October 8, 2025 – 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee – Video & Transcript
October 8, 2025 - 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee
Tom Fay: We'll call to order the
meeting of the 212 Cochituate
road Advisory Committee at 505.
Thank you for your presence
tonight, both online and in
first, the individuals online
who are members of the committee
include Catherine, Provost, Dean
norburn, Stephanie Lynch and
Bill Adams. With me here in the
large hearing room at the town
building is John Thomas and I'm
Tom Fay. Hopefully joining us
later is Brian Boja, who's a new
member of this committee, and
Bill Whitney cannot make it this
evening. Our agenda this this
evening will include public
comments they will hear from
individuals who live in town
here talk about their experience
with individuals with
disabilities. In addition, we'll
have representatives of work Inc
with us, and possibly Ronnie
Kessler from the from the direct
the Director of Student Services
my own public schools, will also
meet with neighbors in town,
likely close to the site, talk
about our work and answer
questions they may have, and
listen to their comments. After
that, we'll consider approval
minutes from September 3, 2025
meeting. We'll then discuss the
recent RFI request for
information that was issued, and
then we will adjourn. Tonight's
meeting is can be watched by
zoom. It's being taped so you
can you can watch it later on
WayCAM. It is being recorded for
those who want to get public
comment, we ask that you limit
it to two minutes. So is there
anybody in the room tonight that
has public comment? See none?
Anybody online. Have public
comment? Anybody online? Okay,
great. So let's move right into
item three in our agenda. And
I'd ask Miss Brazil and to come
forward with a chair, and
Unknown: it will open up the
discussion to look at the chair
if you want to. I would like a
chair to
place this way. Oh, thank you. I
would. I would prefer to stand.
But back issues
Danny. Danny works fine.
Well, I would like to stand, but
I know that I really can't stand
very long. Oh, I see I apologize
for no apologies, yeah, but I
thank you so much for being able
to address the committee, and my
name is Theresa, but everybody
calls me TC. You guys can call
me TC, and what's your Where do
you live? I see full disclosure,
I do not live in Wayland. My
daughter, my adult daughter, who
is a deaf, blind woman, lives in
Wayland. I am closing in, I
think, on a housing in Wayland,
but right now, I'm the early in
Framingham. Okay, so I try to
stay close to her.
Tom Fay: And you had given
public comment a meeting or two
ago about this topic, and I
thought it'd be be helpful for
our committee to learn more
about your life experience, as
well as Stephanie Lynch, who's a
member of the committee, and
anyone else on the committee,
including Jean, wanted to weigh
in on their personal experience
with with this topic. I thought
it'd be helpful for our
committee to hear hear from you,
so the floor is yours.
Unknown: Well, thank you. I was
trying not to be too personal,
because my daughter does live in
a facility, and we but it was a
long journey to get there, so
just a bit of personal she went
to Perkins School for the Blind,
and then she turned age 22 right
at the time she lost all of her
remaining Hearing. She had been
blind since a very young age,
and so that delayed her
placement, and the first group
home that she lived in was quite
mainstream, but she had a lot of
medical issues that they just
weren't prepared to support, and
she was sick from the day she
moved in until a year later, and
she moved back in with me. We
didn't know it was going to last
so long, but last year, she
finally got a placement in a
group home that was run by
Charles River Center in Wayland.
So we're still adjusting. Some
days she's happy, some days she
cries. Some days I'm happy, some
days I cry. We are very close,
and I intend to see her continue
to be with her as much as
possible. So the problem that
I'm presenting to you is more
global. The It is not our
personal problem at this point
in time, but I, as a retiree,
have sort of become a worker in
the fight for rights and life
for people who are deaf, blind,
specifically deaf, blind,
adults, children who are deaf,
blind have good funding through
education, especially in
Massachusetts, we were the Model
law for the federal law so
adults, however, when when a
person graduates at age 22 and
the deaf family association for
deaf, blind group that I belong
to, we always talk about how
they fall off the cliff, and
that's because there really are
no services. There's no mandate
federal or state to serve deaf,
blind adults if they get
services, residential services
in particular, that is because
they have some additional
problems. Most people who are
deaf, blind these days do seem
to have other add on
disabilities, the famous person
that everybody knows, who you
know was DEP line was, is Helen
Keller. And you know, the cause
of her, deaf, blindness did not
in train all of these other
kinds of disabilities and
medical issues she but if she
were alive today, she would
still need her 24 hour one to
one, that's what we would call
Annie Sullivan at this point,
but there would be no state
funding to support that. She had
to work to find ways so that
they could put a roof over their
heads and put on their table.
She had some grand
opportunities. She was a US
Ambassador to a couple of
countries. I can't recall the
ones right now, but there is a
recent documentary of her real
life, not her glamorized movie,
that is available, I think,
still currently on PBS through
their passport membership
service. And she also, one thing
that most people don't know is
that to to earn money, she was
with a vaudeville troop. She and
Annie Sullivan went on tour with
a vaudeville troop. She remarked
that that was a very great
opportunity for not only to
educate the general public about
deaf blindness, but also to the
shoe yet she got to know the
people in the troop, and that
was a very welcoming community
to her. She had the highest
regard for the others in the
vaudeville
Tom Fay: troop so TC, relative
to your challenges with housing,
tell us about about that if you
could,
Unknown: well, there is no
mandate. Of course, the program
that my daughter was in was
supported by the mass commission
for the blind, deaf, blind
extended supports unit. They
fund a very small number of
deaf, blind people who generally
have multiple disabilities,
including in an intellectual
deficit. So we tried other ways
when she moved back home with
me, because they just could not
meet her needs. And different
agencies would come to our
house, but if they couldn't
come,
Tom Fay: difficulties, and we're back online here at 5:32pm here on August 8, 2025 and before We were rudely interrupted by my lack of electricity. DC, you still have the floor Unknown: well, Tom Fay: you're talking about, you were talking to us about housing challenges, yes. Unknown: And if you want to make it more of a question and answer, sort of a presentation, that's that's fine. I can be flexible. But. The housing challenges are complicated by the fact that the houses that do exist, they really are not capable of supporting deaf, blind people. The they these are deaf, blind people with multiple disabilities. But the primary handicapping condition actually is access, the lack of access to the larger community, to the world, to life, and that is what is just not available. So it's not just about the housing. It's really about the training of the staff, the building up culture that is open and welcoming and supportive of people who have sensory deficits that are blocking their access to Life.
And Stephanie, what's been your experience on housing, hello, Okay, everybody, I think you're muted. I think, can you hear me now? Tom Fay: Hold on Stephanie, okay, Robbie, can you permit us to hear her? Here
Unknown: am I can here you hear me now. Okay, hold on seven,
hello. Definitely they're making it come out of the speaker. Bill Adams: We can hear you can hear me now, we can hear you, but I don't think they can in the town. So,
Unknown: yeah, they can Hello, they unplugged their special speaker. So, oh, no, they might have to turn up the volume is, can you Bill Adams: hear us now? Can you hear us now? Hear Unknown: us now. I'm up to 100 I think. I hope I'm not blasting you guys. No, you're fine. Okay, you're totally fine. Yeah, turn it towards
Tom Fay: okay. So Stephanie, we can hear you now. So And for the record, Brian Boja, our newest members join us. Stephanie Lynch: Welcome Brian. Now that Brian's here, I can start he knows he knows the deal, right? When Jason grew up, I had to find a living situation where he could continue to grow and have an adult life, and I found a life sharing community on a farm in New Hampshire, and he lived there for 11 years. He was he has Down syndrome. He needs a lot, 24/7, supervision and help with meals and bathing, even help with bathing. And he qualifies for waiver services for people who would otherwise need nursing home care, and he just qualified in mass for that too. He lived in a bedroom in a house with a householder, couple their children, a couple of volunteers and several other residents, and this was how he was supportive for this time. And he was part of a comprehensive farm program and the householders and volunteers took care of the shopping and cooking, and he was able to help with chores around the house and work in group settings on the farm and in the kitchen. As a baker, DDS has a problem with people working and living in the same place, so the the situation was always a little unsure. And with covid and everything, he ended up losing the the placement and started over here in Massachusetts, they were also, as he got older, he could no longer. I mean, he, he, they, you know, they have to work at sub zero temperatures in the in the stable, and his physical work in the farm. And as he got, he's 40 now, he got to where that was a bit much for him. And also he's got got a medical situation now that they wouldn't have been able to to take care of. He does. Now that we're in mass, he has a good day program, and we have just gotten some companion service to take him out in the community, and we have learned a bit about the bus services available. So for somebody like him, residential would augment this. But he doesn't need all those services and day program, and he can get those within the community, but he is needs to be able to live near Wayland. He still has need for supervision in care, 24/7, and this living situation should provide for that. And I believe, second. Eight can help with funding other bedrooms for caregivers, so flexibility in the rooms would be good. Farmsteads in New England is another place we tour. They have building swifts, and then each building has several private bedrooms that each person has a bedroom, a little sitting area and a bathroom, and they all enter into one living room and kitchen. So there are several little units in there. They have a communal space. And my vision would be that the little units could be either used for staff or residents, depending on the needs of how many people had more of a physical need that the whether you could have one caregiver take care of a couple of people, or whether people need individual caregivers, or one caregiver could take care of three people or more, depending upon the population that was in the in the facility. And also there has to be flexible. There's flexibility for the needs physical, you know, the blindness, DEP, this, this kind of thing, the physical needs, or more extensive developmental disability, would need more. Other people might need less, but certainly they're going to need more than I think some of the places like they're building, Charles River is building where people can basically live independently, but they need a few hours of staff help and and that whole apartment complex is something Jason could never handle, because his needs are greater than that. And as people age, they're going to need more too. So someplace that he could age in place would be important. I would hope it would be a viable option for people who live grew up in Wayland to stay in their familiar community, near their family. I know that that people now generally have to move far away, many towns over to get into a home situation. And there, I'm sure, has to be rules about choices of which residents could live there. And I know there's sometimes, there's different waiting lists for if you're in town or out of town, and I would hope that it would be available to Wayland residents. I really do see this this. My dream for this place is for people who need more supports than an option, where somebody can basically be independent and needs a little extra supervision. And I would like it to be able to serve people with all kinds of physical disabilities, and the whole building should be accessible, where the different living units maybe have have the flexibility that they could be for staff or residents, and I would see that the places As fitting into a quiet residential setting, really, the neighbors would kind of hardly know they're there, or they would be good neighbors that they're basically would probably be out out much of the day and just around quietly in the neighborhood, and that that's sort of the my vision of things right now, particularly I'm noticing, but JJ has a super few catheter again, and, and I have to be with him, 24/7, until his medical situation gets cleared up. And that's going to be a long process. And, and if I weren't around, you know he would need almost institutional care this point, and I'm hoping he can get back to a point where, you know, and affects the plan. We've got a really good surgeon and everything, but he's going to get older too, and so we're all these, these people. So again, for me, flexibility and being able to stay local is important. That's about what I have to say. Thanks. Any questions anyone has awesome? Tom Fay: Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. So what I'd like to do is open up to the committee members and ask them if they have any questions of TC or Stephanie on on the topic.
Katherine Provost: No, no questions. Just thank you both so much for advocating. It's really important to hear and really helpful to hear. I appreciate your input. Unknown: Thank you, John Thomas: John, so TC, I had a question for you so you correct me if I'm wrong. So your daughter was being served previously in a residential model that wasn't working out. So I hear that Unknown: correctly here. Only her first year out of Perkins, okay, and then she was living at home, okay? John Thomas: And now, now she's living in a Charles River staff on bot. So that's the group home on Boston. Impostor. So can you talk a little bit about the the previous one year model and why that wasn't working out? What? What were some? What were some of the issues, the challenges that it really wasn't meeting for your daughter? And could you also talk about you mentioned that you were receiving, your daughter was receiving some state funding through a state agency. Could you talk about how much that was, or if there were any other means of support that she was receiving, any other public funding streams? Unknown: Okay, well, when she was transitioning from Perkins, there were two options for her, because she was blind. She could go with the mass commission for the blind, deaf, blind extended supports unit, or she could go with DDS. So essentially, the deaf, blind extended supports units and MCP are DDS for blind people and deaf blind people. I didn't know the difference. I was pretty naive, but the staff at Perkins recommended to go with the mass Commission for the Blind. I think because there was a little bit more money at that time there, I don't think that is that continues to be true. I believe the total amount that she was getting was probably around $120,000 a year, and I think it costs a lot more than that now to support her. I some of that information is that freely given to families, yeah, but the reason that that first placement failed, I think, on both sides, was that they could not meet her medical needs. She was having some intense neurological symptoms, and they were not staffed for that. There was no nursing component, as there is where she now lives. And on the very same day that I called our case manager at MCV and said, you know, they they can't take care of her. They called and said, We can't take care of her. So it was mutual agreement that that the placement just couldn't work for her. What they had to offer. John Thomas: Were there other residents who were deaf, blind or, Oh Unknown: no, no, it was a very small group home. There were only three other women, and their problems were primarily mental health. Mental Yeah, Tom Fay: Jean, any comments or questions in your question? Thanks for joining us in person. Unknown: Ah. You're going to lose your
world, not at this time, but thank you very much. Sure, sure. Thank you. TC, yeah. So the main thing is, deaf, blind people have no place to live so that they can access the world and life, and there needs to be some physical plant alterations, but it's primarily a staff training and culture of the house issue. Tom Fay: Thank you very much you see, and thank you, Stephanie, appreciate it. I think what I do next is invite members of work Inc forward and because of the technology, turn this computer back and forth, hopefully without losing connection.
