 Hey, everyone. Thanks for joining. We're having a little technical issue, but it's going to be resolved very shortly and we'll get started. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. I think we have resolved the issue, and we're going to get started. No, sorry, your video's coming up. Okay, we have confirmed that things are working properly. So welcome. Thank you for joining us at this briefing that is going to really cover the Chittenden County response to the state of Vermont sunset of their pandemic motel program. In this briefing, we're going to discuss what we believe the impact of this closure, this end of the state program is going to have on Chittenden County and what the city of Burlington and many other organizations working in coordination with each other are planning to do in response to this challenge. I want to point out the outset, the plans that we're going to discuss today have come together very quickly under very tight timelines that have been driven by state decisions. The state issued a request for letters of intent on May 22. The city responded on June 1, last Thursday, which is the first day that responses could be submitted in response to that state request. And we are also going to be speaking in this briefing about a plan letter of interest from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, which is a coalition of 27 agencies in Chittenden County that work on the homelessness of one another, and that alliance is meeting formally later this week to approve the plan that we're going to talk about today and submit it as an LOI. Here's how this briefing is going to work. I'm going to go through a few slides which will launch momentarily that will give an overview of the challenge and this response. We're then going to have our special assistant and homelessness Sarah Russell city special assistant on homelessness Sarah Russell and also a co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance she's going to fill in some of the details of these proposals. Then we're going to hear from some of our key partners in this effort we're going to hear from will town who is the other co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance as well as a leader at Spectrum. We're going to hear from Paul dragon of CBO yo the executive director right here from Kim Fitzgerald, who is the CEO of cathedral square Elaine Soto who's the Howard Center Community Support Program director and Steve Murray the Burlington Housing Authority executive director. So that's the plan and at the end of course as we always do on these briefings will open it up for members the media to ask questions of any of the panelists. So going through all that I do want to start with some overarching remarks. I, as I said in a statement, more than a week ago now, I do support an orderly end to the trouble pandemic era motel program I support a Sunday of this program as the state is moving towards. This was never meant to be a permanent program it's being paid for with emergency funds, and there have certainly been significant management issues and problems in the in the in the program throughout its existence. So I'm going to turn it over for the state to later this summer as is the current plan and as recently as last week we saw further official communications from the state indicating for them at the end of July to turn out elderly people living with disabilities and worst of all young children and families to live intense or in Congress shelters for months would be unacceptable. I think anyone who has raised a child just has to picture what it would be like to spend weeks or months trying to raise a family in a Congress shelter on on cuts in big open spaces or shared rooms is just. An outcome that we have desperation that we should seek to avoid, if at all possible. And what we want to show in this briefing is that with a little bit of planning and time. This outcome is completely avoided avoidable with our partners, we are going to lay out an alternative path to for sunsetting this program for Chittenden County residents that is humane that is feasible and that is affordable. So with that, let's get into some of the the details and the plan I want to start by just sort of setting the overall stage of how the city has been approaching homelessness. In recent years in at the end of 2021, we released a housing is a human right 10 point action plan. And many of those 10 points were focused squarely on addressing the problem of homelessness so we indicated that we were going to spend $5 million at least $5 million of the city's ARPA emergency American rescue plan act funds for initiatives to for. I think there's a little bit of a typo in that slide but what we said is $5 million we spent on housing it with a significant percentage of that at least a million not $1 for initiatives that serve the chronically homeless. We actually already have committed more than $3 million of funds squarely of those funds towards homelessness, short term homelessness interventions, and we are planning are hoping in the coming months to be able to commit the other to long term permanent housing for formerly homeless households. We have created the special assistant and homelessness position and we are so fortunate to have Sarah Russell serving in that position as anyone watching this briefing is going to. I'm sure agree with in a moment when I hand this over to Sarah and she can lay out her perspective on this current crisis. We have made investments in the Chittin County coordinated entry command center team and what you'll see is the strategy that we this alternative path that we are laying out today relies very heavily on that coordinated entry system in that team. We have this longer term goal of building 78 new homes for formerly homeless residents. Those homes are many of those homes are already in construction. We have opened the 35 bed new low barrier shelter at Elmwood Avenue that was one of those point number five and that has now been operating since January successfully. And then you can see the balance of the housing action plan items which are a little bit less squarely on point with homelessness but, of course, anything that increases the overall supply of housing should be thought of as an anti homelessness strategy because you know the biggest single driver and in homelessness the reason the biggest single driver is the lack of homes and you know we're overarching Vermont by some measures has the second worst homelessness problem of all 50 states. And in fact, if it's clear that one of the reasons of that is because our overall state housing supply challenges where we've made it way too hard built to build and just haven't had nearly enough homes created in recent decades. Let's keep going with the overview here. Okay, so this this kind of really speaks that housing supply overall housing supply issue and how we are in Burlington very much trying to increase overall housing production to have a long term impact on this challenge and you can see there the both creation of homes in in recent years as well as what's projected in blue in the immediately coming years either projects that are in construction or permitted. And all of this information can also be found on the city's housing dashboard I'll just add. Let's let's keep advancing. This is an important slide which which I think we'll be coming back to this later as well what this shows is