Brookline Community Aging Network

 

Tenth Annual Meeting (Virtual)
Thursday, September 10, 6pm
Expanding the Supply of Senior Housing in Brookline
 Click for:   Invitation, More information

Frank Caro 1936-2020
BrooklineCAN founder
Remembrance

Frank Caro

We are shocked and saddened by the loss of Frank Caro,
our chairman, mentor, leader, and friend.
More.

June 9 Town Election

Video - BrooklineCAN Select Board Candidates Forum

Video - May 20 Town-wide Candidates' Afternoon
League of Women Voters of Brookline
Town Meeting Members Association

LWVB VotersGuide

Tuesday, May 7, Town Election
Polls open 7am – 8pm
Contested elections for:
  • Debt Exlusion Proposal
  • Select Board (one opening)
  • School Committee (three openings)
  • Housing Authority (one opening)
  • Constable (five openings)
  • Town Meeting
Town Election Information Page.
At Brookline Day, September 24, 2017, BrooklineCAN offered a quiz at its table. Questions and answers

Daylight saving time ends
Sunday, November 1 at 2:00 AM.

Turn your clocks back 1 hour.

Flag Day June 14

until spring!

Monday, September 5. Brookline Town & School offices, schools, libraries, public safety windows closed in observance of Labor Day.

Brookline Day 2017

September 13th, 11am-3pm at Larz Anderson Park.
We'll be there. Come visit us.   Details.

BrooklineCAN Annual Meeting

Click here for pictures from our
September 15 Annual Meeting.

Heat Advisory

Brookline's Emergency Management Team has issued a heat advisory until Saturday, July 22. Details here.

Heat Advisory

Brookline Emergency Management Team Issues Heat Advisory
Press Release with
Cooling Locations and Tips
Brookline Weather
Please take our Living with COVID-19 Survey
Link to September 10 Housing Forum
with description and video.
Massachusetts Information for Voters
Large print version
Track My Ballot   Election Information
Early Voting   Voting Absentee
Voting on election day

Welcome

Brookline Community Aging Network – BrooklineCAN – is an all-volunteer organization that focuses on Brookline as a great place to live. It provides information for older residents that helps them remain engaged in the life of the community, and advocates to make Brookline an even better place to live for seniors and everyone. It is separate from but works with the town's Council on Aging and the Brookline Senior Center.

This website is a clearing house of information detailing Brookline's extensive network of services and activities that help make our town an eminently livable community. Here you will find the abundance of social, educational, and recreational programs that can enrich our lives, build a sense of community, and make our town an even better place for all.

BrooklineCAN

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Our deliberately low regular membership rates do not cover all our expenses. Your additional gift will help to keep us going.

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If you previously signed up for a recurring membership, you can use the Unsubcribe button below to cancel it.

 

Platinum Business Members

BrooklineCAN on Twitter and Facebook

Matt Weiss, BrooklineCAN's chief Tweeter (Twitterer?, Tweetmeister?), scours the Twitterverse for items of interest to Brookline seniors. Updated daily.


Our Twitter feed is echoed on Facebook. If you're a Facebook user, you can follow us there.

Age-Friendly Cities TV

The Town's Age Friendly Cities committee is offering a series of TV shows with the help of the Brookline Interactive Group.

In May, 2017, Brookline Interactive Group presented its Show of the Year award to Age-Friendly Cities TV.

All episodes
Host:
Matt Weiss
Producer:
Michael Allen
Director:
Corbin Reidel
Graphics:
John Seay

Episode 28. 9/2/2020. Technology Older Adults

Guest:
John Seay ,
Retired Computer Dabbler

Brookline Senior Center:
617-730-2777
To arrange for one-on-one technology help.
Older Shows

Selected Topics

Eviction Diversion Initiative

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health wants to reach households early – before an eviction takes place – to provide funding and mediation tools to work with landlords. We’ve launched a new website that connects residents to their local Housing Consumer Education Center, answers frequently asked questions, and more at www.mass.gov/CovidHousingHelp.

Living With COVID-19 Survey

BrooklineCAN and the Brookline Senior Center will be conducting a survey in the weeks ahead to discover how seniors are adapting to a world with COVID-19.

Understanding that everyone has to assess their own level of risk, we can be a wonderful resource for one another during these difficult days. Sharing what we are doing and how we are doing it, as well as what we are not doing, can help us to better understand the needs of our senior community.

An online copy of the survey is available here.

If you would like a hard copy of the survey mailed to you, please call us at 617-730-2777.

$$$ for Senior Homeowners & Renters!

You may qualify for cash or credit from the state if you pay rent or property taxes. Click for details.

Senior living forum.

Center Communities of Brookline seeks focus group participants to share their views and opinions on a senior living community being planned in Coolidge Corner.
Click for large image

Assisting People With Vision Loss During The Pandemic.

Town of Brookline Releases Instructional Video Guide. The Town of Brookline, Massachusetts has just released a new instructional video telling and showing via demonstration clips how to guide a person with vision loss in a variety of everyday situations. This video is free to all and may be used by any agencies, organizations, groups, or individuals who find it useful.