So with us is Jim cassida Sure And Sharon Smith, thank
Unknown: you. Are you appearing in that screen? Can you see? Yeah, we're used to having it. Tom Fay: So welcome to both of you and to committee members. As I've indicated before, I've reached out to different organizations that are involved in the topic that we're exploring as a committee, and the organization's list provided to me by Brian bossier, who's new to the committee. And again, welcome Brian, and it so happens I met Mr. Ca many years ago. Unknown: Of project. We remember Tom Fay: a project in the city of Boston, and I'm so glad you're still doing the work you're doing. So what I'd like to do is ask you do is use yourselves tell us about the organization and how you think, well, maybe provide us information that'll be helpful to us, to help us do our work. Unknown: Well, thank you for having us. It's It's unusual for city to a town to invite an agency to talk about building a group home. I was around 50, 4050, years ago when we couldn't do that. I was the working was established in 1965 and I worked 21 years for another agency prior to working, and the institutionalization was happening, but you had to get local cities and towns to approve it, etc, etc. Long story shot that's all changed. That's all changed now, anybody who wants to build a group home must abide by the local, city or towns regulations, as if we were just a normal family. And that's what's that's what's happening today. Matter of fact, I I bought some plans. I'd be happy to show them. We had an experience in Methuen we we've been we've had a group home in Methuen mass for over 40 years, and the clients aging out, and it's not accessible. So we wanted to build a new group home on that site, which our architect had plans for, but we had to go to the Selectmen in MA doing because we needed a 10 foot variance, 10 feet from from me to that chair, and it was we didn't meet the variance. We recorded no so now we're probably going to sell that home and relocate somewhere else. But I want to thank you for allowing Sharon to talk about the history and I've been at working 26 years. Sharon's been working 17 plus years. 19, yeah, so, so, interestingly enough, I started in 1979 and working open the second group home. So and I lived in a group home. My husband and I for five years. I, like we both worked on our social work degrees, so it has changed a lot, and it is a flip, as Jim said, so I can anticipate some of the questions you're thinking about. So, you know, listening to TC, if you were a Tom that decided you were going to build a home for deaf, blind, or for deaf, or for people with, you know, with medical and intellectual disabilities. You know, doing what you're doing is great, but you need to reach out for a state partner, the state partner needs to be committed early on. So whether that's MCB, whether that's DDS, or any other state agency, they the more that they can be part of that process, even if you're looking at braving funding, if you're looking at leveraging HUD funding, or any of the facility consolidation funding that's about you really need somebody who's going to help you understand how to leverage and brave that funding together and get a committed partner. We have a picture here because I was saying to TC, we opened a group home during covid, that neighborhood housing work really built and released from them. And it was designed by a Deaf architect, and it's for Deaf, five deaf individuals, one who's deaf, blind, and it's, you know, the whole house had to be constructed to be DEP friendly, which is very different than a regular group home for people who have intellectual disabilities. Because you have an open four floor plan, you need to be able to have all of the assistive technology in there. You know, at the get go, it's it's good to bed, shake all that stuff. Yeah. So you want to be able to customize what you're doing, have it get a good state partner, but then understand what, when you go with that state partner, what the constraints are. So for example, if you go with DDS, they're fund that they received 50 cents on the dollar from the center of Medicaid studies. So that means you're under those CMS rules. You can look up the final rule, CMS Final Rule, which talks about segregation, and no longer can you have group homes with 10 people. Four. There are still a few campus settings in Massachusetts, but they can't be replicated today, because it's all about community access. You know, are they segregated? We just got approved a duplex, which was four and four, because DDS has such a dire need for housing that, you know, it was unusual, but we were able to do it so it can be done if, if that's a structure you're thinking of, and you know, they that you just, you know, you fall under those rules. So you want to know MCB is great to deal with, because they usually just say, what is DDS paying you? And they replicate that. We have a few, but not many. And the way DDS funds, it is not by the person. It's called the AltR model. So if you have a medical model, you get this chunk of money. You have a, you know, DEP with or a highly clinically intensive so say you're having people who are prioritized because they have behavioral issues that's going to be funded at a high level. So the composition of the group is very important. Listening to to the woman who just spoke, I could barely hear, but what I think I heard is a lot of her son has a lot of medical issues. And, you know, medically fragile, they do have group homes that are have an AltR model for medically fragile, where we're going to build one. We have land in Dorchester. We have a home in Brockton. People. It's, you know, people are aging, they have dementia. It's like a day nursing home, really. And so we're going to reconstruct it, but a medical model, making it more accessible. TC was talking about the staff training and culture, and that's really important, because, you know, whatever population you decide to pick, you want to make sure that it they're going to receive the funding to have the staffing that will be that will be trained, and it's A challenge that we have in our industry, we have difficulties hiring. And we've, we've, we had a hard, you know, coming out of covid, our residential programs got hit hard. I mean, they were closed. People stayed there. But we literally were doing 24/7 and with like, a 35% vacancy rate, we're out from under that. We've we've done a lot to improve that, but because of staff challenges, DDS is moving a lot to its technology. So they call it like remote support monitoring. We're looking at a system we just learned about putting some cameras in common areas of some of the group homes where there's heavy behavioral issues, so that there's never a question about what just happened, as we can see it, and we're kind of going to have to advocate with the state for that. So you really want to pick your if you're looking at the constituents of Wayland, you know, who's your state partner, and then you're going to have to really advocate, because what the state does is they prioritize people who, you know, who has the most need. And if they're going to pay for it, you need to get a commitment. It's Wayland citizens because, you know, it's they'll say, here are the referrals. We have you close referral process. Yeah, it's a closed referral process. We opened a home in Kingston, you know, down by Plymouth mass, and we were able, because we worked with the state from the very beginning to say, we we really want people. We knew we were going to have some neighbor hood problems, because these were high end homes. And so when, when they came out saying or no group home in our neighborhood, we were like, Hey, these are your brothers and sisters. These people grew up in Kingston, grew up in Plymouth. Here are their parents, and it made a big difference. But we have a long term cooperative relationship with our state agencies, so you really want to, once you decide early on, you know, look at maybe even getting a consultant in who really knows the housing market in terms of HUD money, community better? No, do you have see? What is it called? Yeah, community based, block lane, right? That that money, home money, if it's DDS, they can sometimes leverage. FCF, which is, can be 50 cents. I mean, 50% of the cost. There's also the 40 B. I don't know how many affordable units existing in this town, in Wayland, but if all of our units are affordable, I'm sorry, unaffordable. And the state gives you a credit, a grant for that, your money every year because of the number of units you create. Can you talk about your organization overall? Yeah, I'm sorry I got right into
all this in housing. You do other things. We have 24 planning. Three more. We'll have 27 we do. We used to be the lot. We used to be the largest sheltered workshop in the Commonwealth working. We had over when I started working. 26 years ago, over 350 people with disabilities were coming into working, to work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds and I, I agree now I didn't agree at first. I agree now that I designed a building. We designed a building in Dorchester to hold to house, sheltered work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds said to the states, not just to Massachusetts. We didn't. We de institutionalized in the 60s, and what you did was re institutionalize the same people in the community. So they they tell the states, and Sean was on the committee when we went to the state and we got Massachusetts to give $20 million to the agencies that were running these shelter workshops. We still support the same number of people. It's now called Community Based day support. They'll come into the building. We'll help them with their resumes. We'll help them find work well. We're also the largest employer of individuals with disabilities in new Wayland. We have we support about 1200 people. Our main offices in Dorchester. We have offices in Fitchburg, certainly, Rhode Island, Springfield, and what we The other thing we do, we take pride in this. We're a little worried about it. We have about 16 and a half million dollars in federal money, and I'm concerned about that situation, believe it or not, in the 1930s a federal law was passed called the Javits o day act, J, O, D, at the time, it was for it was only for people who were deaf at the time, blind, DEP, blind. The law was amended in 1971 and the loss says that if the federal government needs help, and if individuals who are now disabled, deaf or blind, can provide the help, the Feds must hire them, not May, must, is the most important word of legislation. So as a result of that, working provides total facility management, custodial services, full food services in the native Army Research Lab, IRS, and we have about 130 folks with disabilities working. And what I love about that is these folks, before they went to work, were probably supported by us, but, but, and I'm not saying that's not that's still good. Social Security, disability, food stamps, snap the whole bit. When they get a job with the feds, they get paid for the work they do, not who they are. So how people are making like, $27 an hour, and they're off the door and they're contributing about 7000 a year their own taxes. So that's that's one of the major things of working done with a lot of individuals with disabilities. We also have at our main office, day habilitation. It's essentially a day hospital, otpt, speech, nursing, and so long as those clients have a place to sleep at night, they'll be transported to work in about 830 or eight o'clock every morning, to leave at 330 to go to there, either they group home or back to their families. We're about a total budget is about north of 70 million and working. Also owns a for profit company that's very unique. Not many nonprofits own a for profit, and the for profit company that we own. It's called FM and M, facilities, management, maintenance. We're the stockholder that company. It's in existence to make money for the stockholder, and the company doesn't it's not a program. It's a business we want. That company is now doing about $17 million a year. We clean Boston City Hall, Boston police headquarters, mass art, rent them, Hogan Springfield, courthouse all over the state. And every money that any, any penny that the profits go right to working. And we purchased that company in 2004 2004 and we've generated about $4 million for working to plow. White back into its mission. We don't just do homes. We do a little bit of everything. We don't do behavioral health. I was in that business 20 years, and I got burnt out doing behavioral health stuff, that stuff I've been at working 26 years, and it's been, it's been a good one so far. So we have. We applaud you for inviting us in. Not only us are the providers too. We don't usually get invitations from local officials about, let's build a group home. That's really give me a lot of credit for that. And I told, I told, Look, I talk and dirt road. I looked around the site, big site. It's a big site. But I have a question, what? What's the town of wayland's criteria for single family homes? Is it one acre per lot? Is that what it is? I don't even know what it is, half acre depending on what part of town, but it's half acre on the south side, acre, acre and a half. So whoever, whoever will build a home, whatever provider comes in, they'd have to adhere to those same requirements, Tom Fay: unless it was, as you mentioned earlier, 40 B, then that might be different. Unknown: Might be different. And you can always get a variance to create more 40 B housing, Tom Fay: as is to be zone. It's only pretty Unknown: much the two structures. Okay, let me open up gene. Any questions for I guess, yes. Yes, I'm rather a novice in this area. I'm on this committee because I have a disabled child, so I'm not a professional in the field. Really started in the beginning here the people who work, I'd like to know more about the typical profile in what kind of conditions they have. You know that they're walking a line between, they need support, and they have some capabilities that allow employment. Can you paint a picture for me? And you know the characteristics of this group? Yeah. I mean, so Jim talked to you about our federal program, which is considered more like group supported employment, because people go in, they do their job, and there's always a supervisor, somebody who's trained by working. We also, last year, placed 230 individuals with disabilities into mainstream jobs in the business sector, whether it's five hours a week or 30 hours a week. And so the profile can be a person who has never worked before turning 22 doesn't have good work skills, might have other communication issues. Might be deaf. We do we will work with anyone if they have a desire to work. We we do customized employment. We do individual supported employment, and we do a lot of work around benefits, because a lot of families will say, I don't want my son to lose their benefits. But we can work this many hours, and then we work with the state agency on what types of needs. DDS will not fund a one to one job coach in perpetuity. So the profile is somebody who is able to, at least, you know, be on their own at certain certain points in time, even if they need a ride there and to be picked up there. But you know that the end result is they wouldn't need that one to one support long term, is that helpful?
I in my my my marketing person do a lot of work on trying to get the Commonwealth to identify this group of individuals in the state that could add benefits to the workforce. In this state, there's 400,000 individuals with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 60. That's when most people work. I'm above that, but that's okay. That's when most people work. The unemployment rate amongst that group is over 70% that means the rest of them are supported by us, and I vehemently disagree with that. You talk to a person, they don't want to stay home and sit on the couch and watch TV all day and get their benefit check, because that's that guarantees them a life of poverty. To which one to get this legislature to pass a law similar to the federal law that would mandate, if a business gets a contract with the Commonwealth of mass to do custodial trash pickup, telephone call centers, anything to mandate that a certain percentage of the people they hire must have a disability, that would get them off the door and give them a. Quality of life that they would never have experienced otherwise. So that's another big thing that we try to do. It's really a challenge. I'll give you an example. A young friend of mine has autism. He's in his early 30s now. He studies medieval literature, has a college degree has real interpersonal difficulties. Sure can't hold them a job. My guess is, you folks can figure out something. Well, we actually can hold on for a sec, yes. And then the next person you look at, and he's doesn't have any physical problems, right? And then the next person may have profound perhaps, is lacking upper limbs, you know, has flippers or something. I just trying to figure out handling all these variables requires a lot of effort from an organization, and I just trying to figure out how you folks do that, and what that would mean for us in terms of creating a housing situation for such a highly varied group of people, like, how would we plan to meet their needs when they're so different from each other? You know, it was only eight years ago that DDS funded people with ASD that wasn't funded. We were Autism Spectrum ASD, non ID, they call it. But I think you have to think long and hard about how varied your population is, because the more varied your population is, it's going to drive the staff expertise that's needed. So what we've done is we have a separate program for folks that are ASD, non ID. We have pre engagement, college navigation. We have a work program and a drop in center. So we the staff, specialize in that group of people, college grads, that have such strong anxiety disorders they they can't work. And then we have our other employment services are for folks with intellectual disabilities that, you know, we come we use a lot of customized employment, and that means somebody might not do the whole job, but we know an employer and we can we know that individual can do 50% of the job. So we're really trying to say, Can they come in and do that 50% and you'll never have to worry about that. So it's really taking the models and applying them to the people and how we've done it to be successful is we've segmented those specialties it's really hard to have. And actually, DDS doesn't fund folks with ASD non ID unless they get a residential waiver, and that they would be tough behavioral issues. So we would never put to behave people that present with significant behavioral challenges, with two people that are medically vulnerable or aging, because that is not good, and the staff have to split their specialties. You want to be able to focus on teaching your staff, whether it's the behavioral principles, or working with ASD, is very different, and so that's the approach we've we've taken. We have a lot of micro kind of micro concentration programs within the agency. Is that reflected in the housing people are with one group for their coaching and training on that they're probably living with the same people in their coaching. No, no, I would never want to work with my husband. I live with them. So we have, we purposely try not to have people be together 24 hours a day, because nobody wants that, right, and people are different. So you want to give people choices. You could conceivably have a great group home here in Wayland with five people, and they could all go to different day programs, our day situation jobs too, right? Or different jobs. And we do have a community based day support. We have about 80 people, and they're out in the community all the time doing volunteer work. That's job preparation. So we have over 24 volunteer sites that we're working on of Dorchester, those. So somebody might spend a lot of time volunteering, but no, the match is really, really critical. The matching of the people, the specialty of what you're going to focus on, like TC said, the training for staff who work with people who are deaf, blind, are very. Different than the training of somebody who has ASD and an intellectual disability and is aggressive or is eloped, and you you want to have people be complimented, and you know, some people don't like male female homes, our homes, some are male, some are female, and some are mixed. Some, some compositions do better with a couple of women in the house, and, you know, a few men, and everyone has their own bedroom. So Bill, did you have any question that
Bill Adams: I put a whole bunch of chat questions in the chat. Should I read them out one by one? Yeah, yeah. Unknown: So my first Bill Adams: question was, could you explain a little bit more about what a closed referral system is, and how towns think about whether they would mostly support people who live in the town or maybe a neighboring town versus be open, and how the state thinks about supporting that type of work?
Unknown: That's a good question. That's a good so if, if this closed referral means that we have to get a referral from a funding agency to support an individual, if the town of Wayland has individuals with disabilities who say turning 22 there's a state there's a line item in the state budget called Turning 22 and that would mean that the individual from this town who wants to, who needs, not wants, who needs a supportive environment, like a group home, DDS would have to refer that individual to an agency that would be coming into, like work, Inc, any other provider, agency that's around town, and that that referral would go to the agency, with the preference being that, hey, this, this individuals, was born and raised in Wayland. It's 2022 we want to do a group home and Wayland. We want to refer that person to that particular provider. That's how that will work. Because we Bill Adams: kind of, does the state tend to be open to that type of thing, or is it a little unpredictable? Unknown: I, as chairman, said earlier, I think the first step for you all to do as town officials, is to contact the ConCom wall and say, we have a committee that wants to build a group home. They'd never hear that. Let me tell you, they seldom hear that from from any town official, and I think they'll be very receptive to come in and meet with you and talk about sort of the same types of things Chairman and I have been talking about and Ed Augustus. Ed Augustus is the state. What you know? You know statewide person in charge of housing, but, and then the who's the new EOH, HHS, Commissioner, Secretary. He spoke about Jailyn place, but Melanie used to be, He's the doctor, and he used to be in charge. He was the Deputy Commissioner for EOH HHS, and that EOH HHS actually is over 50% of the state budget. The $62 billion state budget Human Services comprises about 33 billion of that. So there's a lot of resources there. And that would be the first outreach to the state. You have a you have a lot of land, you want to designate it for a group home. I think they'll be very receptive to coming in and meeting and talking to you all about that bill. Other questions. Bill Adams: So my next I'm going to put all three together. But one is like, what happens if a whole can't be sustained financially? Like, what if you run out of money or it doesn't work? And then what are the best predictors of financial stability, like, what are the components that make you likely to be stable and have long term success? And then finally, what might happen if the federal dollars disappear? Like, I'm experiencing that at my academic home, the money just disappears. And what would happen if that happened?
Unknown: Yeah, the state is actually looking at their waiver is going to open with CMS, and they're looking to look at ways to not protect that. But what's going to happen if they lose that 50 cents on the dollar? So we don't have an answer for that, but the best predictor of success and sustainability is a strong partnership with DDS, a strong partnership with a an organization that has good financial you can just look up their 990s that they're financially stable, and that the home itself has a good composition. Regardless of the level of disability, DDS has to place priority one people. So if you have a son or daughter and you want them in this home, but they don't get then. Not eligible for DDS services, people need to start now getting them eligible for DDS services, because they'll say, that's great. You want Wayland constituents, but we have these priority people, and the funding goes there. Bill just working is in every federal site, and unfortunately, the JFK, like we do complete facility management at the JFK Library, we have 17 individuals with disabilities work there shut down, has caused the library to close, and we've had to lay off those people and make sure they get the unemployment, and then when the Feds decide to reopen, they'll get retroactive pay, and we'll figure it all out. But those are all the situations we deal with, day in and day out. And not every federal site closed. Though our GSA sites, we do the tip on nail building, the McCall MC building in town, town, the federal courthouse, what's name in the courthouse, the downtown. We manage all those buildings and this, they're still open. They're still open. It's called essential so, but it's, it's, we always have to take, take a look at our funding sources. And rumors. Has it that the state's going to run into a couple of tough fiscal years because of the federal money that they're losing, and the tax, the tax revenue, is a little down. 50 years I've been in the business. I've been through the ups and downs of it all. We still, we still survive. That's what they asked to do, that housing is needed more of a demand. So I think, you know, you just have to, I don't know who the regional director is in Wayland for DDS, but that would be the person you would reach out to, and they might have a housing person who could help you, but that's where I'd start if that's the route you're going. So I bought the plans, but this is, this is a eight bedroom home, and you know, we would have done this, your son would probably
be able to support this is 884. And four. Okay. Did you build it? Not yet, because Bethune voted against us,
but the plan was for you to buy the land and build, we own the land. We had a home on it that's old, and we would have, we were one of the variants. We would have relocated the five individuals were living there. Temporarily knocked the house down, build this home. But unfortunately, we lost the we lost the free to choke. We had to get free A's, and we didn't get it. So it's a split level home, so that folks are aging, and it's just they need something. Still, other questions. Bill Adams: Sorry, I'm asking all the questions, but so I also represent the neighbors, right? And so I think there's a lot of concern, mostly from people who don't have any experience in this space, like what to expect, what it might look like, what it might do to the value of their homes and the land use and stuff like that. And so what do you say to neighbors, to you know, give them confidence that that this is a positive relationship and that it it's ultimately works well in most of your experience. And I know you've been through this a million times, so I'm just really like to hear from you what you say to neighbors to reassure them that this is a good thing. Unknown: Well, one of the things I've done over the years is invite, invite anybody who has concerns like you just expressed, come visit several of the homes that we're currently in and and talk to the neighbors who live next to our homes.
Talk to the neighbors who who are neighbors of our existing homes. And usually, and I'm not putting our neighbors down. But usually our homes are well manicured. Look better in no home we we working manage, would be a home. Would be home. I wouldn't live in myself. We have beautiful homes, and it's easier to raise money for the bricks and mortar than it is to get the state to pay for the services bricks and mortar. There's a lot of money out there from HUD, Federal Home Loan Bank grants, financing it yourself, that type of thing. But in this case, if you all are setting aside land, one of the biggest costs to build a home is the land, and that's that's a great asset to consider having. So there's also a lot of research online, because group homes have been around now since the 70s. And so you can just Google property values and group homes, and you'll see that over overall, you know after all these years, that sometimes the group home is the nicest home in the neighborhood, because we're held to. Level of scrutiny that, you know, other we could live right next to somebody that had 10 cars because they have teenagers and they don't mow the lawn. We can't do anything about that if we don't mow our lawn, you know, they they drop a dime. So we, we, you know, I think most provider agencies in the state take very good care of the homes. Other questions, Bill,
I yield my podium. Thank you. Thank you. Sean questions, right, not at this time. Catherine, good Stephanie questions, no, no, it's been very helpful. Thank you. What is the largest number of bedrooms in one of your facilities are five? Now five, five, so going to eight will be four and four, two separate. It's like taking two homes and having it an entrance, and then you go into right so there, but, but there, I imagine there's some economies of scale for you in this they function totally separate, like two five person group so it would have two House managers, two overnights. They function totally separate. Okay, it's interesting that you don't anticipate this. We were shocked that DDS gave us approval. These have not been approved in years and years, but their housing needs are so much so this is impressive setting project. No, there's been some in the north, in the up where you live, Jim, so you just can request it up front. And I think they'd even allow you to do if you had enough land, you could do five and five, because it's literally two group homes. But, you know, we were lucky.
So I have a question. You drove by the property I did today? Yeah, so I drove up that dirt road, and I said, I hope I can turn around. I probably got to the top of it. I did turn around and go back out. We look like a big forest. To me, that's all it Tom Fay: looked like. So the property is between two commercial districts, the chituit District and Wayland Town Center. And if when you buy property and you think about building, you look for certain type of residents to live in a certain type of area of the town. Follow me. In other words, do you I use the word discriminate? Of my individuals might be best to live in this area because they're close to the commercial area versus not, Unknown: not really, but we, that's why I drove up there earlier today, to look at. We look for, is it, is it? Is it close to where you all want to live? It's close to a shopping center. Is there on a bus line? Is it on transportation? And, quite frankly, I don't see any of that at all, right? So which would mean we would have to, if whatever provider comes in, they would have to provide significant transportation, a couple of vans. A lot of our homes have one or two vans every every day, because most likely, during the day, the individuals who live in that home are going to have to either go to work in a job or go to a day program somewhere in the in the area. And I don't, I'm not familiar with the Wayland geography in terms of our other services. It doesn't Suburban. Doesn't have any other value over a city. You know, if you have folks that are independent, you can use public transportation. You don't want to put them out in a place they don't have it, so you would be placing people who would need rides anyway, so they're not losing anything. Somebody who could have access should live where they can grab the bus or the tea or something like that. Tom Fay: And in the communities where you operate, homes are there volunteers and local community to participate in the operations or assisting residents, or not Unknown: necessarily, not really, no, the neighbors will come to our cookouts, and we'll invite them in. They'll to meet the residents who live there. They get to know them. We're part of the neighborhood, and that just like everybody else, but not really volunteer part. A provider could solicit volunteers and but it's stringent in the state now, they have the laws. They have to be Corey, fingerprinted, all of that. But it wouldn't preclude them. We just don't happen to do that.
