, he's a mobile voucher. Yeah. I mean, ideally, but not project based. No. Um, so if you were to have, um, get that ever loving mobile voucher, that would be ideal because that would offset pretty much the entire cost. So how do you, how does the housing authority steer the section 8 voucher holder to the group home? Um, we don't again, I don't know for us in situ. Again, there's a list. You have a list. You have a list. And, um, it's a lottery. So there's no guarantee. So again, we function really separately. So we're looking at the, um, the statewide mobile voucher where you can take into any community. It's not a community-based that we could access. Did you consider project based section 8 vouchers? Again, that puts us in a place where we have to have a lottery. We lose the ability to control who is going to live there. Thank you. John Thomas and Yeah. Thank you very much, uh, for the presentation. Very impressive. Um, you mentioned that early on you had a, an angel investor. Yeah. Could you talk about who, who, who actually owns the program? And does, does that person have any ownership or equity in, in the, the, the program? So how does that work? And I'm, I'm assuming there's gotta be some, some kind of a governing body, given what, what you've described so far. Um, transparency. It happens to be one of our founders and they hold the promissory note. Um, it's very friendly. And, um, basically it's, we pay interest right now, interest only at a very friendly rate. And then once it's revenue producing, um, we'll start paying towards the principal. Unless we, you know, if we've got, uh, a million dollars, you know, through any other philanthropic arm, you know, we would pay, pay down a good portion of that note. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for being here this evening. Um, I want to talk more about the organization sustaining itself after the parents are gone. What, what is your transition plan that you've put? After the, what is gone? Excuse me. After what's gone? The parents are gone. Oh. So we have, um, very robust service agreements with the families. Part of that service agreement is not only the parents, you have to, um, you have to name another person. So with the, except like the legal guard, there are many of the parents are the legal guardians, but we ask for a co-guardian, so to speak. So again, many of these families have siblings, the individuals have siblings. So it's whoever that person is, or if they have no one, then I currently have, um, I have a family that's looking into because they're aging, uh, a professional guardian. You can actually go out and find, um, find, um, a co-guardian, um, a legal person that will be responsible for your loved one. If you're no longer there to do so. Thank you. I had two questions. One is about location. So for the group that, that you're supporting, they seem to be a pretty high functioning, relatively speaking, group of people with intellectual disability. And, um, how does being close to public transport and a village say, uh, play into things versus maybe being a mile and a half out of town in a somewhat wooded space? Like, um, it does, it does impact, I would say none of our residents drive, none of them hold jobs. Um, they go to CBDS programs. We will have, we will have a van and have some transportation, but some of these CBDS programs do already provide transportation. The program comes and gets them and takes them to their program, but we will also have a vehicle. Um, the commuter rail is great. Um, if you know, a group of them want to go into Boston, that's, that's terrific. We also have local transportation situate through the GATRA and which is our local, you know, that'll come and take you to the grocery store or, um, to the barber shop or wherever you want to go within, you know, situate. Um, many of them also have been testing and also use the ride program and Uber. The ride program actually has programs for, um, individuals with special needs. So again, it's putting together, cobbling together different sources of support. Thank you. And so my second question is, um, about foundations or funding that's available to do some of this innovative technology that you were talking about. Um, say you found a developer that wanted to build something, but then you wanted to add some cutting edge technology that might save some money or be innovative. Are those foundations out there or is that a, and they are, I can't begin to tell you, I spent a lot of my time researching grants, um, and you can find them. Um, I would say that many of them now are getting really stressed because there's so much, you know, less funding, um, public funding. So, uh, we were fortunate because the remote support monitoring program that we're employing that's handled by South for support services, which is a DDS funded program. And I would say that, I mean, for the builder, if you're talking about builder, putting in technology, I did that. It's not huge amount of money. Um, you know, doing the wiring, if you're doing all that infrastructure, that's not huge. Some of this technology to be perfectly honest is like not super expensive or doesn't require a lot of infrastructure to do it. You know, you're talking about, um, door alarms, you can Honeywell, they're 50 bucks a pop. I mean, it's not, it's technology and you have to be learned. You have to be able to learn and schooled in how to manage all of these platforms. But, um, like I found, we found a security company, Basco that did all of it and they did all the programming and that was part of our, you know, our build with our developer was this was incorporated into it. But I would, you know, I'm, I personally haven't gone out to look for that, um, big grant money on that, but there are people out there. Would you say this one follow up question, would you say this level of technology is now standard of care or is it still like, should we be really looking to that as a requirement, not an option? I would tell, I would tell you to look at these two things. Um, there's an outfit called simply home and this is what they do. And they're based down in, I believe, North Carolina and they work with this population. They have implemented technology, um, for this population all across the country. Um, it's happening. It has become part of the repertoire of support because health and human service workers. I mean, you can't get them. We don't pay them enough. They're transient. It's, it's really difficult. So we're leaning into other things like assistive technology. So there's simply home. There's another outfit called safe in home and there's another outfit called night owl and night owl, for example, only looks to, um, a service like overnight for folks that need that overnight. And many of these technologies came from, um, the elder population. So it's here. Um, this population is using it and I can attest to you that it does work for some, uh, your, uh, your command of, uh, of the whole process of putting one of these together is certainly impressive. Um, I curious about, uh, sort of the capital costs, uh, you indicated that there was about 1,750,000, uh, available from CPC and another 125,000 from a state earmark. Yes. So is, was your total project cost something on the order of 1,875,000 plus the land cost? Uh, it probably eked up to about 200, the actual cost for 8,000 square foot. We took it down to the actual studs. I mean, everything is new, 93 new windows, all new electric, all new plum. Again, every, every, every bedroom has a bathroom. Um, we have two, we have one fully ADA accessible unit. The building itself, like the community room, um, is ADA accessible. Um, two of the apartments, there is actually, I said one level, but there's one that's like, uh, a second floor unit. Um, but, um, yeah, two million plus the acquisition cost. And, uh, how, how did you finance the pre-development costs, uh, the, the architectural, the legal, uh, uh, things to get it to a point where you're able to execute a construction contract? The, um, we had some seed money from South shore support services, sale home in order to get our nonprofit status started out as a subsidiary of this agency. And then they gave us the seed money. And then one year later, we decoupled. Um, and it was the right thing to do because doing creative supportive housing doesn't, it's a bit of a risk and it doesn't really align with, um, some of our agencies, you know, they're 90% funded through DDS and DDS. There's just a lot of rules and regulations and not that we don't follow best practices. I follow all of them, but, um, it's very regulatory. And again, I can't emphasize enough. If, if we were to work with DDS, they would determine who lived there.
And how many of the residents, uh, you anticipate moving into the place will be family members or associated with, uh, board members of, uh, uh, sale home. We had out of the eight, we have three that are, are individuals of the founders.
