Good evening everyone and welcome to the second discussion of our community conversation series This is where we are dealing with racism and reforms which is being hosted by the town of Arlington and co-sponsored by the Arlington Human Rights Commission The visions incorporated the APD assessment presentation has been moved by the way just so you know to Monday July 27th at 7 p.m. Tonight's panel discussion will be centered around housing and racism We are going to be going over some ground rules in just a minute and expectations for tonight And then we're going to hear from our panelists and go into some questions and answer sessions at the end of that first I want to introduce myself My name is crystal Haynes. I'm a reporter an anchor reporter at Boston 25 news There I have a housing series called priced out which has been nominated for a few Emmys which I'm proud to say So these conversations are so important to especially the folks in the Commonwealth and right here in Arlington And as a community member here in Arlington I was excited to be able to moderate today's panel as well Just to give you a little bit more of an introduction of the folks that you're seeing on your screen Leon Andrews Jr. was appointed the inaugural director of the race equity and leadership reel at the National League of Cities And currently serves as the chair of the board for the National Recreation and Parks Association Manisha butra is an AICP AICP is certified as a city planner and works as a senior associate at Beacon leadership collaborative as well as A sole proprietor offering workshop facilitation and public process consultation and Catherine Levine Einstein is an associate professor of political science at Boston University And a faculty fellow at Boston University's initiative on cities. She's also one of the authors of a of the book neighborhood defenders participatory politics and America's housing crisis And welcome to you all today. Thank you so much for joining us for this really important conversation we're having here in community So first I want to go over some ground rules because we are obviously meet meeting up virtual tonight and we have so much to go through so we want to make sure that we address all of your questions and facilitate being able to continue these conversations The session will be recorded and is being live streamed and will be available through ACMI as well. Now the chat box has been turned off, but you can submit your questions and answers, and that will all be documented. Here are some ground rules here we have the responsibility to respect and build on the strength that diversity provides we will engage in polite and constructive and or productive dialogue and feedback. We will respectfully disagree with each other. These are difficult subjects and we understand that unless you are a designated representative of an organization opinions are considered your own. When sharing a question please be short and to the point we do have a limited time frame here. We want to respect everyone's time and we want to use this moment in space to take some time to allow for self reflection. Take deep breaths throughout this make sure you are sinking in to all of these. The information is being presented to us today and as we begin. I want to provide a moment of self reflection for everyone to consider these questions as you are listening to our panelists today. All right. When did I or my family moved to Arlington and what brought me or us here. What do I know about the neighborhoods of Arlington and the surrounding communities. What are their physical characteristics. Do neighborhoods vary with regards to income racial makeup or with regards to other social and economic characteristics. Are there stereotypes or realities about these different places. So keep all those things in mind as we move you through a lot of really important information and please again you can in the chat box has been disabled but you can put questions up in the Q&A there. So first up we want to move into our discussion piece and speak with Leon Andrews and Leon is going to be talking about the role of the National League of Cities and corresponding work in Arlington and the region. Thank you Crystal. I will share my screen. Can everyone see that great thumbs up if you can hear me. Good. Great. So it's great to be with everyone today and looking forward to the discussion that we have. I would I wanted to really frame this from a national level and maybe name some things that I think hopefully will tee up a more localized discussion. I think we all have been seeing the rising tension the protests and the uprisings that have happened in the last month with George Floyd Breonna Taylor among Aubrey and so many others. And this is obviously not the first time we've been here as a country. And but what we are seeing is that in the last month over 1000 cities towns and villages have really been seeing the protest uprisings that are happening. And this is all sizes and in every part of our country. I thought this quote from the late Dr. Maya Angelou I thought really spoke to the moment really do I think it's important as we talk about the importance of these conversations. For quote prejudice is a burden that confuses the past. It threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible for me really spoke to this moment. For me it says our inability to be able to have these conversations to be explicit about the kinds of conversations we need to have as a community to be willing to lean into the uncomfortable. We'll only find ourselves coming back to this issue a year from now five years from now 15 years from now 50 years from now. And I think that's the work the work is not where I think we were five years ago which is so many cities and towns were saying well we didn't want to be a Ferguson. Everyone remembered where we were when we saw Ferguson and a lot of cities were not in city leaders were not necessarily ready to respond. And so the response we were hearing from city leaders was help us avoid that from happening. I think that's a very different conversation where we're hearing from leadership now and city leaders across this country it's not about preventing further conflict. It really is what do we need to do to address the systemic inequities. The issues of racism systemic and structural and I think that from that perspective. Our work real which has been around now for the last five years is really well positioned to support city leaders that are in the space. Our mission our goal is to strengthen local leaders knowledge and capacity to eliminate racial disparities to heal racial tensions and to build more equitable communities. And in that space we offer a number of things for city leaders trainings capacity building technical assistance network building with other city leaders across this country and also the recognition that this work is not isolated to one population. When we talk about issues of racial equity how it intersects with issues of LGBTQ women and girls boys boys and men of color. Our religiously persecuted population our indigenous community realizing there's so many intersections in this work and that's going to be so important as we have these conversations of understanding the nuances and the complexities that are connected to that. And so in the last five years we have been in over 400 cities towns and villages across this country. We recognize that it's not this issue is not just happening in one segment of our country it's happening across the country we are. It's our pleasure to be working with the town of Arlington as they have been on this journey for the last several months and last year or so. And so that has been a part of our work also want to acknowledge our partners in the space want to give them a shout out they've been good partners with us. Our government Alliance for race and equity gear. A really good partner we don't see has had a formal partnership with them a lot of the content that we have shaped has been not to reinvent the wheel and learn from good partners like gear and so many others that are out there. And the reason why I bring that up is because of the framework that we use the framework we use is very much tied to our partners at gear. This the need to create spaces like we're having today to normalize a conversation on racial on racial equity on terminology that we use what do we mean when we say certain things and how do we create the space to normalize it's really critical. A lot of work we do in that space. And then once we do some of the normalizing work and just acknowledge normalizing is ongoing you never reached a point where you have fully normalized right it's a commitment to ongoing normalizing as a city as a town. But then you also want to equip yourself with tools operationalizing it looking at data, looking at how we are looking at disaggregation of data and its impact in your in your town. And then what's the organizing that needs to happen what's the infrastructure that needs to be built what's the partnerships that need to be in place. And a lot of what you're seeing today and I think that's also tied to the larger commitment of Arlington is really trying to implement all three of these components. And while my job today is not to go through all three. I do want to make sure we're naming the things I think are important in our normalizing for our conversation today at a larger level. So the first just to be very clear why we lead with race. We lead with race because the data takes us there. When we talk about the data from infant mortality to life expectancy. Race is still the strongest predictor of one success in this country. And so that's whether we're talking about education or housing or health or environment. Race is still the strongest predictor. Right and the data takes us there and this is just an example of a data points this was a study that was done by the Center for Disease Control looking at maternal mortality rates of women across the country. It isolated for the women's background how much money she made her education where she where she where she lived in the regionally. And what we found is that black women were still two to three times higher to have higher rates of maternal mortality. And so there the question is if race is predicting that why why is that it's not just naming the disparity but getting to the why to the root cause which is why it's important to understand the data and then be able to ask the questions the root root cause questions. So we'll be very clear that we're not just talking about maternal mortality rates. We're talking about how we understand race being the strongest predictor as we look at a range of indicators from our education criminal justice unemployment and yes even our housing and housing costs. And I wanted to name that because we're leading with race and understanding why we lead with race is so important. So then just from a normalizing standpoint if we know race is still the strongest predictor of one success. If you're hearing the term racial equity racial equity is closing the gaps. So race doesn't predict one success while improving outcomes for everyone. And so that's the goal of why we are centering racial equity and so if we know that race is predicting one success what do we need to do to be targeted in our in our efforts. A term referred to as targeted universalism by Dr. John Powell targeted in our process but universal in our