Human Affairs Committee

PUBLIC HEARING A Public Hearing was conducted by the Human Affairs Committee on Thursday, February 2, 2012, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Chairman Lori Wilshire presided. Members of the Committee present: Alderman Diane Sheehan, Vice Chair Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman Daniel T. Moriarty Members not in Attendance: Also in Attendance: ELECTION OF COMMITTEE CLERK Chair Wilshire called for nominations for a Committee Clerk Alderman Sheehan nominated Alderman Melizzi-Golja MOTION BY ALDERMAN SHEEHAN TO CLOSE THE NOMINATIONS MOTION CARRIED MOTION CARRIED ON ELECTION OF ALDERMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA AS COMMITTEE CLERK PUBLIC HEARING CONSOLIDATED PLAN/COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT AND HOME PROGRAM COMMENTS ON PAST PERFORMANCE; IDENTIFYING NEEDS FOR FUTURE ACTIVITIES; AVAILABILITY OF CDBG APPLICATIONS Chairman Wilshire Tonight we are starting off our meeting with a public hearing on the Consolidated Plan/Community Development Block Grant and HOME Program. Tonight we’re going to look for comments on past performance; identifying needs for future activities; availability of CDBG applications. I am going to open the floor for testimony, and I assume that all of you that are going to speak or make comment tonight have signed up already. Okay. TESTIMONY IN FAVOR Pamela Auer, Development Director, BRIDGES, Domestic and Sexual Violence Support Services I’m just going to talk a little bit about our performance over the last year in support of our request. Since the request is pretty much construction, and I’m sure you have seen by the grant, we are looking to improve the building on 33 East Pearl. We have three doors that need replacing, and we also need painting of the interior of the building. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 2 In addition to that, we are looking for funding for our confidential safe shelter. We have a tree on the property that needs to be removed so that would include surveying and removal of this tree. Women and children live in that shelter, and it is a safety concern. Those are the things that we are asking for funding. I will just go over a little bit of who we are and what we do. Last year we were able to deliver services through our crisis intervention and support line, which is 24/7 support both in person and telephone. We provide women and children with support group. We are always full and we serve people from here and as far into the Soughegan Valley as Wilton and Lineboro and as far east as Salem and Pelham. Our groups are always full and they are really important in getting along with people with their lives. We also provide services through our court advocacy program to clients who are navigating the court systems whether it is through custody cases or restraining orders, any kind of safety planning. Our advocates are in the courts pretty much every day that the courts are open. We also have 24/7 hospital advocacy for those who have been sexually or domestically attacked. That is 24/7. Our advocates can get called at 3:00 a.m. and they go right to the hospital that is requesting the service. We have a confidential safe shelter, which is located in the Nashua vicinity, and last year alone we provided more than 2,200 bed nights for women and children. We have our house completely full most of the time. Many times we have to get funding to put people in hotels if they are in eminent danger. Education is one of our strongest programs, and we always say we work to put ourselves out of business. That is our dream that we don’t have to be in existence anymore. Last year we were able to provide educational services to nearly 6,000 students and community members throughout our service area. Because last year when we had 2,700 new clients BRIDGES is not a service that we can kind of just walk away from and do away with. We have to work to continue our services and provide safe places for these clients to come. That is why I am here tonight asking for your help. Chairman Wilshire Thank you very much. Pamela Auer Are there any questions? Chairman Wilshire We like to keep this as just your input, and then during the regular meeting if anyone has questions we will take them up then. Pamela Auer Okay. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 3 Scott Slattery, Tolles Street Mission I sit on the Board of Directors for the Tolles Street Mission on Whitney Street. We’re here tonight to thank you for the committee’s past support as well as to make a request. I hear Pastor Murphy coming so I certainly would let him do this so I happily turn it over to him. James Murphy, Assistant Pastor, Tolles Street Mission We have been servicing a lot of the French Hill neighborhood for over 24 years. We have taken care of the elderly, many of the families, the disabled, some of the homeless, and those that have AIDS. This is very new, like I say we are a little nervous so just kind of bear with us. James Murphy We are putting in a request for $20,000. We are in the midst of putting heat in the back end of the building, which is where we do the outreach, the food outreach for the community. We also would like to get some more refrigeration for the building because the clientele has gone up from close to maybe 300 or 350 to almost 600 over the past year, and we’re slowly but surely getting more and more people to come under our program. We would love to have those two items funded by the committee if like I say like everything else, the need is very much there and like I say the people are coming in, and at this time we really need your support. Scott Slattery If I may Madam Chairman just to elaborate a