Complete news release.
Link to Video.

Brookline's Age-friendly Cities TV team helped produce this video.

BIG and Brookline Community

Brookline Interactive Group continues our service in meeting Brookline's communications needs, helping our community to share their stories, and keeping our democracy transparent.

This week's coverage of the Fourth District Congressional race is comprehensive- partnering with the League of Women Voters and Brookline for Racial Justice and Equity (BRJE), our colleagues at seven other community media centers from north to south, to support two candidate's forums for this important race. Our ongoing collaboration with State Representative, Tommy Vitolo, produces a thirty-minute weekly show to highlight each candidate in more detail.

Stay tuned and read more about our online classes, new community content, youth media programs, and to participate by creating your own scene in our 2020 Crowdsourced Boston production of Cast Away!

Full details here.

Voting by mail in Brookline

COVID-19 is now recognized as a valid reason to vote by mail instead of in-person. Voters can download a 2020 Vote by Mail Application for either the September 1, 2020 primary, the November 3, 2020 election, or both. Then take the completed and signed application to Town Hall, email it to or mail it to:
Town Clerk
333 Washington St.
1st Floor, Room 104
Brookline, MA 02445
Full instructions and other ways to obtain your ballot are here.

Update and request from Town Clerk's office:
We need your help. We are experiencing long delays at the post office. It is not unique to Brookline. Articles in the Washington Post and Boston Globe speak to the problem. We need to have folks apply NOW. I fear if they wait past August 15th they will not get their ballot back in time to have it count. We are receiving record numbers of mail in applications and we have noticed that they are postmarked 5 or 6 days prior to us receiving them. When we send out ballots if it takes two weeks to mail in and mail back, August 15th seems like the practical deadline to vote by mail.

Phone-friendly BrooklineCAN website

When we created this web site in 2011, we designed it for wide-screen desktop systems. Now many people use smaller phones and tablets. Our site could always use those devices, but the pages didn’t really fit. Now we automatically rearrange content so it displays comfortably on all devices. As screens get narrower so do paragraphs; two columns become one; the menu disappears but can be recalled by pressing a button. You can see these changes on your desktop or laptop computer by narrowing the browser window. We hope this will make our site more useable on all screens.

Walkable Brookline Survey

Visitors to BrooklineCAN's table at Brookline Day 2019 had the opportunity to answer a survey that asked "What should BrooklineCAN emphasize in advocating to make Brookline more walkable?" Fifteen people answered. Here are the results. We plan to offer the survey at future events.

A report on opinions of older Brookline residents

In 2018 Brookline participated in the National Citizen Survey, an effort to capture the opinions of residents on a wide range of topics concerning the Town. We are reporting here a special analysis that compared responses of those 65 and older with younger respondents. The analysis shows both similarities and differences between the responses of older and younger residents. . Click here to see the full report. with your questions and comments:

More Beacon Street benches.

In January 2019 Frank Caro asked the Town's Department of Public Works to consider adding five additional benches on Beacon Street. Here is Frank's report. This is an initiative of BrooklineCAN's Livable Community Advocacy Committee and the Brookline Age-Friendly City Committee.

Update, August 2019: The town has installed five new benches. Pictures here.

TRIPPS report

This report, issued April 1, 2019 by TRIPPS (Transportation Resources, Information, Planning & Partnership for Seniors), describes local transportation experiences of Brookline Seniors in the context of current research on older adults, transportation and community life.

BrooklineCAN announces its new Age-Friendly Business campaign.

Details here.

The Silent Call Procedure

The “Silent Call Procedure” is used when a caller is unable to verbally communicate their emergency over the phone. If a resident of Massachusetts calls 9-1-1 and is unable to speak for any reason.
Click for large image

Tax preparation

List of tax preparation services and other resources.

Designing Communities For An Aging America

In an aging nation, what makes an age-friendly community? We look at what U.S. cities can do to help seniors live better. On Point radio show, WBUR 90.9, Click here to listen to or download the podcast

Scams directed toward the elderly

Brookline Police issue warning about scams directed toward seniors. Click here for details.

Serving Seniors in Brookline Parks

An article by Frank Caro, chairman of BrooklineCAN and its Livable Community Advocacy Committee. From the Brookline Greenspace Alliance's fall 2015 newsletter.

Scam alert

Facebook post from Brookline Police:
Today we have received several calls from Brookline residents, who have reported receiving suspicious calls from people claiming to be the IRS. The callers then stated that they were filing a lawsuit against the residents before asking for personal information. If you receive such a call, it is NOT the IRS, it is a scam.
Non-emergency number is 617-730-2222.

Scam alert

Tweet from Brookline Police:
Extortion SCAM from local 617 telephone #. Be wary if you receive demand for money due to "Accident" "Kidnapping," etc. Call Police for help.
Non-emergency number is 617-730-2222.

New Windows 10 scam will encrypt your files for ransom

A cautionary tale in being patient, and not skipping the line. Details here.