goals. And so to be able to do that we have to go beyond services we got to get to the root causes we have to be able to understand the systemic inequities which is absolutely critical. And so I named all of that but I can't also not make sure I'm naming if we're going to have this conversation talking about racism. And so to be able to talk about racism is to understand racism as a system that it's interconnected among individual racism institutional racism and structural racism. And really importantly in this conversation to understand not just how they're connected but to know from a policy standpoint which is what this conversation will be about that there were policies practices procedures that have benefited white people over communities of color. Many times intentionally and sometimes unintentionally right and it didn't just happen in one institution it has happened in multiple institutions. And so the multiple institutions is what structural racism is. And so if you're hearing the terminology I just want to make sure we're naming the difference between institutional racism is acknowledging it's happened in one institution structural racism is acknowledging it's happened in multiple institutions. And systemic racism is acknowledging that these are racism exists across multiple levels. And so I know I said a whole lot and I thought it was really important to name that but I also want to make sure I bring it in a way that I hope is compelling enough. And so I have this very short video I want to be able to play from a longer documentary called the house we live in I hope it names it and hopefully compels the framing of the conversation. So I'm going to queue that up and hopefully allow that to help us. It was a time when hundreds of thousands of GIs came home ready to start families but had no place to live. In the 1930s the federal government created the federal housing administration whose job it was to provide loans or the backing for loans to average Americans that could purchase a home. Federal programs and banks sank millions into the home construction industry. Their message to veterans you can afford a new home by a new home now. Tax dollars help make the single family home a mass produced consumer item. The American dream had a new name. We came to Leviton and we found the model house and we walked in and we looked around. And of course in the eyes of a young man who was raised in the ghetto so to speak. It was an interesting experience the interesting lifestyle seeing all the new modern conveniences. Very fascinating. Eugene Bernat came home with almost a million other black GIs. They had fought for the country in segregated ranks. They returned hoping for equality and the American dream. For many that dream was a new home for little money down and some of the easiest credit terms in history. I went up to the salesman. We're interested in your home. We're interested in buying one. And what is the procedure is there an application to be filled out so far. So he looked at me looked around and he said to me says listen it's not me but the owners of this development have not as yet decided to sell these homes to me girls. The FHA underwriters warned that the presence of even one or two non-white families could undermine real estate values in the new suburbs. These government guidelines were widely adopted by private industry. Race had long played a role in local real estate practices. Starting in the 1930s government officials institutionalized a national appraisal system where race was as much a factor in real estate assessment as the condition of the property. Using this scheme federal investigators evaluated 239 cities across the country for financial risk. So that those communities that were all wide suburban and far away from minority areas they received the highest rating and that was the color green. Those communities that were all minority or in the process of changing they got the lowest rating and the color red. They were redlined. As a consequence most of the mortgages went to suburbanizing America and it's suburbanized it racially. As homes in white communities appreciated in value the net worth of these white families grew. For most non-white families who stayed in urban neighborhoods the housing market open to them in the 50s and 60s was largely a rental market. You don't gain equity by paying rent where once family lives in America is not just a matter of taste and preference. You have the issue of housing and wealth. The majority of Americans hold most of their wealth in the form of home equity. So that's their nest egg. That's how they can finance the education of their offspring. That's how they can sort of save up for retirement. It's their savings bank right. They're living in their savings bank. My family like a lot of families in Detroit is struggling to buy a house. You had a dual housing market one white one black housing market one with a lot of demand another housing market with very little demand. My father lives in the house that I grew up in the house today five bedroom house worth about $20,000. The same house bought in the suburbs would be worked today about $320,000. So whites moving to the suburb were being subsidized in the accumulation of wealth while blacks were being divested. And these were public policy decisions in which on one hand people were given access to property given title and subsequently wealth. And on another hand where people were not given access to property did not generate wealth and did not generate the kind of opportunity for the next generation. So I hope that the that short video gives you a little bit of more framing on some of the terminology and some of the history. And as we delve into this conversation to know that while that broader framing acknowledges our history that history has impacted our present. I encourage you to watch the full video again it's called the house we live in by a three part series race to power of illusion. But I'm looking forward to us going a little bit deeper and really understanding the implications of redlining not just redlining but a number of other issues that really play out as we look at our own history here in Arlington. So I leave you with this quote I hope you lean into this as we have our conversation that we're no longer accepting the things I can we cannot change we're changing the things we cannot accept. Thanks. Very well said thank you so much Leon for that and I think that that was a great way to sort of tee up this conversation by with that video and the voices that we heard there and we hope to continue this conversation in Arlington. To do a deeper dive into the issues about housing policy and land use and of course redlining like we just heard from that video that Leon was speaking about we're going to invite into the conversation Catherine Levine Einstein. Thanks so much and thank you Leon for that really that's really helpful framing remarks. They said really nicely. Sort of where I wanted to begin my conversation here. And so first I just want to make sure can everyone see my screen I just shared it thumbs up if people can see it. Awesome. Okay. So I first actually want to introduce myself to folks in addition to being a faculty member at Boston University and studying this policy area I'm also a resident of Arlington live in the Heights and so if you ever run into me. I'm happy to talk about these issues. Further if you have questions or things that you know you want to push against a little I always love to talk about land use and racism housing policy and zoning. So Leon I think did a really nice job of laying out what redlining is. And so I wanted to begin by just giving everyone a bit of a framework on what redlining looked like in in the Boston area and in Greater Boston. And so this is just a map that shows us Katie. Sorry to interrupt. We see the Google Doc instead of your slide. Shoot I am sorry about that. Thank you. Let me go back to the share screen and get the right one. All right. There we go. Math now. Beautiful. So this is the the map of redlining and sort of the importance of thinking regionally right so but I hope that folks can take away from looking at this map here is in really thinking about sort of how how do one think about sort of how do you think about different parts of the region and their decisions really sort of affect one another. And to how much of the way that Arlington and Metropolitan Boston what they look like today how much this is very much shaped by decisions deliberate government decision making right. And so here you can see sort of the circled part in Arlington. There are no redlined areas in Arlington. There was no part of Arlington that was declared sort of off limits for federally backed mortgages during this time period. In contrast right we start to look at other areas of the Boston Metro region and there were a lot of parts that were redlined and also for those who sort of think about how that matches up with demographics today. Those are disproportionately homes to black and Latinx residents. And so again those decisions that were made back in the 1930s have really important impacts today and Arlington sort of doesn't exist just as an island in this way. And so where I want to move is thinking about both redlining but really linking it with a lot of other important government decision making. So redlining is this really important set of public policies that was done by the federal government and private banks. But it was done in concert with a lot of other really important government decisions. And so one of those important government decisions is again at the federal level these federally backed mortgage insurance policies that were done by the federal housing administration and veterans administration through loans. They're also racial covenants and I know that Manisha is going to talk about some of those issues in her presentation and how it applies to Arlington. And that's something that's done both by homeowners associations and at the local level. There's also zoning and land use regulations that are done at the local level. And all of these policies have really helped to reinforce each other. I'm going to spend a bit of the rest of the time today that I have talking with you guys about zoning and land use because that is the policy lever over which local governments have most directly control. And since this is a local government forum I thought it would be a really productive place to focus our energies is thinking about how this policy institution over which local governments have direct control may shape the way that our neighborhoods look both in very sort of deliberate ways and ways that may be a bit more subtle. So over the last few years there's been two just killer books that have come out one the color of law by Richard Rothstein and the other segregation by design by Jessica Trounstein that do an absolutely incredible job through a mix of archival research and statistical evidence to show us that zoning on land use regulations were very much created in the United States to segregate our communities by race and by class. The fact that places with more land use regulations are also more racially segregated. This is not an accident. This is very much a decision that was made back in the first part of the 1900s through present day to deliberately segregate our communities. And one really important takeaway from this research is that regulations don't have to mention race to have racially disparate impacts. Right.  