Tom Fay: Any other questions or comments by members of the committee? I. Well, we really appreciate you coming in this evening. You're doing great work, and have many years, and you both should be admired as the entire organization. Thank you, Unknown: and this is wonderful. I spent most of our time fighting towns, fair housing labor. So this is like astounding. Jim told me, I said I didn't believe it, but we went to Methuen, we met with all the neighbors who've been our neighbors for 40 years at that house, and we asked him to come to the meeting with the Selectmen. And they all vote, they'll, they always answered, We don't want the house there. No, they wanted to stay the way, to go away, but exactly. But this house will be built somewhere, guarantee, maybe. Yeah, thank you again. Take care. Why don't we next move on.
Tom Fay: So why don't we move on to Item four on our agenda, which is consideration of the minutes that were in the packet for September 3, 2025 meeting, and I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. Do I have a second of the motion? Second, any discussion on the motion? Hearing? None all those in favor of motion. I'll go one by one. Stephanie, yes. Catherine, yes. Bill, yes. Brian, Hey, John, yes. Gene Yes. And Tom, yes. That is a unanimous vote. Appreciate that. So the next thing I'd like to do is move on to Item five, which is just an update on the request for information that was completed and placed out on the central register and a deadline of October 16. Bill Whitney was instrumental in completing this with input from John, as well as our own comments, any questions in the process or for the content,
Unknown: look great too. It was great.
Tom Fay: Well, I'll pass those kind of words on to Bill, and let's see what what comes of it. So the next item on our agenda is, is to meet with neighbors at seven o'clock. But before we break, since have a few minutes, I wanted to open up discussion to any ideas people have on organizations and like to hear from or anything they'd like to accomplish that we're not doing that we think would be a good idea for us to look into or discuss in detail as we do our work, any just open it up to anybody.
Unknown: I try to get a fair amount of time thinking about creating a mental model for making this decision by inquiring. You know, how do you group people? What are the variables? That's a tough one. People who don't work in the industry. How do you make that decision? Yeah, how do you decide? You know, all I've looked at statistics and how many people in the Commonwealth have each different kind of disability, and they're all meritorious. They're all under housed. You know, it's, it's not like we can identify one group and say, for some reason, this group has really been left out. I'm really having a hard time just sort of building a decision model for this? Yeah,
yes. Stephanie, Stephanie Lynch: well, maybe if we could design for the widest possible, you know, variation of what might come through and that we could support as many people who need extra help as possible with accessibility and flexibility.
John Thomas: Can I just ask a question? Stephanie, are you are you suggesting the widest possible variance for people living in the in the eventual home? Or are you talking. About casting a wide net for different types of models,
Stephanie Lynch: a model that would would would serve the needs of a variety of different people coming through that that need the support so they would need extra, extra help. It might be due to a medical or an intellectual thing, but that the facility would be structured in such a way that it could be the spaces could be adapted. They would be accessible and they would be adaptable. For instance, that they could serve a caregiver or a resident could live there. So you could have more caregivers or less caregivers, depending on the population that that happened to be living there at the time. Unknown: It sounds like it is tricky, though, like we heard
Brian, I was just gonna say it seems like we have to focus on, I don't know how we choose the group. We have to focus on one population group, and that may be dictated by WHO, WHAT agency is interested in doing this. If this developer who can make this happen, we may have to fall in line with that. Tom Fay: So Brian that that comment is contrary Stephanie's point, I think. But Tom, but Brian, from what you've seen of the group homes that you're you've come in contact with, are there homes that follow Stephanie's suggestion, I mean, a variety of individuals with different disabilities, or is it more of a just from what the president, Unknown: right? I'd Stephanie Lynch: like to clarify a little, because I don't think it's I think we're pretty much saying the same thing. Okay, the funding is going to determine the population too. No deed. If it is, we're going to work with DDS, then we would want to have people who fall under DDS funding, so that it all works together, John Thomas: right? There's a wide variance within DDS, yeah, yeah. That's, I guess, Stephanie, that's what my question to you was, because even within DDS, I mean working sounds like and from my experience, my past experience, they work primarily with DDS, but within DDS, there's a an entire array of people. And I think their presentation tonight was suggesting very similar to their their work programs. You really do want to focus your specialization on a particular group of people. That's that's the way you maximize your getting your biggest bang for the buck. So you don't want to necessarily mix people that are behaviorally challenged with people that are medically agile use their so I guess that's what I was trying to get you to, sort Stephanie Lynch: of, yeah. I don't think we'd be serving that group that behaviorally challenged.
Katherine Provost: I guess I'm I'm in Brian's court in that, it seems to me like it's going to be very difficult for us to dictate what population we want to serve, seems to me like that's putting the cart before the horse, and we've got to put out the request for proposals and see what comes back, and see what team is the most capable and competent, financially stable, and then try to, you know, highest and best use for what we have in Wayland. You know, we don't have easy access to transportation, that kind of thing. At the same time, we're talking about maybe building five units for much, for a population with much more intensive needs, versus maybe, you know, 12 to 14, for a population that doesn't require placement or involvement with DDS, but I don't think we're going to be able to dictate that. I think we have to wait and see what comes back to us once we put out the RFP, unless I'm missing something, Tom Fay: John, you made a comment in a prior meeting about one of our goals being might want to be making sure we serve the families of Wayland. So, you know, is that a consideration that we that we need to think about, you know, and
Unknown: thought on that, I think a project that would serve family of Wayland might be just a straight Ada, accessible building like, for example, most of the condos and stuff around here, they're townhouses. They have big thresholds. There's no adaptable kitchen. There's a big curb to get into the shower. Or the halls aren't wide enough, the doors aren't wide enough. You know, we don't have enough to sort of basic housing for people who have mobility issues, no matter what their age is. And I, you know, since we have potentially two lots here, I find myself thinking, Well, do we want to do maybe a 40 B, friendly, I don't know, project that's all ad a apartment building, you know, where people have with mobility issues, and maybe we able to have some apartments that have the things for people who can't hear because they they're easily wired into the building. So we have some for deaf people. Have some for blind people, we have some for people who have to use a locker wheelchair. But I just don't know how we're going to be constrained by the law. You know, because of all this concern about Luke and people together treating them badly, it would be more like Independent Living apartment building that could accommodate people who, time and time again, can't get up the steps to the porch.
John Thomas: So just back to Bill, one of the questions that you were asking the working people, which I think you know, their response, I think we need to heed. So you were asking about indicators that would signal what would help ensure for the financial stability of whatever program ends up, you know, going on to the site. And their answer, which I firmly concur with, is that you need to look at what's going to be the the provider of the funding for the operation, the operational budget moving forward. And their answer was that it really behooves whoever is doing this. RFP, I guess that's us to reach out to some of those funding sources, if it's going to be DDS, if it's going to be some of the other state agencies, to find out what the level of interest would be in putting together an RFP that would serve a group that they could, in turn, get behind in terms of providing the operational dollars moving forward. Because, like they said, you know, the brick and mortar is kind of the easy part of this whole puzzle. It's really the operational budget moving forward five years, 10 years down the road, that's what's going to determine whether or not this is going to succeed. Bill Adams: That's definitely what I heard from them. Is the partnership part is really important, and that will help us choose, right? So I think we could be a little bit constrained in terms of we're looking for kind of what was described at the town meeting, two group homes were fairly and people in need of quite a bit of support, right? And within that, it could be all kinds of different types of support that people need, but focusing a little bit like that can be helpful. And then we put it out and and we could be even a little competitive. We're going to be so unusual that we're a willing partner, that people might be able to work with us in a way that they wouldn't with others. So we might get a better partnership out of that, because people really want that to work, and we could use that to our advantage. So I agree that we can't, we can't be wide open, but we also need to be somewhat focused. I agree.
Tom Fay: So John, we've heard from some organizations during our meetings that seem to provide the whole package, right? And come in, they can, they can build, and they already have existing relationships with governmental entities for funding purposes. And then some of those organizations, their residents, are funded through private monies. Do you see value in in going with an organization like that, given the town doesn't want to be the administrator necessarily, of of these homes, John Thomas: yeah, no, I I think that would be the organization that you would want to go to. But I think at the same time, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, I think it would be important to reach out to some of the funding, the eventual funding sources for whatever structure some of these organizations are going to put together. I mean, they are going to do the same thing. They are going to reach out if we express an interest in a particular. Proposal they're going to as I can guarantee, one of the first homework assignments that they're going to have is okay, let's talk to a funding source and find out who do they who do they need to serve? Who do they want to serve? Where is there the most need? Is it behavioral challenge? People? Is a medically fragile is it people in the autism spectrum who are also intellectually disabled? You know, where is the greatest need in this particular area, in this particular region, or area office, and they're going to work with that funding source to put together a proposal. I mean, it's, that's, that's going to be the response. So the extent to which we can have have our fingers and, you know, multiple places at the same time, I think we can do that. I think we ought to do that. That's, that's my opinion. Unknown: We do like the idea of talking to the funding agencies. If they're desperate, perhaps they're ready to innovate. You know, we could be a beta project as long as they're on board and they promise to support it. Yeah, I get I get way Catherine. Katherine Provost: I get nervous about state involvement and anything too novice, to be honest. I mean, I just think we could be looking at years of trying to assemble something that's too out of the box. And John, we talked months ago with DDS, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression from a Zoom meeting with four or five people from DDS is they were not at all prepared or comfortable telling us what we should be doing, right? I mean, it was kind of like you guys figure it out and then come talk to us. John Thomas: We also Catherine, if you remember, we were talking to people from the central office, and then we were talking to people from the region, and we were also talking from the area director, and the person from the people from the region and the area director are really the people that are going to be the boots on the ground in terms of making decisions about any kind of program moving forward in the town of Wayland, the people from central office, I think, were very reluctant to commit themselves. Unknown: But if I'm so happy to hear you say that, yeah, John Thomas: or whomever the provides, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we decided that we were going to entertain ARPA from a DDS contractor, residential provider, agency like Charles River or work Inc, or Minuteman ARPA, whomever They're going to be calling DEP Johnson at DDS, Middlesex West Area office to establish a line of communication a guarantee, like I said before, they guarantee you who, who is coming online in this year's turning 22 class. You have a she has a turning 22 coordinator at the area office level, who has, they have a radar of everybody in this area who is going to be turning 22 in the next year, along with a whole list of what those people's needs are in terms of what they are going to need for residential programming, and what they're going to need for day services, what they're going to need for transportation, etc, etc. And so that's how agencies put together ARPA based on what they know is coming down the pipeline. So, I mean, I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is we're we're all novices in the sense that this is not something that municipalities typically do, as we keep hearing time and time again, the state said it right. The central office said it. Folks said it to us, these agencies are saying, Wow, what a pleasant surprise to have a municipal entity actually sort of reaching out. So I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is, I've said it before, we don't want to put the cart before the horse, but frankly, I think we're struggling to know, what is the horse, if the horse is going to be leading the process, you know, do we reach out to the agency? Do we reach out to the state? Do we reach out to people in town to gage what the need is of people in our own community that might want to live in this eventual structure? Katherine Provost: So, so going back to Tom's question about who we could bring in, does it make sense to bring in the regional director? And John Thomas: I think the regional or the area director would would be an excellent idea in my that's just my own personal opinion. Unknown: I would love which i. You John Thomas: could start with DDS, but we could certainly. I mean, if we're entertaining other constituencies, you could talk about the Mass Rehab Commission. You could talk about the Department of Mental Health. I mean, I'm not here to dictate who we ought to be thinking. But again, I'm also not wanting to put the cart before the horse. Katherine Provost: No, I agree, but, but if we're in the information gathering stage, bringing I love the idea of bringing in someone from DDS on the regional or area level, plus MRC. We refer people at the Housing Authority to MRC all the time. I think MRC is a great idea. John Thomas: Trouble is they don't have a huge amount of funding. They're not a residential funder. That's that's the problem. I mean, you know, I admire the work that they do, but that's, yeah, yeah. Katherine Provost: It was only did. It was only to get back to the question of, what's the what's the need, and what would it? I don't know. I don't know who can answer the question. I guess it would be the DDS Regional or area director. And Bill just asked, which is smaller, regional or area that is John Thomas: kind of large and area is the that's that's focusing and drilling Bill Adams: down that area seems more like what we want to hear about, I think. Yeah, John Thomas: well, they're going to be serving all the the, what we would call our contiguous towns and the towns in the MetroWest area.
Bill Adams: And is there a history of sort of regionalization of these, this work like, say, we partnered with three towns that abut Wayland, and then when they build group homes, they support our guys, and when we build them, we could support their guys so that we have a larger pool to work with, but not a huge pool. Does anyone ever do that?
Unknown: I don't know the answer to that. I've never heard of it. Great idea, though. Don't you think?
Tom Fay: All right? Well, certainly I think two ConCom provide days Day Services Bill, I think are serve individuals in the region. For example, I think Charles River has one in need it. So, so, to the extent this regionalization that that might be a model, but John Thomas: I think he's talking about, you know, people in the actual towns that want to sort of band together. It's Bill Adams: such a precious resource, yeah, being able to manage that little bit locally, if it's possible, but it does seem hard to do. Tom Fay: So why don't we take a quick break and convenient seven, and we'll continue our meeting. Okay? Great. Thank you. Bye.
Unknown: We need that camera's
not on yet. Do we need the table? I to feel comfortable. Katherine Provost: Do we have a just one other question? What about someone from Smok coming to which is the regional housing authority coming to talk to us about what what type of developments they see that have worked well, what partners they've worked with? I think they're very involved in in and I don't, I don't even know exactly how, but we could figure out the right person at Smok who might be able to come talk to us as well. Tom Fay: Sure, yeah, I will reach out to them and see whether they are willing to join us. I will do that great. Thank you. So let's turn our attention to Item three of our agenda, which includes a conversation with inviting neighbors to the site, and we have some individuals here, welcome, and maybe individuals online. If so, we'll bring them on, see if I can do that.
Bill Adams: I did hear from at least one mark, Tom Fay: yeah, Robby. How can I bring Mr. Mettler over to the main meeting?
Unknown: I join
Bill Adams: if you get stuck, I have his email. I could probably email him as a committee member, but,
Unknown: okay, good. So Mr. Metrow should join us. Good evening. Mr. Metland,
Hey, Mark, can you hear us? Yeah, you've got me Excellent. I'm here. Tom Fay: Hi, Mr. My name is Tom Fay, welcome. Thank you for the meeting where listening to neighbors about this project, answer questions and listen to your thoughts. So I just ask each person go through and give us your name and address, and then we'll and then we'll get started. So you want to start? Unknown: I'm Allen Lapierre from nine High Rock Road. We abut the property.
Matthew McCall and 15 Woodridge road. I also bought the
property and Deborah lucky
or nine High Rock Road. You give us your address for
us on 13 High Rock Road. Tom Fay: Great welcome. I Yeah. So our committee put this item on the agenda to make sure we have an opportunity to hear your thoughts on potential projects here and your concerns and answer questions. So I open up to anybody who wants to begin. Unknown: Can I just jump in quick point order and just request that this committee endeavor to make the calendar up to date? It's not and it's very difficult to be involved. I've wanted to be involved, and I no idea when the meetings happen, and my only option, really is reading the minutes so you know, I understand that it was added to the agenda sometime in the letter that the the meeting was added to the calendar sometime in the last week. But, you know, I don't think that's enough time for us to stay apprised of the information that's being held here. Tom Fay: Not too good suggestion. What I'll do is make it a point to put in the minutes that the that and this will be in the minutes of the meetings of this committee going forward will be on October is a set meeting. October, 22 2025 from five to 8pm November, 6, 2025 from 11 to 2:11am. 2pm 1113, 25 from 6:30pm to 8pm and 1119 25 from 6pm to 9pm as far as putting them on the town website, it's typical that the agenda is created late, and once the agenda is created, then you then you post it and on the opine law, we have to do it within a certain number of hours part of the meeting. So. But Unknown: now that we have the dates the agenda aside, can we put the dates on that so that like on the calendar, so that I can check to see when the next Tom Fay: meeting is? I'll speak with the Tom the Select board's office, see whether we can do that. Thank you. So thoughts, comments on what you know, what you don't know. Question about the process. Comments you have. The floor is yours.
Unknown: I can I'll start this. I'm kind of, we're kind of coming late into the game here. So there's some information that we don't know. And one is, how many units are you thinking on this property, and how many? And I heard today, four to five people in a unit.
Tom Fay: It's undecided. How many units even how many structures? The Town Meeting Warren article authorizes a Select Board to build at least one structure to house individuals with disabilities. That's that's pretty much it might there be two possibly depends what the Select Board decides, the decision will be impacted by what our committee recommends. And I'm not sure what time you came in to this meeting, but our conversation just before we broke was kind of gave you a sense, I think, of how there are so many variables that we're listening to, considering so many groups that we've heard from, that it's really up in the air. Is a long phrase, but I would say really an open book. You know, it's really an open book. And if I do invite other members of the committee to respond to Alan's question,
Unknown: yeah, we're really an exploratory body. You know, I think of myself as an emissary to the greater community, ordinary citizen who's trying to figure out what this would mean for Wayland, and how we could for benefits of housing to the disabled and have it and be a blessing in the town. So I think at this point, we're really trying to talk to experts, bring experts in to explain to us how this world works. Books, where's the money come to help disabled people? Who are the people who know how to build buildings for disabled people, who are the people the companies that run management of these facilities and the right kinds of services are provided for folks, very exploratory, and at the end of the process, we're going to summarize what we learned and write to the Select Board and say, Okay, we did this sort of panorama. Look at all the vendors and all the government agencies and all the disabled people in the Commonwealth. And here's what we've learned. You know, here's the factors that when you the Select would start making decisions that you want to take into consideration.