And the last question, um, in terms of, uh, the sort of long-term support, uh, you indicated that you have these, uh, service agreements with, uh, the families, uh, the parents, um, and, uh, uh, a second party who's presumably would be able to step in their shoes. Would that second party, uh, also be responsible for the $2,000 monthly payment or whatever it, it, it. Yes. Yes. So again, these service agreements, um,
they have to sign them as well. Whoever they, they determine as a secondary person, they're also a part of this agreement. Right. And do you look to the financial capacity of, uh, the, the people who are, um, essentially signing on the dotted line for their loved ones? Um, we do. These are one-year leases. I would also tell you that, that this is a lease agreement. So it's a one-year lease. Again, we have very robust terms in our lease. Um, so there are parachutes for both sides. And, uh, final question. How important was it that, uh, the, uh, that you have a patient investor on the, on the land? That is to say, how important was it that, uh, you didn't need to really finance, uh, the, the land cost as a part of the total project cost? It was big. Um, we had explored, um, financing, you know, while we were doing our research, there are funders out there, friendly funders to nonprofits. Um, and there was one, the disability opportunity fund, um, that we had conversations with, um, our problem was that, um, we didn't have, we needed 50% assets. We needed 50% of the capital. So that was problematic. Um, we worked with mass development too. Um, but we were fortunate. We had an investor, they were willing to step up because that would have taken a lot of time. Um, and we were anxious to get going with the project. Thanks very much. Sam, I've got a few questions for you. My first question is, you mentioned an organization in Chicago that was very helpful to you. Wasn't you with that group again? It's, I can email you the link, but it's the Center for Independent Futures. Okay. Out of Chicago. And they train hundreds of, they've trained hundreds of families across the country on how to create housing. And I've spoken to, you know, housing entities all over the country. Um, that was just part of our research and development. And then, you know, we just tried to, we took pieces of here, there, and everywhere to create our own model. You guys are probably familiar with Mainstay. Are you? Mm-hmm. Yes. They did come and speak with us. We, I'm, I would say that sale home is very much a mirror of that. Um, we, we have a lot of similarities. They're not DDS funded. Um, it's private pay. Um,
yeah, they're very, very similar models. They have live-in help, but again, it's not necessarily 24-7. It's not a clinical, it's not priority one. The needs are medium. Um, so in your research and creating conversations with the organization in Chicago, did you learn of a trend nationally or even regional on shared living environments or, or to put it another way, housing for adults with disabilities? Is there a trend one way or the other? Not necessarily. Um, if you mean just globally, yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're surfacing everywhere because the need is so great. So there are a lot of, um, community-based housing entities that are, that are being built everywhere across the country because there's just, the capacity is not there. Um, and there's many different ways and models to do this. Um, some, I think, uh, with somebody on here from Branching Tree, they're doing a shared living model. Again, that's a DDS type of model. Um, um, but we are not at this point aligning ourselves with DDS as far as any kind of funding. Can you tell us the age range of the residents will be living in the facility? It's in situate, correct? Correct. Um, we, our application was for ages 24 to 36. Our current residents are between 28 and 34. Okay. And, um, um, we like this building. I think it's super important to do an age in place if we were to ever, you know, and we will do another one. Um, it will be an age in place and one level. Um, we will, this building, if anybody ever wanted to take a look at, I'd be happy to tour it with you. I think one of the things that's really special is everybody gets their own bedroom and their own bathroom. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is a big deal. Um, we try to provide dignity, um, to our residents and, um, it really, it lends itself perfectly to replication. If I could just pick it up and put it in another community, I would do just that. And I like that we have lease space. If there's, if you ever look at a model and there's any way to integrate something that is a business that is aligned with the population where they can work there or, um, do a gym class there. I mean, it's perfect. And your vision to start another one, are you focused on the south shore only or not necessarily? Um, I, right now we're pretty committed to the south shore. I will tell you that this whole thing, we have a team now. I have a developer who's, you know, he's done it with us. He's committed to it. So we really have a team. Um, and so I feel like that's where we will, you know, when you're building all your community assets, you want to keep them in the community. If town of Wayland had an RFP that organizations like yours to submit an application, would you consider Wayland or just too far away? Honestly, it's too far. I would, if you had a group, like if you had an entity or a group of families that wanted to do this, I would be willing to consult with them and guide them. I do that now, like through our training, we now train, um, cohorts of families, um, through the NFI. Um, we went through it as founders, but now I, um, they've trained me. So I now train cohorts of families on how to start to look at it and build their particular pathway to housing for their loved ones. And is the vision that the residents that will live in this facility, is it the vision that they will grow old in that facility? Is that a hope or a possibility? I think it's a possibility and I think they can. Um, but it may also just be a stepping stone for some of these residents to, again, they've all been living at home. They're in their thirties. This is their first opportunity to have some independence. And I can say that there are a number of them that this will be a stepping stone for them to possibly get their own apartment with a friend, um, and with some supports, um, if that's what they so choose to do. You mentioned this already, but to what extent is staff involved in this facility? Overnight staff, um, staff during the day, morning hours, evening hours? There's always somebody there 24 seven. There will always be a person on site. Um, the community builders, it's really a shift type of thing, um, where the residents are out of the building from 8am to 3 or 4pm. So the community builders are really there for support and supervision and companionship from 4pm to 10pm. And then it's kind of like a lights out and they'll probably do a check in, make sure everybody's settled in for the evening and then weekends. So those are really the shifts that we're, we're filling. Um, they do live on site, so we do not charge them for rent. We pay them and we, we have a nominal rental payment. Um, but they live there and then they could theoretically, they could have another job during the day. We had the commission of mass ability with us last week. And one of the points she made was her desire to see these homes be innovative and have a real sense of home for the residents. It sounds like that's one goal that your organization is trying to achieve. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they're beautiful. They're really, the apartments are beautiful. I'll just share with you a little bit. Cause I think it's really important. The community is everything. Um, we were able to get, um, a local painter. Okay. Painted the entire building in and out for free. That's $50,000. We had, um, an appliance, George Toma donated all the appliance. That's six suites of kitchens donated. We had court furnishings. They're a Haywood or, um, Berkshire Hathaway. They're, they have a philanthropic arm where they give you furniture for free. So they're beautiful. I've had so many, we had 300 people go to our open house and they're like, I would live here. Um, so that, and also the outreach from the community that has said, I'd like to volunteer. I want to come in and teach a cooking class. You know, I want to come in and do yoga with your, you know, your residents. I've had people come in and say, you know what, what if we did an integrated, you know, we'll do a movie night. So, um, can't highlight enough that it's a community buy-in. In your lease space, not housing space. Is there a goal of leasing that space to a particular type of organization or not really? Well, one of the lease spaces is an office space and that's for South Shore support services. It's about, I don't know, 700 square feet. That's an office. It's actually going to house that remote support monitoring office, the call center. The other space, I had a tenant. Um, it was a perfect tenant. Uh, he does, um, health and well-being for this population. He has a gym in Brockton and he wanted to expand, but he couldn't do it. Um, so we're currently looking for the appropriate, um, for the appropriate tenant. Um, it would be ideal if it's a nonprofit. Um, but it doesn't have to be as long as it's aligned with what we're doing. There could be something that, you know, offers our residents jobs.
You have eight units at this, at this site. And the reason you can have eight is because you're not working closely with DDS. Is that one of the rules that you understand exists that would limit you probably to five? Yeah, there is, there's a lot and that that's kind of been out there. It's the Olmstead Act where, um, there is a regulation about how many people can live together. Um, and that was the result of deinstitutionalizing, but I have to say that, um, we haven't run up against that. I think that's even DDS and they're like a little softer in that respect because there are fair housing laws too that override some of that. Um, but yeah, and, um, that's, I don't mean to be, but that's a part of the privatization of this gives us a lot more freedom to, um, determine who lives there, what it's going to look like. Bill, um, are you finished? I'm done. Okay. Uh, question about new construction versus renovation. Could you have pretty much done the same thing if you had just been given the land or how do you balance the costs? Yeah. Well, um, we couldn't really pass it up because the location and the actual, the building itself just lended it to it. That's what the builder was all about. Um, this builder and the architect have actually, uh, before COVID they had drawn up architectural renderings. Um, if we were to do a build and, um, I think, you know, we're trying to work on something with the town of Hingham where we can lease, um, a plot of land from the town and then do a build. Um, and I think the build will be less expensive for the same amount of square footage, just because we've done it. You're not renovating it, tearing it up, demoing it. I think we've heard that from people too. They prefer to do new construction if they can. I would, I don't like, I mean, we did it, it was great, but I have a lot of people come to me with building prospects, you know, and I think a lot about age in place and they, they show me, you know, um, homes that are, you know, second level, third level. It's like, that's not really going to work long-term. Stephanie or John, any questions, a follow-up question though? No, I don't think so. I just had a quick follow-up and I'm sorry if you, you already responded when, um, Bill was, was covering this, but just in terms of the capital costs, how much did the angel investor put on the table? And I'm sorry, did you say that there, there was community preservation funding as part of it? Yes. So the land acquisition, it was 1.6. Okay. So that, the, uh, the angel investor purchased it. Okay. And how much did you get from the town? CPC was 1.75 million. Okay. Okay. And then O'Connor, Senator O'Connor earmarked was 125. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Anybody in the room have any follow-up? Um,
now Ms. Henry, do you have any questions for us? Do you have families that are pushing this? Is there a group of families or is this just a town initiative or your community are looking to create housing for adults with disabilities? That's correct. Tommy voted to utilize, uh, some or all of this land for that purpose. That's great. Um, that's great. Any other questions?
You good? I don't think so. Where, where do you stand in the project? You're doing a lot of exploratory. Do you have a developer? Um, No. So our committee is charged with advising, recommending best use of the land to the select board and the select board will consider recommendations and possibly issue an RFP for projects of some sort. So that's, that's kind of the process.
Great. Well, if you have families that are looking to organize to work with you, if this project does, you know, go to fruition, I would be happy to work and consult with them or speak with them. Excellent. Thank you for that suggestion. And thank you for your time this evening. You've been extremely helpful to us for understanding, um, the type of projects that are out there and, and you're a wealth of knowledge and, um, recall upon you in the future. Uh, um, hopefully we won't be a burden. No, I hope I was helpful. That's, that's all good. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Happy holidays, everyone. Thank you. You too. You too. Bye-bye.