But these regulations could also be more subtle. They could be things like single family zoning saying that a neighborhood could only have single family homes. It turns out that that has a really similar effect in terms of producing racial and class based segregation. We also have this incredibly robust finding across a huge number of studies in housing policy and economics research that shows us that places that have more land use regulations have higher housing costs and higher levels of racial and class based segregation. Again this is like one of the most consistent and powerful findings in housing policy research that replicates across a huge number of studies. And it turns out that if you restrict multi family housing by say only allowing single family houses it both makes the housing more expensive in those communities and it also segregates white people from black and Latinx people. Importantly we've also found in research that land use regulations make it harder for important federal government affordable housing programs like public housing and low income housing tax credits to operate effectively. So these local regulations both have a direct effect on the housing supply and also shape the federal government's ability if it is so inclined to provide infusions for affordable housing. So what we do at the local level on zoning is so so important. I really want to flag because this is a common misconception that I hear from folks about zoning that just because you have an inclusionary zoning ordinance. This does not mean that your zoning is inclusive and that your land use is inclusive. You can have an inclusionary zoning ordinance and still be an exclusionary community. One of the best local examples of this which comes from phenomenal research by a local resident named Amy Dain is Dover Massachusetts whose inclusionary zoning ordinance requires all new developments above a certain size to make 25% of their units affordable which sounds amazing as someone who supports affordable housing deeply that sounds on its face wonderful. There have been no new units of affordable housing produced under that inclusionary zoning ordinance because it in practice makes it so hard to build in the community that nothing gets built. So I just want to flag that just because there are certain language used in zoning ordinances that seem inclusive. It does not mean that the land use policy itself in a community is inclusive. So one of the things that I really was deeply interested in after reading these incredibly important works about racism and land use regulations were some of the more subtle ways that racism might manifest in land use. And so along with some BU colleagues Max Palmer and David Glick I really wanted to dig deeper to understand how land use affects local politics and creates profound political inequalities in our local landscape. And so one of the really important features about land use regulations in the United States is that they create opportunities for neighborhood participants to stop or delay the construction of new housing both big units and big projects and small projects. And that this political power contributes to exploding exploding housing costs in the United States and also empowers a really unrepresentative group of older white homeowners to essentially control their neighborhoods. And so just to give folks who may not have been involved in land use politics like a brief primer about how this works is that because of the way that land use is set up in the United States. Neighbors and butters are officially invited to participate in the housing development process when the housing is essentially bigger than a certain sort of by right side. And what this does is it empowers neighborhood associations and neighborhood councils as well as property owners. And it certainly this is not just a story that's limited to housing with the though that is our sort of focus here. And this is very much by design and urban planning that these land use regulations were designed to really empower these neighborhood voices. But the question is is this actually sort of good for neighborhood democracy or is this actually empowering the most privileged voices the whitest voices in the community to control what happens. And so my colleagues and I wanted to dig deep to understand who participates in these neighborhood forums. And so to do this we did a deep dive into land use politics in Massachusetts including in Arlington over a three year period. So we looked at every single planning and zoning board meeting minute and there are thousands of pages of them in 97 cities and towns in Massachusetts. And we collected data on every single meeting that involved the construction of more than one housing which includes everything from infill development like accessory apartments to really big apartment complexes. And the meeting minutes from these cities and towns we learned the name addresses and the positions on proposed housing developments of folks who spoke out at these forums. And we also in some cases learned the reasons that people gave for opposing or supporting a project. So we learned a lot about 3,300 commenters who made 4,200 comments across a bunch of Massachusetts cities and towns over this period. And so from these meeting minutes just reading these meeting minutes we can learn the positions taken and the reasons that folks gave for those positions. But we can also learn a ton about the demographics of these individuals because we have their addresses. And so we were actually able to merge this information with the Massachusetts voter file and some property records to learn whether or not these folks owned homes. Well, how they were what their partisan identification was how long they've lived somewhat there their vote history and we could use their race using a name matching algorithm that I'm happy to chat more about if people are interested. And so the big punchline that we found is that these neighborhood meetings are producing profound political inequality. The people who show up to speak about housing developments are deeply unrepresentative of their broader communities and they're much more privileged than their broader communities. So they're dramatically more likely to be homeless. They're much more likely to be over the age of 50. There are also 8 percentage points more likely to be white and Latinx people in particular were severely underrepresented at these forums. They are 8% of voters in these 97 cities and towns and only 1% of commenters in these cities and towns and men were also somewhat overrepresented in these forums. The people who show up to these meetings are also overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new housing. So only 14% of people show up to these these meetings to support a project. And this is true for projects that are overwhelmingly affordable in some cases exclusively affordable housing projects. This is also true for projects that are big. It's true for projects that are small. People do not show up to these hearings and it sort of espoused these pro housing positions. And so these forums that were on their faces these tools to empower neighborhoods have in practice become these instead tools for privileged white homeowners to block new housing opportunities from being built in their communities. And so one of the big takeaways from our research we found is that both advantaged people and advantaged communities are more likely to show up in opposition to the construction of all types of new housing. And so again thinking back to that map I showed you guys at the beginning of this presentation of Metropolitan Boston. What that means is in privileged communities like Arlington there are going to be way more people showing up to oppose housing than in more disadvantaged communities. And so this what it means is advantaged communities are disproportionately protected from development. But that doesn't mean development doesn't happen just because people in Arlington or Winchester and Belmont fight development. It doesn't mean that it magically goes away. Instead what we find is it gets really heavily concentrated in black and Latinx communities in the city of Boston which have just borne the brunt of the greater Boston development pressures. And so when we when we fight development right again just it doesn't go away the effects of development are really unevenly felt across metropolitan Boston. And so again just to really hit this home wealthy areas are better able to organize and to oppose housing and developers they know this they actually have buoyed some areas where they expect high opposition or propose much more scaled back projects. And so gentrifying areas bear the brunt of development pressures which makes it really hard to build good coalitions around market rate and affordable housing it makes housing politics really challenging. And so just to quickly conclude what I want to emphasize here is I think land use reform is incredibly important. I think this is a critical part of combating racism and segregation and housing. But you notice right I put the part in red it is a part of addressing the housing crisis and I don't think there's anyone out there that thinks that zoning alone is going to solve the housing crisis. But it is a necessary first step because if we do not make it possible to build multi family housing and affordable housing easily and cheaply it will not happen. If people are interested in this data for progress has put out a report called homes for all which lays at this point really well that local governments can control the land use and that if we want to get more funding for affordable housing. We also need to simultaneously be lobbying our federal and state governments to be really supporting affordable housing to be supporting renters in a variety of ways. So I want to thank everyone for joining this forum it's so exciting to see so many people participating. And again I just wanted to flag this is collaborative research with my colleagues at Boston University who I'm really grateful helped with this work so thank you. Thank you so much Catherine that was a tremendous work and a lot of information again we're going to be posting this entire presentation of online so that if you all need to go back if you need to skip and skip forward and backwards to really digest this information we're going to have that available to you. Up next I want to talk about what this means for us here at home right here in Arlington and Manisha butra she's going to be answering some of those questions. Start my video again I don't I have a message. You'll see my. My PowerPoint screen now. Great. So good evening everyone I'm Manisha butra. I am a professional city planner I also live in Melrose where I've served in elected office as well as previously on our human rights commission. Melrose and Arlington have a share a lot of similarities we're both streetcar suburbs meaning that we were developed around the turn of the century in the early early 20th century. We are both communities along the end of the in Arlington's case the MBTA red line and in Melrose's case the orange line. So when I was doing kind of a deep dive into some of what I see in Arlington I saw a lot of similarities to what I've seen here at home and I really appreciate you all for letting me kind of dive into what's happening in Arlington. So to kind of loop back to some of the questions. At the beginning of our presentations tonight. Sorry can you just make your PowerPoint full screen. Okay so it's showing me a different thank you. What's I couldn't tell which screen it was. What it's doing this funny. Sorry technical difficulties. It's showing the wrong.  