001[Music] hi and welcome to another edition of all politics is local I'm your host John fiston on today's episode we're going to be looking into the mess known as Massachusetts we're joined by Jess masado a fall rber uh report reporter I think you're going to be real interested in hear what she has to say and Alice shat uh the better part of the burn Barrow podcast I would tell you and we're going to talk about some local issues that are in p in Massachusetts as well so ladies welcome thanks for joining us here all politics and W thanks Shan thanks for having us so Jess you have been working very hard on uh what I refer to as the Healy hotels and working on some stories in the Healey hotels one you've exposed the cost
002of uh just what a a lift and Uber drivers are costing the taxpayers but you have a a piece coming out today why don't you tell us a little bit about your piece coming out today right from the start I've been pretty fascinated ated with you know the life cycle of a migrant in Massachusetts um so to speak from the first time that we had um these migrants dropped off in maur's Vineyard I've just been so curious as to what happens to them so my you know curiosity about what goes on in these hotels has really never stopped um I've spent a lot of time looking at the hotel closest to me which is in Toton um which it's you know completely you know filled with migrants it's closed to the public um and through
003that reporting I've been able to connect with a lot of different people who are staying in shelters throughout the state um the story today is really going to be the first inside look on what is inside these hotels you know we hear a lot about them we're spending billions of dollars on these migrants but I don't know if anybody has actually been able to see an actual inside uh room of of these hotels certainly not since that very first fluff piece that I saw out there you know showing people come in and everything looks great um the reality is it's almost two years later these hotels are run down um they are infested with uh insects and rats and mice um and there's a real health issue going on and and you know we were
004talking about this is this is really not a private building anymore is it it's a taxpayer payer funded public housing and um whether or not these hotels are actually you know being taken care of um I think is a question people need to ask um and I think there's some health issues that um are a real concern so I was able to uh investigate this one location I have someone on the inside that sent me some photos um they're pretty concerning whether it's you know mice chewing through baseboards um eating through clothing um infestation of roaches and other insects um it's it's pretty concerning So today we're going to drop that story um and then get some more inside information about what it's actually to live inside one of these shelters I'm going to find
005that fascinating because as a migrant shelter director and a former chairman of my local Board of Health I can tell you that you know you don't want anybody to live this way you know and and that's where I I get confused is that you know people are saying well you know the governor's doing this because you're being nice to people you is this a way to be nice to people I question that like you know this is not a way to be nice to people and if you're going to invite people to America you have to treat them like you know you would treat another Americans and your local Board of Health would not put up with this in a local Housing Authority your local Board of Health would not put up with this in
006a restaurant they certainly wouldn't put up with it in a school so why is it being put up with uh in you know a local hotel I mean Alice you as a parent with you know kids in school I mean what are your what are your concerns of what when you hear stuff like this in massach I mean it's extremely concerning and it's concerning for the welfare of the children who are in these hotels I my heart breaks for them and I mean of course costs are a huge Factor but the more that we're putting people up in hotels where there are huge sanitary problems the more it imposes costs on other parts of our government as well as being completely unconscionable for how we're treating people who are coming into our community you know
007these are these are places where the school district has to make things up because students aren't being fed properly they're not being clothed properly we have um you know students coming into the school district with much deeper needs in terms of language learning because we're bringing people into the community and not providing for their ability to actually thrive in the community so it's a real question where does the funding from this come from and if we don't have the funding to do this properly if we only have the funding to put people in roach and fested rodent infested terrible conditions where we're not feeding and clothing people properly you know why are we doing it then if that if the point is to be kind if the point is to welcome people into our communities
008it doesn't seem like we're doing a very good job of about right now I think you bring up a valid point aliceon I mean okay I think that if you agree or disagree with the whole premise of it the premise was is that you wanted to help these people you have to admit sometimes that you're not able to do something and it's self-evident now that the state is not prepared to do this so why is moraly reluctant to admit that she needs a either number needs help or two that they're not qualified to do it but then she's going to double down and say she's going to do everything in her power to protect the bad people which is a very very very small percentage of people living in these hotels but she's going to
009do everything that she can to protect those people rather than just do basic blocking and tackling here like are these places clean and sanitized so what else are you hearing Jess well I mean we have to really step back and think about this just because it's been going on this long doesn't mean that it should have been living in hotels or families living in small rooms is not not um a a really healthy way of life first of all we've heard in the beginning and I think these stories has fallen off a little bit but you're living in a hotel room we've all been in one right how is this a reasonable expectation of living for a year or a year and a half for a family of say you know four it's not you're
