 All right. Good morning, everybody. It is Wednesday and we are here in a joint hearing this morning with General Housing and Military Affairs and the Agricultural Forestry Committee, Forest Products Committee. Forestry. Oh, I got it right. Okay. And we are here with with Representative Carolyn Partridge, who is the chair of that committee and her and her committee and we're here to take a hearing on agricultural housing. And the reason we wanted to put this together was was relatively simple in that we the housing committee do not know that much about agricultural housing. And it's kind of operates outside of the outside of the purview of the affordable housing work that we do. However, it's clear that the needs on with agricultural housing are great. We're going to hear we're going to hear get a description of what that means. Just a setting a foundation for what may happen in the next few years as more money becomes available for affordable housing, and how better we can serve both the farmers and the workers who do live on the farms to make sure that they are being treated with the dignity that that they need in housing. And so I'm just going to get right underway I'm going to introduce representative Partridge if you have a few words to start the day and then we'll go right to our witnesses and we have them listed off. And I'll start with, and we'll be starting with Buster Caswell in a moment but representative Partridge welcome. Well, thank you, representative Stevens and anybody can feel free to call me Carolyn. I, I really appreciate this opportunity. This is one of those issues that crosses a number of of territories in terms of committees, and we're delighted to be here today to talk about this because it's a very important issue so thank you for inviting us. You're very welcome it's it's it's, I think, over the last few years we've seen the need to interact. Other than if something has the word agriculture and it goes directly to your committee and we don't ever see it. How would we know. And I kind of feel that this was a situation here until we've been asked to take a look at it. And I want to start the day by introducing your listed as earnest but can we call you Buster. Yes, absolutely. And I call me Buster for you. Since the child towards thank you. So welcome to the committee's buster this is something that you've been asking for for a couple of years to really start this conversation in this public forum but there have been other forums that where this has been discussed and moved on and so again, welcome please introduce us to yourself and we'll move from you to marita and then Tom and then we have we have people after that as well. Welcome. Yes. Thank you leaders for all your valuable time and interest in this subject. And I am extremely delighted to be invited on this subject. I've had several conversations over the last three or four years on the subject of farm housing myself. I've been a farm worker. I've pretty much since high school, back in the 80s and a four year FFA member, just a little bit of a history yet and background. I worked full time. Most of those years. The last 12 years being full time in agriculture and been a huge supporter of agriculture and have an understanding of some of the needs of the farmers, some of the needs of the workers and a little bit of background and over the last four or five years I've learned much on the subject of farm housing and those things that I had learned came from outside of Vermont. I'm a member of an organization and being part of that large organization, part of it's work and its history is farm housing, which I took interest in learning more from other states and then try to learn more about those things here in Vermont. And learning those things here in Vermont. You will learn more I'm sure but if you. Many folks here have not learned about it. That's why our, we are here. Basically, so you could hear and learn more about what I've learned based on what's happened in other states on the subject of farm housing and why is that so much of a need in Vermont is a couple of reasons. For renters in Vermont. According to the website of the Vermont affordable housing coalition. Vermont is number two in the income wage gap for renters across the country. Number two and in the wage gap that's huge out of out of 50 states and Vermont is rural Vermont's very well we don't even have a million people in its population. But housing affordable housing in rural communities is a large subject with that being noted, you could find more on their website. And more. So there's a need there to address the wage gap. And the wage gap affects the agricultural community when it comes to access to affordable housing. And the Vermont housing community understands that we need to address the needs of affordable housing. And that's been ongoing for several years with the exception of farm housing. We talked about senior housing, much needed talked about address homelessness much needed address and talked about farm housing, not in Vermont, as they had in other states. Other states have came together. Generally, and ways that have been taken place over the last year and a half. Dan Baker will have some information on the number of organizations the number of times and a number of people, which is enormous in Vermont. So I'm going to say three or four meetings on a subject, trying to learn more of the opportunities and the resources out there for example. Loans and grants through the USDA through federal guidelines, very much daunting and difficult and challenging farmers use those resources. They also use profit in organizations in housing organizations use those resources. They also use resources from other federal resources, such as HUD, which is fun through each of the states. Many of those states use and utilize each and more of those resources to build homes and address issues in three different categories. And I talked about three different categories because they are related to farmhouse. The topics are improving, building, improving, building, upgrading existing farmhouse. For example, our environment our stock is capacity is fall. There's a lot of older and existing farm homes where farmers could use assistance and funding to upgrade those. The other example is building homes on farms for farm workers. Many farms across the country, including Vermont over the last several decades have done that. There's also built homes and agriculture communities off the farms, which nonprofits have utilized building homes for example, this is an example, they've built homes and agriculture communities, like for example, 20 homes that are specifically affordable for farm workers. And so there's three different categories there that all have utilized in a number of states, what the farmers utilize those resources, or whether that nonprofits utilize those resources, or whether our processes and plants and agriculture use those like cheese plants is opportunities for cheese plants, butter plants, whatever is out there in Vermont, they could utilize those opportunities as well. Farm workers are very culture