So comments on, on that project, anybody? Great. She obviously has embraced it in a very professional way and just become an expert, you know, got herself trained and is really, yeah, figured out how to mobilize all these people. Very impressive. It's clear a project like that needs a strong leader. You know, it's one thing to have a group of families who would like to do it, but you've got to have somebody like that who commits to being the project manager. And it was nice to hear the town was supportive. I think Situate at one point was one of our peer towns. And what I mean by that is as far as size and other factors. I'm not sure it is today, but I think at some point it used to be. It's similar, similar to Whalen in some respects. Other comments on your topic? Yeah, I think it's interesting that she's kind of a bandit, you know, that don't want to get bogged down in regulation. And I know how that can be, and working in public housing. But, um, so I, I kind of admire her for redemption of, uh, doing this on their own and without government regulation and, uh, and the funding that comes along with that. But I, I do wonder long-term, I mean, she's very dynamic. Right now they have a dynamic board or whatever it is. And how that would work in the long term and these service agreements with, uh, guidance. And, uh, it seems like that could much rather work long-term. I mean, I suppose you could terminate the lease if the Guardian doesn't come up with the $2,000. Uh, but I know everybody signs on to be a Guardian and then they kind of disappear. When, when the pedal hits the metal. But, um, but I, I do admire her, uh, individuality and entrepreneurship. I grew up. I grew up in Needham and the Charles River organization. It's not far from where I did a lot of and what struck me as I was going down was how invested that organization was. And, um, in the town, people really respected the organization and, uh, was into play. I wonder whether that will happen in the situation that this project will be respected and people want to be involved in it and will work hard and make sure it's accessible. Well, you know, she said that they, applicants had to live within 15 miles of the project. So you're getting a focused group of the local identity bringing to the project. It's going to get much more community support than if you've got people coming from 200 miles. It would, when that, we, the Housing Authority built, um, a unit on Plain Road. It was amazing. She was talking about donations. Uh, we, it was built with the students from Mantech and, uh, so that saved a lot of money. But, um, you know, a lot of the plumbing was donated, furnaces, um, kitchens. So it was, it's amazing. People wanted to donate, uh, to this project, uh, I was impressed with that. I think that spirit's still around. You know, it's interesting what she said, that they were able to find 14 applicants within 15 miles. So, um, the population down there is probably a little lighter than it is here. Maybe not. Um, maybe not. But, um, it kind of gives us a bit of a, um, you know, metric, if you would. Mm-hmm. There's, there's a lot of water in that 15 miles, right? Yeah.
These have been a bloody storm. You're saying that one of the publicans are the normal weather.
Um, I think that's, I think I agree with you. That's, that's pretty impressive. The, the fact that they were able to come up with that number of people in such a short period of time that were willing to commit to putting $2,000 a month on, on the table. Um, impressive. But the individuals that applied appear to be relatively high functioning. When you get, you get that sense shown, they get. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But by the same token, they don't drive. And they, from taking her at her word, they, they don't have full-time employment.
So, Brian, you mentioned, uh, you had a question about the $2,000. So, is the $2,000 a month, is your understanding $2,000 a month is for, so their, their adult child can move there, but it can be offset at some point if they get Section 8? Was that your understanding? Well, I, I think, I see it as being separate from the housing voucher, but, uh, okay. Because you said $800 a month, $800 for rent plus $2,000. You got $1,500 from Section 8 and that would drop your $2,000. Okay. That's what I heard. Yeah. Other comments? But, uh, that, there would be the, the fee for, the $2,000 isn't part of that? The fee for the live-ins and that kind of the services? I wonder how much that is, um, is that? The, the shortfall from DBS, maybe? I got the sense from her. I think she did answer that, but they, they pay for the staffing from that $2,000 a month, times four, times eight. Times eight, so. Which would make sense. I mean, you could do that. So if, maybe if they got a Section 8, that would reduce it by $800 a month, maybe? And then they'd still have to come up with $1,200. Uh, the family would have to come up with $1,200 if they got a Section 8. But she didn't give a breakdown as to how many of those eight residents had vouchers either. I mean, we didn't press her and she didn't specify. So we don't, we haven't, don't have any idea what the breakdown is. I was also going to just say, and just to piggyback, I think Tom, you said this also, uh, that it does, uh, illustrate the amount of support in the community that they were able to go, go to the town for 1.7 million in community preservation funds. And you don't just go to your state legislator and get $125,000 state earmark. I can tell you that from personal experience. I mean, it, it takes it, you, you, you need to have political capital to be able to do that. So they clearly have community support. Well, I just thought it was a couple of observations. Uh, one is they're on sort of the exact opposite side of the table for NOS in terms of where the property owner, right. And they're the, uh, they are whoever we ended up working with, by God willing, we'll be in their shoes. Uh, but also aside from the, the land cost, the land share of the project cost was publicly financed. Uh, so it gives you a sense of how involved it is to put these things together, you know, money is a fair chunk of it is available to meet the capital costs. So then the challenge is the operating, whether it, you know, it's sort of client-based support, public support in terms of SSI or state money or section eight vouchers or whatever. So
it's complicated. It was interesting that her estimate of $300,000 is above what we heard about the 350 from high spirit, which for this level of, um, service is 300 to 350 per year. Yeah. It's very, very consistent. So their number is based on three residents. Right. But they have a high spirit. Oh, well, I think he was speaking about the Great Barrington site. Maybe not. Yeah. That's right. Oh, that's true. Yeah. I'm sorry, I saw you were referring to it. And I feel like he also said it didn't really matter if you added, like, the total number of people. Right. But it was kind of the same cost in almost a moment. Yeah. Um, because of the people time in that's cost. Um, our next, uh, guest doesn't arrive until 745, so I want to, uh, bounce to two other agenda items. Now, the first is item four in our packet. We have minutes for the meetings of the meeting from November 13th, 2025 and December 3rd, 2025. Happy to entertain the motion for approval of those minutes. So moved. I have a second. Thank you. Thank you. So, uh, Whitney, Bill Adams, any discussion on the minutes? There are none in favor of approval of the minutes. Uh, Stephanie. Hi. John, Bill Adams. Yes. Bill Ritten. Yes. Brian, motion? Aye. Yes. Tom Fedde, yes. Um, unanimous vote. Uh, thank you. Next, I'd like to move on to, um, a report, draft report that, um, Gene Milburn was kind enough to put together. It's also in our packet. Um, like, uh, open it up, uh, comments, um, uh, on it, uh, suggestions for additions, subtractions, um, and we'll start with John, anything, John? I have to admit that I have not had a chance to review it. Okay. Stephanie? Stephanie? It's wonderful. I was so impressed with it. And, um, and, uh, I think it caught a lot of the spirit of what we've been talking about. And I, I don't have any particular, uh, changes to think of right at this moment now. Um, Bill Adams?
Nothing right now, but can I have a little more time? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no. Do you want me to respond to you independently by email before the next meeting or wait till the next meeting? Whatever the method the chair prefers. You know, I, I, I, I think, um, That's to do it at the meeting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll, I'll give that some more thought. I think that's, that's course. So, what are you thoughts? Uh, well, I thought the, uh, the format was, was excellent. And, uh, they, it's a very good armature, if you will. Um, I think that it might be helpful for the select board to have a little more background about the, uh, the, the fact that, uh, there's a very substantial need, uh, that there is a wide variety of, um, potential or rather a wide variety of, uh, disability types and, uh, extent of the disability and that, um, that the committee is, um, cognizant of that, but that we're not not, uh, deliberately making a recommendation as to which population to serve specifically. Um, you know, unlike, uh, our, our prior speaker, they had a very specific population in mind, uh, fairly high functioning people and so forth. Uh, whereas the, uh, some of the models that we've heard are, uh, differed in that some are higher functions, some are people with, uh, more civil disabilities and, and it's maybe well to sort of point out the fact that it, it, it's perhaps a good idea to keep an open mind as it were about those responses and to invite responses from, uh, proponents, uh, serving basically different resident populations. I, I, I, I, I, I agree with those comments. My question, Bill, is does it make sense to suggest some sort of preference, uh, uh, uh, how I would think that, that might not be the right word, it's not a recommendation, but, but, but the sense of the committee that this type of model would be more ideal than this, and this more ideal than this, was that pretty much doing the same thing? You know, my own thinking has evolved as we've gone through this process, and I'm just, I'd be very interested in time permitting to hear each of the members of the committee sort of articulate their view of what an ideal partner would be or an ideal development would be. I think that's a good idea, so I'll put that on the agenda for next meeting. Yeah, I, I, I thought it's very well done. It's all the salient points. Well, the topics we've been, uh, discussing, um, uh, it's interesting that, uh, affordable housing consideration is under Section 8. That wasn't planned, even though I do have a sense of humor. But, uh, I just wanted to convey to this committee that the Housing Authority Board met last week and discussed briefly, um, this 212 particular road, and their recommendation is for, we don't talk about the numbers of units again, but their recommendation would be given the size of the site to maximize, uh, what gets, gets the bill there as far as affordable housing goes, because this is a rare opportunity, uh, for the, for affordable housing. And they felt that 8 to 12 is a small number given the size of the parcel, so they wanted me to convey that to you. Right. Thank you. My concern with that recommendation is, I'm not, based on what I've wanted to speak for myself, but I'm not sure that reflects what's best for the residents that we want to house. You follow me in other words. More isn't always better. Yeah. In some communities, I think this is one. Yep. And, well, they, they also mention that maybe if you have a multi-use, uh, development there, uh, the group home and maybe some affordable housing built into it, so it wouldn't just be a group home. It was nice to hear, um, um, um, Ms. Henry that all the units in that object are all considered, uh, towards affordable housing. That's true. And they're, uh, they're a non-profit. So, uh, Jean, any, any questions for us, or comments from your project? Um, well, I'm, I'm glad that everybody is taking this draft calmly. I haven't directed it, stepped in any beer traps here. Um, you know, it really is fairly bare bones at this, because we haven't come to any strong conclusions. We're all evolving as we hear more and more. Um, I, I do like the idea of helping the select board understand, um, it's less, there's such a huge population with all these different needs. I mean, we're going to serve somebody, but we really have to be driven more by the competence of the organizations who would make this happen than by the subset of the disabled population who will be served. And so, I didn't know we'd be doing that when I first started on this journey. I really thought, oh, we'll decide to do an autism house, or we'll do an MS house, or we'll do a IDD house, or whatever. Um, so yeah, I'll find a way of building that in. Uh, I, I do think it would be, so I have looked it over now. Um, it would be helpful though, to describe the potential, you kind of what Phil was saying. Um, uh, in, in my field, we call them use cases, but like, um, vignettes, like a potential, like, what could it look like? Because they haven't sat through all the meetings that we've sat through. And, you know, I could imagine, uh, affordable housing for functional people with jobs who need affordable housing. I could imagine, um, relatively high functioning people who especially benefit from walkability to public transport, but also with some busing transportation support could live there as well. And that's kind of what we just heard. And then there's the, you know, high intensity, medically complex, mostly stay in one place, but I'll sometimes move around type of scenario that with the group home that we've heard about. And then somehow to teaching this, the select people about the, the complexity, the financial complexity of these things. And we can't cover everything, but what are key considerations or what are, um, features that make a success? What did we learn from all these people who spoke with us about the features that make them sustainable or successful or something like that? Is that too much to put in their document? I'm going to put a Pandacy through four.