Tom Fay: I will say, Listen, I'm sorry you want to say something though I was Bill Adams: just going to say, what I do keep bringing up, even though it wasn't written down, is what the town sort of voted on was two buildings with maybe five to six individuals that need quite a bit of support, so that that would include maybe one or two additional people who live there overnight and full time support those six people and so and then I also remember from the town meeting this commitment to build a building That's consistent with other buildings in the neighborhood that don't look dramatically different or, you know, largely institutional. So I keep bringing that up as a reminder to the committee that that was, even though it wasn't written down, that was what kind of what was discussed. And so that's my hope, is to keep advocating for that idea. But of course, the committee has more rain than you know that if they decide otherwise, Tom Fay: and to Bill's point, from from what I've heard, I invite a committee members to to comment. What we're hearing from the organizations that we have heard thus far suggest that, you know, homes with more than maybe four to six per home really doesn't, isn't effective. It isn't ideal for the residents. So essentially, smaller, better, versus a structure with with many more residents isn't I'm sure the state even would approve it, but just not effective. Unknown: I think all the models, including that most recent one, all of them look residential. They're not institutional. Yeah, Tom Fay: and the and the one resident and the one home for disabled individuals in the town is residential, looking home under 20, not far from the Cochituate, Unknown: the town. At the Tom meeting, it was approved for five to six individuals, both in each building Tom Fay: or in combined No, as Bill pointed out, the written word isn't that specific. We did speak about that, I spoke about, Unknown: that you presented information, right? Yeah, so it's five to six in the aggregate, plus that Katherine Provost: five, five to six per building in two buildings, right? Tom Fay: Okay, five to six per building, it could be only one building has to be at least Unknown: one it wasn't the second one. Have to be affordable housing if a second facility, second one could be an amendment to the warrant. Tom Fay: The amendment just wanted to make sure. Want to make sure that affordable housing, it was affordable so, so the one home could be would have to be Unknown: affordable. Follow me, so I'm don't follow. Can you clarify that. Sure so Tom Fay: the one home could would serve individual adult disabilities, but it would be affordable for the individuals who moved in there,
Unknown: okay, as opposed to capitalized Tom Fay: affordable housing or you pay on pocket only for people who could pay that apart. John Thomas: Okay? I mean, the general consensus is the population that I think, is the spirit of what it is that we're trying to do with, by definition, by almost any definition, would be a population that would be eligible for affordable housing, if, in the absence of a disability. In other words, anybody that's served, for example, by the Department of Department of Developmental Services, is making less than what the median income level would be, yeah, Unknown: but there's a lot more to it, right? Like, you know, if this, if something is qualified and designated as affordable housing within the fair housing, you know, act, then you know, then they're not, they're taking in. They're not able to restrict those residents to mentally handicapped or to being disabled in other capacities. You. Right? So one house may be able to be served this purpose that this committee is intended, but if this second house is to be qualified as affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, then it would be subject to different regulations, and there would be different individuals there. So restricting that just to mentally disabled or other disabilities is not necessarily, you know, a given. It's not something necessarily that would happen. I mean, it'd be subject to different limitations. All Tom Fay: right, so, just so I see I can follow you, suggested that the amendment of the article. Your concern is that Unknown: it, my reading of it was that if you had that, if it was a second house was to be built, a second structure to be built, that second structure would be affordable housing. And my understanding, and maybe it wasn't defined, and, you know, it was written in two minutes, but affordable housing, you know what the intent of that? You know amendment was clearly after was affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, which is different than, you know, what we would be doing. And, you know, frankly, entirely different agencies. I'll have to take a closer look. I think it was the intention was that if we couldn't build anything that Well, I guess I'm concerned that we don't know what the parameters are of this, you know, warrant at this stage, and I don't understand that maybe the amendment was a safeguard to make sure that, well, it wasn't a safety, it was an amendment. So it changed. It was, it was, if it was no group home built the town's going to build, subdivide or something. It would have to be affordable. So if we couldn't do what we're trying to do, then it would have to be affordable. I think that was the intent that would be. That would be the minimum required, right? John Thomas: If we couldn't do if we couldn't make a recommendation to serve the disabled population for whatever reason, which I frankly don't think that's going to there's going to be a barrier to that, based on what I've heard so far. If we hypothetically couldn't do that at a bare minimum, then the fall back would be that the property would be utilized for affordable housing. That's my understanding. Tom Fay: That's helpful. I think there is a good point, Matthew. So what we'll do is we'll explore that. If we need a Tom town council opinion on it, we'll get that. Unknown: So I guess with the floor, I would just say, you know, I appreciate the invitation to participate here and for, you know, to comment and ask questions. I think that, you know, I would reiterate kind of the the other, you know, some, some of what we else, we've heard in that it's difficult to provide comment and ask questions given how broad the net committee is cast. We've heard from, you know, about potential friendly, 40 B developments that would maximize the development on that land. We've heard about farms with livestock on them. We've heard about, you know, tonight's building, or structure or house, which would have individuals that are coming in and out with, you know, large transportation needs. So it's really difficult for us, or me to, you know, really wrap my head around what's going on here, or feel like I can make an impact, or, you know, participate in any way. So I guess where I would start, you know, is that, do we know one? Do we know that this project will benefit the residents of Wayland? And by benefit, you know, I mean in the sense that residents of Wayland would be living in these units that are being built. And if that's the case, then maybe we solve for that problem, rather than, you know, entertain, you know, everything else that's out there, and address and focus the efforts on the individuals that would be living in that in that those houses, if, in fact, this committee or the this project can't, you know, guarantee the that the housing will be used for residents and that the residents are subject to, you know, pooled lottery, like other members of the state or the community at large, I don't know then, where you know the benefit to The town is, and it seems to have gotten lost. So I'd like to get some you know, respect Tom Fay: on that well. In the end, the Select Board will make a decision on how they want to proceed with this land, and they they're elected to speak generally, to do what's best for. The for the town, so they'll make, they'll be the final decision makers on that. But regarding Wayland residents possibly living, it's a great point, and that's something that we've touched upon as a committee, and we'll continue to talk about it. For example, at some point, it's an ARPA RFI issue which limits the residents to individuals living in Wayland. Well, if that's the way we go, we may need to limit it to private companies committed to it versus Unknown: Well, state funded. Yeah, Tom Fay: right. So those are the rules right. State may say, no, no, we're not going to let you do that. We need. There are so many people in your region, they need to have access to this one. But, but if the if the rules permit Wayland to have an RFI request for ARPA or custom proposal where only Wayland residents live, and then, you know, that's what psych board might do. That may be what our committee recommends. So it's it's really unclear. And to your earlier point, I you know what you say makes sense. It's kind of hard for you to put your hands around this, because it's also hard for us at this point. It's just not there yet. We might be there in six weeks, and then it becomes clear. I think then people like you, neighbors, people close by can get your hands around it, and they will ask more pointed questions and raise your concerns. Unknown: So I know Bill Adams: at least in talking to Tom, he did describe at least two meetings with neighbors, the first one to kind of hear concerns and get them on the table, and then another meeting when things are more formulated, to respond specifically. So I think people are thinking that way. So I appreciate that it's under specified right now, but there'll be another chance to react to whatever more specifics the committee comes up with, too, and to provide me feedback along the way, which I'm happy to pass on at any meeting. One
Unknown: of the things I also wanted to ask about was, I guess I don't understand what these folks will be doing during the day. This was presented as an opportunity to engage these individuals and keep them in the community. But it's not really located near anything, and it's not a location that's easy to get to anything. It's one of the few that, I mean, does have a sidewalk. I mean, it's in terrible condition, but maybe, you know, that's part of this process is, you know, replacing the sidewalk. But beyond that, it's at least a mile walk for anyone to get anywhere. And that assumes that the individuals are, you know, able to, you know, to do that on their own. So I guess that was one of my thoughts. And like, how do you then get them into the the into the the community, in engaged with the community in a way that's not, you know, disruptive from a traffic standpoint. You know, we traffic backs up to Woodridge Road in both directions on a regular basis, and adding, you know, an institution that's, you know, moving people in and out on a regular basis, I think would be, you know, problematic. So some of the thoughts that I wanted to ask, no the Tom Fay: good questions, I think what we've heard from different individuals in the industry are that, depending on the nature of the disability, some individuals can work in the community. You know, human Wayland, as we heard from work, Inc, some work in courthouses, something work in state office buildings. They would get transportation there during the day. Some individuals go to Dave programs in the area. It depends on the nature of the disability. Individuals who have much more severe disabilities, they're they're less able to to work in certain environments. It kind of depends on the nature of the residents. Unknown: And has the committee explored traffic concerns? We're not. DEP, no, no. I mean, both roadways are listed as tier two by the state, so they require an audit at some point. Maybe it's something to do at this stage? Tom Fay: Well, since we haven't really gotten the point of knowing where we're going to recommend, that's kind of premature.
Unknown: How does this dovetail to the other big project that's going on down the street on 27 No, that isn't a Christian Academy. That's that have any impact on this? Nothing I'm aware of. I don't think we know what fair tax is doing right now, except they're going to do something.
I was referring to, the traffic scanning uptick, significant. Away Tom Fay: from that, it depends how big a operation,
Unknown: just like, just, Stephanie Lynch: just to comment, you know, for instance, my son, we live on Pine, on Hemlock, and he as part of his day program. And with DDS, there is a bus service that picks up people, individuals around Wayland, most, most of them are living at home, like Jason, and takes them to the program and brings them back. We can't get coverage for all the trips, but it's, it's a very, you know, buy it under the radar kind of thing, and it's all taken care of through his day program and his DDS,
Unknown: questions, comments. I had a question about funding and what happens to the organization and to the property and to the residents. If it doesn't work out, I think, you know, we in Wayland in particular should be ultimately, you know, particularly sensitive to these things. And we are a town of essentially closed storefronts. So, you know, I think that on some level, there's got to be an anticipation or plan as to what would happen if you know their funding does disappear. And, you know, I think it's two tier, right? It's the service funding, and then whatever you know, the maintenance on the property would be a separate fund, I assume. So, I guess what? How do you guys think about, you know, ensuring that the longevity of this organization, and, you know, yes, you can look at the the 990s for the organization and other filings, but not sure that that's really indicative of the service component of that in organization, and their ability to, you know, continue to get funding and dependency on outside sources. Tom Fay: Good question had to came up earlier tonight. I think I would expect the Select Board to place a restriction on land. Either we, the town, will find land lease to the organization that comes in and develops it or sells it outright. But if they do sell it, the property would likely have the DEP destruction. So if an organization went bankrupt or couldn't handle it, we would simply bring in another organization to an RFP to replace I think that in my mind, that's the model, I would say. But, but to your point, I think one of our jobs as a committee is to point out to the Select Board that the organization choose has has a good track record in this well financed
questions
Unknown: I ask a couple of questions for sure?
Is the intention that the town will continue to own the property and lease whatever it is that's developed to a developer and and collect rent over time, or is it intended to sell to developer with confidence for how they can develop the property unclear. Tom Fay: I think both options are around the table, but not nothing clear on that, Unknown: but to the point to the to the extent your question
Tom Fay: raises concerns about organizations taking advantage of the town. I'm confident the any agreement that is arrived at would prevent any undue
Unknown: I guess more that it's a loss of control at some point, right? So you you make a decision through this committee process. You choose a partner, and you sell the land, and you're out. And if it, if the project does collapse, at some point it fails, then we're back where we are today, with an abandoned property, you know, potentially. So that's one concern I had. The other question is, do you have it on your purview of you know what you're going to evaluate in this process speaking to local real estate agents to get a sense of the impact on a butters of the various types of projects. So if a project is two residential looking homes that house five to six people, each with one professional staying overnight. What impact might that be to the six direct abutters, or however many director butters there are, if it is one large building that's commercial and Luke in a large parking lot and houses 25 People, what does that do to abutter values? Is that a fair ask from the abutters to have that be something that you consider and seek professional advice from and report on it as part of this process. Tom Fay: All I'll say that is that one of the members of our committee is Robert Hummel. He's ex officio member, and he's a town planner, and you know some of the issues you mentioned. You know he to the extent we need it and give expert advice on on impacts. He certainly would advise us on on zoning relative to impacts on property values. I'm not sure that's something that we'll do a study on, but I'll leave it up. I open up that committee members on that topic. We're Unknown: not suggesting a commercial building with 25 units. I mean, everything we've talked about something that looks residential, it's relatively small numbers. So I mean, the Dallas river Foundation has that group home on behind coach grill. Coach grill, yeah, you wouldn't know noi. I mean, the neighbors were very concerned naturally in the beginning, and now, as far as I understand, they liked the being about us to this property. And you wouldn't know that these folks are there. They get transported to their programs during the day. And you know there is the ADU have some fans to take people to their destinations, but I'm not sure this has much of an impact on traffic.
Just a point. I the I can hear everybody great, except those of you who are on the committee who I can't see like I can see my fellow neighbors. I can see the folks who are remote. Can hear everybody fine when they speak. I just can't hear you guys very well at all. It's very muffled, so I didn't really catch the whole response to my question. You want to try it again? I was just saying that we're not suggesting commercial build, commercial looking building with 25 that seems excessive. I don't think anybody in this committee would recommend a development like that. Everything we're suggesting is similar to the picture that's in front of you. It looks residential as should have minimal impact on the surrounding neighbors. So it would be pretty similar to the Charles River foundation home behind coach grill, and most people don't even know that that exists in this town. And initially it was neighborhood opposition to that, and as far as what I've heard from people, the neighbors are accepting of it. Now it's worked out. It worked it's worked out for them. They feel like it's provides a service for these people, and it's not a problem. Which house is it? Out of curiosity, right beside folks theater. Okay, so it's on route 20. It's on route 20. Yeah, books and the high place,
but you would, nobody knows it's there. Katherine Provost: And that's Brian. Is that eight units or 10 units? I think it's 12. I think it's 12. Two actually, yeah, Unknown: 12 units, plus a manager, people, 12 people, yeah, and for over 15 years, 20 years, yeah. John Thomas: And that's something that's really, really tough to do these days. I'll just say, I mean, we, those of us who've been working on this for a little while, and people that have been interacting with the state, which would be the eventual funding source, getting anything in the neighborhood of that those kinds of numbers these days is almost impossible. It's really, really hard to get a congregate housing setting funded by the state for more than six people. You really have to have exceptions. That's why some of the examples that they were showing tonight, they were talking about, for example, a duplex with four people on one side and four people on the other. Even that's kind of unusual. So the trend is to keep the numbers smaller, to get away from the institutional model. So I'm just sharing that those are the trends. That's not necessarily what we're going to be advocating for or not advocating for. Unknown: Is that a trend based on the residents themselves, and what kind of works out better for them? Yes? Yes. Okay.
Bill Adams: My Mark's point is an important one. Like whatever possible designs we come up with, we should deliberately think about what evidence do we have from other similar developments that this won't impact the value of people's land surrounding you know, may not be able to do that officially, but as. Principle, we should come up with designs that have been shown to not impact neighbors, home values, and it does seem feasible. Have said,
Unknown: I think the comment was about setbacks, and I think it dovetails with the potentially, with the property value question, in that, if the property is encumbered by the town of Wayland in the sale, such that it, you know, has sufficient setbacks, I would imagine that that would provide, you know, you know, go a long way to offset any potential
discounting a property in relation to the neighbor. So, you know, with that said, I guess we would, as neighbors, advocate for, you know, a pretty substantial setback. You know, to keep this in fitting, as you said, with, you know, a house that is quiet and, you know, not really disruptive in the neighborhood. Jump all you like I'm glad I started. That's what I was thinking of. Is, what are the setbacks? Is it 100 feet? 200 feet? Did you know the answer? And is that something that, Tom Fay: if Robert was here, he could tell us like that, you know, Unknown: I know. Is it 30 feet? And I think 30. I think it's 30 feet for a side, side yard. And I don't know what it is, because what's the zoning in that area? Is it acres only? I think so, yeah, 222, acres, our 60. So I don't know what this side setbacks out what's our 62 acres, right? Yeah, so, I mean, I think we would comply with that. Noi, yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any special treatment. The only difference would be if
Tom Fay: it was a 40 B through the to the Select Board, and then, then there could be relaxation of those.
Unknown: Okay, it hasn't come up at all. They're still in Well, it did come up. We want to do this. It did come up, and it was advocated by by one of the members of this board, one of the seated members? No, Tom Fay: no, I mentioned that. Yeah, no, no, it's come up in this. Yeah, I stand corrected. It has come up, but we haven't seriously talked about, well, this is what we should know. We should recommend Unknown: this clearly what we want to do. Yeah, this is what we think. This is our goal. Not a 40 day, right, right? So going forward, do you have meeting with people like, Tom Fay: yeah, so if you our meetings are all online, so you can go to WayCAM and watch our prior meetings and minutes are also online, and a future meetings will be online as well. So you can't make it, you can watch them. Unknown: But do you have any coming up? Tom Fay: Do you have the meetings, individual meeting with people? Yes, like these companies, yes, yeah. So we have, we have organizations coming in on at least our next two meetings, like the next three meetings, these are organizations that are in the industry that can teach us about what experiences they have, what works, what doesn't work, from funding to, you know, neighborhood. Unknown: Are you concerned about government? You know, as far as the timing, current political environment? No, no.
One last question. I think it's outside the purview of this committee, but, or at least their mandate. But one of the things that I've struggled with is like, what's where the property came from, and the town's acquisition of this property through the foreclosure. You know, I think that there's should be some recognition, it seems somewhat, you know, ironic is not the right word, but that, you know, this individual was suffering from mental health. Town condemned the home and then foreclosed on it, and is now, you know, using it for helping other people with mental health issues. But during the meeting the town meeting, it was brought up, and there was a question raised as to the prior owner and their state and their entitlement to the the funds, and what the the town's intentions were with respect to those I think it was even mentioned that a heir to the estate was present and arrived in presence to discuss the matter at the town meeting. So I guess I just was wondering, you know what the plan there? How does that factor in? To to the finances of this project. If the town is, you know, not planning to return that those funds, does that open us up to lawsuit? And you know, if so, is that a consideration, and if the town is planning to return those funds. How do we then to factor into the, you know, any budget concerns with this project and the costs and costs associated with Tom Fay: it? Yeah, good questions. They came up when the article was being put together, and town council advised us that town owns the property free and clear and doesn't need to be concerned with any future financial obligations to the priority that was the advice. Okay?
Unknown: Matthew still has any questions Mark?
Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Yes on the easements. How? How strict can you be on the easements when you, when you grant this to the operator? I mean, how many, what kind of easements Can you put in as far as care of the property, overall care of the property, and so on? That's a good question. Tom Fay: That's a very good question. I think, I think we need to explore that, but if the town owns, if it's a land lease, we might have more more control over that. But I think what we've heard from the organizations that appeared before us is they take a lot of pride in the properties they own and operate, and they want to be good neighbors, and that that's good to hear, but, but now that's a good question. They want Unknown: to replicate these programs in other towns. So it's in their interest to maintain the properties. I mean, you could have somebody build two houses there, and, you know, have, it could be a disaster. Yet the town has no control over that. But at least with this, I think we can put pressure on I think it's comes from within the agency to maintain the property. Number one, hopefully the town would never have to get involved with them, with cutting the lawn and stuff like that. John Thomas: A lot of the vendors that we're in discussion with including work Inc, that's been around for more than 30 years. There's continuity. I mean, like Brian said, it's in their interest to maintain a property because they want to do this again. They want to replicate the program down the road. So why would they put that at risk? So, I mean, there are no guarantees, but I think that's I mean, again, my experience in working with a lot of these organizations, and some of the ones that we're going to be having come come in Charles River, has been around since the 60s. They have a track record. I would think that we would be looking at that track record, and if there's an RFP to consider, we would be looking at that track record as well. And I'd encourage you to do the same, Katherine Provost: yeah, and I think there's a way for us to even do a tour of some of their properties. I mean, they're really some very beautiful properties run by Minute Man arc and Roach family real estate that are excellent service providers that I think would give a butters a lot of comfort on this issue. John Thomas: Some of us toured a minute man ARPA group home in Sudbury this past year, and it's an immaculate house. Let me tell you, I wish Unknown: that house, okay, it's a restaurant, yeah, right on 117 right across the street. I mean, I wish that house was next to my house. Yeah, quite honestly. Well, I have no My daughter lives in Waltham, lives next to a safe house, and they felt different than this. Safe House is the right term that's for people with disabilities. Yeah. I mean, they're DEP and over five that live. There's no problems, like, but it can't say that their property is immaculate. You know, operates it, I don't,
but it's, there's like it there's no problems.
Bill Adams: So I had another setback question, is it possible for the committee to recommend setbacks that are larger than the standard zoning amounts, or is it pretty much legally cast in stone, like if an architect looks at the land? Or is it Are there ways to specify larger setbacks? Is in specific areas or not. Tom Fay: If Robert was here, you can answer the question, probably I cannot, but I'll put on the list as a question to answer, to be answered. Okay,
other questions or comments. Mike, appreciate. You guys coming in as Bill mentioned. We'll have a at least one other meeting where neighbors will have opportunity to come in and ask questions. By then, I think things will be clear for you and for us. Bill Adams: One other thing, I think just everyone should know that all these are recorded too. So if you can't be here online, you could watch these afterwards and and then there's also a five minutes at the beginning of every meeting, where, if there's an issue from the last meeting you want to bring it up, feel free or tell me, and I'll bring it up too. Unknown: Yeah, we have public comment for every meeting, so feel free to come. Appreciate the invitation. Appreciate your effort. Thank you.
We're all right. We all live in this town. We all live in town.
Tom Fay: So moving on Agenda Item three, Ronnie Kessler worked for the Wayland public schools, and she was hoping to make it tonight, but she's tied up in a school committee meeting, so we'll get her on at another another meeting before I entertain a motion to adjourn. Any final comments or questions by members of the committee. Hearing, none. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I hear a second, second, thank you. Gene, second, I'll do a roll call vote. Brian aye, John aye. Gene, Catherine, yes. Bill Yes. Stephanie Yes. Tom, yes, unanimous vote. Thank you all for your time this evening and see you on the 22nd
Tom Fay: difficulties, and we're back online here at 5:32pm here on August 8, 2025 and before We were rudely interrupted by my lack of electricity. DC, you still have the floor Unknown: well, Tom Fay: you're talking about, you were talking to us about housing challenges, yes. Unknown: And if you want to make it more of a question and answer, sort of a presentation, that's that's fine. I can be flexible. But. The housing challenges are complicated by the fact that the houses that do exist, they really are not capable of supporting deaf, blind people. The they these are deaf, blind people with multiple disabilities. But the primary handicapping condition actually is access, the lack of access to the larger community, to the world, to life, and that is what is just not available. So it's not just about the housing. It's really about the training of the staff, the building up culture that is open and welcoming and supportive of people who have sensory deficits that are blocking their access to Life.
And Stephanie, what's been your experience on housing, hello, Okay, everybody, I think you're muted. I think, can you hear me now? Tom Fay: Hold on Stephanie, okay, Robbie, can you permit us to hear her? Here
Unknown: am I can here you hear me now. Okay, hold on seven,
hello. Definitely they're making it come out of the speaker. Bill Adams: We can hear you can hear me now, we can hear you, but I don't think they can in the town. So,
Unknown: yeah, they can Hello, they unplugged their special speaker. So, oh, no, they might have to turn up the volume is, can you Bill Adams: hear us now? Can you hear us now? Hear Unknown: us now. I'm up to 100 I think. I hope I'm not blasting you guys. No, you're fine. Okay, you're totally fine. Yeah, turn it towards
Tom Fay: okay. So Stephanie, we can hear you now. So And for the record, Brian Boja, our newest members join us. Stephanie Lynch: Welcome Brian. Now that Brian's here, I can start he knows he knows the deal, right? When Jason grew up, I had to find a living situation where he could continue to grow and have an adult life, and I found a life sharing community on a farm in New Hampshire, and he lived there for 11 years. He was he has Down syndrome. He needs a lot, 24/7, supervision and help with meals and bathing, even help with bathing. And he qualifies for waiver services for people who would otherwise need nursing home care, and he just qualified in mass for that too. He lived in a bedroom in a house with a householder, couple their children, a couple of volunteers and several other residents, and this was how he was supportive for this time. And he was part of a comprehensive farm program and the householders and volunteers took care of the shopping and cooking, and he was able to help with chores around the house and work in group settings on the farm and in the kitchen. As a baker, DDS has a problem with people working and living in the same place, so the the situation was always a little unsure. And with covid and everything, he ended up losing the the placement and started over here in Massachusetts, they were also, as he got older, he could no longer. I mean, he, he, they, you know, they have to work at sub zero temperatures in the in the stable, and his physical work in the farm. And as he got, he's 40 now, he got to where that was a bit much for him. And also he's got got a medical situation now that they wouldn't have been able to to take care of. He does. Now that we're in mass, he has a good day program, and we have just gotten some companion service to take him out in the community, and we have learned a bit about the bus services available. So for somebody like him, residential would augment this. But he doesn't need all those services and day program, and he can get those within the community, but he is needs to be able to live near Wayland. He still has need for supervision in care, 24/7, and this living situation should provide for that. And I believe, second. Eight can help with funding other bedrooms for caregivers, so flexibility in the rooms would be good. Farmsteads in New England is another place we tour. They have building swifts, and then each building has several private bedrooms that each person has a bedroom, a little sitting area and a bathroom, and they all enter into one living room and kitchen. So there are several little units in there. They have a communal space. And my vision would be that the little units could be either used for staff or residents, depending on the needs of how many people had more of a physical need that the whether you could have one caregiver take care of a couple of people, or whether people need individual caregivers, or one caregiver could take care of three people or more, depending upon the population that was in the in the facility. And also there has to be flexible. There's flexibility for the needs physical, you know, the blindness, DEP, this, this kind of thing, the physical needs, or more extensive developmental disability, would need more. Other people might need less, but certainly they're going to need more than I think some of the places like they're building, Charles River is building where people can basically live independently, but they need a few hours of staff help and and that whole apartment complex is something Jason could never handle, because his needs are greater than that. And as people age, they're going to need more too. So someplace that he could age in place would be important. I would hope it would be a viable option for people who live grew up in Wayland to stay in their familiar community, near their family. I know that that people now generally have to move far away, many towns over to get into a home situation. And there, I'm sure, has to be rules about choices of which residents could live there. And I know there's sometimes, there's different waiting lists for if you're in town or out of town, and I would hope that it would be available to Wayland residents. I really do see this this. My dream for this place is for people who need more supports than an option, where somebody can basically be independent and needs a little extra supervision. And I would like it to be able to serve people with all kinds of physical disabilities, and the whole building should be accessible, where the different living units maybe have have the flexibility that they could be for staff or residents, and I would see that the places As fitting into a quiet residential setting, really, the neighbors would kind of hardly know they're there, or they would be good neighbors that they're basically would probably be out out much of the day and just around quietly in the neighborhood, and that that's sort of the my vision of things right now, particularly I'm noticing, but JJ has a super few catheter again, and, and I have to be with him, 24/7, until his medical situation gets cleared up. And that's going to be a long process. And, and if I weren't around, you know he would need almost institutional care this point, and I'm hoping he can get back to a point where, you know, and affects the plan. We've got a really good surgeon and everything, but he's going to get older too, and so we're all these, these people. So again, for me, flexibility and being able to stay local is important. That's about what I have to say. Thanks. Any questions anyone has awesome? Tom Fay: Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. So what I'd like to do is open up to the committee members and ask them if they have any questions of TC or Stephanie on on the topic.
Katherine Provost: No, no questions. Just thank you both so much for advocating. It's really important to hear and really helpful to hear. I appreciate your input. Unknown: Thank you, John Thomas: John, so TC, I had a question for you so you correct me if I'm wrong. So your daughter was being served previously in a residential model that wasn't working out. So I hear that Unknown: correctly here. Only her first year out of Perkins, okay, and then she was living at home, okay? John Thomas: And now, now she's living in a Charles River staff on bot. So that's the group home on Boston. Impostor. So can you talk a little bit about the the previous one year model and why that wasn't working out? What? What were some? What were some of the issues, the challenges that it really wasn't meeting for your daughter? And could you also talk about you mentioned that you were receiving, your daughter was receiving some state funding through a state agency. Could you talk about how much that was, or if there were any other means of support that she was receiving, any other public funding streams? Unknown: Okay, well, when she was transitioning from Perkins, there were two options for her, because she was blind. She could go with the mass commission for the blind, deaf, blind extended supports unit, or she could go with DDS. So essentially, the deaf, blind extended supports units and MCP are DDS for blind people and deaf blind people. I didn't know the difference. I was pretty naive, but the staff at Perkins recommended to go with the mass Commission for the Blind. I think because there was a little bit more money at that time there, I don't think that is that continues to be true. I believe the total amount that she was getting was probably around $120,000 a year, and I think it costs a lot more than that now to support her. I some of that information is that freely given to families, yeah, but the reason that that first placement failed, I think, on both sides, was that they could not meet her medical needs. She was having some intense neurological symptoms, and they were not staffed for that. There was no nursing component, as there is where she now lives. And on the very same day that I called our case manager at MCV and said, you know, they they can't take care of her. They called and said, We can't take care of her. So it was mutual agreement that that the placement just couldn't work for her. What they had to offer. John Thomas: Were there other residents who were deaf, blind or, Oh Unknown: no, no, it was a very small group home. There were only three other women, and their problems were primarily mental health. Mental Yeah, Tom Fay: Jean, any comments or questions in your question? Thanks for joining us in person. Unknown: Ah. You're going to lose your
world, not at this time, but thank you very much. Sure, sure. Thank you. TC, yeah. So the main thing is, deaf, blind people have no place to live so that they can access the world and life, and there needs to be some physical plant alterations, but it's primarily a staff training and culture of the house issue. Tom Fay: Thank you very much you see, and thank you, Stephanie, appreciate it. I think what I do next is invite members of work Inc forward and because of the technology, turn this computer back and forth, hopefully without losing connection.
So with us is Jim cassida Sure And Sharon Smith, thank
Unknown: you. Are you appearing in that screen? Can you see? Yeah, we're used to having it. Tom Fay: So welcome to both of you and to committee members. As I've indicated before, I've reached out to different organizations that are involved in the topic that we're exploring as a committee, and the organization's list provided to me by Brian bossier, who's new to the committee. And again, welcome Brian, and it so happens I met Mr. Ca many years ago. Unknown: Of project. We remember Tom Fay: a project in the city of Boston, and I'm so glad you're still doing the work you're doing. So what I'd like to do is ask you do is use yourselves tell us about the organization and how you think, well, maybe provide us information that'll be helpful to us, to help us do our work. Unknown: Well, thank you for having us. It's It's unusual for city to a town to invite an agency to talk about building a group home. I was around 50, 4050, years ago when we couldn't do that. I was the working was established in 1965 and I worked 21 years for another agency prior to working, and the institutionalization was happening, but you had to get local cities and towns to approve it, etc, etc. Long story shot that's all changed. That's all changed now, anybody who wants to build a group home must abide by the local, city or towns regulations, as if we were just a normal family. And that's what's that's what's happening today. Matter of fact, I I bought some plans. I'd be happy to show them. We had an experience in Methuen we we've been we've had a group home in Methuen mass for over 40 years, and the clients aging out, and it's not accessible. So we wanted to build a new group home on that site, which our architect had plans for, but we had to go to the Selectmen in MA doing because we needed a 10 foot variance, 10 feet from from me to that chair, and it was we didn't meet the variance. We recorded no so now we're probably going to sell that home and relocate somewhere else. But I want to thank you for allowing Sharon to talk about the history and I've been at working 26 years. Sharon's been working 17 plus years. 19, yeah, so, so, interestingly enough, I started in 1979 and working open the second group home. So and I lived in a group home. My husband and I for five years. I, like we both worked on our social work degrees, so it has changed a lot, and it is a flip, as Jim said, so I can anticipate some of the questions you're thinking about. So, you know, listening to TC, if you were a Tom that decided you were going to build a home for deaf, blind, or for deaf, or for people with, you know, with medical and intellectual disabilities. You know, doing what you're doing is great, but you need to reach out for a state partner, the state partner needs to be committed early on. So whether that's MCB, whether that's DDS, or any other state agency, they the more that they can be part of that process, even if you're looking at braving funding, if you're looking at leveraging HUD funding, or any of the facility consolidation funding that's about you really need somebody who's going to help you understand how to leverage and brave that funding together and get a committed partner. We have a picture here because I was saying to TC, we opened a group home during covid, that neighborhood housing work really built and released from them. And it was designed by a Deaf architect, and it's for Deaf, five deaf individuals, one who's deaf, blind, and it's, you know, the whole house had to be constructed to be DEP friendly, which is very different than a regular group home for people who have intellectual disabilities. Because you have an open four floor plan, you need to be able to have all of the assistive technology in there. You know, at the get go, it's it's good to bed, shake all that stuff. Yeah. So you want to be able to customize what you're doing, have it get a good state partner, but then understand what, when you go with that state partner, what the constraints are. So for example, if you go with DDS, they're fund that they received 50 cents on the dollar from the center of Medicaid studies. So that means you're under those CMS rules. You can look up the final rule, CMS Final Rule, which talks about segregation, and no longer can you have group homes with 10 people. Four. There are still a few campus settings in Massachusetts, but they can't be replicated today, because it's all about community access. You know, are they segregated? We just got approved a duplex, which was four and four, because DDS has such a dire need for housing that, you know, it was unusual, but we were able to do it so it can be done if, if that's a structure you're thinking of, and you know, they that you just, you know, you fall under those rules. So you want to know MCB is great to deal with, because they usually just say, what is DDS paying you? And they replicate that. We have a few, but not many. And the way DDS funds, it is not by the person. It's called the AltR model. So if you have a medical model, you get this chunk of money. You have a, you know, DEP with or a highly clinically intensive so say you're having people who are prioritized because they have behavioral issues that's going to be funded at a high level. So the composition of the group is very important. Listening to to the woman who just spoke, I could barely hear, but what I think I heard is a lot of her son has a lot of medical issues. And, you know, medically fragile, they do have group homes that are have an AltR model for medically fragile, where we're going to build one. We have land in Dorchester. We have a home in Brockton. People. It's, you know, people are aging, they have dementia. It's like a day nursing home, really. And so we're going to reconstruct it, but a medical model, making it more accessible. TC was talking about the staff training and culture, and that's really important, because, you know, whatever population you decide to pick, you want to make sure that it they're going to receive the funding to have the staffing that will be that will be trained, and it's A challenge that we have in our industry, we have difficulties hiring. And we've, we've, we had a hard, you know, coming out of covid, our residential programs got hit hard. I mean, they were closed. People stayed there. But we literally were doing 24/7 and with like, a 35% vacancy rate, we're out from under that. We've we've done a lot to improve that, but because of staff challenges, DDS is moving a lot to its technology. So they call it like remote support monitoring. We're looking at a system we just learned about putting some cameras in common areas of some of the group homes where there's heavy behavioral issues, so that there's never a question about what just happened, as we can see it, and we're kind of going to have to advocate with the state for that. So you really want to pick your if you're looking at the constituents of Wayland, you know, who's your state partner, and then you're going to have to really advocate, because what the state does is they prioritize people who, you know, who has the most need. And if they're going to pay for it, you need to get a commitment. It's Wayland citizens because, you know, it's they'll say, here are the referrals. We have you close referral process. Yeah, it's a closed referral process. We opened a home in Kingston, you know, down by Plymouth mass, and we were able, because we worked with the state from the very beginning to say, we we really want people. We knew we were going to have some neighbor hood problems, because these were high end homes. And so when, when they came out saying or no group home in our neighborhood, we were like, Hey, these are your brothers and sisters. These people grew up in Kingston, grew up in Plymouth. Here are their parents, and it made a big difference. But we have a long term cooperative relationship with our state agencies, so you really want to, once you decide early on, you know, look at maybe even getting a consultant in who really knows the housing market in terms of HUD money, community better? No, do you have see? What is it called? Yeah, community based, block lane, right? That that money, home money, if it's DDS, they can sometimes leverage. FCF, which is, can be 50 cents. I mean, 50% of the cost. There's also the 40 B. I don't know how many affordable units existing in this town, in Wayland, but if all of our units are affordable, I'm sorry, unaffordable. And the state gives you a credit, a grant for that, your money every year because of the number of units you create. Can you talk about your organization overall? Yeah, I'm sorry I got right into
all this in housing. You do other things. We have 24 planning. Three more. We'll have 27 we do. We used to be the lot. We used to be the largest sheltered workshop in the Commonwealth working. We had over when I started working. 26 years ago, over 350 people with disabilities were coming into working, to work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds and I, I agree now I didn't agree at first. I agree now that I designed a building. We designed a building in Dorchester to hold to house, sheltered work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds said to the states, not just to Massachusetts. We didn't. We de institutionalized in the 60s, and what you did was re institutionalize the same people in the community. So they they tell the states, and Sean was on the committee when we went to the state and we got Massachusetts to give $20 million to the agencies that were running these shelter workshops. We still support the same number of people. It's now called Community Based day support. They'll come into the building. We'll help them with their resumes. We'll help them find work well. We're also the largest employer of individuals with disabilities in new Wayland. We have we support about 1200 people. Our main offices in Dorchester. We have offices in Fitchburg, certainly, Rhode Island, Springfield, and what we The other thing we do, we take pride in this. We're a little worried about it. We have about 16 and a half million dollars in federal money, and I'm concerned about that situation, believe it or not, in the 1930s a federal law was passed called the Javits o day act, J, O, D, at the time, it was for it was only for people who were deaf at the time, blind, DEP, blind. The law was amended in 1971 and the loss says that if the federal government needs help, and if individuals who are now disabled, deaf or blind, can provide the help, the Feds must hire them, not May, must, is the most important word of legislation. So as a result of that, working provides total facility management, custodial services, full food services in the native Army Research Lab, IRS, and we have about 130 folks with disabilities working. And what I love about that is these folks, before they went to work, were probably supported by us, but, but, and I'm not saying that's not that's still good. Social Security, disability, food stamps, snap the whole bit. When they get a job with the feds, they get paid for the work they do, not who they are. So how people are making like, $27 an hour, and they're off the door and they're contributing about 7000 a year their own taxes. So that's that's one of the major things of working done with a lot of individuals with disabilities. We also have at our main office, day habilitation. It's essentially a day hospital, otpt, speech, nursing, and so long as those clients have a place to sleep at night, they'll be transported to work in about 830 or eight o'clock every morning, to leave at 330 to go to there, either they group home or back to their families. We're about a total budget is about north of 70 million and working. Also owns a for profit company that's very unique. Not many nonprofits own a for profit, and the for profit company that we own. It's called FM and M, facilities, management, maintenance. We're the stockholder that company. It's in existence to make money for the stockholder, and the company doesn't it's not a program. It's a business we want. That company is now doing about $17 million a year. We clean Boston City Hall, Boston police headquarters, mass art, rent them, Hogan Springfield, courthouse all over the state. And every money that any, any penny that the profits go right to working. And we purchased that company in 2004 2004 and we've generated about $4 million for working to plow. White back into its mission. We don't just do homes. We do a little bit of everything. We don't do behavioral health. I was in that business 20 years, and I got burnt out doing behavioral health stuff, that stuff I've been at working 26 years, and it's been, it's been a good one so far. So we have. We applaud you for inviting us in. Not only us are the providers too. We don't usually get invitations from local officials about, let's build a group home. That's really give me a lot of credit for that. And I told, I told, Look, I talk and dirt road. I looked around the site, big site. It's a big site. But I have a question, what? What's the town of wayland's criteria for single family homes? Is it one acre per lot? Is that what it is? I don't even know what it is, half acre depending on what part of town, but it's half acre on the south side, acre, acre and a half. So whoever, whoever will build a home, whatever provider comes in, they'd have to adhere to those same requirements, Tom Fay: unless it was, as you mentioned earlier, 40 B, then that might be different. Unknown: Might be different. And you can always get a variance to create more 40 B housing, Tom Fay: as is to be zone. It's only pretty Unknown: much the two structures. Okay, let me open up gene. Any questions for I guess, yes. Yes, I'm rather a novice in this area. I'm on this committee because I have a disabled child, so I'm not a professional in the field. Really started in the beginning here the people who work, I'd like to know more about the typical profile in what kind of conditions they have. You know that they're walking a line between, they need support, and they have some capabilities that allow employment. Can you paint a picture for me? And you know the characteristics of this group? Yeah. I mean, so Jim talked to you about our federal program, which is considered more like group supported employment, because people go in, they do their job, and there's always a supervisor, somebody who's trained by working. We also, last year, placed 230 individuals with disabilities into mainstream jobs in the business sector, whether it's five hours a week or 30 hours a week. And so the profile can be a person who has never worked before turning 22 doesn't have good work skills, might have other communication issues. Might be deaf. We do we will work with anyone if they have a desire to work. We we do customized employment. We do individual supported employment, and we do a lot of work around benefits, because a lot of families will say, I don't want my son to lose their benefits. But we can work this many hours, and then we work with the state agency on what types of needs. DDS will not fund a one to one job coach in perpetuity. So the profile is somebody who is able to, at least, you know, be on their own at certain certain points in time, even if they need a ride there and to be picked up there. But you know that the end result is they wouldn't need that one to one support long term, is that helpful?