little bit about the heat issue; several years ago we did have a small heating unit in the rear of the building where the food pantry is. We started smelling has. We had that heating unit removed and had the gas line service capped. Our annual budget total for the year is just a little over $50,000. We certainly don’t have funds to replace this heating system or to increase refrigeration. As Pastor Murphy says, the numbers of folks that we are seeing coming through the doors is greater than we have ever seen in the history of the mission. We’re seeing so many new families and folks that have never asked for this kind of assistance before. With the addition of heat we will be able to serve more of the community as well as refrigeration we will be able to provide more and different types of foods than the traditional types of ways we have been able to do it. We thank the committee for their time tonight. Chairman Wilshire Thank you for being here/ Scott Slattery We look forward to your visit. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. We look forward to it as well. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 4 David Villiotti, Executive Director, Nashua Children’s Home Our proposal is for an amount of $35,900 to assist us with roof repair and siding repair. The story with the siding repair actually is that our ball field in the back of our property abuts the City ball field off of Jewel Lane, and every spring when the little leagues start up they tend to use our ball field as a bullpen and the pitchers get kind of wild so we have a number of holes in our siding due to stray pitches from City of Nashua Little League ballplayers. Anyway this is the first capital request that Nashua Children’s Home has made for block grant funding that has not been attached to program expansion in 25 years. We have had three multi-year block grant awards for program expansion that goes back to 1989, 1993, and 2002, and whenever that has taken place there has been a significant financial benefit to the taxpayers of this City, much more so than the amount of the block grant. You see for every Nashua youngster that lives at Nashua Children’s Home and is identified with special education needs, as most of our kids are, and that they continue to attend Nashua schools, the Nashua School District is spared the cost of out-of-district tuition, which could be very expensive, which now, right now if Nashua kids were placed say in Pine Haven Boys Center in Allenstown and attend the school at Pine Haven Boys Center, the price tag for the Nashua School District is $41,000 per student per year. That kid lives at Nashua Children’s Home they attend Nashua schools, there is no price tag at all. They ride the school bus or we take them and there is no additional cost related with that. We certainly, throughout the years, every year, yield a significant cost benefit to the City of Nashua in terms of the special education dollars not spent. A couple other direct benefits the City of Nashua Children’s Home provides; simply put geography tends to be our enemy as we see. We really prioritize the admission of Nashua and Nashua area kids, and it is much easier then to keep those kids tied to their own community and to keep their families involved with their programming, both of which are the number 1 indicators of success once kids transition out of residential care. We have a lot of Nashua kids in our place and we are able to keep them connected with family, their community and transition them home successfully. The other director benefit that we provide through our youth attendant program, with that youth attendant program if we have in this City runaways from other states, say a runaway kid from Indiana comes to Nashua, Nashua Police Department picks them up and their parents are going to come the next day to get them, those kids can be placed at Nashua Children’s Home until their parents get there. Prior to our offering the service, the Nashua Police Department needed to assign an officer and have that officer supervise that kid in an interview room because they couldn’t be locked up they really hadn’t committed a crime, they had to supervise that youth in an interview room all night long at the police station. We literally are able to help keep the police officers on the street through our offering the youth attendant program. Again, it is the first capital request unrelated to program expansion that we have submitted to the block grant program in 25 years so I hope you see fit to help us with the funding for that. Thank you. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 5 Brian Young, Executive Director, Nashua Center, formerly known as the Nashua Center for the Multiply Handicapped, 18 Simon Street Historically the CDBG funds have had a significant impact on the center both in physical appearance and operations. I don’t know where we would be without it; starting back in 2001 with HVAC unit replacements and then 2004 with ceiling and floor replacements, continued in 2005 with some bathroom renovations, and then in 2007 we were able to convert a storage area into new office areas because of additional services through our early intervention program, and up to our last request in 2009 was actually an emergency effort on your part to help our leaking roof. Scott Slattery actually was very helpful in assisting us with that. We had barrels all over the building. That was the last time that we were here for a request. This year our request is a two-fold request; we are looking to remodel our kitchen area mainly because the existing space is just somewhat cramped and not easily accessible by many of the individuals that we provide services for at that site, which are