that the coordinated entry system that we that has been around for about a decade in Chittenden County. There's a joint effort again between dozens of different organizations that work on homeless in one way or another it's something the city has been very committed to since its creation about seven years ago. The city uses our funds to further invest in at the end. We announced that again at the end of 2021. We can see here that this coordinated entry system is consistently placing a significant number of people on a month by month in permanent housing. And what you can see is for the last more than a quarter now we have been housing at least 25 households per month. And if we can continue doing that, which we are confident we can. And when I say we hear want to be clear again I'm talking about the full coalition. Then that becomes a very powerful strategy for housing, housing the folks that we are talking about in the Motel program they're losing their housing at the end of July. Let's let's keep going. So quick summary of the shelter capacity that we have added in Burlington since 2020 before 2020 the city had no low barrier year round shelter capacity was something we have been talking about attempting to create for some time. There were that we had we had no facilities we now have to we have the first was the a new place 55 bed facility on Shelburne Road. And the second was the emergency shelter on Elmwood Avenue which has an additional 35 beds we have also working with partners, open the Community Resource Center a day station that serves 80 to 160 people daily, that is a complimentary to these emergency shelters and it has meant that the effort that we collectively have been able to galvanize galvanize it does more than simply offer a bed it offers a range of services for people who are on these challenging circumstances as well. So, now this work start to really look at the numbers of what the sunset the Motel program is going to mean. Last week. The latest data that we have from the state is that there were 170 households that either lost their hotel housing motel housing. Last week, or I have heard some indication that some, some of these facilities have granted short extensions. And that so that there are 170 households with 194 people who were impacted by last week's deadline. What there's another 184 households, including 300 318 people that are currently projected to lose their their ability to stay in motels at the end of July July 28. Within that universe about 165 of those households include high need individuals and those needs can include what is listed here on the screen so there are 56 families that have 115 children, there are 15 people within this group that are over 65 years old with disabilities, 20 people receiving home health or hospice services. Again, something services that would be very challenging to receive in a Congress setting. There are two pregnant people and four households fleeing domestic violence. So, what we're going to lay out now our strategies that for all of this need. And there's really three, three separate related strategies. So, first of all, Burlington's li submitted last week would establish an emergency Congress shelter for up to 50 people in downtown Burlington. This is an additional shelter on top of the two that just discussed, co located at that shelter and I think Sarah Russell will kind of get into some of the details of this co located at that facility would be a debt day shelter with access to services that would be available both for those up to 50 people that were living in this congregate facility as well as 25 other people that may need additional services. Finally, the third strategy and this one is the strategy that will be part of the later LOI expected later this week, the Chittenden County homeless alliance would support the transition of 165 households. The 165 households I was just speaking about to permanent housing over a five to eight month period beyond the end beyond that July 28 date. There will also be joint advocacy for extent and basically we are advocating for the extension of a motel stay for those households until they can be placed. We are projecting that by the month period based on that track record of this of the coordinated entry system housing 25 households a month for able to focus that capacity which there is consensus within the alliance that we should do to be able to focus that capacity on these 165 households, they will all be housed by the end of that up to eight month period, the costs of that will be declining with each week as additional households are are placed. The projected budget for this strategy is a little over $2 million for the first two items the co located shelters want to be clear. This is a little bit. Again, this is that those are annualized costs. The proposal actually would not have them lasting for a full year the proposal would have these shelters only existing that only being needed until the adverse weather condition program begins again in the beginning of the winter. And so the actual cost of that with as an annualized cost the actual cost would be a four or five month cost. And then for item number three strategy number three. The projection is that it would cost approximately $1.7 million for extended hotel stays until all 165 households could be housed and sorry that's a range of 1.7 to 2 million depending on whether we are able to house 25 households a month or a little bit less less than that it is possible with the that that things could speed up even and then it could be even less money ultimately. That is the basic the outline of the plan. And I think at this point, we think Sarah Russell is going to come on and take it from here. Sarah you're there. Thanks. Great. We can hear you. And now we can see you as well. You can see me. Great. Thank you, Mayor. As the mayor mentioned, the Chittin County Homeless Alliance is our local continuum of care and is comprised of stakeholders including social service and housing agencies community members and people with lived experience of homelessness or housing and security from across Chittin County. We have a close collaboration with our partners at the balance of state continuum of care as well. In addition to the city's LOI, the CCHA, as well as other partner agencies have submitted letters of interest in response to the motel program closure. We serve as one of two chairs of the Chittin County Homeless Alliance or CCHA as you'll hear us refer to it as and will town my other co chair will present CCHA's letter of interest and speak a little more about our communities method to ensure equity and coordination and access to housing resources. Generally speaking and also as part of as part of our advocacy as a community. And also here as the mayor mentioned from some of our community partners who have submitted letters of interest to agency of human services as well. And it's all of this work, so for to understand all of this work fits in fits in together. So we're all supporting that work. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about the emergency shelter proposal on the next slide please. Thanks. So as you heard the city submitted its LOI on June 1 with a focus on expanding emergency overnight and daytime shelter for adults. The overnight semi congregate shelter will accommodate to 50 guests. Next thing we propose utilizing the largely vacant state office building at one of my cherry street, due to its proximity to resources services and transportation. Well best practice indicates non congregate shelter is ideal in most cases, the building would allow offices to be used for shelter accommodations for one to four adults. And the next space for staff and a daytime shelter available to the community for up to 75 people, which we'll talk about on the next slide a little bit more. While the budget is annualized as the mayor said the shelter is expected to operate until adverse weather conditions go into effect. That's usually in late November early December. The shelter that was remaining in the shelter at that time have not obtained permanent housing, or other options will transition into motels under the adverse weather conditions provision at that time. Due to over text community agencies and a severe shortage in staffing across not just in Chitton County but statewide for social service providers. It's also considered working with a staffing agency to ensure safe ratios of guests and staff on site at all times. We will also be we're curious to hear. As you may know the state of Vermont has issued a request for proposals looking for looking for staffing resources to be utilized by nonprofit organizations, specifically around shelter, shelter capacity. So we are looking forward to hearing the results of that RFP process. We are in close coordination with the agency of human services and have not yet received confirmation of use of this location at this time but are moving through inspection habitability and safety processes that need to be in place before a decision can be made around that. So next I'll talk about the D time the co located D time shelter is also part of the city's letter of interest proposal. The budget that we submitted along with the LOI includes both overnight and daytime shelter staff. So that would be 24 seven staff is what that budget is what that budget recognizes. The, we would including shelter staff would also in addition to shelter staff would also include case management on site meals on site and resources available on site. Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity is the current operator of the daytime shelter or the community resource center located at feeding Chittenden. They routinely report up to 160 visitors to their location daily, and that was before the closure of the hotel program on June 1 last week. My concern is that people exiting the motels could cause an overflow of guests at that location. Therefore, we're proposing a secondary date and location shelter to open. We will also be open during the weekends and would serve as an additional cooling center and the summer months within the city. We hope to coordinate partnerships for medical recovery mental harm reduction supports and mental health services as well to be available on site. Next will as I mentioned will town from spectrum is also the co-chair of the Chittenden County on this alliance and he will share with you a little bit more about CCHA is LOI in response to the motel program for sure. Thank you Sarah. Thank you mayor for the degree introduction to this. And so what I wanted to quickly do before diving in was just provide a brief overview of what our coordinated entry system is so if we can jump to the next slide. Very quickly that would be helpful. And then we can go into this one. Great. So coordinated entry is a system that streamlines access to housing supports and resources. It was developed to assess and match households experiencing homelessness for eligible services based on vulnerability sustainability and length of homelessness through a standardized assessment. Each each eligible household will be referred to housing case management and added to a master list of homeless households, which is reviewed on a weekly basis by coordinated entry partners for appropriate housing opportunities. And it really is just a tool for equitable access to housing opportunities. And it also helps us better identify the needs regarding housing that face our community. So back to the proposal that the CCHA is looking at. You know when we look at who will be exiting the motels on July 28 as the mayor talked about earlier we really do see a large number of extremely vulnerable people including families people with disabilities receiving home health and hospice care seniors pregnant households and it's the position of the Chittenden County homeless Alliance that placement of these people in a congregate setting. Just it's damaging unsuitable borderline inhumane. So what we are proposing is that we're advocating for an extension of the motel stay for vulnerable households. And we will closely collaborate with housing and service providers to prioritize resources leading to rapid placements in permanent housing or transitional housing for these households and hotels. The data indicates we are able to house on average 25 households per month through our coordinated entry system. In addition to expediting motel exits to housing as part of this countywide collaboration Howard Center has also agreed to prioritize these households for mental health and substance use services. For our LOI we are requesting funding for a staff person to help manage this process, coordinate case managers and also work directly with housing providers to match households with appropriate housing resources, including available units rental subsidy and retention services when necessary. So for our next steps really, as alluded to earlier, June 8 we're having a meeting and what we will be doing is voting to approve a prioritization policy for the following subpopulations within the motels. With minor children, people receiving home health and hospice services and seniors that are 65 years and older. And what that will do is allow us to prioritize those populations for housing opportunities and get them moved out of the hotels as quickly as possible. And I think that sums it up Sarah, does anything on that. Nothing more to add. Thanks, well, this is this is the same coordinate entry slide which just shows in the last quarter that we're averaging over 25 households placed into permanent housing per month and we expect that to continue. Great. Thank you very much. Will. And that's just a little sorry. So next up we have Paul dragon from Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. Paul is my understanding is is trying to join us by phone and so. Hello. There you go Paul. Welcome. Yeah hi. Thank you for making this work, despite being, I believe on the road right now. So we have a slide about the CBO up for you to speak from and why you go for it. Yeah, thank you so much mayor sorry I couldn't be on video I am on the board for the National Community Action Partnerships so we have a conference here in Foxborough so I want to thank everybody I want to thank the mayor want to thank the city and all our partners on this call. This is what this is what it's going to take to South homeless it's going to take us all working together as a community at the municipal level the state level and certainly at the organizational level. So, for CBO EL we have housing advocates we, we cover four counties including Chittenden County, we also have some statewide programs, housing advocates all through the four counties, we have quite a few housing advocates in Burlington. We run, as you heard the mayor say the community resource center in Burlington