Sorry. There we go. Now it's hopefully is that the full screen version now. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So the questions we wanted to start with are you know things just to think about. I think Leon and Katie gave some really great overviews of things that you know have happened around the country as well as thinking about things here in Arlington and I want to you know as we think about race and housing. There's sort of the data and the maps and the patterns and the persistent aspects of residential segregation. And then there's also what does it mean to be part of a community so I'm thinking about you know when did you or your family move here and what brought you here. What do you know about the neighborhoods of this community and surrounding communities. Think about sort of developing like a mental map of the different neighborhoods. Things maybe you've heard whether it's the physical characteristics and both family homes. Higher rise apartment buildings and features like water and roadways things like that. But also how did the neighborhoods vary with regards to income racial makeup or with regards to other social and economic characteristics. Are there stereotypes here about whether it's Arlington or about the surrounding communities and and how do those match up with with your experience or the realities you face. And then thinking further how you know as I show some demographic data and some maps. How does what you know match up with the data and does just looking at some data and some maps change your perspective. How did this community come to be this Arlington before it was Arlington was initially a place where the Massachusetts tribe lived roadways like Mass Ave were roadways that date back to pre colonial time. And water bodies like spy pond date back to those times as well. Do we think about what happened before colonization European settlers arrived around 1635 and their homes along Arlington along Massachusetts Avenue and and other older parts of the city that date back to the American Revolution. And you may share the pride of being part of those initial battles of the American Revolution. When Paul Revere did his midnight ride as well as William Dawes one of the things I was thinking about and preparing for this or how even back in the 1700s Arlington was part of a region. William Dawes came from what is from Roxbury to start his ride and Paul Revere came up through Medford starting in the north end. And and then later you know again I mentioned the street cars and expansion out from Boston and Cambridge. The extension of the MBTA red line into Arlington and as we think about our community thinking about what is the relationship Arlington has to the surrounding region. So Arlington has been experiencing a lot of recent growth on both in terms of school enrollment but also make you know if you look at the chart on the upper right shows school enrollment and then the lower right is the year most people each the year people moved into their current home. So as you can see on this chart more than three quarters of the power around three quarters of the population moved into Arlington into their current place of residence on two thousands. So there's a lot of there's been a lot of movement but really this the city the town. I think I think your slide is is not advancing. I think. I'm sorry. I'm thinking the wrong screens and there we go. OK. Here's our slides. I'm sorry about that. Thank you for interrupting me. So the top rate shows how school enrollments grown since the early 90s. But I like to show kind of this historical look because it shows that that that all those school enrollment has grown recently. It dipped in the early 90s and a movement has happened in the community. Everything OK now. Just heard another. Yeah. Yeah. We're not. I don't know if you're sharing the right screen because we're not seeing any slides at all just you know. Oh gosh. I don't know what's happening. Sorry. That's OK. Great information though. So when I finally get back to the slide what you'll see is OK. Do you see false. We do. Yes. OK. I have no idea how I stopped that. But you know. Zoom webinar. So. So the two charts show that there's been a lot of recent movement. But the chart on the left is shows that the town's population actually peaked in 1970 and then dipped. So a lot of times when people talk about the population growth and change that's happened we're looking at a shorter time frame on more recent history. And it's important to keep in mind that the population has changed significantly and increased and decreased over time. Arlington's median household incomes around a hundred and seven thousand dollars median value of owner occupied homes the homeowners median house prices 609 thousand eight hundred dollars and the mix between owners and renters is about 60 percent of households are owner occupied and 40 percent are renter occupied. And the chart on the right shows the income level of renter households by income and owner households by income. As you can see owners typically have a higher income level. So these are some charts off of the town website regarding the income level the maximum income limit that folks can have in order to be eligible for affordable housing. I included this because a lot of times when we talk about affordable housing it's not always clear what thresholds we're talking about. So the average household size for for the region. This is not Arlington specific but the region is around 2.5 people. So you know small families and the regional metro region median household incomes around eighty eight thousand or close to eighty nine thousand dollars per household and close to eighty thousand for the state as a whole. If you look at the numbers for a family of four you kind of get a context for rental housing through the housing corporation of Arlington income level would be about seventy one thousand dollars or about ninety six thousand dollars for first time home buyers and other rental housing. Forgetting it doesn't switch on both screens. So I'm now to talk about a little bit about race and other types of diversity including ethnicity for in bond for in population and language spoken at home and this chart on their way is Arlington in comparison with your neighbors as well as Boston. Which you can see is that on the sort of teal color is the non Hispanic white population. Arlington is one of is the second to least diverse of of your neighbors. And you've got about 20% foreign born population and about 22% speak the language other than English at home. So in terms of thinking about being welcoming and inclusive how are we thinking about language about ways to support. People of other races and ethnicities who are non white and then I'm diving into zoning and land use policy and so Katie talked a little bit about sort of the challenge with building housing and with single family zoning. The light yellow on the zoning map is single family residential zoning that sort of medium darker yellow is two families and you can see those are the two housing types that that are dominant in Arlington and the chart on the left shows Arlington again in comparison with neighbors. There is a little more housing diversity than some of the other suburban communities. But, but when it comes for most are for one and two families. I also included this map of CBBG community development block grant eligible block groups, personally because I think what really jumped out to me is is the land use pattern that you see of where the low and moderate income census tracks and block groups are. So this is a little bit of repeat from what Katie presented earlier. And this is the map of the maps of the region from the 1938 residential security maps which we often refer to as the redlining maps. We included I included the whole region just so you can get a sense of where Arlington is in context and where some of those so called redlined areas are, which you'll see in Boston in Cambridge in Malden and some of the other communities. So this, this is a close up of the Arlington map. And I just pulled out on this website, which is what is it called, I'm mapping inequality, I believe is what it's called. And I have the link on the slide. It does some really great it pulls out some some of the particularly shocking things that are shown in the notes for these maps so I just included some of the ones that they highlighted for Boston, Cambridge Arlington. And you can see if you're reading the screen and I'm hesitant to read them because they're pretty offensive in some cases but basically discriminating against folks by religion. And Jewish buyers discriminating against Asian folks which are called Oriental in this in this on these maps. Black and African American folks and and foreigners. And these terms such as infiltration. And now the three maps they showed put together you've got the zoning map the present day zoning map, the the redlining map and the CDBG block grant map. Again, the green was the sort of highest value neighborhoods blue was and sort of still good and the yellow was considered declining with infiltration. So Arlington does have a mix, even though it didn't have any of those those neighborhoods considered hazardous. So one of the things that some neighbors in Arlington brought to our attention was racial covenant I that that a neighbor found when doing research on his property. This is from 1923 a racially restrictive covenant on his the details property. And it actually applies to a whole neighborhood. I pulled out the relevant text but effectively it says no sale or lease of any of said lots shall be made to color people nor any dwelling erected on any of said lots be sold to or occupied by colored people. This covenant applies to over 200 parcels south of Lake Street East of the minimum bike way and west of Mass Ave, as well as both straight sides of Barnum Street on the south. And so it did like a few minutes of research on this and thanks to local historian Richard Duffy I found this article about about the Allen family which which is the where the owners of this land that got subdivided. Abbott Allen initially came to Arlington or then West Cambridge to to take a manufacturing job and then when he got married he moved into he took over his wife's family's farm and he also served as the town treasurer. This really struck me because when it was sort of that ability to to move from from having a manufacturing job into being able to own property and and to make income off of it as well as to gain prominence in the community and have have have some power. And then the the next generation expanded land holdings and his grandson actually took the land that we saw in the previous slide and subdivided it for residential development and family names were used for the streets. Herbert Allen went on to build other large projects and his brother moved the farming operation out to conquered to 168 acres. This really struck me as an example of being able to build generational wealth and when you couple that with the racially restricted covenants on that land it kind of starts to build a picture it means start to build a picture in your