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Legislative Women's Caucus Hears From Berkshires
By Tammy Daniels, iBerkshires Staff
06:53PM / Friday, November 06, 2015
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State Rep. Gailanne Cariddi, D-North Adams, welcomes the gathering.

State Rep. Gloria Fox, left, Rep. Kate Hogan, Speaker pro Tempore Patricia Haddad, Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, Rep. Christine Barber, Rep. Michelle Dubois and Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier.

Wendy Penner of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition speaks about the drug crisis.

UNO founder Shirley Davis tells how she brought her neighborhood together.

Hogan, Haddad and Ferrante listen to the speakers.

Teresa A. Daignault of Adams Plumbing & Heating explained the difficulties in getting workers certified and meeting minimum hiring quotas.


City Councilors Kate Merrigan, left, and President Lisa Blackmer at the listening session held by the Caucus of Women Legislators at MCLA.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Affordable housing, arts, education, substance abuse, pregnancy, child care, wellness, family support, food, transportation, farming, licensure and breast feeding.

It was a wide range of concerns addressed to members of the Caucus of Women Legislators on Friday at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

One of the solutions? Get more women in office, said Judith Grinnell of the Hoosic River Revival. She called on the Women's Caucus to create a bipartisan approach to seek out strong women and encourage them to run.

"In order for them to be successful, they need training," she said. "They can't get to where you are without learning how to run a campaign, you've strong women here — you've got strong women across the state who would be glad to work on this ...

"But we need to get women in the pipeline."

Adams native daughter Susan B. Anthony fought for the right to vote but the results of women elected to policymaking seats has remained thin in the Bay State. Jane Swift, a Drury High graduate, was the first (and so far only) woman to serve as governor, and not until after the turn of the 21st century.

State Rep. Gailanne Cariddi, D-North Adams noted that there have been only 190 women legislators compared to 20,000 men. It's been worse for minority women, noted state Rep. Gloria Fox, D-Roxbury, caucus co-chair and currently the only African-American woman serving in the House.

The Berkshires has arguably done better, with Cariddi and Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, making up half its delegation to the House. The Women's Caucus was established in 1975 to address issues important to women's economic status and equality and to groom future leaders.

And at Friday's listening session, nearly 50 women in a range of occupations and leadership roles spoke about their communities' needs and problems facing women and families. In addition to Cariddi, Farley-Bouvier and Fox, the panel included Rep. Kate Hogan, D-Stow, Speaker pro Tempore Patricia Haddad, D-Somerset, Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester Rep. Christine Barber, D-Somerville, and Rep. Michelle Dubois, D-Brockton, an MCLA graduate.

"I'm hoping that somehow you can magically give us the money we need to solve our problems," joked Vivienne Jaffe, speaking on the need for affordable housing.

The representatives were winding up their tour of the 1st and 3rd Berkshire districts that had begun with a tour of the Capitol Theatre in Pittsfield, a stop by the future site of the Berkshire Innovation Center at William Stanley Business Park, a meeting on the importance of tourism to the economy with 1Berkshire and a bus tour of North Adams and Williamstown.

"I think it was very successful, it was something we hadn't done before," said Cariddi. "I think they heard a lot of good stuff here today, a lot of enthusiastic and smart ladies came out to talk. I'm very proud of my constituents, my constuients spoke intelligently, they spoke from the heart, and I think what they spoke about was definitely things that legislators want to hear."

The speakers advocated for better access to health education, especially reproductive health for young women to stem the tide of teenage pregnancy. Others noted the heroin crisis that is affecting not only individuals but children and families.

"We're seeing an increased number of addicted babies being born," said Wendy Penner, ‎director of prevention programs at Northern Berkshire Community Coalition. Three people had died in Northern Berkshire from opioid overdoses in the last four weeks, yet access to detoxication centers, especially beds for women, is strapped. "So this issue is really a matter of life and death."

Nancy Atkin, program director for the Brien Center for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, said a growing number of her cases are women.

"We have seen an influx of women with addiction issues," she said, while historically men have been more likely to seek treatment. "Now 73 percent of my caseload is women, of those, 20 percent have a co-occurring disorder."

Other challenges facing women are transportation and child care. Jana Hunkler, director of BerkshireRides, thanked the caucus for supporting funding for the rides-to-jobs program and said it was important for people who in this rural area who work in areas and at time not covered by the B bus.

The program offers about 40,000 work-related trips a year, she said. "You talk about pay equity. Well, if you can't get to work you'll never achieve pay equity."

Amber Besaw of NBCC's Family Place said program works with women to gain the skills they need to function successfully.

"What we see a lot is self-identified single mothers with really, really complex needs," she said. "We ask you support the family resource centers so we can support families in a way that really works."

Along with parenting, working and transportation, housing is a critical piece of the puzzle, said Louison House Executive Director Lindsay Errichetto. A lot of North Berkshire is considered affordable but not from the perspective of someone making minimum wage - some 60 percent of more their wages can go to housing and utilities in a way that's not sustainable. And there's a two to three year waiting list for Section 8.

"When we talk about housing issues it's pretty simple," she said. "People can't afford rent ... We need subsidies.

"I run a homeless shelter, I have a great team, it's a great community but we shouldn't exist, people should be in houses."

Teresa A. Daignault of Adams Plumbing & Heating said there is the potential for jobs — good jobs — for men and women but licensing for tradespeople has become nightmarish. A former three-year apprenticeship has been stretched to five but its harder for individuals to get the tiered courses they need to be certified. That's complicated the ability to hire pipefitters, sheet metal workers and others, meaning fewer of them in the future.

"There's going to be a real problem ... and we're already seeing it," she said, asking legislators to look at licensing.

Valerie Schwarz of the Berkshire Food Project told of the problems she encountered helping people with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Sharon Wyrrick of Many Forks Farm spoke of encouraging farming as a career, noting her own later in life affection for the land.

"Women and girls need to learn that they can do things and they can start things," she said.

Other issues were the importance of the arts as not only economic development but in education to motivate and uplift people; there was a call for lifting the cap on net-metering to restart solar projects, to protect conserved lands from efforts to put the proposed gas pipeline through them; support for women starting small businesses, for prenatal and breastfeeding mothers, and paid parental leave.

City Council President Lisa Blackmer said the region needs capital improvements, such as roads, and the city in particular is in dire need of a police station.

"We need to get more money west, we need to get more money here," she said, adding that Western Mass often "gets lost in the shuffle."

Farley-Bouvier said many of the same issues had cropped up at "mingling" session earlier i the day in Pittsfield.

"I think the legislators learned a great deal about what's unique about the Berkshires, what our challenges are, but what also are the common threads across the commonwealth that people are concerned about, poverty, addiction, pay equity, child care — these things come through no matter where you are in the commonwealth."

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