You know what, Bill, and riffing, riffing on that a little bit also, I think it might be helpful for the select board to hear from our experience, hearing from all of these folks.
I, I, I'm not quite sure how, how this would look, but to give them some kind of recommendations as to, again, sort of building on what you said, if we, if, if the select board were to consider this particular model, it would come with these particular risks and challenges and degrees of complexity, right? I mean, we've, we've seen such a wide array of presentations and different types of models. And I think we've all sort of been thinking sort of the same questions, how complicated is this, right? Um, you know, what, what we just heard, I think we could agree is a pretty complicated, pretty sophisticated model, right? I mean, and there, there aren't a lot of them out there. So I think, you know, that the complexity level meter for that would be pretty high. Um, the, the degree of sophistication needed to pull it off would be pretty high versus say the traditional group home model, which has been tried and true for a long time. And it would come with a, with a lower, lower threshold. Uh, and you know, another, another consideration, build time. I'm, I'm sort of kicking myself that I didn't ask her, how long did, did it take you to sort of get this project off the ground from soup to nuts? How much time did it take? Um, I don't, I don't know if we're in a position to, to make a recommendation on that, but yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, a user's guide to all, all of the things that the select board should probably consider when looking at these different models would be helpful. My only comment is, um, possibly a section on the history, um, relative to town meaning and, and even the amendment of town meaning is to, you know, about history that might be helpful to throw in there. But I see our guest is here, but just a couple additional thoughts. One is, um, it might be well to, uh, uh, suggest to the select board, uh, that it, uh, be, uh, flexible in its, uh, uh, in how, uh, the land is valued and what cost would be, uh, it could reasonably be afforded by a developer, i.e. I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't want to create an expectation that this will be sold to market value and, uh, give some advice that, uh, the board ought to be flexible in thinking about the consideration that it would expect, uh, but rather think about what's needed to make the numbers work. Uh, and also, uh, should we think about recommending criteria to the board? What, what's the relative importance of accommodating Whalen residents that would sort of cut against the typical DDS model, uh, experience, uh, number of residents that are going to be accommodated, that kind of thing. Okay. Just thinking as a select board member, getting the same kind of cold, we put up this RFP, how are we going to judge what we get back? Yeah. So I'm going to, uh, interrupt our discussion and, and, uh, welcome Sabrina Mano to our meeting. Is it Mano or Mano? It's Mano. Thank you for asking. Certainly. You're co-founder of 193. Um, um, welcome. Nice to have you here. As I think you have a sense our committee's been around since August of this year and we're exploring, um, uh, options and ideas for developing housing for adults with disabilities on a four-acre parcel here in Whalen. Town meeting has authorized the select board to develop the property, some of it for that purpose. And our committee is charged to recommend, um, ideas to the select. So your presence here tonight is very helpful to us. And, uh, uh, uh, when you introduce yourself, tell us about your organization and, uh, uh, anything else you'd like to tell us. Um, thank you for, uh, having me. So Branching Tree is, um, a nonprofit that, um, is relatively new within this year. Um, and we are basically creating a, uh, an inclusive shared living community that will, um, end up housing a total of nine adults, um, with disabilities and nine non-disabled adults under what is called a shared living model. So within DDS, there are three major models, um, that are available for adults with disabilities who qualify. There's, um, group homes, there's shared living, and then there's also self-directed, uh, self-directed is when, um, an individual may remain at home or, uh, the family purchases some type of, uh, an accessory unit or an apartment where they provide a, around the clock caregiver depending on the level of needs and supports that are required. So that self-direction basically means that the funding goes from DDS to the family to help, um, organize, coordinate, and pay for the support and services that that individual would receive. Group homes, um, you may be familiar. Group homes are basically, um, congregate care, um, and can house anywhere from sometimes three adults. And I've heard as many as six adults, um, in a group home with round the clock staff. Um, these are staff that are, um, none of them live there. They are, um, staff who are paid and they're shift staff. So they come in usually three different shifts during the day. And again, depending on the level of need for the individuals that live there, um, the supports can range anywhere from, you know, uh, for individ, individuals with disabilities to one adult, to one adult with disabilities requiring one full-time person, um, helping, assisting, monitoring them. Um, and then the last is shared living. Shared living in the traditional sense is when, um, um, anyone, uh, individuals in the community, anyone can raise their hand and say, I would like to, um, have an individual with disabilities come and live in my home and you pay me the money, DDS, and I will arrange for their care and their services while they're living here under my roof. It could be a family. It could be an individual. So those are the three available models through DDS. What we're doing is we're actually creating a little bit of a hybrid of that. Um, typically shared living is only made available to individuals with disabilities who are much higher functioning. Um, they don't have as many, um, um, support needs. Um, and so they are able to access a less restrictive environment. What we're saying is that in our shared living situation, we are going to have individuals that live there in the home that are getting paid a salary or stipend to be their, their family of caregivers, living with them alongside them. But we want to, we're layering in the supports of a group home, which means that if an individual has a higher level of needs, they may get, um, additional staff person during the day that's brought in. If they have medical complexities, um, they may get nursing assistance through a VNA who comes in and helps with changing medical supplies or, um, medications, things like that. Um, so it's with those layered supports in a less restrictive setting. We are not the first ones to do this. Um, there has been an organization out in, uh, Western Mass, who I believe you met with Bob Swain, High Spirit Community Farm, who's been doing this for 12 years as a pilot model under DDS. Um, it remains a pilot model because DDS has not formally created it as its own housing category. So we are, um, we have gone a little bit different route, um, than I think some of the other groups who are hoping to do this. We decided rather than seeking land and building something, it would be much faster for us to go and purchase a property that had a home on it and then build that property out to add two additional homes. So in our case, we're starting with one house already. Um, we've purchased the property. We've already received zoning board approval to, um, uh, build two additional structures on the property. It's about a 12 and a half acre lot. And we are in the process right now of contracting with our different agencies, um, who are licensed through DDS to supply the staff, the training, the billing, the policies and compliances to make sure that DDS is comfortable with the level of support and provision that's going to occur in our model. So there it is in a nutshell. Just wondering, um, you're talking about three residences and talking about DDS, but that doesn't that come up against the, um, they're having too many people in the same area? No, the, the maximum right now is a total of nine individuals, um, within the same property, property or, um, uh, in the case of high spirit farm, they ended up purchasing three properties next door to each other. Um, because it's shared living, you can have nine. Yes. So we can have nine, um, nine individuals with disabilities living there together on the same property. Um, there are, um, in the case of group homes, um, in some cases it's as few as three and in some cases it's up to six in a group home. Um, however, I will say that DDS is, has recently made some, um, uh, concessions in the sense of there is a new property going into Needham where I believe they're going to have something like an 85 unit apartment building, um, where individuals that are much higher functioning can navigate taking a bus or the train, maybe even having a job, you know, part-time or full-time will be living in an 85 unit building together, which goes against the traditional DDS rules and guidelines. But because of the, because of the housing shortage, they're allowing it. And did, what are they, what is DDS actually going to provide as far as, um, support for a living situation like that? And what, what would be the criteria for the residents? Um, would it be hard to qualify for that? Um, uh, I don't think it would be hard to qualify for. I think that, um, the fewer supports that are needed, the less costly it is for DDS. Um, my understanding is that they will have some level of onsite, um, supervision, someone that they can check in with like a front help desk. There might even be nursing onsite. Um, just again, to remind the residents, did you take your medications today? Or if you're running low, come check in here, we'll help you with medications. So in that particular scenario, because a lot of these individuals are working part time, DDS is actually going to be charging them back rent, a very nominal amount of rent, um, that will help to cover the cost of the onsite supports that they're going to receive. Um, and those onsite supports are what DDS would be paying for.