mind. So that brought to mind the Boston Globe 2017 spotlight series and ideas are brown generational wealth as well as net worth of of people of color but specifically black Bostonians or people in metropolitan Boston who are black and African American. The median net worth of black Bostonians really is $8 as the headline says those were just a few kind of again patterns and statistics to get you thinking about what is the big picture what is the house we live in that Leon shared which is about maybe showed examples of suburbanization from other parts of the country and and the historical trends that Katie talked about bringing it back to the community and some of the things that we hear over and over in this work not just in Arlington but in so many of our communities is we're full what does it mean to we can't have more people here and again I showed that Arlington actually used to have a lot more people than we do now and we want to preserve the character of our town how might those words sit with you if you're new to the community or if you are in the minority what does it mean to have local preference for for new housing projects there is certainly a crisis of being of people families wanting their next generations to be able to live close to where they are but what does that choice mean in terms of metropolitan mobility and other people who want to be able to get into the market and and sort of this idea I didn't grow up in Massachusetts I grew up in the Midwest in Iowa and one of the things that was always really striking to me was this idea that you really have to be like generations or or at least be born or have your childhood in a place to be really considered to be from a city or town in Massachusetts and that was true when I lived in Cambridge it's true when I live now here in Melrose and certainly I believe it's probably true for a lot of folks in Arlington so what does it mean when people always feel like they have to justify that they're new I didn't include the video but I highly recommend the sort of four minutes in this 30 minute video minutes 11 to 15 from Dr. Robin DiAngelo she's this is before she wrote her now bestseller book on white fragility but this is a video called deconstructing white privilege with Dr. Robin DiAngelo and so I just pulled out a few quotes the most profound example of everyday racism is segregation what do we mean when we say good or bad schools or neighborhoods it's coded language how are race and segregation how do they shape us she says I've had to think very deeply on what it means to have grown up in a primarily white neighborhood living life and segregation and to not have one single person who loved mentored guided me to convey that there was any loss I can live my whole life in segregation in fact if I follow the trajectory that my loving parents laid out for me in my good neighborhood and my good school and my good college and my good career in which I would ideally rise to the top I could easily never have any consistent ongoing authentic relationships people of color and not one person who guided me ever conveyed that there was loss just sit with that for a moment that there is no inherent value in the perspective or experiences of people of color if my parents if my schools if my curriculum if my teachers if my government saw value in those perspectives I would be given those perspectives but I wasn't and that shapes my relationships it shapes what I care about it shapes what I see what I don't see who I build my life with and who I don't build my life with I shared that because it sort of really strikes me a lot of times when we talk about race we're talking about opportunity an opportunity gap for the black and Latinx population and for other groups that are disadvantaged in some way economically as well as with access and opportunity in other ways but really this to me conveyed the value for all of us in diversifying our communities so where do we go from here I hope that you are able to observe some patterns and think about maybe how can town government help who is represented at town meeting government in in town governance and on town as well as maybe nonprofit boards and institutional boards and committees who are the decision makers in town and are they representative of the of issues are on race but also people with lived experiences around race what can residents and other community members do what can you do what does it mean to belong to a community and what are we missing out on by living in a segregated community so with that I'm going to turn it back over to Crystal and hopefully we'll have some time for some Q&A that's exactly right Mamisha that's where we're going to move this program on because we've gotten a lot of great discussion that's happening in the chats we do want to remind folks to be mindful of the ground rules because we want this to be a discussion where everyone can participate and feel like this is a safe space for that to happen but I really one of the few things that one of the things rather that came up a few times was addressing this recent study that came out with from the Boston Foundation and Suffolk University that found examples of discrimination of black people and folks with a section 8 voucher housing voucher and that discrimination being found in cities like and communities like Arlington and so I know we were speaking with the panelists about this earlier and Catherine you're familiar with this data so I want to have you jump in here to talk a little bit about that and what it means to this discussion and how we can do better yeah so first for folks who like we're are familiar with the findings of this study and just to briefly give you guys background on that what this study found so it sent out essentially identical black perspective renters and white perspective renters to go out into the greater Boston area to try to find apartments they contacted landlords they contacted realtors and the findings just are I think have sent shock waves into the housing community I think everyone knew that there was racism in greater Boston housing markets but the magnitude of the effect is just unreal so black renters were over 30 percentage points less likely to be shown an apartment and to get a response relative to white renters and that is just an incredible level of private market discrimination and so what I want to help folks in the call to do is to first sort of contextualize this with the information dump you've just had from really great presentations from the nation from Leon and then to think about like what we can do here in Arlington to solve this and so what the presentation today have hopefully outlined for you is that there have been deliberate government actions at the federal level with things like redlining and at the local level of things like zoning to segregate communities the private market has also really helped out in segregating communities and has been a really powerful contributor and so discrimination by landlords and discrimination by realtors has been a really big part of the story as well and so what that Boston Globe Suffolk University report really speaks to is sort of the private market role in all of this and so again when we look at that private market discrimination I wouldn't look to a policy like zoning or something like that to solve this issue I would look to something like fair housing law and figuring out ways that we can build legal cases against the folks who are engaging in discrimination right that's sort of one powerful tool that we can have our disposal and I would also look you know in the less punitive direction at what we can do to educate realtors and landlords about their sort of the discriminatory outcomes of their behavior right I think a lot of realtors most realtors landlords I hope are out there with sort of the best of attention and not looking to sort of engage in racist actions and so trying to bring awareness to that kind of what sort of their behavior is and what the outcomes have been for black people seeking rental housing in Boston and when you know one of the questions were when we're talking about defining affordable housing Arlington has battled for a long time about misunderstandings around what affordable housing is and what that term means especially as it meet what it means in terms of compliance with 40 B in Arlington what that means about building up or building out and so if one of you all can sort of answer answer some of those concerns we're getting a lot of questions about that. Yeah, yeah, I would, I would speak to that's a larger challenge for a lot of a number of cities and towns and I think as cities that are committed to centering racial equity in as part of the frame. I think the question of understanding what affordability is does require you to use a lens that maybe redefines affordability, you know, and it's a one example for instance with one city. As many know that affordability is usually based upon the air AMI the area area median income. And so in one city the area and I appreciate the data that was shared earlier by Manisha. The area median income in this city was very similar it was over 100,000 median income. And then when they started to disaggregated by race which is so important if you're centering racial equity. They started to realize well when you look at the median income for whites, it was about 880,000 for blacks, it was for Hispanics it was 55,000 and for 30, and for blacks it was 35,000. And so when they looked at their policy in this city they realized that affordability was defined at 80% of AMI. Well, if you look at 80% of AMI 80% of 100,000 is 80,000. So you are acknowledging that if you have a challenge on an ultimate data standpoint that shows racially that Latin X communities and black communities earn much less than that on the median. Then what are you going to do to be more intentional about policy that is coming up with a different strategy that's more intentional. And so, in this case the example that the city, by using a racial equity lens, create a policy that then set policy where it needed to be X percentage of affordable housing for people that were in the 30 to 60% of AMI 60 to 80% of AMI as well as under 30% of AMI. So acknowledging there was more intentionality about the policy so you're not reinforcing the inequities. And so that's just a great example for me of why data matters getting that data and what it means to be targeted. And I mentioned earlier that targeted universalism are you targeted in your process as you have universal goals of making it more affordable for everyone. Yeah, and Manisha you worked in in in city planning and city spaces and I think one of the questions we had here was talking about Arlington moving up like having, you know, more than a couple of stories and the misgivings about changing, I guess, what the nature of the community is and so how do we address that where some folks may be concerned about changing, I guess the landscape in inviting diversity and why that's important. Sure. So there's the number of different studies. I mean, I know Katie pointed to her own work as well as segregated by design and and the work that I did when I was both at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, as well as the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, all pointed to the need for additional housing production in order for us to be able to tackle our affordable housing crisis really