we also have street outreach in a mobile van, and we provide some services over at the Elmwood pods as well. And then our feeding Chittenden program gets out literally thousands of meals every day to the resource center to the Champlain and and to many of the hotels in the area for people experiencing homelessness. So, we think it's really important to have a very thoughtful and methodical kind of conclusion to the motel program and to take this step by step as will said as Sarah said, and as the mayor said, because we have an opportunity here to keep people safe. And that's really, really important. So what CBO EL has is we are now operating the home program and is a, it is a housing, rapid rehousing program for families with children who are experiencing homelessness we currently have 100 vouchers and with the passage of the state budget we will have another 250 that gives us 250 vouchers for families with children experiencing homelessness. And we estimate it's hard to get the exact data, but we estimate there's five to 600 families statewide who are experiencing homelessness. So we can get close to solving family homelessness if we can commit these 250 vouchers. And if we can keep up this effort with what I think is a minimal amount of money annually to invest in solving child homelessness. And the reason why we want to solve child homelessness is because of course children and families are super vulnerable. It's also a preventative measure because we know if a child even has one brief experience of experience of homelessness as a child they're more likely to not succeed in school to have adverse health effects and to be homeless themselves as adults. So this is a real upstream prevention, upstream prevention. We also said that we would, in our LOI our letter of interest we are calling for more outreach. We think if we can extend the motel stay we'll have opportunity for our current street outreach team to expand and not only work with people who are outside on the streets, but also who are in hotels so we can engage them with services and help them find links to either new emergency shelter, existing emergency shelter, transitional housing or permanent housing. So that's going to be another strong effort. And then the other thing that we're thinking of doing not in our letter of interest, but we're planning on increasing our food capacity and outreach through our feeding chip program so we can get more people fed both in the street outreach program but also at the hotels. But as food insecurity as you know kind of co-occurs with homelessness. So CVOEO is really happy to work with our partners on the call with the mayor's office. And when we all work together, we're going to have a lot better outcomes and hopefully we'll help to end all homelessness and child homelessness. So thank you. Thank you, Paul. We really appreciate you zooming in from Foxboro. Thank you for your partnership with this. We have two more speakers. Next, we have Kim Fitzgerald from Cathedral Square, CEO of Cathedral Square. Welcome, Kim. Thank you for being part of this briefing. Thank you, Erin. Thank you for having me be part of it. Yeah, currently Cathedral Square houses over 200 people who were formerly homeless. That's before those exiting the motel program. We have found that the key to making the transition into long term housing successful is through trusted relationships that begin as soon as possible and last beyond the person being housed and continual support services throughout that entire process. Everyone has a unique set of circumstances and there's no one size that fits all. Each person needs a plan with support to help them be successful. Although living in motels is not the preferred or long term solution, we cannot have vulnerable remodels out in the street with no place to start getting the support and services they need to find long term, safe and sustainable housing. We need to work with each person develop a plan and help them execute it. We owe it to these remodels to align our work and improve and expedite the processes to find long term solutions. This will only happen if we work together and with intention. So we are very proud to work alongside the city of Burlington and our partner housing and service providers in the Burlington area to focus on this really essential work. Thank you for having me here today. Great. Thank you, Kim. Thank you for your context again for being here. And then finally, sorry, we have two more speakers from the Howard Center, Elaine Soto is joining us. Howard Center works with, she's proud to partner with Howard Center on so many areas. We're grateful to be doing it again on this issue. Elaine, thank you for being here. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. Again, my name is Elaine Soto. I'm the director of community support programs at Howard Center and also member of the Chinden County Homeless Alliance. Howard Center is happy to support this effort along with our community partners to prioritize these populations. It's consistent with our mission to help people and communities thrive by providing supports and services to address mental health substance use and developmental needs. We know that without secure housing, one's mental health suffers greatly. It's quite enough to struggle with a mental health disability. We don't need to add homelessness to the equation. We are committed to supporting our homeless clients and are thankful to our housing partners in this effort. Thanks for including us. Thank you again, Elaine. Finally, I believe we have Stephen Murray, the executive director of the Burlington Housing Authority. Steve, are you here with us? Hi, Stephen. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Although Burlington Housing Authority is not focused on emergency housing or transitional housing, we are the pathway to permanent housing through our housing choice voucher, locally known as Section 8. We've met with the city, Sarah in particular, about what vouchers we currently have available. We did discuss some of our family unification vouchers. We discussed the net vouchers or the mainstream vouchers that we currently have available. And we also discussed the fact that we do have three buildings that are focused on elderly, our elderly rad buildings. And that of the 14 elderly that are currently homeless, we do feel by the end of the summer we could put a large, we could house a significant portion of them permanently. We also have something called a local preference and a homeless preference. Local preferences for Section 8 homeless preference would be for our multifamily properties. And we have agreed to be much more aggressive on the local preferences for those coming out of the hotels. They still have to abide by all the Section 8 requirements, but we feel that if we can find someone who perhaps has already has a household setup for them, that we could make that voucher appear much quicker than how it would normally. Also, just on the good news is we are looking at, by the end of the summer, Rayburn apartments, which is Champlain Housing Trust, we have assigned them all homeless project-based vouchers. O'Brien Farms, which is Summit, we also have 12 project-based vouchers. We're expecting that in the fall or late summer. And then we have another eight units for O'Brien Farm, which is Summit, also all homeless coming on in December. And we are looking at COPS, which is the