I in my my my marketing person do a lot of work on trying to get the Commonwealth to identify this group of individuals in the state that could add benefits to the workforce. In this state, there's 400,000 individuals with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 60. That's when most people work. I'm above that, but that's okay. That's when most people work. The unemployment rate amongst that group is over 70% that means the rest of them are supported by us, and I vehemently disagree with that. You talk to a person, they don't want to stay home and sit on the couch and watch TV all day and get their benefit check, because that's that guarantees them a life of poverty. To which one to get this legislature to pass a law similar to the federal law that would mandate, if a business gets a contract with the Commonwealth of mass to do custodial trash pickup, telephone call centers, anything to mandate that a certain percentage of the people they hire must have a disability, that would get them off the door and give them a. Quality of life that they would never have experienced otherwise. So that's another big thing that we try to do. It's really a challenge. I'll give you an example. A young friend of mine has autism. He's in his early 30s now. He studies medieval literature, has a college degree has real interpersonal difficulties. Sure can't hold them a job. My guess is, you folks can figure out something. Well, we actually can hold on for a sec, yes. And then the next person you look at, and he's doesn't have any physical problems, right? And then the next person may have profound perhaps, is lacking upper limbs, you know, has flippers or something. I just trying to figure out handling all these variables requires a lot of effort from an organization, and I just trying to figure out how you folks do that, and what that would mean for us in terms of creating a housing situation for such a highly varied group of people, like, how would we plan to meet their needs when they're so different from each other? You know, it was only eight years ago that DDS funded people with ASD that wasn't funded. We were Autism Spectrum ASD, non ID, they call it. But I think you have to think long and hard about how varied your population is, because the more varied your population is, it's going to drive the staff expertise that's needed. So what we've done is we have a separate program for folks that are ASD, non ID. We have pre engagement, college navigation. We have a work program and a drop in center. So we the staff, specialize in that group of people, college grads, that have such strong anxiety disorders they they can't work. And then we have our other employment services are for folks with intellectual disabilities that, you know, we come we use a lot of customized employment, and that means somebody might not do the whole job, but we know an employer and we can we know that individual can do 50% of the job. So we're really trying to say, Can they come in and do that 50% and you'll never have to worry about that. So it's really taking the models and applying them to the people and how we've done it to be successful is we've segmented those specialties it's really hard to have. And actually, DDS doesn't fund folks with ASD non ID unless they get a residential waiver, and that they would be tough behavioral issues. So we would never put to behave people that present with significant behavioral challenges, with two people that are medically vulnerable or aging, because that is not good, and the staff have to split their specialties. You want to be able to focus on teaching your staff, whether it's the behavioral principles, or working with ASD, is very different, and so that's the approach we've we've taken. We have a lot of micro kind of micro concentration programs within the agency. Is that reflected in the housing people are with one group for their coaching and training on that they're probably living with the same people in their coaching. No, no, I would never want to work with my husband. I live with them. So we have, we purposely try not to have people be together 24 hours a day, because nobody wants that, right, and people are different. So you want to give people choices. You could conceivably have a great group home here in Wayland with five people, and they could all go to different day programs, our day situation jobs too, right? Or different jobs. And we do have a community based day support. We have about 80 people, and they're out in the community all the time doing volunteer work. That's job preparation. So we have over 24 volunteer sites that we're working on of Dorchester, those. So somebody might spend a lot of time volunteering, but no, the match is really, really critical. The matching of the people, the specialty of what you're going to focus on, like TC said, the training for staff who work with people who are deaf, blind, are very. Different than the training of somebody who has ASD and an intellectual disability and is aggressive or is eloped, and you you want to have people be complimented, and you know, some people don't like male female homes, our homes, some are male, some are female, and some are mixed. Some, some compositions do better with a couple of women in the house, and, you know, a few men, and everyone has their own bedroom. So Bill, did you have any question that
Bill Adams: I put a whole bunch of chat questions in the chat. Should I read them out one by one? Yeah, yeah. Unknown: So my first Bill Adams: question was, could you explain a little bit more about what a closed referral system is, and how towns think about whether they would mostly support people who live in the town or maybe a neighboring town versus be open, and how the state thinks about supporting that type of work?
Unknown: That's a good question. That's a good so if, if this closed referral means that we have to get a referral from a funding agency to support an individual, if the town of Wayland has individuals with disabilities who say turning 22 there's a state there's a line item in the state budget called Turning 22 and that would mean that the individual from this town who wants to, who needs, not wants, who needs a supportive environment, like a group home, DDS would have to refer that individual to an agency that would be coming into, like work, Inc, any other provider, agency that's around town, and that that referral would go to the agency, with the preference being that, hey, this, this individuals, was born and raised in Wayland. It's 2022 we want to do a group home and Wayland. We want to refer that person to that particular provider. That's how that will work. Because we Bill Adams: kind of, does the state tend to be open to that type of thing, or is it a little unpredictable? Unknown: I, as chairman, said earlier, I think the first step for you all to do as town officials, is to contact the ConCom wall and say, we have a committee that wants to build a group home. They'd never hear that. Let me tell you, they seldom hear that from from any town official, and I think they'll be very receptive to come in and meet with you and talk about sort of the same types of things Chairman and I have been talking about and Ed Augustus. Ed Augustus is the state. What you know? You know statewide person in charge of housing, but, and then the who's the new EOH, HHS, Commissioner, Secretary. He spoke about Jailyn place, but Melanie used to be, He's the doctor, and he used to be in charge. He was the Deputy Commissioner for EOH HHS, and that EOH HHS actually is over 50% of the state budget. The $62 billion state budget Human Services comprises about 33 billion of that. So there's a lot of resources there. And that would be the first outreach to the state. You have a you have a lot of land, you want to designate it for a group home. I think they'll be very receptive to coming in and meeting and talking to you all about that bill. Other questions. Bill Adams: So my next I'm going to put all three together. But one is like, what happens if a whole can't be sustained financially? Like, what if you run out of money or it doesn't work? And then what are the best predictors of financial stability, like, what are the components that make you likely to be stable and have long term success? And then finally, what might happen if the federal dollars disappear? Like, I'm experiencing that at my academic home, the money just disappears. And what would happen if that happened?
Unknown: Yeah, the state is actually looking at their waiver is going to open with CMS, and they're looking to look at ways to not protect that. But what's going to happen if they lose that 50 cents on the dollar? So we don't have an answer for that, but the best predictor of success and sustainability is a strong partnership with DDS, a strong partnership with a an organization that has good financial you can just look up their 990s that they're financially stable, and that the home itself has a good composition. Regardless of the level of disability, DDS has to place priority one people. So if you have a son or daughter and you want them in this home, but they don't get then. Not eligible for DDS services, people need to start now getting them eligible for DDS services, because they'll say, that's great. You want Wayland constituents, but we have these priority people, and the funding goes there. Bill just working is in every federal site, and unfortunately, the JFK, like we do complete facility management at the JFK Library, we have 17 individuals with disabilities work there shut down, has caused the library to close, and we've had to lay off those people and make sure they get the unemployment, and then when the Feds decide to reopen, they'll get retroactive pay, and we'll figure it all out. But those are all the situations we deal with, day in and day out. And not every federal site closed. Though our GSA sites, we do the tip on nail building, the McCall MC building in town, town, the federal courthouse, what's name in the courthouse, the downtown. We manage all those buildings and this, they're still open. They're still open. It's called essential so, but it's, it's, we always have to take, take a look at our funding sources. And rumors. Has it that the state's going to run into a couple of tough fiscal years because of the federal money that they're losing, and the tax, the tax revenue, is a little down. 50 years I've been in the business. I've been through the ups and downs of it all. We still, we still survive. That's what they asked to do, that housing is needed more of a demand. So I think, you know, you just have to, I don't know who the regional director is in Wayland for DDS, but that would be the person you would reach out to, and they might have a housing person who could help you, but that's where I'd start if that's the route you're going. So I bought the plans, but this is, this is a eight bedroom home, and you know, we would have done this, your son would probably
be able to support this is 884. And four. Okay. Did you build it? Not yet, because Bethune voted against us,
but the plan was for you to buy the land and build, we own the land. We had a home on it that's old, and we would have, we were one of the variants. We would have relocated the five individuals were living there. Temporarily knocked the house down, build this home. But unfortunately, we lost the we lost the free to choke. We had to get free A's, and we didn't get it. So it's a split level home, so that folks are aging, and it's just they need something. Still, other questions. Bill Adams: Sorry, I'm asking all the questions, but so I also represent the neighbors, right? And so I think there's a lot of concern, mostly from people who don't have any experience in this space, like what to expect, what it might look like, what it might do to the value of their homes and the land use and stuff like that. And so what do you say to neighbors, to you know, give them confidence that that this is a positive relationship and that it it's ultimately works well in most of your experience. And I know you've been through this a million times, so I'm just really like to hear from you what you say to neighbors to reassure them that this is a good thing. Unknown: Well, one of the things I've done over the years is invite, invite anybody who has concerns like you just expressed, come visit several of the homes that we're currently in and and talk to the neighbors who live next to our homes.
Talk to the neighbors who who are neighbors of our existing homes. And usually, and I'm not putting our neighbors down. But usually our homes are well manicured. Look better in no home we we working manage, would be a home. Would be home. I wouldn't live in myself. We have beautiful homes, and it's easier to raise money for the bricks and mortar than it is to get the state to pay for the services bricks and mortar. There's a lot of money out there from HUD, Federal Home Loan Bank grants, financing it yourself, that type of thing. But in this case, if you all are setting aside land, one of the biggest costs to build a home is the land, and that's that's a great asset to consider having. So there's also a lot of research online, because group homes have been around now since the 70s. And so you can just Google property values and group homes, and you'll see that over overall, you know after all these years, that sometimes the group home is the nicest home in the neighborhood, because we're held to. Level of scrutiny that, you know, other we could live right next to somebody that had 10 cars because they have teenagers and they don't mow the lawn. We can't do anything about that if we don't mow our lawn, you know, they they drop a dime. So we, we, you know, I think most provider agencies in the state take very good care of the homes. Other questions, Bill,
I yield my podium. Thank you. Thank you. Sean questions, right, not at this time. Catherine, good Stephanie questions, no, no, it's been very helpful. Thank you. What is the largest number of bedrooms in one of your facilities are five? Now five, five, so going to eight will be four and four, two separate. It's like taking two homes and having it an entrance, and then you go into right so there, but, but there, I imagine there's some economies of scale for you in this they function totally separate, like two five person group so it would have two House managers, two overnights. They function totally separate. Okay, it's interesting that you don't anticipate this. We were shocked that DDS gave us approval. These have not been approved in years and years, but their housing needs are so much so this is impressive setting project. No, there's been some in the north, in the up where you live, Jim, so you just can request it up front. And I think they'd even allow you to do if you had enough land, you could do five and five, because it's literally two group homes. But, you know, we were lucky.
So I have a question. You drove by the property I did today? Yeah, so I drove up that dirt road, and I said, I hope I can turn around. I probably got to the top of it. I did turn around and go back out. We look like a big forest. To me, that's all it Tom Fay: looked like. So the property is between two commercial districts, the chituit District and Wayland Town Center. And if when you buy property and you think about building, you look for certain type of residents to live in a certain type of area of the town. Follow me. In other words, do you I use the word discriminate? Of my individuals might be best to live in this area because they're close to the commercial area versus not, Unknown: not really, but we, that's why I drove up there earlier today, to look at. We look for, is it, is it? Is it close to where you all want to live? It's close to a shopping center. Is there on a bus line? Is it on transportation? And, quite frankly, I don't see any of that at all, right? So which would mean we would have to, if whatever provider comes in, they would have to provide significant transportation, a couple of vans. A lot of our homes have one or two vans every every day, because most likely, during the day, the individuals who live in that home are going to have to either go to work in a job or go to a day program somewhere in the in the area. And I don't, I'm not familiar with the Wayland geography in terms of our other services. It doesn't Suburban. Doesn't have any other value over a city. You know, if you have folks that are independent, you can use public transportation. You don't want to put them out in a place they don't have it, so you would be placing people who would need rides anyway, so they're not losing anything. Somebody who could have access should live where they can grab the bus or the tea or something like that. Tom Fay: And in the communities where you operate, homes are there volunteers and local community to participate in the operations or assisting residents, or not Unknown: necessarily, not really, no, the neighbors will come to our cookouts, and we'll invite them in. They'll to meet the residents who live there. They get to know them. We're part of the neighborhood, and that just like everybody else, but not really volunteer part. A provider could solicit volunteers and but it's stringent in the state now, they have the laws. They have to be Corey, fingerprinted, all of that. But it wouldn't preclude them. We just don't happen to do that.
Tom Fay: Any other questions or comments by members of the committee? I. Well, we really appreciate you coming in this evening. You're doing great work, and have many years, and you both should be admired as the entire organization. Thank you, Unknown: and this is wonderful. I spent most of our time fighting towns, fair housing labor. So this is like astounding. Jim told me, I said I didn't believe it, but we went to Methuen, we met with all the neighbors who've been our neighbors for 40 years at that house, and we asked him to come to the meeting with the Selectmen. And they all vote, they'll, they always answered, We don't want the house there. No, they wanted to stay the way, to go away, but exactly. But this house will be built somewhere, guarantee, maybe. Yeah, thank you again. Take care. Why don't we next move on.
Tom Fay: So why don't we move on to Item four on our agenda, which is consideration of the minutes that were in the packet for September 3, 2025 meeting, and I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. Do I have a second of the motion? Second, any discussion on the motion? Hearing? None all those in favor of motion. I'll go one by one. Stephanie, yes. Catherine, yes. Bill, yes. Brian, Hey, John, yes. Gene Yes. And Tom, yes. That is a unanimous vote. Appreciate that. So the next thing I'd like to do is move on to Item five, which is just an update on the request for information that was completed and placed out on the central register and a deadline of October 16. Bill Whitney was instrumental in completing this with input from John, as well as our own comments, any questions in the process or for the content,
Unknown: look great too. It was great.
Tom Fay: Well, I'll pass those kind of words on to Bill, and let's see what what comes of it. So the next item on our agenda is, is to meet with neighbors at seven o'clock. But before we break, since have a few minutes, I wanted to open up discussion to any ideas people have on organizations and like to hear from or anything they'd like to accomplish that we're not doing that we think would be a good idea for us to look into or discuss in detail as we do our work, any just open it up to anybody.
Unknown: I try to get a fair amount of time thinking about creating a mental model for making this decision by inquiring. You know, how do you group people? What are the variables? That's a tough one. People who don't work in the industry. How do you make that decision? Yeah, how do you decide? You know, all I've looked at statistics and how many people in the Commonwealth have each different kind of disability, and they're all meritorious. They're all under housed. You know, it's, it's not like we can identify one group and say, for some reason, this group has really been left out. I'm really having a hard time just sort of building a decision model for this? Yeah,
yes. Stephanie, Stephanie Lynch: well, maybe if we could design for the widest possible, you know, variation of what might come through and that we could support as many people who need extra help as possible with accessibility and flexibility.