across the region we don't have enough vacancy to really have a robust economy, which, whether we're talking about subsidized affordable housing or just really affordability in general. Yes, it does come down to a supply and demand issue. It's not only a supply and demand issue. I think a lot of also attention needs to be paid in terms of what's getting built and who it's getting built for. I think it's just behooves us to think about, you know, all the different elements that are required in a community do we want on. We need more housing. And I think sometimes there is that idea of character of a community. I think just really asking ourselves what is that what's really going to change if we if we go up in terms of density. I think for the most part there's not really a lot of other options were not a place where we can go out and out and out. But there's also just a there's advantages to staying dense because that means I think a lot of probably what people love about Wellington is their ability to have a relatively efficient commute in the days when we actually commute the ability to walk to to places around town and and enjoy the vibrancy of that community. There is a lot of value in allowing more people to be able to do that, whether we're talking about climate change, whether we're talking about just again, it's all interlinked. I think this is one of the things that I think we're all trying to reiterate is that it's it's so many different systems at play and needing to tackle our housing challenges through housing production is one of the ways we can start tackling some of those systemic issues. My technical difficulty Catherine I would have you weigh in here too because I know a lot of your work also talks about different types of housing so it doesn't have to be high rise apartment buildings in suburbs it can be different types of housing. Absolutely. And I think one of the really important things that I want folks to take away from some of the stuff that I presented is that we've made it not just really difficult to build big apartment building. We've made it really hard to build townhouses and so in a lot of communities like Arlington, those are going to be the way that we increase the housing supply in a way that sort of fits what the community is able to support right and so I want to stress that that these dynamics have really affected both of those types of projects. And I think the second point that I just want to flag that Manisha did a great job of highlighting as well is I think a lot of times when people here up zoning, they say we have enough housing or the housing costs are already so high here why aren't we building enough affordable housing. And I want to stress that there are sort of two separate problems going on in our housing markets right now in the Greater Boston area. We don't have enough market rate housing. Every study of Greater Boston has shown this that we're not producing enough market right housing, and it's made already expensive housing, crazy expensive and so we need to be building more market rate housing. And jointly we also need to be producing more affordable housing. I think the challenge there is when we're pressuring our local government, they have a lot of levers that help us build market rate housing. They don't have as many levers that are going to help us build large scale affordable housing projects that can help us get some affordable housing projects to but federal and state cutbacks have made the construction of many, many units of affordable housing as in, you know, publicly subsidized housing, really, really difficult at the local level and so I just hope that people can think about when they're angry about they're not being enough of a certain type of housing in their community, which is the right level of government that's sort of really responsible for that particular outcome. One of the other questions we had and I want you all to sort of both break down what this question might mean and what it what what the answer would be is, what is the intersection between single family zoning and racism. And so for folks who may not understand that just sort of break down what that means and I assume on its face it has something to do with make creating zoning laws where you're only creating single family households but but I'm not the expert you all are. Anybody can jump in. Yeah, I say I don't be sure if you had a gym and I'm happy to start and then have you because you talked about this issue as well. So I think another way to say single family zoning is that it bans apartment buildings right it makes apartment buildings and I think when you frame the zoning that way if you say it is now illegal to build anything more than one unit of housing in a particular place. It's exclusionary intent becomes clear. When we say you can only build single family housing in a neighborhood with that implicitly says and what the cities and towns that made that designation, we're saying is we only want people who can afford a single family house to live in this community. And when we build multi family housing in places. The housing stock becomes more affordable. This is something we've seen time and time again and so that's sort of what we think about the exclusionary intent both in terms of racing class I think that's a helpful starting point. I don't know any chef you wanted to jump in with more. You're still muted. I think that is where you would think I like haven't been using zoom for the last four months but um, so I was actually just looked up this really great article around from about Seattle zoning and it's called like, this is how you slow walk into a housing shortage, and it's about sort of over time how the zoning has become more and more restrictive. To the point where it's become so exclusionary so while you were talking I was trying to figure out how to post that into the Q&A. It's just an illustration of, we've gotten so used to these ideas of these like neighborhoods where housing types are separated and we really can have diversity of housing within neighborhoods in a way that we haven't seen in many of our lifetimes but that used to exist more commonly. I also want to ask because I think this question really struck me when we are taking questions from the community. Someone wrote to us, a friend who lives in a nearby town and is a person of color has been searching for a new place to live and told me that the person who's asking the question that Arlington is not on her list because she doesn't feel comfortable walking down the street here. And that makes this person very sad. What steps should the town be actively taking to make Arlington more welcoming to folks of color, especially when we're talking about this housing conversation and looking at housing and of course the Boston Foundation and Suffolk University study that shows that these barriers of discrimination exist and folks just trying to look for an apartment or look for a house. Leon, why don't you jump in here. Yeah, sorry I was trying to find my mute button. It's a great question. I would love to say that there is an easy answer to how do you build trust. I do think if there is a space where there is folks do not feel welcome. It's a question of why. Why, why is it that they do not feel welcome. And as a city, as a town. You know, is there a space to, I think, to acknowledge the spaces where you have not made it welcoming before if you're willing to kind of create the space to say like we want to be a space, a town that's more welcoming. And there's, I think, part of the history and narrative that we've been laying out that a lot of the history here is that there was an intentionality of this not being a town that was welcoming to people of color. Historically, when you look at redlining and racial covenants, and as there has been, I think, was Manisha laid out the data that continues to show policies that continue to reinforce that. So there is a pattern, right, and I think part of the work that the town and I know us working with with the city on this is creating more spaces for these very difficult conversations. And how are you acknowledging that there is more work to be done that allows for people to see by your actions that you also are acknowledging your history, but also committing to structural change. And I think both need to happen if people are going to really be willing to see that this is going beyond just checking the box to say we want to talk about it, but we really are committed to making some structural changes. So I don't have a, I've been trying to think about how to answer this question and like, I think most of us were people of color, or also women, you know, I think there's like a mental calculus that you quickly do to figure out whether this is a safe space. And so I've been trying to think about how to articulate what like what what is it that when I walk down the street, or in entering the town what is it that makes me feel like, yeah, I feel comfortable here and, and no I don't or I want to kind of some of that's based on our own, maybe stereotypes at times but a lot of times it's actually things that are just these subtle cues right on I think I know I so I used to live in Baltimore, and it was racially diverse but there weren't as many people like me there, and I remember looking into the data and finding that it was actually the place with the fewest percentage wise Asian people of any place I've lived, and sort of realizing that sometimes you just quickly see that when you're walking around. And so some of it is, you know, it'll become more welcoming as it becomes more diverse but, but also thinking about like what are signage, what are, how is the town inviting people into events, and just subtle language cues that we use to make things about sort of not us and them. I think that's something in Melrose I think about a lot is is that it's not, it's not how what can we do to make it more welcoming for you but it's like, how can we be a more welcoming community and how are we all part of a welcoming community together. That makes sense. One of the other questions that we're hearing is this conversation about towns investing more in affordable housing and divesting from other parts of government. What do you see in your research and whether that be anecdotal or or some of the studies that have been conducted is the best way to sort of address this issue and what I mean by that is is it grants that the town gives out as an incentives on the local level is an incentives on the state level. Is it changes in zoning. What's the best way to sort of get at this issue. So I guess I, I love a multi pronged approach like I think this is not as problem that any level of government can solve by itself. And, and so I absolutely you know I support the idea of local governments putting more of their resources into affordable housing, but local governments, especially in the era of COVID-19 are incredibly cash strapped. And frankly right now I think the best we can hope from local governments nationally is that they're able to institute some kind of eviction protections when they're able to I think rent relief funds for a lot of communities even are just going to be really hard for them to come up with on any meaningful scale. The ones that we are seeing have you know lotteries that are many, many times the size of sort of the number the dollar amounts they can actually provide. So when I look at the local government, I