Main Street Family Housing, with 16 units of February. So we are actively looking for landlords and we are actively tying some of the project-based vouchers to the coordinated entry system, much like with Zypher Place, where 36 of those apartments were vouchers tied to coordinated entry. So we are not working directly on the emergency or transitional housing, but we are definitely trying to put as many vouchers out there as possible for those people who are suffering being unhoused. This is a good opportunity for me to shout out to landlords. We have a significant portion of vouchers that we currently have 89 families looking for apartments right now. So if any landlords out there are interested in being part of the solution for this, I'll reach out to us and we can discuss how the Housing Choice voucher, Section 8 voucher works. It's absolutely a backbone for us getting people into permanent housing. We are also looking to put in a letter of intent. Half the battle is getting everyone housed. After that is keeping everyone housed. We have a retention department and a huge shout out to them. If you are a Section 8 landlord or Section 8 participant or you live in one of our properties, you are entitled to have some help with staying house, whether it be working with your landlord or working to pay back past due rents, etc. But we are definitely struggling with that right now. We are expecting to have about 850 referrals year to date to our housing retention team to help people to keep people housed, but then a perspective that was about 250 prior to COVID. So we will also be looking for some funding so that once we do get the vouchers out there and we do get people permanently housed that we can give them some support services in order to keep them housed. And I do want to thank Sarah for all the work you did on getting us all together and hopefully Burlington Housing Authority can get a whole group of people permanently housed within the next eight months. Thank you very much, Stephen. Okay, with that, I believe we as the end of the presentations and I see we have a large number of members of the media with us and the way we have run this in the past, if you could use the raise hand function, we will recognize you and let you ask your question directly. Great. I see Liam Eller-Connors there. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm wondering, have you gotten any indication from the administration that they'd be willing to extend the motel program for these households that you're hoping that they'll extend them for? So Liam, I want to reiterate that the way that this program, the way that this proposal has come together has happened quickly with the really the deadlines driven by state decisions. So we were kind of invited to propose ideas and solutions on May 22, the city responded on June 1, we did in the interim have one very high level meeting between city staff that I attended, and that had HHS that agency of human care, there have been numerous other conversations. I would say up until now the state has been quite clear that their goal is to end the hotel program on July 28 and that was reiterated after the meeting that we had with them in a formal communication from the Department of Children and Families. Our hope is that by galvanizing, by so many partners coming together to make such a clear statement, to have a detailed plan, a detailed alternative that HHS and the Montpelier leaders will rethink that plan. It's certainly clear to me that there remain a lot of conversations going on in Montpelier about the best way forward. And while we have not heard an approval for this plan yet, we think it's a, again, it's an affordable plan, it's a feasible plan, it's a humane plan. We have a track record as a coalition of housing, hundreds of formerly homeless individuals, families and individuals in recent months. And we think this is the best path forward and we hope others will see that as well but we do not have an agreement on this yet. So it sounds like they, I mean, it sounds like they kind of said no, which is that how you'd characterize it. This has been moving so quickly, Liam, that I would not say there has yet been a moment where we've been able to lay out all this detail that we just came together. These letters of interest are still coming together. We haven't really had the opportunity to fully lay it out and get and make sure that the state is fully understanding what they're saying no to. And we now, we thought there was urgency to lay this out publicly and lay this out for all the state decision makers who are meeting actively now and will be meeting in the weeks ahead there will be as everyone knows a veto session where this there's been a lot of discussion around this, this issue and so yeah we haven't heard yes yet I would not say this detailed plan in this form with these estimates has been explicitly rejected by the state either at this point. And then with the shelter proposal at Cherry Street, the state hasn't signed off on that either it also sounds like there's some inspections can you just give us a little bit more information on what actually needs to be done to make that a reality. I mean I also can't imagine office spaces are all that hospitable as a living environment. There has been more detailed conversation around that maybe Sarah, could you speak to the status of those conversations. Yeah, I can definitely speak to that and one of the things I also wanted to mention to Liam is that, according to the state this morning we have a call they're hosting calls with community providers, fairly routinely at this point. I did inquire about the status of the LOIs that have been submitted so far again the deadline was June 30. They are continuing they notified us that they are continuing to receive LOIs. So that was what started as a hard deadline has turned into a bit of a rolling deadline at this point. But as of June 1 they had received 44 letters of interest across the state from representing all of the different communities. I did inquire about sort of what the substance was of those LOIs if they were purely for emergency shelter if they were involving other services and the state had not yet reviewed all of those, and they did not have data to share around the nature of those LOIs. So just that's the most recent update that we have from the state at this point. With regard to your question around the emergency shelter, we are in communication with agency of human services to have them conduct the various required health and safety inspections that need to happen on site. We do anticipate that there may be some capital investment required first to convert some of the office space into appropriate shelter space. And those would be conversations that we would engage AHS with as we progress. So we don't have notification from them on the location confirmation of the location but they are actively working to assess that location for emergency shelter site. Thanks. I'll let some others ask some questions. I think it's worth pointing out as Sarah mentioned capital items the budget estimate did include some capital investment as well. I see Lily St. Angelo has a hand up as well, Lily. Hi, yeah, thank you. I was wondering, just to clarify, was it DCF who who who asked for these LOIs. Yes. That's right it was. It was Chris winners and DCF should be your quest for always. The state has assembled a team of leaders