So not the residents, but the supports. And I, I do think that because it's such a nominal amount of rent, um, that DDS is somehow subsidizing the cost of that. Um, my, my guess is they're probably going to have to modify or update the apartment building to some degree. I don't know if the town of Needham is doing that. I don't know if Charles River Arc is doing that, but my guess is that there would need to be some level of updating. Um, required to meet DDS regulations. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Jean, questions? Um, back to your, your model. Um, so nine adults and then nine adults who are not disabled. What's the housing unit situation? Does everyone have their own unit? And, or how does that work? So really this is designed to be, if you think of like a, a cul-de-sac with three homes on it, it's really designed to be almost like a neighborhood community. There will be three homes. Each home will be somewhere in the area of 2,500 to 4,000 square feet. Um, it will have a total of six bedrooms. Um, those six bedrooms will be occupied by the three adults with disabilities. Two of the bedrooms will be what are called, um, the live-in resident co-workers. And then the, the sixth bedroom will be what's called the householder. The householder is the, um, house manager for the house. So they handle all the bill, the utilities, paying the bills, supplying the house, the schedules, um, uh, medication supervision. And then you have the two live-in resident, uh, co, uh, co-residents. They're really, um, more charged with the day-to-day support with daily living skills, making sure that, um, the adults with disabilities are getting, um, in and showered and doing their, um, hygiene routines, that they are getting their meals during the day, and then also assisting with transitioning them to a daytime program where it may be that they're picked up by, uh, a van, or they may actually go out in a van, um, that would be owned by us. And they may go out and do a combination of, um, volunteer work, recreational activities, and also enrichment activities. Some of those will be out in the community, like they might be, um, volunteering for meals on wheels, delivering meals. They might be volunteering at the food pantry, packing, um, bags of food. They might be going to the YMCA and doing swimming. Um, go to the library out in the community for a meal, go out to the store, and they have a list of groceries that they are going to be tasked with finding and bringing them back to, to make their sandwiches for lunch. So there's an educational component of it, which is ongoing education of mastering those daily living skills, mastering kind of daily life and activities, and continuing to enrich them so they have a meaningful day experience. So these aren't people going to a day program there. You have it right there. The day program is built in, um, but we definitely want, um, a big part of it will be going out in the community rather than just keeping them, you know, kind of hidden away on the property. Um, where this is, this community model is really about ensuring that long after all of the, the parents have passed away, that these young adults are embraced by the community. Um, they see them out at the grocery stores, they see them at the restaurants, at the library, and that they are, um, um, you know, continuing to, to support and interact with them.
John Thomas, any questions? Um, yeah, Sabrina, thank you very much for speaking to us. Um, so this was really a, a parent sort of created and driven, sounds like a passion project. Could you talk a little bit about how it all came to be? I'm assuming somebody didn't just snap their fingers one day and, and that this concept was black and white there, there in front of you. How, how did you, uh, get to know each other, develop a relationship? Uh, you know, and could you talk a little bit about how long that took from inception to where we are, uh, today? Sure. Um, great questions. Uh, so, so yes, because this is a, um, newer pilot type model that's really only been, um, proven with one, um, you know, there are, there are other communities out there. They're not in Massachusetts. There's Camp Hill communities. There's some in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York. Um, but not those options don't exist here. DDS, um, are really facilitators of housing. They don't necessarily go out and create housing. So somebody, some organization, some parents have to create more options because there just aren't enough right now. So we went, um, we, we toured high spirit. Um, high spirit has been really working proactively with an advisory, um, uh, advisor to go out and help groups and families raise awareness about this model, um, and help connect us together. Um, it's not for every parent, um, because it, it does take, um, a fair amount of rolling up your sleeves and tenacity and perseverance. Um, but we were connected with, um, uh, another parent who actually works with the, um, Arc of Massachusetts. Um, she has a son who has been in every different form of residential care from, um, um, hospital setting institutions to group homes to living at home and then living semi-independently. What we're all looking for is something just beyond the caregiver, um, and, uh, care receiver relationship. We're looking for a community where they can feel belonging. They have more than just four walls to look at all day long, um, some level of enrichment and meaningful day. So we started meeting with, um, another group of parents, probably back, uh, fall of last year. Um, we added on, um, another parent by early February. I'm sorry to interrupt, but how did that process of, uh, introduction happen? So, um, how you came together. So that was actually a high spirit advisory, um, helped bring us together. They had parents who had come out to tour, um, had an interest in the model and were very interested in meeting other like-minded parents who wanted to create something together. Um, so we were introduced with our, uh, now co-founder, the first, um, set of parents, uh, dropped out because they wanted something a little bit different. Um, and so since February, we have been working very hard, very diligently, um, closed on this property in October and we are slated to open the first house in, uh, beginning of May 1st of next year. So it's been, it'll be just over a year from kind of start to opening. Um, our, our plan then is to, we've already started a committee of families who are interested in homes two and three. And, um, we actually just met with them last night. Um, we have 12 families who are interested in six available slots. If that gives you an indication of the need. Um, and now we're in the process of having people self-select in or out based on some of the, the work that they're going to be tasked with in helping with fundraising, planning and development. We want them to have a stake in the development of the second and third homes so that they have a value attached to it, um, a role in it. And, uh, so our plan is to have the second and third homes built simultaneously, uh, because it will be more economical with the infrastructure needed for sewer and water and electrical. And the plan would be to have the second and third homes open 12 to 15 months from May of 2026. So that's where we're at. And I do, I do have to say that, uh, my husband and I, um, as well as our partner, we have, um, both, uh, all, uh, created nonprofit, a nonprofit in the past, um, both very successful. Um, but we have moved from those areas where those nonprofits were created and we are here now and our, our children are older and there is a need and a necessity to, to create something for them so that it's around long after we're gone. You good, John? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Sabrina. This is a, it's interesting. Can you just give us an overview of the financing of, uh, branching trade? Yeah, sure. So, um, so really it was, it's based this first time very much on, um, uh, what, uh, some of the initial budgets that we received from high spirit community farm, what it takes for them to operate, you know, one home with three individuals with disabilities and three non-disabled on an annual basis. And that's, we took that budget and then we started to work within that budget. Um, it costs roughly around $330,000 per year to run one house. Okay. And that's for, um, um, the live-in staff that's for everything from insurance, groceries, utilities. Um, and so the funding from, for that comes from a few different places. It comes from DDS. So DDS supports each individual. If you think of someone with a disability arriving at the house and they each come with a price tag over their head, it's just the facts, um, based on their level of need and supports, it can vary from $40,000 a year to $80,000 per year that they need in supports 24 hours a day, um, to help them navigate daily life. Um, so those three individuals receive that DDS funding. The day program component of it, um, is paid for by MassHealth. So MassHealth provides funding for the, the day program that might be three days a week. Um, um, but the hours are spread a little bit differently depending on how many days per week that might be. And then the third, uh, component is with SSI. So each individual receives social security, um, as an adult, um, 70% of their social security goes to cover their living expenses. Um, and then the remainder, which will end up being around 55, $60,000 a year is what we will end up fundraising through grants, campaigns, donations, supporters, et cetera. So, um, at the end of the day, you end up with, um, three houses at $330,000, you know, a year you're close to a million dollar annual budget. Um, and that funding is coming in to pay for primarily, um, in terms of staff, the householder gets a salary. Um, but that salary is offset by the fact that they're getting free room and board. And then the two live in householders in each house get a stipend. So that stipend is relatively low. It might be $400 a month, but they're getting free room and board. And in many cases, if they are say a graduate student who's studying, um, special education or studying behavioral psychology, they see it as a practicum experience where they're getting credit for their experience, their co-op experience.