adults with developmental disabilities or acquired brain disorders, many of whom probably I would say at least 75-80% are in wheelchairs and require full physical assistance. The project involves pretty much taking down a wall, adding another sink, more cabinets, relocating some dishwashers; mainly opening up the space. We have 40 individuals that arrive every day, Monday through Friday, not there all day, some are in paid employment, some are in volunteer work, others are accessing the community with our wheelchair accessible vans, and that is about $27,800 roughly. The other project we’re looking at is to install an ADA approved shower in one of our existing rooms. Again, a lot of our folks require pretty much total physical hand over hand personal care and there have been many times over the past, we have been in that building since 1986, that an individual could have used a shower facility to take care of their needs on the spot. Then just recently over the last year with the power outages, the Nashua Center could have been an excellent location for some of our clients, some of our staff, and even people in the community at large because coincidentally we never lost our power on 18 Simon Street, but as you know and some of you probably experienced some of our staff and clients needed to be relocated and lost power for upwards of a week or more. That is just under $12,000 ($11,780). The Nashua Center continues to provide services in four major areas from early intervention, birth to 3, and then our program in 18 Simon Street that is for adults 21 and over with developmental disabilities and acquired brain disorders. We also have been providing, for the last 7 years, CLASSIC in-home care provides in home senior care. We also provide over 50 individuals in various situations in the community for residential services in adult foster care or community residences, group homes, however you want to refer. Just this past week started a brand new program in collaboration with Nashua Community College for post secondary education for individuals with significant disabilities. We just started Thursday with our first student and so far so good so we’re excited about that. That is called LIFEOP is the acronym. I appreciate any support that you could give us at this time and thank you very much. Chairman Wilshire Thank you, and good luck with your new program. That sounds good. Brian Young Thanks. So far so good. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 6 Bob Dion, Owner, 24-38 Railroad Square, LLC Good evening and thank you for your time this evening. 24-38 Railroad Square, LLC owns the Laton Building and Hammer Building. What I am here for, we do have a grant that is part of the 2012 grant program that we have not been able to use yet because of the weather, but we do plan to use that in the spring of this year. There is a successful bidder for $30,000 to be able to do that work of which you are contributing or the grant is contributing $27,700. That is intended to improve the front façade of the Laton Building; replacing the wood, painting, scraping, that type of thing to improve the appearance of that building. As I am sure most of you know or all of you know on the board here that the general area of the Railroad Square area is improving slowly but surely. There are certainly some improvements in the area and I am encouraged by the new Portland Pie Company, it really looks very nice there. I think what we are doing is encouraging more and more people to visit the area and I think it is becoming a better place because of these improvements. That is what we are looking for here. And one of the other things just as a side note for I’m not sure I know if you were on the board last year or part of this board, but there was a lead grant that we received for the Hammer Building that made a substantial improvement in the appearance of that building. I do have some pictures here that I would like to be able to pass out. The first one is one of the areas that we are looking to improve and the second one is the one that we did improve from the lead grant program. I’m jumping ahead a little bit here on that part, aside from what we are doing with the grant money, we’re also, we just got approval for converting five full one-bedroom units in the Laton Building that will help improve the area in terms of a better clientele and full one-bedroom units with full bathrooms and kitchens. That is, of course, something that I am doing personally to be sure that we are continuing to improve the area. What we are looking for is to continue to make the progress on the exterior of the building. On the side that I just showed you, that is the east side where the aluminum siding is right down to the aluminum color, the silver color. What we are looking to do is remove that, after we remove it to insulate the walls, and then replace that as well as removing any rotted wood and painting that would make some improvements. I do have pictures of another project that we did in the back of the building, and this is similar to what we are looking at doing…this was previous and this is what it looks like now. We’re looking for your help to be able to help continue with improving the appearance of the building and also there is a problem concern with some of the neighbors with our dumpster, we want to be able to enclose the dumpster and be able to make it a better appearance in that whole area and make it a more attractive area for people to come and visit. The other point is we have made a lot of progress in the Railroad Square area one of which is the Crime Watch. The Police Department has reported that we have made substantial improvements in that whole general area, substantial improvement in the crime scene in the Railroad Square area. Hopefully we will continue to make those kinds of improvements and have a better place for people of Nashua to visit. Thank you for your time. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 7 Herb Jackson, Stabile Companies We are the developer of the Cotton Mill Square project. As some of you will remember we have been in front of this committee a number of times over the last year or so as we have worked our way through the process. I wanted to offer a brief update tonight given our current request for HOME funds. As a quick refresher, our project involves the redevelopment of the historic Cotton Mill Building at 30 Front Street here on the river in Nashua into 109 mixed-income apartments, and of those 109 apartments, 54 would be offered at full market rents and 55 would be offered at various levels of affordability. As part of our project, we would also be removing a number of dilapidated and contaminated buildings on site, adding significant green space to the area, cleaning up about 740’ of riverbank, and also connecting the Clocktower Bridge to the north side of the Nashua River and extending the Riverwalk both east and west along that north shore of the Nashua River. Over the last several months, we have been working hard on our financing, which as some of you know involves federal tax credits, low-income housing tax credits, assorted tax credits, HUD insured permanent and construction financing and several other components so it is a fairly time consuming process in lining all of that financing up. We are progressing fairly well, and at this point we are targeting a revised construction start date of July of this year. We anticipate about an 18 month construction period, which would bring our units online at the end of 2013. As I know some of you will remember, this 2012 HOME funds application is kind of a third leg of a larger funding program that includes a Section 108 HUD loan that is sponsored by the City and 2011 HOME funds that were both approved by the Board of Aldermen last year all of which, including these 2012 HOME funds, are really critical in terms of getting this project to the next step. We certainly appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Shaun Nelson, Nashua Police Athletic League Although Nashua PAL is in many circles known for its sports programs, tonight’s funding is for the after school program. The after school program is officially titled the Youth Safe Haven or the PAL or the PAL Center or the place where the tall guy works. Just a lot of kids every day after school. The projects that we described in our application is actually part 2 of what is hopefully going to be completed in the spring, which will be completing a cement renovation; basically ripping up old damaged pothole areas, replacing with new cement. We have some drainage issues where more and more water finds its way through the building; hoping to convince the water to go out to the street. As well as fixing the steps where the main entry to the building there are 5 granite steps, and we are looking to, I’m not sure what all of the fancy terminology is, but basically fill the holes, fix it so that the steps don’t wobble. They are getting progressively worse every winter as the water goes in, and ice separates the steps even a little bit more. The third piece of this proposal is to extend and heighten some of the fence areas. Although we don’t lock our fences, it is open for the community to use; when we are there we try to keep the balls off the street. There are sections that are lower than others and we are hoping to add a basketball hoop, not part of this Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 8 project, but the fencing will allow us the opportunity to do that. If we did it now we would just put balls in the streets and into the neighbors’ yards and we are trying to avoid that. That is our proposal in a nutshell. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Shaun Nelson Thank you. Chairman Wilshire I had three people sign up from the PLUS Co., but most of them are crossed off. Is there someone, either Joe, Kim, or Mike from PLUS, that would like to speak? Joe Marshall, Vice Chairman, Board of Directors, PLUS Co. Sorry I’m responsible for that. I was trying to be nice and sign everybody in. Kim Shottes is my security blanket in case there are hard questions. Kim is the Executive Director of the PLUS Co. Chairman Wilshire Thanks for being here. Joe Marshall The PLUS Co provides services to people with developmental disabilities. PLUS was originally founded 4 years ago. Currently we are serving 200 clients throughout the greater Nashua area. In 2010 we had the good fortune to be able to purchase 19 Chestnut Street, and with any new home there are always things that you want to do to fix it up and renovate it to make it fit your needs. We have an active campaign going on now to do various upgrades in the building. We have built a portico recently that shelters clients who have been dropped off at the front door so they don’t get snowed on and rained on and so forth. We have upgraded the kitchen and some other projects. The project we ask for in this grant is to install 14 automated handicapped doors throughout the building that will do two things for our consumers; one it will make the building safer for them so if there is an emergency and we have to evacuate people quickly we will be able to open these doors and leave them open and people would be able to get out. Secondly it would help people be more independent; they won’t have to ask for help to go to the restroom or to go from one place to another in the building. PLUS offers a wide array of services to our clients; primarily the residential, vocational, and day service programs. We also offer what we call value added activities and programs such as educational cooking classes, literacy programs, arts and crafts, and we do have Special Olympics teams for summer and winter Olympics. The grant money would certainly be put to very good use to provide the automatic door openers. We thank you for your consideration. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 9 Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Kim Shottes, Executive Director, PLUS Co. I will just give a quick update; this current year we received CDBG funds from the City and we’re very grateful for that. It is to resurface the parking lot at 19 Chestnut Street so it is all kind of coming together, and we’re moving along working with Carrie and her staff in terms of starting that planning of that project. With the resurfaced parking lot, the portico, and the handicapped door openers, we will have a really safe place for people to be able to come. Thank you very much for your support. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Thanks for being here. We look forward to all of the site visits to all of your organizations. Susan Stearns, Director of Devel., Greater Nashua Mental Health Center at Community Council The Greater Nashua Mental Health Center is the designated community mental health center for Nashua and 9 surrounding communities. We serve over 5,000 children, adolescents, adults …audio inaudible… each year. Last year 64% of those were residents of Nashua. We have been the grateful recipients of CDBG funding through this committee and the City in the past. Last year you gave us an award of $6,000 that would go towards improvements at our main adult service facility, 7 Prospect Street, to the HVAC system there. The year prior to that we had received some CDBG funds from you to start the consumer run sign business called Simply Signs, which is located at our 100 West Pearl Street large administrative building and that is doing well. That project is going along very well and I hope you have an opportunity, although you won’t be there to visit that program, to see the folks in the sign shop. It is a wonderful experience. We also received funding from you to start up our Community Connections for Youth Program, which diverts juveniles who are in jeopardy of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system because of issues that they have in their mental illness and behaviors as a result and diverts them from the juvenile justice system to community based treatment. That project, with your startup funds, we were able to secure funds, that has been going on for the last two years and we foresee another two years of that if you want sustainability. The request before you is one that I certainly had not anticipated we would be making this year nor do I think our facilities manager had anticipated. We have two major issues that have come to light within the last 6 months or so. One is at our 15 Prospect Street location, which is where our child and adolescent services are provided. We have had three very old HVAC units, one of which went last year suddenly and had to be replaced to the tune of $16,500. We were told at that time that the other two were the exact same age and it was only a matter of time. We keep our fingers crossed every day to turn the heat on in the winter and the cool in the summer. We are asking for your support to replace those two units. And then just within the last few months we learned that the roof on our 100 West Pearl Street building, which is our administrative office and home to the Simply Sign shop, is beyond repair and must be replaced. You may recall that building was a new purchase for us a little over four years ago. A number of you may have been at the lovely open house we had there. Apparently although it was noted by staff at the time or told to the staff at the time that the roof might need replacement, those staff are no longer with the agency, hence the surprise. Apparently it did not make it into our facilities plan. Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 10 Again, we are faced with two significant needs. Just like so many are facing, we have had serious cuts to our reimbursement rates from the State yet we continue to serve everyone that comes to our doors regardless of their ability to pay, and it is through assistance such as the City that we have been able to continue to do that. We thank you for your past support and for listening tonight. Chairman Wilshire Thank you very much. Betsy Abrahams, Executive Director, The Youth Council The Youth Council has been in town since 1974 providing an array of early intervention and treatment services for at risk kids in Nashua and surrounding communities. We’re most widely known for our school th th suspension center for 5 to 8 graders, parenting classes, providing court diversion services for first time juvenile offenders to divert them from the juvenile justice system, and providing counseling services with licensed therapists for kids struggling with alcohol and drug use and abuse and neglect and just other general issues. CDBG has been tremendously helpful over the last several years shoring up the envelope of our 1895 brick building. We are located right down the street at the corner of Elm and West Pearl. Over the last three years we have been able to re-point the brick on three of four sides of the building and so we are here asking you to help us with the final side. We’ve got brand new windows, our air leaks have mostly stopped. Many of our staff would constantly complain about being cold and getting rained on because so much of the water