010not supposed to be cooking inside these locations I am hearing that there was such a concern about sanitary issues regarding food and the pr preparation of food that they actually removed all of the micro waves from each one of the rooms at this location and then put them in a central location so people were being forced to move um food back and forth between a central location and the rooms think about the size of these locations just the the Totton hotel for example you have 140 rooms there so um I think it's just it wasn't planned out you know people living in a hotel is a temporary solution this is a long-term problem we've been dealing this for over a year and a half right now and know eviction notice are coming right so I
011have people on the inside of these hotels that have been served their 90day notice then they're down to the 60 and 30 days where are they going after this what's the plan down here in Bristol County John I'm telling you right now apartments are hard to come by and when you find them they're astronomically priced um home base is obviously an option to these people I'm just not sure what the plan is to transition these people out of hotels into affordable living well you know a lot of people talk about Homebase and you hear the number numbers and you're like what you're going to subsidize uh people's rents for two years up to up to $30,000 so so essentially $1500 a month uh and it sounds great and the landlords say well okay maybe I'll
012think about it but what I'm hearing on the street uh as a housing commissioner uh is that a lot of these landlords who took that initial leap and said hey I'll take that $1,500 a month supplemental I'll I'll release an apart to a family of four that is now turned into a family of nine and I'm only getting the, 1500 I'm not getting the other $1,000 a month that you know the rent really is because it's really 2500 and I can't evict anybody for not paying their rent because I do receive a partial payment so even the landlords have been burned on this because they're not getting what they were told I'm told that either the the payments are delayed or they're not getting them and and the bigger issue is that more people are
013living in these apartments that are on the lease as well too so and then you backtrack to June of 2023 the goal was to find everybody permanent housing with within nine months I personally know of people that are still in shelter from June of 2023 they one they're not working and two they have no prospects on getting a place so is Governor Healey going to evict these poor people in what January into the cold I I can't see that being an option either so it's a lot of words but I don't see a lot of reality I mean what do your ladies think absolutely I mean I think we all know living in Massachusetts the cost of housing and how difficult it is to find and maintain housing in this state um especially you know
014with the current economy people are really really struggling and the cost of housing have only gone up mortgage rates are High um rents are high and the I can't imagine how challenging it would be to come to this State not know the language to not have a place to live to not have a job lined up and then expect to be able to support a family on the kind of wages you can get in an entry-level position not knowing English it's an unrealistic expectation and we've put you know at a federal level at a state level we've put that unrealistic expectation towards people to say come here and everything is going to work out just great and then the only response has been to put the taxpayer on the hook when there's obviously not the
015opportunities that we're selling to these people on the brochure who are just coming here thinking that they're going to get a better lives for themselves and they're being you know put up in a crazy you know infested terrible conditions and have no other way to provide for their family it's not fair to them and it's not fair to the taxpayers of Massachusetts speaking of taxpayers of massachus Jess you wrot an article about you did a public records request on what the cost of just the hotel that you're focusing in on is paying for Uber and lift rides tell the audience a little bit about that yeah so I mean I'd like to pick aart this like massive bill that taxpayers are footing and really try to break it down into like I guess I guess
016a way that we can easily digest it right so talk to us about these these numbers and I actually went to the hotel and I was there trying to get some information and while I was there John it was just an endless you know Carousel of Ubers and um vans coming up and picking people up and by asking questions I learned some people were going to doctor's appointments some people were going to see attorneys about their immigration status some people were going grocery shopping and it was all taxpayer funded Transportation so I put in a foyer request um and I asked for the copies of the two um contracts that this hotel has with the state um so there are two different ones one was actually already participating in emergency services for the state so
017they had a long-standing relationship by providing transportation for other emergencies the other was a new addition so that first contract was just adjusted so they had an original contract which was very minimal in how much they were um spending the state was spending with them obviously it ballooned up to cover what was going on at the Totton hotel and then they added the second one um and from the public records request um they basically outlined that it was you know between 7 and $8 million um in transportation costs for this one one location so let's assume it's 8 million for the other 75 shelters that we have what is that what is 8 million times 75 that's a lot a lot of taxpayer dollars um being uh distributed to people um and you know I