Just to follow up, can you just, uh, mention your capital costs, how you acquired the, uh, property and, uh, built it? Well, that was, uh, we put in, we have, uh, three families for the three young men who will be living there. We each put in a hundred thousand dollars as, uh, basically the down payment, um, for the home and to cover the first six months of mortgage payments. Um, the remainder we got in a, uh, uh, commercial loan, um, as a non-profit and that will ultimately be covered by the different funding that's coming in from DDS and SSI. So that's more based on the individual client, right? DDS and SSI? It is. So each, uh, but, but the funding will all come in to the same pot. So the other component of this is that there is, um, there are two agencies involved. Okay. So we are the non-profit. We own the property. Um, then there is an agency who manages the recruitment, hiring, training, and billing with DDS. They are the licensed DDS agency. So they take a small portion of the funding that comes in to cover the cost of managing all of those things. They also have to do all the compliance reporting out to DDS, which is a big undertaking. And then there is a day program agency. Um, so the funding comes from DDS, MassHealth, SSI. It goes into, um, a pot through those two different agencies. And then a portion of it goes directly to the, um, live-in care providers. And then the remainder goes into a bucket to pay all the operational costs and overhead for the property in the house. Uh, let me add my thanks to those of, uh, my colleagues. This is really very interesting. Um, to follow up on Brian's question, um, the, the debt that you've incurred, uh, for the, uh, down payment or rather for the, uh, property acquisition, the construction, uh, is the, uh, to the, uh, will the residents pay rent, which will help, uh, pay the debt service? Nope. Uh, we, um, as the, the, the founders and, and purchasers of this property, the, the founders of the organization are $100,000 each is considered a straight donation into the nonprofit. So that money goes into the nonprofit, it never comes out of the nonprofit and it never, um, is repaid in any way. Um, the, because the funding for the residents and their, uh, monthly annual care costs, food, you know, cost of living, because that is all covered under these other entities of DDS, Mass Health and SSI, there is no ongoing cost to the families or to, um, the individuals themselves. So how does Branching Tree pay its debt service? So that is covered through the funds that come in from those three entities. Well, that's actually two. Um, DDS and SSI funds can go towards the mortgage payment. Mass health funds cannot, um, those are earmarked specifically for the, um, day program component. Um, so that goes into pay basically the, the monthly mortgage fee insurance, um, and the, the utilities and the operations of the house. And, um, given the involvement with DDS, are, are you able to, uh, is, is your board, is the nonprofit able to have a preference for, uh, residents of the local community, uh, for family members of, uh, the board members? So with the, the board of directors, um, we, within our bylaws have stipulated that, um, there is a, um, uh, a portion of the board that can be, uh, parental or family members. Um, but then the rest of the board needs to be made up of, uh, uh, uh, professionals with experience in, uh, serving individuals with disabilities. Um, and also having some type of, um, profession or, uh, experience or services in things like, uh, banking, legal, you know, CPA, um, pediatrics, um, so that we have representation from all those critical areas. Um, but the, the, the families, um, the families, uh, will only have, um, a few seats on the board. Um, I guess my question was more directed at whether, uh, because of DDS's involvement, there is any restriction on, um, identifying, uh, individuals to be the residents. So in this case, no, um, because we, um, own the property and, uh, we have a nonprofit, uh, status with a board of directors, um, DDS can make referrals to us for individuals within the catchment area. Um, but we have, um, the right of approval or refusal in terms of whether or not they are a fit and that we can support their needs. So for instance, if we have a community that is, um, um, made up predominantly of, you know, 25 to 40 year old, uh, young individuals, they are all very able-bodied, um, uh, and active, but we have a referral for maybe an individual with disabilities who is, you know, um, much higher in age, who is wheelchair bound, who might be blind. Those are, that becomes difficult for us to support given the other members of our community. And also some of the restrictions that we may have within the house facilities that, you know, it may not be ADA compliant for wheelchairs, it may not be, um, compliant for an individual who is vision impaired. So that's where we do have the option of, uh, identifying and bringing in, um, families, uh, and individuals with disabilities that we feel are a good fit within this community. How close is your 12 and a half acre site to grocery stores, restaurants, library, uh, fitness centers, that kind of thing? So we are about five miles away from the major grocery store. There are a few, uh, chain, you know, fast food places there. I think there's a, a CVS there. And then we're probably about nine, nine miles away from, um, a major, um, uh, route where there's everything from Kohl's and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and Home Depot and Lowe's. Um, there are also, um, the reason we selected that area is that there's an extensive rail trail in the area. Um, there's a huge community park where there are paddle boats on the river and there are, um, tennis and, and, um, all kinds of different activities. There's a YMCA that's just a few miles away, um, to, to have the individuals go over there and get a membership. So again, that's the reason we've selected it. It's, it's about, um, I would say eight to 10 minute drive outside of downtown Northampton. Sure. I have a couple of questions and we'll let you go. Um, earlier we had Mary Nell Henry with us from sale home organization and she mentioned your organization. Do you know each other? Um, I don't know her personally. I have heard of her and our co-founder knows her and has, uh, corresponded with her. Okay. So you haven't exchanged notes on your different projects, for example? No, uh, we have our, our, again, our co-founder is part of a innovative housing consortium. Um, and so there are a number of groups, including sale. Um, our group, I believe there is a, a group out of, um, Plymouth potentially. Um, there are about five different housing model groups that are all part of that consortium. And so our co-founder does sit on that, um, consortium with, um, sale home. So you kind of, um, leads me to my next question. My next question is, do you consider your program an innovative program in that? Yes, very much so because, um, and part of the reason that we have chosen to, to do this is to create a pathway for more models and programs like this to be created. Um, because it doesn't fit neatly within the three checkboxes of DDS right now. And, um, um, it really is, um, there is a, a shift occurring right now within the disabilities community to make sure that we don't return to the congregate care institutional models of, you know, groups of individuals with disabilities sitting in staring at four walls with nothing to do during the day and being kind of, you know, hidden away from society. Um, so we are trying to make headway in terms of providing, um, what DDS will tell you their objective is to find the least restrictive environment for individuals with disabilities. And that's what we're trying to do. Do you sense that this, that the state likes your ideas? We do. We actually, um, I would say it was probably back in summer. Um, uh, our, again, our co-founder Dottie Foley, who works for the Arc of Massachusetts and, um, uh, whose colleague, um, was at the time the, um, the, the CEO of the Arc, Leo Sarkissian. Um, he actually, um, was able to get us, uh, uh, uh, an appointment with Tim Cahill, who at the time was the interim director of DDS. Um, and we were able to sit down and talk with him about our model and about our plans, uh, hoping to get some level of a nod, you know, we're going to go spend $900,000 on a house, you know, can you give us some indication that you're going to support this? Um, so, uh, you know, in so many words, he said, we're excited about it. We think this needs to happen. Um, we know we're very familiar with High Spirit Community Farm and the success that they've had. Um, and if you create it, we will, you know, and, and follow our kind of rules and, and compliance and regulations, we will support it. So that's, so with that nod, we move forward. Mr. Mayor, congratulations on the project and your hard work, um, your credit, uh, in so many ways. And on behalf of the committee, thanks for your time this evening. We've learned a lot. Great. Thank you so much and good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. So in a moment, uh, Gary Cavallo will join us. Uh, Gary used to live in Whalen, moved out to Arizona recently, and he's with us right now. Uh, Gary, good evening. Hi, Tom. How are you? Very well. Thank you. Thanks for joining us this evening. Um, I'll just give him, giving committee members a bit of background on you that you were a long time resident of Whalen and recently moved out to Arizona. And, uh, you've been, uh, you're willing to join us this evening to chat about your life experience. And, uh, I, I, uh, turn the floor over to you again. Thanks. Um, I just wanted to say it was, um, you know, Sabrina, I don't know her. I don't know her background, but when I did hear the last, um, probably 10 minutes, um, very well informed. And it was just, um, great to hear that there's organizations that continue, right, to come up and provide solutions for the community. Um, we lived in Whalen for, as Tom mentioned, for a little over 30 years, two boys, uh, our oldest is on the autism spectrum. Uh, Alex is 31. Um, and, uh, what Sabrina mentioned too, right, is as you get older, right, into that population, um, you come out of some of the, um, what I'll call well-formed structures, school, and so forth. And so once the person hits the 22 age group in you, then what's next in your life, right, that's very different than what we think about for our parents, right? And how do we find places for our parents to live for later in life? Perhaps the, the last 20 or 25 years of their life. What we're talking about for this community is 50 years, right? It's a larger piece, uh, to solve, uh, and it can be daunting for the families. Um, even the ones that are well-informed, um, and there are many who are not. And as, uh, Sabrina mentioned, we, in our time, uh, in Raising Alex knew that that was the most difficult piece of the puzzle. Where does he live in the quality of life after we are not here? Um, what do we do to put things in place for him now while we are here to make sure all the pieces are there? As Sabrina said, for quality of life, um, no restrictions. She used the word institutional, right? That, that's a scary word, right? That existed for folks. Uh, it doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter your challenges. It doesn't matter your standing in life financially. That's a scary word. Um, what groups like her have done is continue to come up with solutions, but they are not alone, right? The parent has to figure this out. DDS, the SSI organization. It's, it's a complicated