John Thomas: Can I just ask a question? Stephanie, are you are you suggesting the widest possible variance for people living in the in the eventual home? Or are you talking. About casting a wide net for different types of models,
Stephanie Lynch: a model that would would would serve the needs of a variety of different people coming through that that need the support so they would need extra, extra help. It might be due to a medical or an intellectual thing, but that the facility would be structured in such a way that it could be the spaces could be adapted. They would be accessible and they would be adaptable. For instance, that they could serve a caregiver or a resident could live there. So you could have more caregivers or less caregivers, depending on the population that that happened to be living there at the time. Unknown: It sounds like it is tricky, though, like we heard
Brian, I was just gonna say it seems like we have to focus on, I don't know how we choose the group. We have to focus on one population group, and that may be dictated by WHO, WHAT agency is interested in doing this. If this developer who can make this happen, we may have to fall in line with that. Tom Fay: So Brian that that comment is contrary Stephanie's point, I think. But Tom, but Brian, from what you've seen of the group homes that you're you've come in contact with, are there homes that follow Stephanie's suggestion, I mean, a variety of individuals with different disabilities, or is it more of a just from what the president, Unknown: right? I'd Stephanie Lynch: like to clarify a little, because I don't think it's I think we're pretty much saying the same thing. Okay, the funding is going to determine the population too. No deed. If it is, we're going to work with DDS, then we would want to have people who fall under DDS funding, so that it all works together, John Thomas: right? There's a wide variance within DDS, yeah, yeah. That's, I guess, Stephanie, that's what my question to you was, because even within DDS, I mean working sounds like and from my experience, my past experience, they work primarily with DDS, but within DDS, there's a an entire array of people. And I think their presentation tonight was suggesting very similar to their their work programs. You really do want to focus your specialization on a particular group of people. That's that's the way you maximize your getting your biggest bang for the buck. So you don't want to necessarily mix people that are behaviorally challenged with people that are medically agile use their so I guess that's what I was trying to get you to, sort Stephanie Lynch: of, yeah. I don't think we'd be serving that group that behaviorally challenged.
Katherine Provost: I guess I'm I'm in Brian's court in that, it seems to me like it's going to be very difficult for us to dictate what population we want to serve, seems to me like that's putting the cart before the horse, and we've got to put out the request for proposals and see what comes back, and see what team is the most capable and competent, financially stable, and then try to, you know, highest and best use for what we have in Wayland. You know, we don't have easy access to transportation, that kind of thing. At the same time, we're talking about maybe building five units for much, for a population with much more intensive needs, versus maybe, you know, 12 to 14, for a population that doesn't require placement or involvement with DDS, but I don't think we're going to be able to dictate that. I think we have to wait and see what comes back to us once we put out the RFP, unless I'm missing something, Tom Fay: John, you made a comment in a prior meeting about one of our goals being might want to be making sure we serve the families of Wayland. So, you know, is that a consideration that we that we need to think about, you know, and
Unknown: thought on that, I think a project that would serve family of Wayland might be just a straight Ada, accessible building like, for example, most of the condos and stuff around here, they're townhouses. They have big thresholds. There's no adaptable kitchen. There's a big curb to get into the shower. Or the halls aren't wide enough, the doors aren't wide enough. You know, we don't have enough to sort of basic housing for people who have mobility issues, no matter what their age is. And I, you know, since we have potentially two lots here, I find myself thinking, Well, do we want to do maybe a 40 B, friendly, I don't know, project that's all ad a apartment building, you know, where people have with mobility issues, and maybe we able to have some apartments that have the things for people who can't hear because they they're easily wired into the building. So we have some for deaf people. Have some for blind people, we have some for people who have to use a locker wheelchair. But I just don't know how we're going to be constrained by the law. You know, because of all this concern about Luke and people together treating them badly, it would be more like Independent Living apartment building that could accommodate people who, time and time again, can't get up the steps to the porch.
John Thomas: So just back to Bill, one of the questions that you were asking the working people, which I think you know, their response, I think we need to heed. So you were asking about indicators that would signal what would help ensure for the financial stability of whatever program ends up, you know, going on to the site. And their answer, which I firmly concur with, is that you need to look at what's going to be the the provider of the funding for the operation, the operational budget moving forward. And their answer was that it really behooves whoever is doing this. RFP, I guess that's us to reach out to some of those funding sources, if it's going to be DDS, if it's going to be some of the other state agencies, to find out what the level of interest would be in putting together an RFP that would serve a group that they could, in turn, get behind in terms of providing the operational dollars moving forward. Because, like they said, you know, the brick and mortar is kind of the easy part of this whole puzzle. It's really the operational budget moving forward five years, 10 years down the road, that's what's going to determine whether or not this is going to succeed. Bill Adams: That's definitely what I heard from them. Is the partnership part is really important, and that will help us choose, right? So I think we could be a little bit constrained in terms of we're looking for kind of what was described at the town meeting, two group homes were fairly and people in need of quite a bit of support, right? And within that, it could be all kinds of different types of support that people need, but focusing a little bit like that can be helpful. And then we put it out and and we could be even a little competitive. We're going to be so unusual that we're a willing partner, that people might be able to work with us in a way that they wouldn't with others. So we might get a better partnership out of that, because people really want that to work, and we could use that to our advantage. So I agree that we can't, we can't be wide open, but we also need to be somewhat focused. I agree.
Tom Fay: So John, we've heard from some organizations during our meetings that seem to provide the whole package, right? And come in, they can, they can build, and they already have existing relationships with governmental entities for funding purposes. And then some of those organizations, their residents, are funded through private monies. Do you see value in in going with an organization like that, given the town doesn't want to be the administrator necessarily, of of these homes, John Thomas: yeah, no, I I think that would be the organization that you would want to go to. But I think at the same time, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, I think it would be important to reach out to some of the funding, the eventual funding sources for whatever structure some of these organizations are going to put together. I mean, they are going to do the same thing. They are going to reach out if we express an interest in a particular. Proposal they're going to as I can guarantee, one of the first homework assignments that they're going to have is okay, let's talk to a funding source and find out who do they who do they need to serve? Who do they want to serve? Where is there the most need? Is it behavioral challenge? People? Is a medically fragile is it people in the autism spectrum who are also intellectually disabled? You know, where is the greatest need in this particular area, in this particular region, or area office, and they're going to work with that funding source to put together a proposal. I mean, it's, that's, that's going to be the response. So the extent to which we can have have our fingers and, you know, multiple places at the same time, I think we can do that. I think we ought to do that. That's, that's my opinion. Unknown: We do like the idea of talking to the funding agencies. If they're desperate, perhaps they're ready to innovate. You know, we could be a beta project as long as they're on board and they promise to support it. Yeah, I get I get way Catherine. Katherine Provost: I get nervous about state involvement and anything too novice, to be honest. I mean, I just think we could be looking at years of trying to assemble something that's too out of the box. And John, we talked months ago with DDS, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression from a Zoom meeting with four or five people from DDS is they were not at all prepared or comfortable telling us what we should be doing, right? I mean, it was kind of like you guys figure it out and then come talk to us. John Thomas: We also Catherine, if you remember, we were talking to people from the central office, and then we were talking to people from the region, and we were also talking from the area director, and the person from the people from the region and the area director are really the people that are going to be the boots on the ground in terms of making decisions about any kind of program moving forward in the town of Wayland, the people from central office, I think, were very reluctant to commit themselves. Unknown: But if I'm so happy to hear you say that, yeah, John Thomas: or whomever the provides, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we decided that we were going to entertain ARPA from a DDS contractor, residential provider, agency like Charles River or work Inc, or Minuteman ARPA, whomever They're going to be calling DEP Johnson at DDS, Middlesex West Area office to establish a line of communication a guarantee, like I said before, they guarantee you who, who is coming online in this year's turning 22 class. You have a she has a turning 22 coordinator at the area office level, who has, they have a radar of everybody in this area who is going to be turning 22 in the next year, along with a whole list of what those people's needs are in terms of what they are going to need for residential programming, and what they're going to need for day services, what they're going to need for transportation, etc, etc. And so that's how agencies put together ARPA based on what they know is coming down the pipeline. So, I mean, I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is we're we're all novices in the sense that this is not something that municipalities typically do, as we keep hearing time and time again, the state said it right. The central office said it. Folks said it to us, these agencies are saying, Wow, what a pleasant surprise to have a municipal entity actually sort of reaching out. So I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is, I've said it before, we don't want to put the cart before the horse, but frankly, I think we're struggling to know, what is the horse, if the horse is going to be leading the process, you know, do we reach out to the agency? Do we reach out to the state? Do we reach out to people in town to gage what the need is of people in our own community that might want to live in this eventual structure? Katherine Provost: So, so going back to Tom's question about who we could bring in, does it make sense to bring in the regional director? And John Thomas: I think the regional or the area director would would be an excellent idea in my that's just my own personal opinion. Unknown: I would love which i. You John Thomas: could start with DDS, but we could certainly. I mean, if we're entertaining other constituencies, you could talk about the Mass Rehab Commission. You could talk about the Department of Mental Health. I mean, I'm not here to dictate who we ought to be thinking. But again, I'm also not wanting to put the cart before the horse. Katherine Provost: No, I agree, but, but if we're in the information gathering stage, bringing I love the idea of bringing in someone from DDS on the regional or area level, plus MRC. We refer people at the Housing Authority to MRC all the time. I think MRC is a great idea. John Thomas: Trouble is they don't have a huge amount of funding. They're not a residential funder. That's that's the problem. I mean, you know, I admire the work that they do, but that's, yeah, yeah. Katherine Provost: It was only did. It was only to get back to the question of, what's the what's the need, and what would it? I don't know. I don't know who can answer the question. I guess it would be the DDS Regional or area director. And Bill just asked, which is smaller, regional or area that is John Thomas: kind of large and area is the that's that's focusing and drilling Bill Adams: down that area seems more like what we want to hear about, I think. Yeah, John Thomas: well, they're going to be serving all the the, what we would call our contiguous towns and the towns in the MetroWest area.
Bill Adams: And is there a history of sort of regionalization of these, this work like, say, we partnered with three towns that abut Wayland, and then when they build group homes, they support our guys, and when we build them, we could support their guys so that we have a larger pool to work with, but not a huge pool. Does anyone ever do that?
Unknown: I don't know the answer to that. I've never heard of it. Great idea, though. Don't you think?
Tom Fay: All right? Well, certainly I think two ConCom provide days Day Services Bill, I think are serve individuals in the region. For example, I think Charles River has one in need it. So, so, to the extent this regionalization that that might be a model, but John Thomas: I think he's talking about, you know, people in the actual towns that want to sort of band together. It's Bill Adams: such a precious resource, yeah, being able to manage that little bit locally, if it's possible, but it does seem hard to do. Tom Fay: So why don't we take a quick break and convenient seven, and we'll continue our meeting. Okay? Great. Thank you. Bye.
Unknown: We need that camera's
not on yet. Do we need the table? I to feel comfortable. Katherine Provost: Do we have a just one other question? What about someone from Smok coming to which is the regional housing authority coming to talk to us about what what type of developments they see that have worked well, what partners they've worked with? I think they're very involved in in and I don't, I don't even know exactly how, but we could figure out the right person at Smok who might be able to come talk to us as well. Tom Fay: Sure, yeah, I will reach out to them and see whether they are willing to join us. I will do that great. Thank you. So let's turn our attention to Item three of our agenda, which includes a conversation with inviting neighbors to the site, and we have some individuals here, welcome, and maybe individuals online. If so, we'll bring them on, see if I can do that.
Bill Adams: I did hear from at least one mark, Tom Fay: yeah, Robby. How can I bring Mr. Mettler over to the main meeting?
Unknown: I join
Bill Adams: if you get stuck, I have his email. I could probably email him as a committee member, but,
Unknown: okay, good. So Mr. Metrow should join us. Good evening. Mr. Metland,
Hey, Mark, can you hear us? Yeah, you've got me Excellent. I'm here. Tom Fay: Hi, Mr. My name is Tom Fay, welcome. Thank you for the meeting where listening to neighbors about this project, answer questions and listen to your thoughts. So I just ask each person go through and give us your name and address, and then we'll and then we'll get started. So you want to start? Unknown: I'm Allen Lapierre from nine High Rock Road. We abut the property.
Matthew McCall and 15 Woodridge road. I also bought the
property and Deborah lucky
or nine High Rock Road. You give us your address for
us on 13 High Rock Road. Tom Fay: Great welcome. I Yeah. So our committee put this item on the agenda to make sure we have an opportunity to hear your thoughts on potential projects here and your concerns and answer questions. So I open up to anybody who wants to begin. Unknown: Can I just jump in quick point order and just request that this committee endeavor to make the calendar up to date? It's not and it's very difficult to be involved. I've wanted to be involved, and I no idea when the meetings happen, and my only option, really is reading the minutes so you know, I understand that it was added to the agenda sometime in the letter that the the meeting was added to the calendar sometime in the last week. But, you know, I don't think that's enough time for us to stay apprised of the information that's being held here. Tom Fay: Not too good suggestion. What I'll do is make it a point to put in the minutes that the that and this will be in the minutes of the meetings of this committee going forward will be on October is a set meeting. October, 22 2025 from five to 8pm November, 6, 2025 from 11 to 2:11am. 2pm 1113, 25 from 6:30pm to 8pm and 1119 25 from 6pm to 9pm as far as putting them on the town website, it's typical that the agenda is created late, and once the agenda is created, then you then you post it and on the opine law, we have to do it within a certain number of hours part of the meeting. So. But Unknown: now that we have the dates the agenda aside, can we put the dates on that so that like on the calendar, so that I can check to see when the next Tom Fay: meeting is? I'll speak with the Tom the Select board's office, see whether we can do that. Thank you. So thoughts, comments on what you know, what you don't know. Question about the process. Comments you have. The floor is yours.
Unknown: I can I'll start this. I'm kind of, we're kind of coming late into the game here. So there's some information that we don't know. And one is, how many units are you thinking on this property, and how many? And I heard today, four to five people in a unit.
Tom Fay: It's undecided. How many units even how many structures? The Town Meeting Warren article authorizes a Select Board to build at least one structure to house individuals with disabilities. That's that's pretty much it might there be two possibly depends what the Select Board decides, the decision will be impacted by what our committee recommends. And I'm not sure what time you came in to this meeting, but our conversation just before we broke was kind of gave you a sense, I think, of how there are so many variables that we're listening to, considering so many groups that we've heard from, that it's really up in the air. Is a long phrase, but I would say really an open book. You know, it's really an open book. And if I do invite other members of the committee to respond to Alan's question,
Unknown: yeah, we're really an exploratory body. You know, I think of myself as an emissary to the greater community, ordinary citizen who's trying to figure out what this would mean for Wayland, and how we could for benefits of housing to the disabled and have it and be a blessing in the town. So I think at this point, we're really trying to talk to experts, bring experts in to explain to us how this world works. Books, where's the money come to help disabled people? Who are the people who know how to build buildings for disabled people, who are the people the companies that run management of these facilities and the right kinds of services are provided for folks, very exploratory, and at the end of the process, we're going to summarize what we learned and write to the Select Board and say, Okay, we did this sort of panorama. Look at all the vendors and all the government agencies and all the disabled people in the Commonwealth. And here's what we've learned. You know, here's the factors that when you the Select would start making decisions that you want to take into consideration.