and air was coming through, through some of the damager mortar. As we had to choose which side to do with the funds that we got this fiscal year, we chose the alley between us and the old Modern building, if you remember the Modern. When Armuno’s Construction, which was the winning bidder, was looking around at the back side of the building between us and the dilapidated white house at 3-5 Elm Street, could literally pull some of the bricks out by hand so our board sort of panicked at that point and added some sort of scarce fundraising dollars to try to at least reinforce the part that is really crumbling on that back side of the building. But that is really what we are here to ask for your help with today. I think it is important to note that we too along with many of our colleagues were hit with some pretty major funding cuts through Health & Human Services, and the first thing that I did was met with several of our community partners from the police, schools, United Way, and said does our mission deserve to exist in this economy, if we are lined up alongside so many other worthy organizations, is what we do meaningful enough to have us continue, and we got a resounding yes for very different reasons; different people really appreciate different programs that we offer, but overall it was just really gratifying to us to know that we really should keep coming up and keep asking for help. I appreciate your support. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Cathy Duffy, CEO, Girls Inc. I first want to thank this committee for your wonderful support around the kitchen. It is opening Monday night. We’re really excited. We actually served snack today out of it for the first time. The kitchen was an $80,000 project by the time we got done and the City contributed $35,000 of that. We are feeding 50-60 families every night. Just to show you how important that is to the families, we had a two-week timeframe Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 11 that we had to be closed and we had a Mother walk in from across town with a baby in a stroller and a 3- year-old in her arms, and when she discovered the kitchen was closed she burst out crying. My staff gave her a $200 gift certificate to the grocery store and drove her to get her groceries. We’ve had to give many gift certificates out during this two-week period and we’re so excited to be re-opening so thank you, and we have beautiful pictures before and after. I’m here tonight to ask you for help with our playground. We put in a playground 13 years ago and if you are not familiar with our building, our playground is shared by all of the kids that go to the swimming pool, the Crown Hill Pool, all of the children from housing and the 100+ girls that come to our center everyday. We installed this playground 13 years ago and maintained it as best we could, but the repairs have outgrown our budget, and it needs a safety audit, it needs equipment to be repaired, and we are requesting that we can remove the playground preschool equipment because we don’t have preschool. We want to remove the preschool equipment and make that a basketball court and a four square and volleyball and it would of course be accessible to the entire neighborhood. We feel it would really benefit that area of town. We thank you for your consideration. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Mary Jordan, Executive Director, Nashua Adult Learning Center Thank you for this opportunity. We are celebrating our 40th anniversary this year. The City deeded the former Crowley School to the Nashua Adult Learning Center I think it was in 1980 or 1981, and since then we have done three major capital campaigns with leadership gifts from the City of Nashua CDBG funds, and have invested over $2 million in the building. It is really spectacular. We will be inviting you to an event in May so you can see for yourself what the building is like now. This request is for a retaining wall that is part of the original building that was constructed in 1924. It is the parking lot and then there is a drop of about maybe 7-9’, which is the retaining wall piece of it, and then at the bottom on the south side is Rotary Park with the Labyrinth and all of the construction that has been done there. The retaining wall has significant cracks in it from maybe 7” at the top and then coming down from there. It really is crumbling. You have in your packet an architectural study and some estimates on the repair and some options whether it could be completely demolished and rebuilt or repaired or replaced. The Adult Learning Center we have over 3,000 clients a year, they are overwhelmingly low-income, under- educated. The past few years, I’m sure you probably know this, but we have had political refugees from Somalia, Ruwanda, people who have been in detention camps before they came here for many years, children who have been raised in detention camps, and it certainly has enriched us and we’ve learned as much from those refugees and immigrants as they are learning from us and learning to speak English and to become part of the community. We’re very grateful to the City. We love our building. We don’t want our parking lot to collapse and it looks like it might. We would be very grateful for some assistance. Thank you. Chairman Wilshire Thank you. Is there anyone else that wants to give testimony during the public hearing? Human Affairs Public Hrg 02/02/12 Page 12 TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION - None TESTIMONY IN FAVOR – None TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION – None The Public Hearing was declared closed at 7:45 p.m. Alderman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Committee Clerk