018want to just go back a bit if you don't mind John to what Alice was saying about these you know um locations and and what we're providing I have met through these stories Massachusetts residents who are homeless and their me needs are not being met and single moms who are struggling who have fallen on hard times with no judgment right however they got to this place that are not being helped and that is the most frustrating part for me is to see people who have been born here in Massachusetts who have you know at some point contributed to the tax base and who are falling on Hard Times in this economy um and they can't get ahead and now they're in these hotels um and they're forced to deal with these conditions but not only
019that there's no future for them to leave there is no public housing there are no projects like there were back in in the 80s and 90s John where you know people who were on welfare were all living in these projects within each City those are full there there's no housing available um so meeting these people and talking to them about their story you know I get what's going on with these migrants but you know are we able to even at all take on people when we haven't met the needs of the people who live here first um and I think those stories need to be told and unfortunately these people feel from the ones that I've spoken to they don't want to jeopardize any of the help that they're currently getting so they don't want
020to speak up about the conditions in the hotels because they don't want to be told they have to leave um and you know I'm fortunate to have been able to build relationships with some of them and hear their stories that you know I'm going to be sharing but it's um you know we have we're leaving Massachusetts residents behind in the process of trying to take care of people who have come from outside our state yeah I think you bring up a good point too and I I defer to my experience as a Massachusetts housing commissioner and I'm a housing commissioner still today most housing authorities were built you know as to your point if you if you were lucky right after World War II or you know during the Vietnam area so one they're old
021uh but you know the state does a pretty good job of upkeeping them but they're not built for families they're built for maybe two people at best so the option of placing migrant families taking them from the hotels and putting them into the housing authorities might sound like a temporary plan until you bring in the piece that Alice was saying about the education piece you now where the hotels are they're they're in established cities and um school systems but if you start nickel and diamond and putting you know 10 kids in this school system another 15 kids in this school system you're going to have a domino effect that's going to affect public education and Public Safety that nobody is thinking about so in um Somerset we had migrants that were brought here overnight literally
022in the middle of the night um in 2023 um and those students were integrated into our school system um and then three months later they were all moved the families were moved to the Taunton hotel but under the mckin vento ACT um families were given the option to let their children stay in the school district where they originated um and some families chose to do that we have nine students that chose to do that so nine children still get educated in the somerset School District they live in Taunton and we um taxpayers putot the bill for the transportation for that bus every day to bring them back and forth and John I recently was told that we actually also pay for transportation for the parents to come to Somerset for back to school night or
023parent teacher conferences we're footing the bill for that as well and I'm going to tell you something I remember back in the day when I was a new mom um I had a family and we had one car between my husband and I and he would take it to work in the morning or else I'd have to get the kids up and drag them all out at 5:00 am. and if I needed to get to my kids school I'd either have to try to find a ride or I would walk um I could never today in in the town that I live in call call my school and say listen I've got to get to parent teacher conferences can you guys send a bus for me it's just not it doesn't happen yet we are
024footing the bill for people um who have been dropped here by the Biden Administration um and in in a way I'm paying for that now um which is really crazy to think about it's you I don't even know how we got to where we at sticking on the topic of schools Alice you recently received a letter home from your school about your kids tell us about it absolutely so I mean I think I share the frustrations of lots of parents about how the school districts don't teach you know the fundamentals anymore the basics it's all distraction and Dei and um every like new trend that comes along they're all about that but I was so excited because this school year they finally in their English class are teaching for the first time I think what
025I consider to be like one of the classics of the Canon of literature that we all know which is All Quiet on the Western Front they just started the unit on it my daughter is really excited it's very gripping I mean if all you've read is adapted and ya novels in school I think the last book they read was written all in blank verse and was about basketball and she was not thrilled by that but she was excited it's a it's an incredible novel there's a reason that it's stuck around for you know the century that it has and um but our school district of course immediately felt the need to apologize for for exposing the children to this dangerous dangerous novel they sent home this letter this month dear parents and Guardians as you
026are aware your eighth grader will be reading All Quiet on the Western Front as a part of our curriculum it follows the experiences of German soldiers fighting in World War I and some of the content is quite violent and explicit there is swearing in the novel Beyond a typical young adult literature in addition we have the students skipping certain sections of the book that are clearly inappropriate for middle school students but that doesn't mean that students might not read those pages on their own we will approach the novel's content with sensitivity not focusing too heavily on the violence or the swearing uh we will complete an end of module task that requires them to write an essay about the psychological aspects of war and that will be the ultimate focus of instruction for this unit
