Dear Mayor Nash, Vice Mayor Wolosin, Council members, neighbors and members of the public,
My name is Jenny Michel, a white chick, from the Coleman Place Neighborhood Block, your local recovering homeless teacher (School in Menlo Park) from 20 years ago, who has lived on Willow Road for about 15 years (love it), and educationally, without a degree because I took care of my dying mother up until age 20. Personally, I find it ironic that Im a licensed real estate agent, who used to help sell luxury real estate at Alain Pinel Realtors, and am currently representing commercial landlord interests by managing commercial product along San Mateo County. To be clear, I doubt our little family will ever have an owning interest in real property or ever have access directly to capital. We have no assets to report save for our IEP son who attends Laurel Elementary.
Im speaking today on no agenda item. These are my own general public comments for the record.
Congratulations to Council member Mueller. We are excited for you and the opportunities to strengthen our regions resiliency together. Likewise, congratulations to the Menlo Fire District - we are thrilled to have you with us to create a strong bedrock of coordination, communication, and representation. What an exciting time to be a resident!
With the midterms behind us, I need to come correct with you regarding my very personal bias, as in response to the specific comments Council Member Combs highlighted during the recent Planning Commissioner appointment:
Vice Mayor Wolosin said it correctly that change is coming to Menlo Park in response to the HCD letter. In parallel, Planning Commissioner Riggs suggested that the residents of Menlo Park are not ready for this growth and respective change, in his response for his support of Measure V. I would argue we are indeed ready, capable, and committed for reasonable growth. For anyone who feels they are not ready, I suggest they underestimate themselves and how they relate to the larger regional needs. We, neighbors and I, need you to get on board with how awesome and impactful you are. You have the ability to welcome more neighbors - it is the right thing to do, and you know it.
Although, I speak up about functional zero homelessness because I am a recovering homeless woman and my workforce is heavily, if not detrimentally, impacted by the housing crisis, that is not what personally drives me:
I am a part of the population that suffers from PTSD, and related health conditions, due to chronic, sustained childhood sexual assault over many years. In my case, it was levied by my Uncle in our 2-story 4 Bed/ 2.5 Bath SFR on a cul-de-sac in Barron Park Palo Alto. He lived with us in the 80s to offset the mortgage. Let me say it again: He and my fathers sister lived with us throughout the 80s to help offset the mortgage in Palo Alto.
That was about 40 years ago. Over 20 years ago, I became homeless after my mother died from a long term fatal illness, while being a teacher in Menlo Park. I took care of her over obtaining a college degree. Needlesstosay, I do not have a simple degree.
Weve had this housing crisis for my entire life, almost half a century. How many of us endured abuse that was not necessary? How many of us have never had a vacation? How are those impacts still being felt today? What are the fiscal impacts? What are the health and productivity impacts? Right? Have you digested the full impacts of a leveraged populace? Its far worse than it was a few decades ago. The scope is truly vast, like fourth dimensional chess.
The dialogue weve had surrounding the housing element has been engaging, informative, honest, but I think is missing an important and delicate voice that does not like to speak up to connect the dots: childhood sexual assault survivors.
Im averse to large homes on cul-de-sacs also because of the sexual trafficking my friends and I were exposed to. The scope of this issue is real, current, and right here in our backyard, mostly in our most affluent neighborhoods and homes. We are lousy with large SFR homes in affluent neighborhoods. This is the PRECISE community character I call into question when I speak with you.
Recently, Ive seen a neighbor from the Suburban Park Neighborhood post on Nextdoor that she indeed would rather have less vehicle traffic, stating that her children playing in the street trumps big developers, assuming those would be the parties proposing dense or non ultra low density buildings. My immediate thought was why are you being so exclusionary? Do you not understand what we need to do to offset our high base-line land costs? Or maybe its that you dont want other people knowing what you do or how you live? Do we need to recommend more eyeballs in your neighborhood? See how my safety planning brain works? Im hardly alone in this thinking, whether distorted or not. The point is that we have this variable of childhood sexual abuse, in our community that is not tied together. It must be tied together. HCD is looking for this specially per their letter as we have a large single mom constituency that is at risk of displacement.