from across all of the state agencies, including housing, transportation, and agency of human services department of health to etc to review all of the LOIs as they come in and pull in resources from different departments as necessary. Okay, and that was in response that was just in response to this program ending. Okay. And then I was wondering, is there any initiatives happening to help with storage of belongings as people are exiting the motels. Go ahead, Sarah. Thanks. One of the observations that we received from the outreach teams last week on Friday as folks were exiting was that there was a need for storage for some people so that is something that we have been in communication with the OEO around trying to identify safe storage for folks as they exit hotel both now or immediately in the short term and again in the long term after the July 28 hotel exits. Okay, and one more question about camping enforcement. I know there's going to be several talks with city council around that this summer. Do you have any idea of how you will enforce camping this summer. So, Lily. Yes, the city has policies about this. I think this briefing should be seen in the context of that policy and the city's goals. We believe strongly that camping sanction camping is not a safe reliable. It's a safe shelter or response to increase numbers of unsheltered folks and that that is, you know, fundamentally why we are stepping forward and saying the city will operate a third low barrier. So, I think there's going to be a need for an extension and congregate overnight shelter we think that kind of option within a building is a much preferable option to more people sleeping outside in intense and we I'm not sure we've said it yet on the briefing that there probably is going to be a need in Chittenden County, given this increased number of people, given the ending of this program there's a concern everyone has a concern including the state has a concern that the unsheltered population will go up more than 50 people and so there should be pointed out that there are other sites in Chittenden County that are being considered and other municipalities that are considering coming up here as well and I think if there is going to be an additional congregate shelter open beyond the one that we're talking about here. It is a significant goal of the cities that that additional shelter be in another municipality. So, that's the thrust of our strategy for if there are if there is increased pressure on the, the existing resources if there are more people who are unsheltered as is expected is a large high possibility given this closure. It is through these Congress shelters that we'll seek to house folks. What will we be doing about about camping, you know, we have, we have policies that are on on the books that have been on the books for a long time, and we have a team here within the city that that will be enforcing those roles or attempting to force those roles and we will as your as you mentioned there will be a further discussion about that in a work session at the City Council today. And, you know, again, I think the camping discussion should be seen in the in this context of trying to keep these high need vulnerable households in, in the hotels until they can be permanently housed and in the context of setting up another Congress shelter. Thank you. Okay, go ahead. Pat, Pat Bradley. Pat, you should be able to unmute yourself and speak I believe. Yeah, well, Pat, it. Yeah, well, we're seeing if we can get Pat on. There's a question a clarifying question from Kevin and seven days kind of a column about the, the budget numbers. So are we asking the state to fund the entire 206 million in the 1.7 to $2 million extension. We are, we are proposing that the state fund the 1.7 the $2 million extension for the high need households beyond the July 28th date. The 2.06 million again is an annualized cost. Not all that should be necessary if the, if the shelters ended when the advert weather conditions program restarts, which would be, you know, a little less than six months from now. Since some capital costs, I'm not sure if you're able to say how much of that 2.2 million Sarah is capital cost. You know, it will be more than the prorated monthly share because there are some capital costs that are kind of some costs but can you speak to that. From my recollection, I think that we budgeted it around or request around $100,000 at max for capital improvements prior to being able to open the space again that's without seeing building plans or having a tour of the building so that was that was an estimate. And, you know, we should say, you know, when you're talking about millions of dollars that's significant funds there in the budget that was vetoed my understanding is there was $12 million for transition costs. So I think that would be proposals that could address that we believe there's a potential funding source in in that budget. If that budget is ultimately passed. And so it's in that context that we're proposing these solutions and we believe there is potential funding for them. Pat, are you still trying to get on. Yeah, I am. Can you hear me. Oh, good. Thank you. Yeah, I have a portable webcam that is always weird. My question goes back to the budget the projected budget that you mentioned 2.06 million for the shelters and the 1.7 to $2 million for the extended motel stays. Where will that money come from. I don't know if you caught the end of my my last answer one potential source and it should be noted it's certainly not the only potential source the state has or emergency shelter for housing costs but they're the the budget that the governor vetoed that is under or veto override would have $12 million directly in it for transitioning out at the end of the motel program so that would be a clear potential source that has been identified and but certainly not the only place the state could could do this emergency investment from. Are you confident though that you know the state you know this is kind of reliant on the veto session approving that that scenario. Are you confident that that money could be available. So, Pat, we are. I think there's a, there's clarity that the there is capacity from emergency funds funds if that if that budget is approved. And so I think it's important to point out that the plan that we're laying out here is in many ways consistent with a with a veto override. And so I think it's important to point out that the state should choose to go in a different direction working with with the state government there certainly other ways that this could be addressed as well. So, again, given given the discussions about how the pro this hotel program needs to be transitioned and sunset. The figures that were being laid out here for addressing Chittenden County's. These are at least most of the costs that would be needed in Chittenden County for this transition. It, it's just it this is a feasible and affordable budget within the context of the dollars that have been discussed so far. Mayor a non money question along the situation here in the governor's weekly briefings he's noted several times that he and his administration have been working with the people in the hotels and motels for months for the transition. And he has used the phrase months, and yet everybody seems to be scrambling right now at this very quick transition. So where's the dichotomy here. Why does it