027we would also like students to advocate for themselves if they have concerns while reading the novel finally as you may or may not be aware this is my favorite part there's a modern movie All Quiet on the Western Front on Netflix we have not seen it but we have read that it is very violent and gruesome we are not recommending that students watch this movie please contact your English teacher if you have further questions or concerns and immediately I thought way to take all the fun and excitement out of the first time you have students read a real book especially I think boys so often get left behind in our school district I have one daughter and four sons and very often English class is a place where boys struggle um and finally giving them
028a book that has a lot of great content for boys I know my boys are very into World War II stories disaster stories they love like reading about the Titanic and other things like that so a lot of exciting content for them and a story that's focused really on teen boys that's something that would be of so much interest to them and it's so apparent to me how the school feels about this is really just that they immediately feel the need to jump right out and apologize like we're so sorry that we're exposing you probably the kids in all quiet in the Western Front are pretty close to the ages of the kids they have reading it so just a bit of a current state of the school system snapshot there on that one but
029you know I'm not saying it's a good thing but I mean kids are exposed to stuff today that none of us as middle middle school age children were ever exposed to I mean Tik Tok and YouTube and you we can't live in I'm I'm not saying that you should encourage you know your kids to watch violent videos and everything like that but they see it they hear the language now I I think it's a horren that they do but they do that's the world that we live in now and the fact that the school would apologize for reading a classic book I think it tells you a lot about the times that we're in right and it shows a misunderstanding of the work as well because it the novel is fundamentally an anti-war antiviolence novel
030so to to approach it with that money mindset of this book is somehow dangerous and scary is really missing the point of the entire exercise unbelievable uh yes any comments as a parents as well I mean would your reaction be get that letter home from school yeah I'm very fortunate to be on the tail end of the public school system in this state um I've had four children go through it um uh my oldest um graduated in 19 uh 2019 right and um I'm just going to say this um um parents have to work so hard to make sure what they think is appropriate uh is actually adopted by the school district uh I would recommend to anybody stay involved watch your school committee meetings and more than anything try to get some people on
031your local school committees um that is really where a lot of these things are happening liberal far-left um teachers or former teachers are getting on these School committees and they are really cultivating and crafting the curricul ulum and the style of the school district school committees work for you um and they should represent you and you need to get some people on these local local school committees and listen we had a State Rep who was for 20 years um you know a a democratic State Rep in our uh district and she started um on the school committee that's where she started and she was able to Parlay that into a very effective um left leaning uh run uh as a state representative so listen every day I would cringe at what was going on in
032our school dist districts at from the smallest to the biggest of things and it's very hard as a parent because you don't want the teachers or the school to take it out on your kids when you're voicing your concern or opinion for how things go my my you know take on that is get somebody in a seat that can advocate for you and your family and a minimum get one person on your school board so that they can kind of be the Watchdog for everybody else you know I've always been the champion of uh you can you can have a liberal agenda and you can have a different opin but government only works when there's checks and balances and if apathy has taken over your school system or your local city council or or select
033board because you just don't want to get involved then you know that person who looks back at you in the mirror tomorrow morning that's the person to blame because if you're not going to step up and you know serve on your a local board or a local committee then you really can't complain about it because like I keep I always say you know you need the checks and balances and that's how effective government works Works uh absolutely and and you know to Jess's point about um about being on school committees and then rising to higher levels in politics it really does matter when we first lived in Melrose Massachusetts on our local school committee was Katherine Clark and she went on to become a state rep and a state senator and she is now in
034Congress and she's one of the most powerful women in the United States she has a leadership role in Congress and we hear about her all the time she is driving the leftwing policy agenda agenda nationally and she started out on a local school committee yep that's an excellent point Jess let's talk a little bit about another story that you uh talked about uh blue Hub and how it involves the governor I think uh people are going to be shocked about this one yeah so you know how this story came about John is um my boss gets the State House news service um updates and there was a protester that showed up at a morah Healy event not related to housing um and the person was screaming from from the audience that um she was putting