piece because there's a bunch of things involved. Uh, the finance part is by no means, uh, the easiest, nor the most challenging. There's just many pieces. What we found in our research in Massachusetts, and I'll talk about Arizona, is just the places. Where could Alex go? Where could folks like him go? Where are those options? And as Sabrina mentioned, I think one of you asked the question, did she know the other individuals you're talking to? Very often the answer is yes, because the community of solution providers is so small. They know each other on a first name basis, or they are aware of each other. So that's great that they have that network, but it's a little scary that it's that small for a very large growing population, uh, that this short or list of solution, innovative providers know each other and work together. That's great, but it's a big task that they have, that you have, that parents have to resolve this. And so it isn't a quick answer. It isn't a simple answer. Finding the place of where these folks can live, where our kids can live, is the most difficult part. Uh, and when you have folks that step forward with funding, or places, or solutions, at least it gives you a target and an opportunity to problem solve, as opposed to everything. Um, and, and so that's encouraging that, you know, she and others continue to do this. Massachusetts DDS and SSI, there's different acronyms now that we're in Arizona. Um, we didn't leave Massachusetts because we didn't think there was support. That wasn't it. We have more family out here. And as we get older and our kids get older, the added family is a good thing to have, as you all know. Um, you know, I think one of the things she mentioned that probably doesn't get enough is the fit. We all like to choose who we live with. We all like to choose, uh, where we live. And so part of that has to be a positive experience and not everybody gets along with everybody, but nevermind the physical or the emotional needs that this community need, you know, requires more so than, uh, say typical or more able individuals who adjust probably a little easier. Uh, these, uh, kids, at least on the autism spectrum, change is not a good thing. So once they find something and, and we did not make the move to Arizona lightly, we talked about it for years before we did it. Um, and it was just time and we did a lot of research here. Uh, and, and so those decisions are no different when you're choosing where you're going to live with young children, where they're going to go to school, uh, where your aging parents are, uh, senior citizen living scenarios. Again, where they go to school is maybe a 12 to 18 year decision, uh, where a retirement community is maybe a 20 year decision, where somebody from 22 lives until they go to retirement, you know, 30, 40, 50 year decision. So it's a, it's a big undertaking. Um, you know, just here in Arizona, uh, we have found in a good way, um, the most important thing beyond the living is what Sabrina also touched on. She's a day program scenario. What are the folks doing every day? What do they do that's productive, that's rewarding, um, gives them a sense of accomplishment, right? Contributing. So that piece is significant, right? That, but it's only 40 hours. It's just a work week, what we're talking about. The rest of the, your week is the most significant time. And that's what this living piece of the puzzle is. It's more substantial than the day programs. And again, it remains daunting. Here in Arizona, as I mentioned, all the acronyms are changed, all the, um, organizations, but they're still trying to solve it the same way that Massachusetts is, you know, private funding, nonprofit, so forth. But I will tell you, I think Sabrina says she's out in Northampton. Uh, if I heard that correctly, you know, the cost in North, Northampton is a little different than Wayland and, and some of the areas closer to Boston for acquiring these, um, places to, to live and making it work. Uh, out here in Arizona, it's been a huge boom in Scottsdale and Phoenix the last 30 years that we've been coming out here, but there's still a lot of land and there's still a lot of building. And so there's an opportunity and, and our research shows that we and Alex will be in a good place. So, um, a move that we talked about for many years, um, finally occurred as Tom mentioned within the last year. And Gary, I'm going to open up, uh, so members can ask you questions. Uh, Stephanie, any questions for Gary? Um, can't think of any at the moment. All right, John. Gary, thank you for, uh, speaking to the committee. Appreciate it. How old is your son? And could you maybe talk a little bit about the, I mean, you, you began to talk a little bit about the needs, the distinct needs of people on the spectrum, but we've been hearing from a lot of, uh, different provider groups, agencies, families that have talked about different, um, housing models, congregate, mostly congregate models for people with, um, developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities. But I'm curious, I'm curious to hear your perspective on what some of the constraints around, uh, serving people on the spectrum in that kind of a model versus, uh, serving somebody maybe in a more, um, into individualized model where they're not, you know, cheek to jowl with, with other roommates. Sure. Um, so John, Alex turned 31 in November. Um, he was diagnosed, uh, autism at three and a half, I think four, somewhere in there. So it's been a lifetime, uh, uh, for that. He's made great strides. He's very capable. He's verbal. So the autism spectrum, uh, it doesn't go from zero to 10. It probably goes from zero to a thousand. And so, you know, where do you, where do you fit? It's, it's, it's fairly, uh, diverse just even in the autism spectrum. Um, and people are very, very capable, uh, you know, some drive, lead very rewarding careers and all of that don't have all the challenges. They would probably fit in the quirky bucket. Um, and then you have others, uh, at the other end, uh, non-verbal and have significant needs. And like you said, very difficult, right? How do we service such a diverse community, even if you put them just in the autism spectrum? And so one of the things, uh, Alex, from the time he was 23 until removed, um, just this past May, went to a day program, Jewish family services. So for us, it was great. It's right on the wall 10 Western line, but we didn't choose it because it was that convenient. It just happened to be there. Um, I'll be honest with you. We knew it was there. We didn't know if you weren't Jewish that you could take advantage. And, and, but that organization is so well connected in Massachusetts and it was so gracious and so rewarding, right? For Alex to have that right every day. So again, it was convenient. But it didn't matter. It was the right place for him. Um, that program grew in the time that Alex was there over the last eight years. And to your point, started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, and it grew because of need and the amount of people that could come into the program. It wasn't just for autistic. It was a diverse, uh, population. Getting the folks to be the peers, uh, me, the, um, on the servicing side to actually lead the program. That was one of their most difficult challenges. Where do we find the people? We have this audience that needs help, but we need to have, you know, a certain amount of folks in order to then allow people to come in. It grew and they did a great job. But once it gets to a certain size, there's too many variables for people on the autism spectrum, right? For changes in the program, changes in the schedule. I will tell you that in the program that Alex is in now, when he walks in the door, there's a schedule. First thing he looks at, he doesn't even get two steps in. What is the day? What are we going to do? We all have that in our head. But for them, it is in stone. And so when something changes again, depending where they are, it can be a small change. It doesn't mean it'll be a small reaction. You know, it depends on the importance. Again, that varies greatly. Um, you know, he's made some great strides over the years to be flexible. But if you have, as I mentioned in the house, if you had four or five people, that would be great. If you have 15 people in a program or whatever, think of the variables for that community, never mind, you know, the physical restraints or whatever that could come in. Think of all the variables in there and just the inherent word of change that occurs in a day to handle 10 verse five, 15 verse five. And so the program that he's in now here, again, nothing against what was going to Massachusetts. It grew because the audience, there was a demand. Here, the one we chose, they are only going to keep it at maybe six, in the day program, because they will then spawn a different day program. The woman that runs this program, uh, her name is Andy Robinson, her daughter. Um, and she created a law called Lexi's law. It's now in 27 states. It started here in Arizona. It has to do with funding and all of the things that go on in certain states. So it was a mom who advocated for her child on the spectrum because there was nothing here in Arizona that fit. Instead of putting her daughter in a situation that didn't fit, she reinvented, uh, and I think the word earlier was, you know, a creative, innovative approach.
Well, I, I don't know if I answered your question, but yeah, you did. Yeah. Um, I'm just curious though. Um, so your, your son is currently living with you at home. What, what do you think the ideal residential model would look like if you could sort of wave a magic wand tomorrow? I mean, so I know say saying irrespective of funding is, is you can't really say that, but if you could, what, what would it look like? I think in this, this is a, a maybe that I didn't know would exist that the current day program that he enjoys greatly would have the ability for him to live there. It's actually at a house, um, that's occurred here. They acquired a house, you know, as same as, you know, via nonprofit. And so it's a house, but this house is kind of unique for the Scottsdale area. They have animals. It's like a small ranch. They have animals. And so he loves going there. So it would be great if he could live there, right. And, and figure out that piece and the folks do that. If that's not the case, because that day program has been such a huge impact on him over the last few months, we need to find something close to that. And, and so again, in this particular area, there are already options being explored and, and to keep it small during the day and especially small to live would be the goal. And I think Sabrina mentioned that, right. It's a handful of people living in a house where you can't do a fraternity approach. It's not going to work for this community. It has to be small, um, you know, handful of people that that's our goal. And that's, we're not going to make the next move, if you will, him out of the house until we can accomplish that. We feel confident that we're going to accomplish that, uh, in exploring options here, to your point, the program that he's in now was better than we would have drawn up. So when you asked me that question, I'm not going to put any limits on it. I'm just going to say if he could go to a place that he smiles when he goes and smiles when he stays there, that's the goal. The structure of that will be probably very similar to what you guys talked about earlier tonight. Thanks Gary. And Brian, any questions? Yeah, it looks like Arizona's agreeing with you.
