Pittsfield — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D – Mass.) visited Pittsfield last week to tour and meet with staff at several nonprofits for which she helped secure federal funding. Part of her motivation, she said, was to “gather stories and information” about why congressionally directed spending should continue. The fundamental question, she said, is: “Do we think the federal government has a role to play in helping ensure there’s adequate funding so that our communities can thrive?”
At the new Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) facility, Executive Director and nurse practitioner Ilana Steinhauer explained that the $441,000 helped with their Pittsfield expansion and at the existing Great Barrington facility, allowing them to increase access and connect with patients who weren’t getting any services before, mainly the immigrant community—the only growing population in the Berkshires. They also serve and assist increasing numbers of people seeking asylum.
Warren began by saying, “I appreciate the work that you do. It’s powerfully important, both to the people who receive care, but also to the community.” VIM’s mission of healthcare equity ultimately saves costs, as people can manage chronic illnesses and get earlier diagnoses, she said, but also ripples outward economically as more people can work to support themselves and their families and become part of the community.
She hopes to make the case in Washington that we “need to make funding available for these healthcare spaces in between the well-worn paths.” She thanked Pittsfield Mayor Peter Marchetti, also present at the table, saying his “values have been known around here a long time.” The mayor and local government, working with the state and federal governments, “is the best way to build the kind of net that makes certain nobody falls through, and I’m proud to be part of that,” she said.
America Lopez, a community health worker at VIM and an immigrant herself, shared, “I come from a place where people could be lying outside of the clinic, dying to wait to be seen.” At VIM, she says, “it’s a great honor” to serve people who perhaps haven’t had access to doctors, who “are eager to be an active member of our community.”
Steinhauer explained to Senator Warren that VIM serves about 2,000 people a year on an annual budget of, since the expansion, $2.1 million, all of which has to be raised every year. The only limitation VIM has, she emphasized, is money. They have had an increase in patient numbers in the past few years. Even with 160 volunteers, 90 percent of their operational cost—and their priority—is staffing, paying people from the community enough for them to live and thrive in a tourist economy.
“The only reason we can’t see somebody within that week is funding,” Steinhauer said. “When we are short on funding, it means we can’t have another community health worker or another nurse practitioner.”
“We know how to run the model right,” Steinhauer continued, how to cost contain and mobilize volunteers to get the best return on a dollar. Even including the value of volunteers, their funding model comes out to about $2,000 a patient for the entire year. Why, she asked Warren, despite huge cost savings to the hospital emergency rooms, haven’t we been able to shift how healthcare is delivered?
“The healthcare industry is becoming more and more consolidated and more vertically integrated,” Warren replied. One in 10 doctors works for the same company, United Health, who “is not there to improve healthcare outcomes and expand access,” but rather to drive up profits. Warren blames “the for-profit businesses that have invaded our healthcare system … A private-equity model pays the corporate executives and Wall Street investors huge amounts of money and leaves a rusted-out shell of the healthcare provider.” Warren stated she was working on this on both the federal and state levels.
In a brief press conference afterward, Warren stressed that the federal government should act as a partner, providing resources that spur local investment. Asked if we would see her again before election day, Warren promised to continue to talk with people in the Berkshires “about what they need on the ground and how we can partner up, not only to make the Berkshires a better place, but to make our whole country better.”
Next, Warren met with small business owners and staff at Berkshire Black Economic Council (BBEC), who distributed $455,000 in federal funding that Warren helped secure to area Black-owned small businesses to ensure they are not, in Warren’s words, “at a competitive disadvantage.”
BBEC Executive Director A.J. Enchill introduced one of the recipients of these funds, Destiny Saunders, who with her mother opened Dolc’e Rose Beauty Supply on North Street, after running a pop-up at the same location. “We haven’t had a hair and beauty supply store for Black and brown people; a lot of us go up to Springfield or Albany,” Enchill said. Saunders confirmed that “every time someone comes in the shop, they say, ‘Thank you for being here, please don’t leave!’”
The event was held at The Collab, a coworking, studio, and event space that Jocelyn Guelce opened in March with the help of BBEC funds. Guelce spoke about the range of events she has coordinated there, including workshops in financial literacy, professional development, and mindfulness. Artists frequent the space and connect and support each other. “The community’s been really receptive, so at this point we’re programmed out for quite a while. We’re receptive to the community’s ideas and what they want to see happen here,” Guelce said.
Self-taught photographer Desean Scales, who works with small, local businesses and nonprofits to help them “show their successes in an authentic way,” testified about the importance of BBEC funds. “Rather than trying to figure it out on my own, BBEC offered resources and knowledge and networking and things that are priceless that helped me grow.”
Warren also listened excitedly to Ludwig Jean-Louis, who worked his way up from an ice-cream-shop job to purchase Cravins ice-cream parlor on Elm Street in 2022, when he “saw that there was a need for ice cream on North Street.” An equipment and infrastructure grant from BBEC helped him renovate the storefront (where Warren suggested everyone go visit after the meeting).
“The more people that walk by, the better for every business,” Warren said. Echill thanked Warren for allowing us to revitalize our downtown storefronts, and her “commitment and investment in our region,” despite western Massachusetts often being forgotten.
Warren said she was excited to fund these projects because to run a small business you have to be “good at 10 different jobs … but who’s good at all 10 things?” BBEC, in her view, steps in to fill the gap. “I worry that big businesses have such a competitive advantage,” Warren continued, so she thought of this as an investment in not just the business owners individually but also in the region.
Warren, who shared that after college she briefly ran her own pop-up plant-sale business, told the business owners, “You’re doing what you love to do, but you also are helping build a stronger community, and then Pittsfield is a stronger anchor for the entire region.”
Senator Warren was then headed to Soldier On to learn about the housing assistance, mental-health resources, and other services it offers to veterans and their families.