So when the neighbors are talking about safety, Im not thinking about the risks of single use vehicle traffic or increased fire risk, no. My brain goes to dark, real, and lived places.
Unfortunately, my lived experience asks: what are we doing behind closed doors? Why dont we want neighbors around to keep us in check? What am I and my neighbors really against? Is it that my kid cannot play basketball in the street whenever he wants? Seriously?
I suspect the simplicity of this argument. I challenge us to go deeper within ourselves, because we have to. There is no more time with climate collapse imminent. Besides the world can see our story by way of the AFFH overlay map; there is no more hiding from ourselves. Its time to own it. I promise, it is okay, and we are ready to own the truth about ourselves.
Recently, I heard a neighbor talking about bad actors, like common criminals taking fruit from the front yard, or stealing our sons bike. Sadly, I thought about the bad actors that I know hiding in plain sight, some of us who are held in societal esteem, have criminal exposure on a multiplier factor due to the devastating impacts. If we have the appetite to try our neighbors for petty theft, like fruits, why not for chronic criminal behavior? See my point?
Although the Palo Alto police were informed and the Santa Clara County District Attorney believed me, they lacked the appetite, not the evidence, to press charges. My abuser is at large, a Stanford graduate, and routinely seen with children, if not teaching them. I feel safe in apartments. Grant me this right. Grant us this privilege to call our home with others, not alone in a large structure designed for a single family when we know it must be leveraged for the use of many. Do you see my points? Do you understand the urgency?
Despite my personal efforts to heal my wounds, I cannot heal fully alone. I need you, my neighbors, to help me understand why apartment dwellers like me, and my small family, with an IEP student, are so scary or represent a devaluing of your asset?
Do you see that based on my very real lived experience that all yall are the scary ones who protect this odd way of life? You see my perspective? I am not alone to see why all these 5 beds and 4 bath homes being built scare the literal hell out of me.
Aside from my personal concerns about abuse, lets talk about what one needs to do to maintain the financial load of a median $2.4M home in Menlo. Right? What if our neighbors are let go due to any number of different circumstances? A neighbors child shared with us that his parents almost died when downsized from the downturn in 2008. Who has savings to endure a hardship longer than 60 days - right? 1% of us? See how we are set-up to fail? The municipality must account for the delta! Im simply calling in to account or play all these variables.
Offset the load, the health, this bridge, this delta, has to be gapped today. This is where I am at work. If one day, my Uncle Rod was held accountable and could get help, maybe I could rest, but not today. There is no statute to provide a pathway for justice or accountability for these criminal acts after so many years. I take full responsibility for these failures because there is someone being abused in our city right now. I resolve directly to these new victims, on the record: not on my watch. Not on my time. Not in my lifetime. Not ever in the future.
Housing stability for women and mothers is especially important. We cannot be held down by men enforcing their sick or ill will upon us. Grant us agency, grant us capital, grant us dignity.
What is my point?
Abuse is a far reaching variable not taken into consideration nor do we talk about it like its the real devastating factor it is. How are we reducing sexual abuse actively today, minimizing our rape culture, and keeping it at a healthy bay? Is keeping this community character what we want? Is this concern for accountability or why you cant be my neighbor or why we dont build density? Am I making sense?
Lets reimagine what safety in our city means. Please continue to listen to us, your constituency. Start asking the difficult questions, cause we are ready to answer.
With my coming correct and gratitude for your continued service to us, thank you,
Jenny from the Coleman Place Block
565 Willow Road, Apartment 9
--
Jen Michel
DRE #01900228
Cell: 650.400.8299
E-mail: restorativeeco@gmail.com