see them as the most effective thing they can do is make their land use accommodating of more housing and welcoming of affordable housing, especially. And I really see it as critical that the state and federal level in particular provide massive cash infusions, especially in this moment right now where renters in particular are just really really hurting. And so yeah I think that that's sort of thinking about the different levels of government together is really important. The only thing I'd add to that is I think there's a lot of local tools that exists like we have Community Preservation Act, there's grant funding that you know Katie mentioned there's a lot of tools that that don't they aren't you know taking resources away from local government which is kind of what I heard in that question it's not it's not sort of this either or proposition I think a lot of times it is investing in our town staff sometimes because they're the ones who need to apply for grants and meet the support from the community to be able to get the resources to do all the things which included including affordable housing. Yeah, yeah, I think the other piece for me that I think we've named at the beginning but make sure it's important not to get lost here is the importance of centering the voices of the black indigenous and people of color in the space and so you're asking a question that I think if you really are committed to centering racial equity their voices and understanding and of what they're looking for what they need. What kind of results are you trying to set for the for affordability. I feel like that that needs to be front and center right and and as you're driving the strategy so I don't want that to get lost because we come with frames but we don't come with all the answers and there's not one city or town that has figured all of this out right and I think but we do know how important it is to center voices and in in the work we do. Excellent and Leon you actually just teed itself because as we were just sort of wrapping up our conversation but I want to make sure that folks know that in our next series we're going to be elevating suppressed voices here in Arlington and that's going to be taking place on Tuesday July 21st at 7pm. We're calling on the community members of color to submit videos of their experiences in town because we really want to elevate those voices because we think that that's really important. So if you reside you attend school if you work or have a business in town in our person of color. This is really an opportunity to have your voice highlighted and if you don't want to show yourself on video you can also submit a written account for us as well and that can be anonymous. You can we're going to we have information upon the slide we're going to be posting stuff on the town's website on the the human rights website as well and you can upload it to a drop box use your phone get it horizontal not vertical. Have a young person help you if you need to. And you can also submit any questions to AHRC events at gmail.com again all of that information we're going to be posting on the town's website and on our social media on the human rights. But I want to give all of our panelists a moment to wrap up and any ending thoughts that you want to leave us with as we as we move forward here and I'll start with you Manisha just because that's the way it's lined up in my zoom. Well I just want to thank the town of Arlington for this opportunity and and crystal Katie and Leon it was really great to spend this evening with you and all of the viewers. I think this is this is a tough topic. We're talking about systems change but we're also talking about sort of examining our own preferences and and actions and how those might affect. That might be the change we want to see in the world. I encourage folks to keep looking at the patterns and keep asking those questions and do them actively while you're walking about in your community or interacting with your neighbors. So again, I was really excited to be here tonight and excited to continue the conversation as well. Catherine Europe. And so thanks to everyone. Manisha Leon your remarks were just so interesting and I learned a lot from you guys and thanks to my wonderful neighbors in the town of Arlington for your awesome questions and I really look forward to continue this conversation. I think the last thing that I just want to leave folks with this really build on this important point that Leon raised about whose voices are in the room when we're talking about housing politics. We know that black people Latinx people immigrants and renters are deeply underrepresented in forums about housing politics. Let's get their voices in the room because that's how we're going to get the best policies that meet the needs of those individuals. Yeah, and also just want to express my my thanks to to you crystal for moderating to the town for hosting and to my panelists for what I think was a really good start to my needed conversation. I really encourage that to see the number of folks that were joining us this evening for the discussion and acknowledging that as we're in the space of, you know, kind of quarantine and sheltering in place that we really encourage ourselves to kind of push our own understanding of some of these issues and really want to encourage there a lot of good reads you've heard some of the some of the good books that were mentioned earlier through there are some good documentaries I showed one as well that what are you doing to kind of expand your understanding of why the changes needed. We're talking about the kinds of solutions that will transform how we make decisions in government and we have to be willing to disrupt that and if not, we'll find ourselves coming back just from promoting solutions that we've tried already before. So I do really hope and encourage that folks are willing to push themselves to be uncomfortable continue to have these conversations and we're excited to be a part of it as as you're doing that. So thank you so much. Thank you all for your time and and those detailed presentations because that work is so important and we had a lot of folks in community in community engaged in submitting questions and asking questions in the Q&A. Again, we want to say that our next series is about elevating suppressed voices and that information will be posted on the Human Rights Commission pages and the ones here in town. And that's how we forward our next conversation. You can submit questions around that as well. We also want to make sure that we you all at home see the resources that are available. This will be posted on town as well and as on our human rights pages as well. These are resources when we're talking about housing. These are organizations that really dig down on some of these issues and that's so important because that and a lot of the work as well that our panelists are doing a work in conjunction with these group want to think again our panelists for tonight. All of you for attending and viewing this conversation and for submitting questions and feedback where we have so many questions that come in but we hope we hit we hit all of the ones that that are important to you. And we want to remind you that all of our conversations again were recorded and will be posted and will be broadcasted by ACMI. So for now we're going to say good night, but the conversation continues. So thank you so much.


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At Audiology Associates of Prestonsburg, you can live your life the way you want and find the freedom of better hearing. With 40 years of being in the hearing care industry, you'll experience patient care that is specific to you with exceptional follow-up care that ensures your hearing and balance needs are being met. Audiology Associates at 1428 Northlake Drive in Prestonsburg. Lance Stores, who allegedly shot and killed multiple officers and a K-9, was found dead at the Pike County Detention Center the morning of February 28th. Mountaintop reached out to Floyd County Sheriff John Hunt to get his reaction to the situation. Yes, so getting the phone call this morning at 7 o'clock or so, I was surprised. And then it took a little minutes later in no time to soak in maybe the impact of what it would have on my employees and some of our family here at the office. And it's been mixed as the word got out and we tried to talk to obviously William's wife and then the deputy Darren Lawson and try to explain things to them and what had taken place. And it was a little mixed on both as we thought it would be. The news of Stores' death arose a mix of emotions throughout the region. While members of the community are relieved several wanted to see Stores receive the death penalty and justice served. On every June the 30th we're always going to remember what happened and we should and we give those guys that sacrificed and their families the respect. And from now on we don't ever have to mention this guy, he's gone. So it's not always going to be where is he and what's going on and what he's forgot about. So from here on it'll just be the family and the details of what happened that day with our guys and nobody else will be involved and we'll go on. The wound left by Stores is still fresh on the minds and hearts of the victims. As time goes on the anniversary of the tragedy will become a time to commemorate the officers who gave their lives as Stores fades into obscurity. For Mountain Top News I'm Kelsey Dean.


Oh, yeah. Yep. What was it? Christopher Nolan What about him? Wants to do a horror film Probably terrible.  Oh, you're pretty good at that. Thanks. Yeah Oh, I would love to see if what me Christopher.  Yeah No, I want some girth. No, I thought you were gonna talk about what I do it too. No. Oh, I just said I Got a long I got a long list of guys that I would do that too.  Oh, yeah, shocking. Oh seafood street food It's you know why it's gonna be so shocking. They cook naked Yeah, you got to be careful with the hot oil Shocking seafood street food in Kerala seafood street food in Kerala sounds like a tongue twister seafood street food in Kerala The food street food in Kerala It'll be shrimp chilean basket and lobster shrimp In this video we're going deep into self-indian seafood soon You'll see why karelas seafood street food is unlike anywhere else in India, but first let's back up Wish my honey was here to watch the fish Welcome to kochi a coastal haven housing 2 million residents and serving as the primary port city in karela In ancient times it was a spice trading hub bringing together merchants The book I'm reading is centered in this part of india In many arabic cities covenant of water read it with the 30 miles It's incredible and huge backwaters teaming with still reading it kochi's cuisine is filled with all kinds of seafood street foods From the rarest seafood dish that will ever catch your eye very tasty and very delicacy and very healthy too to an Entrepreneurial genius behind a massive picco empire featuring 30 different types of unique picco Starting our ultimate seafood escapade we're diving into one of karela's most legendary dishes Fish doused in a thick masala and cocooned within a banana leaf this pocket of flavor will blow your taste buds to the moon Introducing the mean pali chatu the word mean means fish and pali chatu means baked in a banana leaf This dish features the pearl spot fish a celebrity that earned the prestigious title of state fish in 2010 To make this dish start by carefully descaling the fish And scoring it on both sides exposing the firm meat that will soon marry some heavenly masala Next drop a few spoons of coconut oil into the pan followed by fenugreek seeds mustard seeds fresh ginger garlic red onions and curry leaves Now slick the pan with a bit more coconut oil And grace for a spice tornado red chili powder garam masala turmeric coriander fennel black pepper and a sprinkle of diced tomatoes Oh like it owes you money Dash of tamarind water for that tangy zing Your mom's got tangy zing add the fish and vary it under all the spices then add coconut milk And cook for 10 to 12 minutes to remove the liquid Get that banana leaf all dolled up coat it with the thick almost chunky gravy and wrap the fish up like a burrito Let it do a little spa day in the waterfall pan steaming it for an extra 10 minutes before serving Wow, that looks amazing Wow, you know, you're on to something when you wish you could trade places with the dish wrapped in banana leaves All warm and snuggled up in there the fish concoction releases bold and tangy flavors The fish has a firm white plaky meat that perfectly absorbs all the spices and the love that's been added to it Uh four dollars What food saddles the line between an oddity and a delicacy?  