seem to be catching people off guard when the governor is saying that they've been working with these individuals for months. So again pat, just go back to the timeline we talked about here the municipalities were invited into this discussion by the state and the formal way to be part of the problem solving on May 22. The, we have, we have course the, the alliance the organizations that are working on homelessness, certainly have been working on this challenge throughout throughout this period and it's one of those slides showed has, you know, has housed a couple hundred, two hundred homeless individuals and households over the last year so of course, all the partners you heard from today the city everyone has been working on one aspect of this challenge in terms of helping the state deal with the ending of what has been they have been the agency that has been managing the funding creating thinking through this program, they just brought municipalities and other local actors into this problem in a formal way, just began sharing data with us in the last couple of weeks. And we were responding very quickly with, we think a path through here that is an alternative to what's being considered that would be effective affordable and feasible. Probably a little harsh, but it almost sounds like you were locked out of the process. You know, again, I just say we're only brought into the problem solving in a formal way in the last couple weeks. Let's speak to that from the Chittenden County, the perspective of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. I think that some, you know, comments have been, you know, made that I've heard around, you know, folks being isolated in the motels. And then I've also heard comments that there's been active engagement, you know, with people in the hotels and what I can say from our county's perspective at least is that there have is that we have created a new outreach teams to work extensively with these with these households and motels. However, we continue to see a lack of capacity within our system, and being able to connect households in a timely manner to housing navigation services so I think I think that's one of the challenges around, you know, connecting households I think the last thing that I would say too is that there's, there needs to be increased coordination between decisions made in the administration level and this and, you know, planning that's involved in the local community level. For example, in Chittenden County, we anticipate seeing 112 new homeless dedicated units come online within the calendar year as you've heard Steve Murray mentioned, you know, just a few minutes ago with several projects that are just dedicated to households and so we're actively working with the resources that we have and are we need to make sure that the timeline for these motel exits aligns with the resources that we have so that there's not a lapse in stability for these wonderful households. Thank you and thanks for being patient with my lack of technical prowess with the webcam. So, thank you pat. I see Kevin has a follow up question in the chat about the state building being used the question is what has the state building been used for in the past and what is it being used for now. This is the state office building that in this most recent legislative session, the gubernatorial administration proposed and I believe the legislature approved basically transitioning this building away from being a state office building and being as a no longer have the same office needs that they have had in the past. And so it is, you know, that's that's the history of this building is it has been for. I think it's about a 20 year old building. I might be off on that but has been a state office building but they've been moving away from that. And so this would be essentially an interim use in that transition plan that the, there, there still would be some ongoing department of health use of the building during this period Sarah I believe is the way we've, it's been considered but a lot of a lot of the building currently is quite underutilized. I don't want to add anything to that. Not much to add I know that they're, you know, hoping to, you know, have been in conversation around relocating stuff for some time, separate from this proposal. So the second part of the question was have you considered doing something similar to city facility in a sense we already have with the, the Elmwood Avenue facility that was a city owned property that we worked with partners in the state to transition that into an emergency facility so this is certainly something that the city's been actively engaged in this this challenge in a number of ways from the start we think this is the best, the best opportunity for the need right now. Go to you, Derek Brower from Seven Days. Yeah, did I did I miss did you say how quickly you envision being able to open the shelter Cherry Street I know you mentioned the Elmwood example I mean that that took quite a bit of time to get that set up. Yeah, fair question is definitely a, there's a lot less complication and what would be needed here but it won't happen overnight Sarah can you speak to your thinking on the, on the likely timeline. Sure, I mean I think that the challenges that we ran into around the Elmwood shelter were related to supply chain and construction. You know delays that I think everyone was seeing during the pandemic, and with the existing building in place. We, again, without seeing the building or seeing the plans for the building. We, our hope would be that we could really expedite the opening of that shelter. And I'm not, I will make the distinction, certainly we don't have approval on this yet the yellow I only went in last Thursday on the other hand, there has been non trivial amount of back and forth communications with senior officials at the state and their, their needs to be openness to consider considering this. I would say we have had more favorable response to this part of the proposal so far than the extended the extension on the high need population which there's been less discussion of and we have had less of a response so far but we do we have reason to be hopeful that the state will be able to approve the use of the office bill. I mean, is there any, is there any kind of time horizon that you have in mind here I mean, could it be as soon as later the summer or is it for the run. You want to answer that sir. Sure. I mean I think that with again without seeing the building or the plans for the building for understanding the scope of, you know, need that would you know capacity capacity that would need to be infused there to open as an emergency shelter it's possible to say, I do, our goal would be to stand it up as rapidly as possible and yes I would, I would hope by the end of the summer. Again we're also, you know, reliant on workforce challenges and staffing capacity as well so those things pending as soon as reasonably possible as our time frame. Okay, and I see Patrick Crowley from the digger. This is sort of a follow up to the other questions about Cherry Street but I know buildings and general services at the state had talked about a potential desire to actually sell that building once they had moved employees out. I just apologies if you address this but I just want to be clear the this scenario does it. It doesn't involve a purchase does this involve just sort of a lease