035Provisions in her latest Economic Development bill um to protect Blu Hub and this person was kind of screaming and was removed and it kind of made us pause and say what's got this person so angry and what is blue Hub um and I've spent more time researching and reading about this nonprofit um over the past month than any other story it's truly fascinating so essentially the company is a nonprofit that is supposed to help people get out of situations where their home is being foreclosed upon um and uh over the past uh decade or so they claim to have helped over 990 families save their homes what they do is they go in and they buy the home from either the homeowner in a short sale or from the bank that's foreclosing and then they
036resell it to the homeowner uh the interest rates are higher than average when they resell they also make money on that one transaction so the day that they buy it from the bank or they buy it from the homeowner they resell it to the to the family with a profit I see seen a profit as high as $100,000 on a one-day sale or transaction but essentially what happens is these people are in these transactions and they are going to be giving blue Hub a certain percentage of the um value that increases on this property um and some people are saying okay so great you know you're in a tough Jam you're behind on your mortgage there aren't people knocking down doors to come and help you save your home it's kind of a righteous thing
037that they're doing but what happens is they get locked into these mortgages and say these people get back on their feet right and in two years they've you know changed their income and their credit is better they want to refinance and they want to get into a lower rate they have to pay out that appreciation Equity to bluehub before they do that and that is the problem so let's just say a property you know goes up um you know 75 or $100,000 right by the time they refinance blue Hub may have 50% of that Equity coming to them the family has to pay that out to bluehub before they can refinance with a new bank it would actually defeat the purpose of refinancing or saving money on the interest rate because now they have this
038balloon payment that they have to pay bluehub um so it's predatory lending practices the lawsuit that currently is in place with blue bluehub has families basically saying they weren't aware of this um the fine print was really fine print um these closings went very quickly and that they weren't properly informed the bigger picture here John is the CEO of blue Hub is Alise Sher she is a longtime supporter of morah she has not only donated personally to her campaigns but she is also a huge fundraiser for morah helan Democrats across the state a lot of people are saying that this um provision that was put in this Economic Development bill which basically will not allow blue Hub to ever be um taken to court or have any litigation against them for their lending practices going
039forward is basically a sweetheart deal for more H's bestie um who by the way earned over a million dollars last year from her company so essentially this is you you see them a lot more down south than you do up here in the Northeast but it's a u you know payday lending type of you know it's predatory lending I think the way that you described it wow that's a huge story that is a huge huge story The the stories of the families are are really unfortunate and sad um and some people you know who have joined this lawsuit have EXP you know what has happened to them one of the families um owned a property that was in Rivier and they um they went to sell their property to The Encore um wi company that
040was making way for the um the casino and they actually had to play Blue Hub $314,000 so here's this family coming in getting a huge payday you know they're finally going to get this money wi is going to pay them $800,000 for this property and uh they had to give blue Hub 300,000 to me that just defeats the purpose of a a nonprofit coming in and trying to help a family they made so much money off of this one family because they had to get that Equity appreciation it's wild that's unbelievable Alice you had a comment it's so disappointing because you know so many people are in these tight spaces now with the economy the way it's been for years since covid people have struggled and sometimes it feels like in this state everybody else
041comes first the donors come first the migrants come first the you know anybody who has a relationship with Mar comes first and that the people who are struggling and are having trouble affording their houses that they're the people who come last and it's always um those people that end up stuck with the bill everybody else finds a way to B make big money whether it's off of the pandemic or off of housing migrants or whatever it is that you know the Democratic Party in the state a lot of times tries to make a case that they're for the little guy but really they're for their corporate buddies and that's what you see over and over again with stories like this and when it does touch on something so personal and devastating as losing your family
042home for example it's especially sad to see profiteers making money off it and keeping politicians in power while people are really suffering and struggling you know ladies I thank you for joining us today the only thing that we don't have a lot of around here is time on all politics local Alice why don't you tell people how they can connect with your podcast and and your social handles sure so our podcast is the burn barel podcast I host it with my husband Tom shadik who's a radio host um and we do that daily five days a week you can find it on any podcast platform the burn barel podcast or at burn barel podcast.com on Twitter at burb barel pod thank you Alice and Jess Jess Mado plug your socials and how people can read
043some of your great articles thank you John um I write for Fall River reporter and you can find us at Fall River reporter.com we have a sister publication which is newbedford guide you can find them at newbedford guide.com I'm on X at uh the uh let's see Jess masado show you can find me there I link all my articles today's article that's dropping will be on there and the Fall River reporter X account which is fall rer report not reporter um and we're on Facebook and we're also on Instagram and Tik Tok great thank you I want to thank you again both of you Merry Christmas to the both of you Merry Christmas to the viewing audience and you're watching all politics is local and we'll talk again real soon