Tom Fay: I will say, Listen, I'm sorry you want to say something though I was Bill Adams: just going to say, what I do keep bringing up, even though it wasn't written down, is what the town sort of voted on was two buildings with maybe five to six individuals that need quite a bit of support, so that that would include maybe one or two additional people who live there overnight and full time support those six people and so and then I also remember from the town meeting this commitment to build a building That's consistent with other buildings in the neighborhood that don't look dramatically different or, you know, largely institutional. So I keep bringing that up as a reminder to the committee that that was, even though it wasn't written down, that was what kind of what was discussed. And so that's my hope, is to keep advocating for that idea. But of course, the committee has more rain than you know that if they decide otherwise, Tom Fay: and to Bill's point, from from what I've heard, I invite a committee members to to comment. What we're hearing from the organizations that we have heard thus far suggest that, you know, homes with more than maybe four to six per home really doesn't, isn't effective. It isn't ideal for the residents. So essentially, smaller, better, versus a structure with with many more residents isn't I'm sure the state even would approve it, but just not effective. Unknown: I think all the models, including that most recent one, all of them look residential. They're not institutional. Yeah, Tom Fay: and the and the one resident and the one home for disabled individuals in the town is residential, looking home under 20, not far from the Cochituate, Unknown: the town. At the Tom meeting, it was approved for five to six individuals, both in each building Tom Fay: or in combined No, as Bill pointed out, the written word isn't that specific. We did speak about that, I spoke about, Unknown: that you presented information, right? Yeah, so it's five to six in the aggregate, plus that Katherine Provost: five, five to six per building in two buildings, right? Tom Fay: Okay, five to six per building, it could be only one building has to be at least Unknown: one it wasn't the second one. Have to be affordable housing if a second facility, second one could be an amendment to the warrant. Tom Fay: The amendment just wanted to make sure. Want to make sure that affordable housing, it was affordable so, so the one home could be would have to be Unknown: affordable. Follow me, so I'm don't follow. Can you clarify that. Sure so Tom Fay: the one home could would serve individual adult disabilities, but it would be affordable for the individuals who moved in there,
Unknown: okay, as opposed to capitalized Tom Fay: affordable housing or you pay on pocket only for people who could pay that apart. John Thomas: Okay? I mean, the general consensus is the population that I think, is the spirit of what it is that we're trying to do with, by definition, by almost any definition, would be a population that would be eligible for affordable housing, if, in the absence of a disability. In other words, anybody that's served, for example, by the Department of Department of Developmental Services, is making less than what the median income level would be, yeah, Unknown: but there's a lot more to it, right? Like, you know, if this, if something is qualified and designated as affordable housing within the fair housing, you know, act, then you know, then they're not, they're taking in. They're not able to restrict those residents to mentally handicapped or to being disabled in other capacities. You. Right? So one house may be able to be served this purpose that this committee is intended, but if this second house is to be qualified as affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, then it would be subject to different regulations, and there would be different individuals there. So restricting that just to mentally disabled or other disabilities is not necessarily, you know, a given. It's not something necessarily that would happen. I mean, it'd be subject to different limitations. All Tom Fay: right, so, just so I see I can follow you, suggested that the amendment of the article. Your concern is that Unknown: it, my reading of it was that if you had that, if it was a second house was to be built, a second structure to be built, that second structure would be affordable housing. And my understanding, and maybe it wasn't defined, and, you know, it was written in two minutes, but affordable housing, you know what the intent of that? You know amendment was clearly after was affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, which is different than, you know, what we would be doing. And, you know, frankly, entirely different agencies. I'll have to take a closer look. I think it was the intention was that if we couldn't build anything that Well, I guess I'm concerned that we don't know what the parameters are of this, you know, warrant at this stage, and I don't understand that maybe the amendment was a safeguard to make sure that, well, it wasn't a safety, it was an amendment. So it changed. It was, it was, if it was no group home built the town's going to build, subdivide or something. It would have to be affordable. So if we couldn't do what we're trying to do, then it would have to be affordable. I think that was the intent that would be. That would be the minimum required, right? John Thomas: If we couldn't do if we couldn't make a recommendation to serve the disabled population for whatever reason, which I frankly don't think that's going to there's going to be a barrier to that, based on what I've heard so far. If we hypothetically couldn't do that at a bare minimum, then the fall back would be that the property would be utilized for affordable housing. That's my understanding. Tom Fay: That's helpful. I think there is a good point, Matthew. So what we'll do is we'll explore that. If we need a Tom town council opinion on it, we'll get that. Unknown: So I guess with the floor, I would just say, you know, I appreciate the invitation to participate here and for, you know, to comment and ask questions. I think that, you know, I would reiterate kind of the the other, you know, some, some of what we else, we've heard in that it's difficult to provide comment and ask questions given how broad the net committee is cast. We've heard from, you know, about potential friendly, 40 B developments that would maximize the development on that land. We've heard about farms with livestock on them. We've heard about, you know, tonight's building, or structure or house, which would have individuals that are coming in and out with, you know, large transportation needs. So it's really difficult for us, or me to, you know, really wrap my head around what's going on here, or feel like I can make an impact, or, you know, participate in any way. So I guess where I would start, you know, is that, do we know one? Do we know that this project will benefit the residents of Wayland? And by benefit, you know, I mean in the sense that residents of Wayland would be living in these units that are being built. And if that's the case, then maybe we solve for that problem, rather than, you know, entertain, you know, everything else that's out there, and address and focus the efforts on the individuals that would be living in that in that those houses, if, in fact, this committee or the this project can't, you know, guarantee the that the housing will be used for residents and that the residents are subject to, you know, pooled lottery, like other members of the state or the community at large, I don't know then, where you know the benefit to The town is, and it seems to have gotten lost. So I'd like to get some you know, respect Tom Fay: on that well. In the end, the Select Board will make a decision on how they want to proceed with this land, and they they're elected to speak generally, to do what's best for. The for the town, so they'll make, they'll be the final decision makers on that. But regarding Wayland residents possibly living, it's a great point, and that's something that we've touched upon as a committee, and we'll continue to talk about it. For example, at some point, it's an ARPA RFI issue which limits the residents to individuals living in Wayland. Well, if that's the way we go, we may need to limit it to private companies committed to it versus Unknown: Well, state funded. Yeah, Tom Fay: right. So those are the rules right. State may say, no, no, we're not going to let you do that. We need. There are so many people in your region, they need to have access to this one. But, but if the if the rules permit Wayland to have an RFI request for ARPA or custom proposal where only Wayland residents live, and then, you know, that's what psych board might do. That may be what our committee recommends. So it's it's really unclear. And to your earlier point, I you know what you say makes sense. It's kind of hard for you to put your hands around this, because it's also hard for us at this point. It's just not there yet. We might be there in six weeks, and then it becomes clear. I think then people like you, neighbors, people close by can get your hands around it, and they will ask more pointed questions and raise your concerns. Unknown: So I know Bill Adams: at least in talking to Tom, he did describe at least two meetings with neighbors, the first one to kind of hear concerns and get them on the table, and then another meeting when things are more formulated, to respond specifically. So I think people are thinking that way. So I appreciate that it's under specified right now, but there'll be another chance to react to whatever more specifics the committee comes up with, too, and to provide me feedback along the way, which I'm happy to pass on at any meeting. One
Unknown: of the things I also wanted to ask about was, I guess I don't understand what these folks will be doing during the day. This was presented as an opportunity to engage these individuals and keep them in the community. But it's not really located near anything, and it's not a location that's easy to get to anything. It's one of the few that, I mean, does have a sidewalk. I mean, it's in terrible condition, but maybe, you know, that's part of this process is, you know, replacing the sidewalk. But beyond that, it's at least a mile walk for anyone to get anywhere. And that assumes that the individuals are, you know, able to, you know, to do that on their own. So I guess that was one of my thoughts. And like, how do you then get them into the the into the the community, in engaged with the community in a way that's not, you know, disruptive from a traffic standpoint. You know, we traffic backs up to Woodridge Road in both directions on a regular basis, and adding, you know, an institution that's, you know, moving people in and out on a regular basis, I think would be, you know, problematic. So some of the thoughts that I wanted to ask, no the Tom Fay: good questions, I think what we've heard from different individuals in the industry are that, depending on the nature of the disability, some individuals can work in the community. You know, human Wayland, as we heard from work, Inc, some work in courthouses, something work in state office buildings. They would get transportation there during the day. Some individuals go to Dave programs in the area. It depends on the nature of the disability. Individuals who have much more severe disabilities, they're they're less able to to work in certain environments. It kind of depends on the nature of the residents. Unknown: And has the committee explored traffic concerns? We're not. DEP, no, no. I mean, both roadways are listed as tier two by the state, so they require an audit at some point. Maybe it's something to do at this stage? Tom Fay: Well, since we haven't really gotten the point of knowing where we're going to recommend, that's kind of premature.
Unknown: How does this dovetail to the other big project that's going on down the street on 27 No, that isn't a Christian Academy. That's that have any impact on this? Nothing I'm aware of. I don't think we know what fair tax is doing right now, except they're going to do something.
I was referring to, the traffic scanning uptick, significant. Away Tom Fay: from that, it depends how big a operation,
Unknown: just like, just, Stephanie Lynch: just to comment, you know, for instance, my son, we live on Pine, on Hemlock, and he as part of his day program. And with DDS, there is a bus service that picks up people, individuals around Wayland, most, most of them are living at home, like Jason, and takes them to the program and brings them back. We can't get coverage for all the trips, but it's, it's a very, you know, buy it under the radar kind of thing, and it's all taken care of through his day program and his DDS,
Unknown: questions, comments. I had a question about funding and what happens to the organization and to the property and to the residents. If it doesn't work out, I think, you know, we in Wayland in particular should be ultimately, you know, particularly sensitive to these things. And we are a town of essentially closed storefronts. So, you know, I think that on some level, there's got to be an anticipation or plan as to what would happen if you know their funding does disappear. And, you know, I think it's two tier, right? It's the service funding, and then whatever you know, the maintenance on the property would be a separate fund, I assume. So, I guess what? How do you guys think about, you know, ensuring that the longevity of this organization, and, you know, yes, you can look at the the 990s for the organization and other filings, but not sure that that's really indicative of the service component of that in organization, and their ability to, you know, continue to get funding and dependency on outside sources. Tom Fay: Good question had to came up earlier tonight. I think I would expect the Select Board to place a restriction on land. Either we, the town, will find land lease to the organization that comes in and develops it or sells it outright. But if they do sell it, the property would likely have the DEP destruction. So if an organization went bankrupt or couldn't handle it, we would simply bring in another organization to an RFP to replace I think that in my mind, that's the model, I would say. But, but to your point, I think one of our jobs as a committee is to point out to the Select Board that the organization choose has has a good track record in this well financed
questions
Unknown: I ask a couple of questions for sure?
Is the intention that the town will continue to own the property and lease whatever it is that's developed to a developer and and collect rent over time, or is it intended to sell to developer with confidence for how they can develop the property unclear. Tom Fay: I think both options are around the table, but not nothing clear on that, Unknown: but to the point to the to the extent your question
Tom Fay: raises concerns about organizations taking advantage of the town. I'm confident the any agreement that is arrived at would prevent any undue
Unknown: I guess more that it's a loss of control at some point, right? So you you make a decision through this committee process. You choose a partner, and you sell the land, and you're out. And if it, if the project does collapse, at some point it fails, then we're back where we are today, with an abandoned property, you know, potentially. So that's one concern I had. The other question is, do you have it on your purview of you know what you're going to evaluate in this process speaking to local real estate agents to get a sense of the impact on a butters of the various types of projects. So if a project is two residential looking homes that house five to six people, each with one professional staying overnight. What impact might that be to the six direct abutters, or however many director butters there are, if it is one large building that's commercial and Luke in a large parking lot and houses 25 People, what does that do to abutter values? Is that a fair ask from the abutters to have that be something that you consider and seek professional advice from and report on it as part of this process. Tom Fay: All I'll say that is that one of the members of our committee is Robert Hummel. He's ex officio member, and he's a town planner, and you know some of the issues you mentioned. You know he to the extent we need it and give expert advice on on impacts. He certainly would advise us on on zoning relative to impacts on property values. I'm not sure that's something that we'll do a study on, but I'll leave it up. I open up that committee members on that topic. We're Unknown: not suggesting a commercial building with 25 units. I mean, everything we've talked about something that looks residential, it's relatively small numbers. So I mean, the Dallas river Foundation has that group home on behind coach grill. Coach grill, yeah, you wouldn't know noi. I mean, the neighbors were very concerned naturally in the beginning, and now, as far as I understand, they liked the being about us to this property. And you wouldn't know that these folks are there. They get transported to their programs during the day. And you know there is the ADU have some fans to take people to their destinations, but I'm not sure this has much of an impact on traffic.
Just a point. I the I can hear everybody great, except those of you who are on the committee who I can't see like I can see my fellow neighbors. I can see the folks who are remote. Can hear everybody fine when they speak. I just can't hear you guys very well at all. It's very muffled, so I didn't really catch the whole response to my question. You want to try it again? I was just saying that we're not suggesting commercial build, commercial looking building with 25 that seems excessive. I don't think anybody in this committee would recommend a development like that. Everything we're suggesting is similar to the picture that's in front of you. It looks residential as should have minimal impact on the surrounding neighbors. So it would be pretty similar to the Charles River foundation home behind coach grill, and most people don't even know that that exists in this town. And initially it was neighborhood opposition to that, and as far as what I've heard from people, the neighbors are accepting of it. Now it's worked out. It worked it's worked out for them. They feel like it's provides a service for these people, and it's not a problem. Which house is it? Out of curiosity, right beside folks theater. Okay, so it's on route 20. It's on route 20. Yeah, books and the high place,
but you would, nobody knows it's there. Katherine Provost: And that's Brian. Is that eight units or 10 units? I think it's 12. I think it's 12. Two actually, yeah, Unknown: 12 units, plus a manager, people, 12 people, yeah, and for over 15 years, 20 years, yeah. John Thomas: And that's something that's really, really tough to do these days. I'll just say, I mean, we, those of us who've been working on this for a little while, and people that have been interacting with the state, which would be the eventual funding source, getting anything in the neighborhood of that those kinds of numbers these days is almost impossible. It's really, really hard to get a congregate housing setting funded by the state for more than six people. You really have to have exceptions. That's why some of the examples that they were showing tonight, they were talking about, for example, a duplex with four people on one side and four people on the other. Even that's kind of unusual. So the trend is to keep the numbers smaller, to get away from the institutional model. So I'm just sharing that those are the trends. That's not necessarily what we're going to be advocating for or not advocating for. Unknown: Is that a trend based on the residents themselves, and what kind of works out better for them? Yes? Yes. Okay.
Bill Adams: My Mark's point is an important one. Like whatever possible designs we come up with, we should deliberately think about what evidence do we have from other similar developments that this won't impact the value of people's land surrounding you know, may not be able to do that officially, but as. Principle, we should come up with designs that have been shown to not impact neighbors, home values, and it does seem feasible. Have said,
Unknown: I think the comment was about setbacks, and I think it dovetails with the potentially, with the property value question, in that, if the property is encumbered by the town of Wayland in the sale, such that it, you know, has sufficient setbacks, I would imagine that that would provide, you know, you know, go a long way to offset any potential
discounting a property in relation to the neighbor. So, you know, with that said, I guess we would, as neighbors, advocate for, you know, a pretty substantial setback. You know, to keep this in fitting, as you said, with, you know, a house that is quiet and, you know, not really disruptive in the neighborhood. Jump all you like I'm glad I started. That's what I was thinking of. Is, what are the setbacks? Is it 100 feet? 200 feet? Did you know the answer? And is that something that, Tom Fay: if Robert was here, he could tell us like that, you know, Unknown: I know. Is it 30 feet? And I think 30. I think it's 30 feet for a side, side yard. And I don't know what it is, because what's the zoning in that area? Is it acres only? I think so, yeah, 222, acres, our 60. So I don't know what this side setbacks out what's our 62 acres, right? Yeah, so, I mean, I think we would comply with that. Noi, yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any special treatment. The only difference would be if
Tom Fay: it was a 40 B through the to the Select Board, and then, then there could be relaxation of those.
Unknown: Okay, it hasn't come up at all. They're still in Well, it did come up. We want to do this. It did come up, and it was advocated by by one of the members of this board, one of the seated members? No, Tom Fay: no, I mentioned that. Yeah, no, no, it's come up in this. Yeah, I stand corrected. It has come up, but we haven't seriously talked about, well, this is what we should know. We should recommend Unknown: this clearly what we want to do. Yeah, this is what we think. This is our goal. Not a 40 day, right, right? So going forward, do you have meeting with people like, Tom Fay: yeah, so if you our meetings are all online, so you can go to WayCAM and watch our prior meetings and minutes are also online, and a future meetings will be online as well. So you can't make it, you can watch them. Unknown: But do you have any coming up? Tom Fay: Do you have the meetings, individual meeting with people? Yes, like these companies, yes, yeah. So we have, we have organizations coming in on at least our next two meetings, like the next three meetings, these are organizations that are in the industry that can teach us about what experiences they have, what works, what doesn't work, from funding to, you know, neighborhood. Unknown: Are you concerned about government? You know, as far as the timing, current political environment? No, no.
One last question. I think it's outside the purview of this committee, but, or at least their mandate. But one of the things that I've struggled with is like, what's where the property came from, and the town's acquisition of this property through the foreclosure. You know, I think that there's should be some recognition, it seems somewhat, you know, ironic is not the right word, but that, you know, this individual was suffering from mental health. Town condemned the home and then foreclosed on it, and is now, you know, using it for helping other people with mental health issues. But during the meeting the town meeting, it was brought up, and there was a question raised as to the prior owner and their state and their entitlement to the the funds, and what the the town's intentions were with respect to those I think it was even mentioned that a heir to the estate was present and arrived in presence to discuss the matter at the town meeting. So I guess I just was wondering, you know what the plan there? How does that factor in? To to the finances of this project. If the town is, you know, not planning to return that those funds, does that open us up to lawsuit? And you know, if so, is that a consideration, and if the town is planning to return those funds. How do we then to factor into the, you know, any budget concerns with this project and the costs and costs associated with Tom Fay: it? Yeah, good questions. They came up when the article was being put together, and town council advised us that town owns the property free and clear and doesn't need to be concerned with any future financial obligations to the priority that was the advice. Okay?
Unknown: Matthew still has any questions Mark?
Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Yes on the easements. How? How strict can you be on the easements when you, when you grant this to the operator? I mean, how many, what kind of easements Can you put in as far as care of the property, overall care of the property, and so on? That's a good question. Tom Fay: That's a very good question. I think, I think we need to explore that, but if the town owns, if it's a land lease, we might have more more control over that. But I think what we've heard from the organizations that appeared before us is they take a lot of pride in the properties they own and operate, and they want to be good neighbors, and that that's good to hear, but, but now that's a good question. They want Unknown: to replicate these programs in other towns. So it's in their interest to maintain the properties. I mean, you could have somebody build two houses there, and, you know, have, it could be a disaster. Yet the town has no control over that. But at least with this, I think we can put pressure on I think it's comes from within the agency to maintain the property. Number one, hopefully the town would never have to get involved with them, with cutting the lawn and stuff like that. John Thomas: A lot of the vendors that we're in discussion with including work Inc, that's been around for more than 30 years. There's continuity. I mean, like Brian said, it's in their interest to maintain a property because they want to do this again. They want to replicate the program down the road. So why would they put that at risk? So, I mean, there are no guarantees, but I think that's I mean, again, my experience in working with a lot of these organizations, and some of the ones that we're going to be having come come in Charles River, has been around since the 60s. They have a track record. I would think that we would be looking at that track record, and if there's an RFP to consider, we would be looking at that track record as well. And I'd encourage you to do the same, Katherine Provost: yeah, and I think there's a way for us to even do a tour of some of their properties. I mean, they're really some very beautiful properties run by Minute Man arc and Roach family real estate that are excellent service providers that I think would give a butters a lot of comfort on this issue. John Thomas: Some of us toured a minute man ARPA group home in Sudbury this past year, and it's an immaculate house. Let me tell you, I wish Unknown: that house, okay, it's a restaurant, yeah, right on 117 right across the street. I mean, I wish that house was next to my house. Yeah, quite honestly. Well, I have no My daughter lives in Waltham, lives next to a safe house, and they felt different than this. Safe House is the right term that's for people with disabilities. Yeah. I mean, they're DEP and over five that live. There's no problems, like, but it can't say that their property is immaculate. You know, operates it, I don't,
but it's, there's like it there's no problems.
Bill Adams: So I had another setback question, is it possible for the committee to recommend setbacks that are larger than the standard zoning amounts, or is it pretty much legally cast in stone, like if an architect looks at the land? Or is it Are there ways to specify larger setbacks? Is in specific areas or not. Tom Fay: If Robert was here, you can answer the question, probably I cannot, but I'll put on the list as a question to answer, to be answered. Okay,
other questions or comments. Mike, appreciate. You guys coming in as Bill mentioned. We'll have a at least one other meeting where neighbors will have opportunity to come in and ask questions. By then, I think things will be clear for you and for us. Bill Adams: One other thing, I think just everyone should know that all these are recorded too. So if you can't be here online, you could watch these afterwards and and then there's also a five minutes at the beginning of every meeting, where, if there's an issue from the last meeting you want to bring it up, feel free or tell me, and I'll bring it up too. Unknown: Yeah, we have public comment for every meeting, so feel free to come. Appreciate the invitation. Appreciate your effort. Thank you.
We're all right. We all live in this town. We all live in town.
Tom Fay: So moving on Agenda Item three, Ronnie Kessler worked for the Wayland public schools, and she was hoping to make it tonight, but she's tied up in a school committee meeting, so we'll get her on at another another meeting before I entertain a motion to adjourn. Any final comments or questions by members of the committee. Hearing, none. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I hear a second, second, thank you. Gene, second, I'll do a roll call vote. Brian aye, John aye. Gene, Catherine, yes. Bill Yes. Stephanie Yes. Tom, yes, unanimous vote. Thank you all for your time this evening and see you on the 22nd