It smells like fruit We're talking about the fish's heck of a vein. Get ready for one of the most alien-looking seafood dishes You'll find in corello Looks quite vascular It's been 40 years now. The restaurant is actually started by a father in 1983 He is actually a person who would love to serve food happily and tastefully. So he just started the restaurant Most of the customers are bought a plus and they always say that like They're nostalgic feeling with that gravy my fish curry and all Hello to gubboli fry. Hello a local treat made from the humble egg sack of the gray mullet fish. Ah, yes How's your egg sack great great while it won't make your bank account cry like the fancy black sturgeon or beluga caviar It still has its own charm. This delicacy has caused quite a stir especially on india's east coast Sending the fish's price soaring brace yourselves. This dish could set you back a jaw dropping six dollars Whoa brandy, that's expensive cutting the egg sack into seven or eight don't cut your egg sacks guys Crack an egg but ditch the yolk Mix the egg whites with red chili powder black pepper salt turmeric powder ginger garlic paste coconut oil and a bunch of curry leaves Then coat the fish eggs into the mix making sure all sides are covered Now it's frying time drop the eggs into a pan and add a sprinkle of fresh curry leaves Give it a flip and add green chili slices once they're golden brown. Wow, that looks amazing tomato slices First be better on the outside I'm assuming it tastes like eggs Explosion of the smooth fish eggs in your mouth hole the yummy taste of hundreds of little fish lives melting away on your tongue Is an experience. You won't soon forget. It's a caviar and curry duo all at a very affordable price It's sperm pate Kochi seafood comes straight from its remarkable backwaters a fascinating network of rivers lakes canals and lagoons Spanning half of corolla state. It's where freshwater rivers meet the salty embrace of the arabian sea Lurturing an ecosystem with diverse species crabs frogs blood skippers You name it our next dish is a testament to this exotic something.  Cafe was here long back. We just renovated the place into the place Which has which we are seeing now eight years before the dish is common in our households as part of tourism We just introduced it to a cafe that clam which is available here is small in size We call it as kaka irachi similar thing which is available in other places is called mussels It's called kalamaka. You like mussels and clam shellfish like that Let me introduce you to kaka mussel. They go to treat for clam enthusiast I love mussels. It's the classic steam mussels way to enjoy these bivalves in the region Plus with clams in abundance. It's practically a universal recipe known by everyone.  Uh, don't forget to oil the clam before you finger it a drizzle of oil What he's doing Is a cucumber and tomato Initially you'll experience the delectably spicy and savory That looks then the clams bring in their brackish earthy vibe joining the party These tender mollusks have quite the knack for soaking up all this a lot of clams mussels always standing on the half shell Oh Man, i'm gonna have to go do that today What i'm gonna have Finger a clam if you're still with us and honestly, I don't understand why you wouldn't be then you're in for a real treat Brace yourselves for a pickle revolution We'll get ready to pick a lot of unique and iconic curiosity straight from the heart of the sea Oh That's spicy mean achar the og fish pickle straight out of karela That's why there's so many Indians probably swapping pickle recipes with dinosaurs Yeah Enter nama nadan pickles where the owner turned this age old tradition into a full-on pickle empire Offering more varieties of pickled fish than you have fingers and toes. That is unless you grew up near pikkushima What now oh right 30 that was so inappropriate Not like taking a human tragedy and twisting it for a comedic input You would wow now let's get the pants sizzling take a plunge into sesame oil with our fish Then it's all about the a team flavor crew fenugreek check mustard seeds check Oh, I guess it's just those two things roast them up Then transfer a few spoonfuls to the other oil pan to that flavor cake follow that up with garlic And i'm talking about an ungodly look at the amount of garlic It's so much garlic. It's considered a hate crime against vampire Ginger paste green chili and let it cook for seven to nine minutes in the main time Take the rest of the roasted fenugreek seeds and grind it into a powder Now add the red chili powder followed by the ground fenugreek powder and vinegar Now add a few spoons of white pepper and our fried fish finally let everything simmer for 20 to 25 minutes and serve I want it. Wow. I want to taste that Good every single one of these dishes My mouth is on fire just looking at it Crispy outside and a bit chewy on the inside This dish is a roller coaster with one loose reel for your taste buds leaving them in a deliciously puzzled days Wow 18 us dollars That's expensive India's got some bragging rights with over 4,500 miles of coastlines along with it a huge shrimp and prawn industry An industry so massive it accounts for a whopping 15 percent of the world's largest production or next dish features a globe jet setting Restation making its way to the shores all the way to plates worldwide So we just started six months back and our crowd is actually like a celebrities family and Youngsters prawn it cost depends on the sizes like once we get Are we the only people that call it? We are doing in You know, maybe It's America step into cafe. You told me the friendship always refers to this Every other guy already cemented its place in the local scene They're claimed to fame the garlic butter prawns that bring Mediterranean vibes right to your fate Oh while celebrating the chef childhood prawn tails from india First things first the bugs of the sea the cleaning drill big farewell to the prawns poop vein as we take these Indian born beauties on a culinary world tour next give them some Mediterranean love a lemony bath with a splash of salt Pepper and olive oil if you're like me, you're still thinking about the fact that he said poop vein You're taking out a shrimp. I have taken out a shrimp's poop vein Toss it garlic and chili flakes then let this if you have a poop vein You need to go to the doctor and get the hemorrhoid fixed and let the pasta strutted stuff now It's time for the sauce start with butter garlic capers cherry tomatoes Parsley a squeeze of lemon juice and it's good to go and a side of poop veins prawns turn to hit the grill a sizzle here a flip there As they get that perfect hue on the hot tawa while that's happening stir fry some zucchini bell peppers broccoli carrots and cauliflower in butter Plate everything and serve. Oh lovely. Oh, that looks beautiful. Oh, that's a great plate right. Oh, great presentation This dish is a harmonious blend of Mediterranean ingredients and the heartfelt dedication of indian chefs if you want true fusion cuisine I think we found it That looks good really wonderful six bucks for that be a 25 dollar plate easy easy here After navigating through karela vibrant seafood street food scene. It's time to pick the one original We salivate the most was it the mysterious mean pali chatu the bizarre mean mutton cochi's iconic clams the daring pickled fish Or the fusion king garlic fried prawns. I want them all Today my favorite was the mean mutton the egg explosion of flavors from the fish eggs takes the idea of caviar to a whole new level We were fingering clams cutting egg sacks and removing poop veins today. That's pretty golden Feast for your senses. Be sure to subscribe to best ever food india. Thanks Bye Who knows what that's from What at the end of every episode after the credits the very last thing you hear is go to bed Mr. Rogers neighbor You're gross go to bed children What is it? Did you Did you have mr. Rogers when you were a kid? Yes, you did. That's that's good every 90s kid did that's great It makes me happy It's the it's at the end of every episode of the Mindy project. I don't know what that is Really funny show. I love the Mindy project. We watch it Regular almost every night. Well, you watch terrible television. No, we watch great things Mindy project and everybody loves Raymond is typical for Indrani and I at the end of the day It's a never seen an episode of either You've never seen an episode of everybody loves Raymond.  Never saw the office. So you're you're missing out That's just hilarious. The writing is just incredible wrong.  They really don't three or four times a show You're laughing incredibly hard and you rewind it because you want to see it again. It's not good ones I'm sure there's a bunch on cable television that I don't want but the Mindy Mindy project is one of the less appreciated shows I think I think the Mindy project is a really funny good show and she's really good Mindy Kaling Wow, because she's indian.  Hopefully. Oh, I want all of them You do a food video now. I want to go to lure There's a place that I want to do a food video that has like five different types of Doses, yeah like a south indian breakfast as well. Really? Yeah. Oh Let's do it. Yeah But lure if you want good seafood there's a lure in porter ranch and there's a lure out in west lake Where's the best of seafood porter ranch straight from the ocean? Not far at all But it's not next to the so There's one place on the pch That's really moon struck I don't is that near like moon shrugs on pch on the water when you sit and eat you're on the water It's really no. No, it's like a little dive moon struck moon shadows.  Yeah moon moon shadows is in malibu. It's been there for I think since the 50s and no boo is really nice like a expensive hard to get into no boo Motorcycles like stop off the problem with no boo Was the last time we ate at no boo They put us on the patio and it was hot and the sushi got cooked out there I mean you have to eat the sushi as fast as possible if you're sitting out on the patio Hey Let us know to their finger your clams kids down below