Do we saw cold weather up here? Yeah, I was, um, just wondering, um, so do you think a mix of, uh, population would work in this situation? It's different, you know, kids on the autism spectrum versus, uh, kids with intellectual disabilities, cognitive disabilities. Would that, would that work? Yeah. You know, for Alex, um, you know, he's 31, but he, I would tell you intellectually, right, he's still, uh, elementary school in some cases, but in other cases more sophisticated. So I think the mix from an intellectual standpoint is fine. Um, I do appreciate Sabrina's comments about some of the physical limitations and how that all solved. I, to be honest, I hadn't even thought of that, but I thought that was a compelling point. Um, and, and I think that's the thing, the fit, as you said, it's a, it's a diverse group on the autism spectrum. Alex is in a program right now. Uh, one of four at the moment. Um, um, the other three are non-verbal. One communicates with an iPad, uh, another one, sign language. Um, and then the third, uh, woman, I always going to say boy or girl, but they're men and women now they're in their twenties. Um, she's not verbal, but she's able to communicate. And so for Alex, he's okay with that. You know, some folks in the autism spectrum don't crave a lot of conversation. It's a need-based communication. And so he's fine communicating with them and he's already in the time they've all figured out a way to communicate with each other. It's really cool to see, um, not only with them, but the folks that are, that are working in the home. Um, it's a, it's a diverse group. Um, cognitively, it's a diverse group, as I said, verbally and, and their needs. It's kind of fun to watch and he goes every day. Uh, and, and I, I'll tell you one quick story. We came back to Boston a couple of weeks ago for just a long weekend. Normally, when we come back, um, it, it requires the folks on the autism spectrum a lot to travel and to change their routine. And so often when we come back on Sunday, Alex would take Monday or Tuesday off and not go to the program. You know, when we were in Wayland and he was going to Weston, I mean, excuse me, to Waltham, but he likes his program so much. We asked him, say, Alex, you know, tomorrow, he's like, no, no, I want to go. And so that's the goal, right? Is, you know, when you tell your parent, they're going to leave their home and they're going to go to the retirement community. As many parents don't want to do that and they will want. And so just as the, the, the 60 something year old leaving home, doesn't necessarily want to go to that retirement community. Uh, my 31 year old is, he's only lived in one house in Wayland his whole life until we moved. So big change. I think I'm good. Thank you so much for sharing all your experience and insight. Gary, um, apart, apart from, uh, the number of residents, uh, in a given home, uh, as a criterion for, uh, the, this committee or the select board to consider, what other factors would you look for, uh, when evaluating a proposal that the town may receive for the development of, uh, housing for people with disabilities? You know, I, I think it's really touched on the proximity to things, right. To, to make the trips to the grocery store easy, you know, to places like the YMCA, just like we all want, you know, we want it to be convenient when we leave our home, you know, for the different things that we do in a given week. And that's not always attainable. So, but I, I think from a convenience, because they don't navigate the outside world as easily as, as many. So that convenience factor, however it's accomplished, I think it's important. The quality of the living, uh, having your own space, like we all want on, on certain days, right, on certain difficult days or difficult weeks. So you do need your own space, right? So I I don't think you can put, you know, have roommates in the same room, you know, that that's a different mentality. So, you know, large enough to, to have your own space, but also come together for meals and do other things. So, you know, if something can be structured or built along those lines, that's great. If you're retrofitting something, then I understand, right. There may be some limitations with that. So those are some of the things that come to mind, uh, Bill, you know, we're researching things here, uh, and we did a lot of research in mass and we just weren't comfortable that Alex was ready. It wasn't necessarily that we didn't think there was anything available or appropriate. We weren't ready, right? He wasn't ready. And this move has gone better for him and for us. So it, it kind of embolds us to think, you know, the next move, which is even more significant, um, we can accomplish. So those are some of the things that come to mind. Thank you. Well, Gary, we appreciate your time. We need to give a couple other things and close up my meeting, but we appreciate you coming on today and, um, giving us some insight into your personal experience, which is something that our committee desires to do, appreciate what recommendations will make the slide board. So thank you very much for appearing tonight. Yeah, my pleasure. If there's anything that comes up or I can help in any way, please let me know. Waylon was very good to us. Um, and so the, even though we are here, uh, we do come back and I continue to root for the town and for the people and the solutions that they provided our family. So thank you. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Happy holidays. Thank you. So we want to have, uh, the neighbors in again, I'm thinking that I want to have, not so true early. I think the questions that the neighbors will want is what do you recommend? And, um, and I think, I think, um, we'll have an answer for them. It won't be terribly persistent,
but hopefully we'll be able to give them a sense of things. So I'm thinking maybe the, maybe the 8th, which is, uh, we meet on the 7th of January, the 8th of January. I think that's too early. We're kind of approaching the 20 yard line here, uh, as far as the committee and our work. Is that, is that your mind work for you based on what you see in this report and what you see in the RFP? I know it will be tweaked further, but, um, what would be helpful? Yeah. I think, um, the RFP is pretty clear. I think, um, the background, and we still have some work to do on the, the, uh, informational document and summarizing that and the different models that might be considered. But, um, I think if they had these two documents in, you know, penultimate draft or something like that, that they couldn't react to with the idea that some of their suggestions might be still incorporated, if they had some stuff to say, um, that would be a good thing. Well, let's aim for that and maybe we can get that in shape of the 7th and we, and maybe we can have the neighbors in on the, on the 8th. And if it doesn't work out, we'll move it to a different, um, different to a meeting day. Um, I do intend to reach out to Ms. Kessler, um, again, since we ask her about statistics, um, not names, but statistics, kind of, kind of like for the very night and I'll report back on that aspect. Um, and I wanted to ask the committee members, you know the answer right now, but if there are members, if there are people who are on, who appear before us in prior meetings, you think, you know what, been nice to hear from them again, just send me an email and I'll reach out to them to see whether they can appear again. And, um, hopefully that's fine, but I just want to throw that idea out. Um, so that's, that's all I have. Anybody have any other comments? Could you do a quick report out on the, um, DDS meeting this morning? I forgot about the meeting. So, um, less than a quorum of this committee met with I was in this room this morning, but there was no meeting.
So, less than a quorum of individuals, uh, met with two members of DDS, uh, this morning. They were very gracious, uh, to spend an hour with us, um, and, uh, uh, what, what, what, what, what, what, what were your takeaways from that meeting? Well, um, I got this, uh, I had the sense that there was a little less flexibility than I had anticipated. They were being taped, but they felt like they were thinking. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, you know, these are regional people, not home office folks. Um, but, you know, they explained to us about the, uh, the sort of five-person little fact that, uh, really the federal government, uh, reimbursement is, is a, is a consideration. Uh, uh, they also talked, uh, and they talked about, uh, this, this whole notion of, uh, saturation. They don't want too many people, uh, living in too close proximity. And so, we said, yeah, well, we've heard that there are some other models where, you know, there are greater numbers of people and threw some cold water on it, I think. Yeah, I mean, that was my sense. But they did say explicitly that the group home from 20, um, would not be a problem. That's right. Proximity to it. Yeah. Um, what did you pick up, um, John, other than what Bill said? I mean, I, I, my, my takeaway is that I, I, you know, I, I didn't really learn anything new. Um, she, uh, Deb Johnson, the area office director, uh, just, I thought did a really good job about talking about what some of the budget constraints are that they don't have, uh, 20, you know, they're not able to look into the future, uh, and understand, you know, with a lot of clarity right now, what's, what's going to happen, um, with next year's budget, with federal reimbursement, with the rules changing, with, um, Medicaid. Um, she did mention that they are working with a vendor organization right now around serving, uh, creating a group home to serve, uh, four to five individuals. And that's something that's, that's currently happening. Um, but again, In Wayland. In Wayland. Excuse me? Right. In Wayland, correct? No, no, not, not specifically in Wayland. Oh, I thought it was in Wayland. That's what I thought I heard. Um, That'd be a problem. I, I just know from having the conversation with her previously that that's not the case. Okay. And I didn't hear that. So maybe you heard something that I didn't hear. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, just, just to amplify what, what, uh, you or Bill said that, you know, she is the Middlesex West area director. Uh, she is sort of the, you know, um, overseer over that geographic region. So that being said, uh, she doesn't necessarily speak for the rest of the state. She certainly doesn't speak for the deputy commissioner, which has sort of given his blessing to some of these more innovative programs. I mean, he, she, she doesn't have that kind of flexibility. So, um, you know, she, she is for all intents and purposes, sort of, uh, a higher echelon worker bee. And again, you know, she's going to be very careful about what she, uh, you know, what, how she reveals her hand. So, um, yeah, Stephanie, any, I guess. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I, it was, it was very interesting and helpful. I had to leave at the end of their visiting nurse showed up and J and, uh, so, but, um, I was impressed at how hard it is, um, to get, uh, I guess, to get the, the housing that the people have to be a certain level. And, um, and there wouldn't, there wouldn't be any control that it would go to what Wayland residents at all. Um, they, they would kind of put some people up for, and they'd have to be, um, needing a whole lot of care. And I just, uh, it seemed like the constraints were, were very great, um, for that. Um, and I was thinking of the waiver because JJ has the waiver, but he's specifically not, does not have a waiver that would, would provide residential services because he's getting AFC and he's being cared for. Um, so it just seemed like it would be, it would be limiting a lot what people would be, um, would be able to, where they'd be able to live. Um, so, so it, I guess I was feeling less like that would be a given or, or, you know, a comfortable, uh, model to, to work with, uh, for what we're trying to do. Thank you for the comments. Um, it is, uh, 8 59. Like, I like to end these meetings on time, so I'll, I'll, uh, end the conversation here. Appreciate everybody's participation, participation this evening, and I hope everyone has a great holiday, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, uh, 2026. But that, at this point, I'll entertain motion to, uh, adjourn. So I move. May have a second, uh, second. Thank you for Gene. Bill Whitton made a motion at, uh, 9 o'clock. Uh, all those in three with a roll call vote. Stephanie? Aye. John? Aye. Phil Adam? Yes. Bill Whitton? Yes. Aye. Gene? Aye. Yes. Thank you all.