from the state before they would sell it. Yeah, that's, that's the way we're thinking of it Patrick is that this might, you know, have what we're talking about this is a short term use trying to get it open. Sarah and there were just discussing as soon as possible. But certainly the hope and believe belief that might be possible is that it could be opened this summer to deal with the extra pressures this summer and that it would be in place until the adverse weather conditions program begins again. And so we're talking about a matter of months and that could have some impact on the state's timeline for their longer term plans for the building but it would not. We don't think that we're proposing here fundamentally change how the state is thinking about moving forward with the bill. That's all I have thank you. Okay, thank you. Very good. I am not seeing any other hands from the media. So, I spoke too soon. Liam has his hand up again go ahead now. I wanted to clarify the financing so all of these all the financing for both the extending the motel and this Cherry Street project that would come from the state is. And is there any money that the city has that they'd be willing to chip in if the state seems unwilling to move forward with these. These plans you have. So Liam, the state has, as you know, emergency housing dollars a variety of emergency housing sources that go beyond will be on anything that the city has access to and we think that that should be the funding source and it's not just a who's think that he was in the legislature's budget to to fund fund the transition. And we think that's the first place to go for resources we should be certain the city is already as you're seeing on this call putting significant staff resources towards trying to manage a response trying to be a good partner at the local and helping to coordinate and implement these plans and we and you know so that's that's a cost that is being born on the municipal side. And that's that's where we're proposing at this point. The shelter is slightly off but the shelter on shelter and road I know the operators that has been running that is no longer going to be running that. Have you been able to find someone to take over that where do you have any updates I mean that seems like having that operating is sort of important in this overall plan that you're you're presenting right here as well. I agree with that statement I think it is critical that that the that new shelter that we just put public funds towards purchasing in 2020 that from for the foreseeable future I think that is going to be needed as a low barrier year round that would be a big setback to our efforts if that were to cease operating we had at this point have a commitment from a new place to operate that facility through the end of September which gives us time for conversations with other agencies about taking over the management and services at that time and we are in detailed conversations with chinning county organizations about doing that we don't have anything permanent to announce yet but I would say our goal is that the we come out of this facility operating even better than it has up until now really what has been available at that site up until now has just been the overnight services and we would like to see something much more like the Elmwood Avenue public health approach to homelessness where the housing services are combined with a concerted ongoing effort to get people to help they need to get into treatment to get into permanent housing to get into get back to work and we are seeing some success with that effort at Elmwood Avenue and we'd like to have more of those services available at the Shelburne Road facility going forward and so that is part of the goal that the transition be not just us someone taking over what a new place has done until now but actually to be expanding what is happening there and really have a stronger program going forward that's a major goal of the cities. Thank you. And I would say it's there it's a major goal of the states for that to continue as well. I see Derek has had up again as well. Yeah, thanks. One more question. You know I hear often from folks who say that they maybe have some kind of housing voucher maybe section eight or something similar and can't find a place to use it a landlord who will will rent it at a rate that's eligible. Is this a moment where this is a question for you mayor, is this a moment where private landlords need to be stepping up to to consider offering more units at rates that that where vouchers can be used. I think that that is an on point question right now with exactly what we're proposing here. I think that's a key of the households, and I think this was mentioned earlier in the briefing. I'm not sure if you have that stat again but Paul made a point about available vouchers as well. It's a sort of a further tragedy with that what is being proposed here and what we're trying to avoid is yeah many, many of these high need households. Do you have vouchers do basically have a have the resources for permanent housing. They just haven't been matched up with a unit yet through this focus of the coordinated entry system. What our plan relies on is not some sort of dramatic change in trajectory but the sort of existing system using largely nonprofit owned homes that have had government funding as those homes become available and as new homes come online we would match the individuals in this these 165 individuals with these households and they would become permanently housed and that what's really missing there is just time and what this plan does is expand the time. You are right that if some that if the unit that if there was more private property owners that participated in the voucher system that could expand the universe of homes it could accelerate the plan that we're talking about here and it would further address the sort of product situation that we have with with these vouchers existing but not enough homes it is definitely explicitly one of the goals of CEDO and our our effort to address homelessness it is one of the kind of long term strategies that I know Sarah is actively working on and and and that we it is something we'd like to see we it is almost since the day she started we also have been dealing with with crises and dealing with the setting up of new Congress shelters and so let's say it's a medium term goal and one that we think has the possibility of of having a further impact. Thank you. Okay, now I spoke to soon before but now I'm not seeing any for further hands we've been talking about this for for over an hour so if I think we're at a point where we can wrap up this briefing again some of this discussion is going to be repeated at the city council work session that I believe starts at six o'clock tonight Sarah work session or later we believe it's 630 and thank you everyone for for joining and participating in this I want to thank our partners who've been on the line throughout as well thank you for really being on the front lines of this challenge and working very hard day in and out to do right by some of the most vulnerable reminders and sitting in county residents that there are none of none of the discussion we've been talking about today would be possible with without the outstanding housing nonprofits that we're fortunate to have here and work with so thank you everyone more soon talk to you soon.