workers, very much so, you can't define it as a farm worker if you look at the definition of farm workers, it's very challenging, very challenging, and then Vermont, the data for nonprofits and farmers in the resources to utilize that. And the data to use those resources are not really found or known in Vermont. And I know of no housing organizations within Vermont that have really have any success stories of building homes off the farm or assisting workers. So I mean, workers and farmers with the right connections on utilizing those resources. Some of those resources in several states are through nonprofit organizations, some of those resources for farmers are used through the USA. Some of them are used through the agencies of agriculture. And those resources, as you may hear, and I've heard in our are very challenging, even for our farmers, but those resources are there. They have a purpose to be used, and they should be utilized, need to be used. We need to have more success stories right here in Vermont on this topic. Our farmers need resources. There are many resources that organizations that you will hear more from, other than myself, that would like to use those resources and connecting the dots and it's very challenging. And one of my suggestions and recommendations, and I believe other people will recommend this as well, and you will hear more data from the Ryan report which the housing community is looking forward to discussions I've had in the housing community is, there's no data in such, but my recommendation is to form a concrete committee, a working group, a task force or a collision that permanently work together with housing organizations, farmers, energy corporations, farm worker advocates, very much so farmers, agriculture, and those suggestions you can find your colleagues in the agriculture department will have very much detailed 200 for agriculture report. And the housing organizations may not utilize this report very much, but in this report, if the ag community will share that report, what's in there and I will shorten it for you can be found in pages right around page 29 and in the area is priority strategies. That's in the area of the agriculture report and the priority strategies talks about a stronger collaboration between housing organizations and the agriculture community. One suggestion is, is to find a way to form a community working group and coalition, and then also listen to the Ryan report and learn more from the Ryan report. Well, I have, and I look forward to any questions. Anyone may have because discussions need to be needed and thank you very much for your time leaders. Thank you very much. Thank you buster, and we'll try to hold questions till the end and have a round table if we have time left but thank you so much for coming in and setting the table for us. Let's go right to marita. Good morning everyone. First of all, thank you for the space and the time. And you know what's interesting we're still meeting through zoom and screen so I will invite you all to look at your screens and to see each of you who are here you know and who is missing. I think we're missing a lot of people that needs to be in the table, bring their voices and why they are not hearing why this is not accessible to all the people of color. So, before I give my testimony I just want to acknowledge that there's the age to 73 bill that is led by BIPOC and the land access opportunity act, and I ask you to take it into account because that's something that people of color in Vermont are pushing for, and it's really needed. So my name is Marita Canedo I'm part of migrant justice. And we're a grassroots organizational very fun workers. We've been around for 10 years, talking to everybody about the need of dignified housing. I can tell you many stories and I can share many pictures. But if you haven't heard, we are right now in the milk with dignity campaign, asking Hannah for to join the milk with the program. And Tom fridge is going to talk more about the program but I want to tell you that this campaign started because workers were living in a trailer, where the great waters were coming out of the sink, and they were tired to leaving that crowded trailer there were seven people in a trailer for four. And they had to walk out of the of the farm without their paid. They had to have an action with the support of Vermonters and the press. And finally they were able to get their stolen wages by the house and situation never change. This is one story in so many farms in Vermont. That's the reality. We have to stop thinking that the beautiful landscape of family farms in Vermont is the beautiful things that we see on our products and the supermarket is not true. The people that are bringing the food to your table are living in inhumane conditions. They are not only staying still. They are analyzing the industry they are bringing solutions as milk with dignity. I can tell you the story of Adrienne who right now it's under milk with dignity farm, who is in a very good housing condition after being in another farm where basically they were living with rats and pests. All the farmers cannot afford. It's really expensive to afford changing housing or bringing a new housing, especially thinking that Vermon has so many alternatives and initiatives for energy efficiency housing. But the people itself that are bringing the food to your table are not, you know, they don't have access to these things. We have to open our eyes to see this urgency as Buster is saying, you know, first understand who is harvesting your food. Not making a blind eye to giving more money for, you know, taking care of the land without acknowledging that there are already people living in those lands in inhumane conditions. This is the story of all the workers in Addison County that were living in the garage of the farm. And the one bed was on top of an older like water fountain for the cows. They had to make their own beds. That was last year. So I'm not talking about things that are happening like many, many years ago. We as an organization led by the workers that are the experts because they are living this day by day. I bring in the solution with milk with dignity is a corporate campaign, but we as the state to really understand that when you have to allocate money when you have to think about passing bills, you have to really listen to this community. Because you don't want to eat your cheese with the hands of someone that is suffering every day. You don't want to get your milk with violence. You are what you eat and you really need to understand this. My gun justice has a lot of research we did data about housing, health and safety. There are a lot of regulations that are not investigated. That needs to happen and we know that while creating milk with dignity was the only way to bring enforcement mechanism standards that are maybe even under the regular low, like their code violations in housing that no one is investigating. And we are telling you you can go to our web page you can go to our Facebook you're going to see many videos and testimonies of people talking about the housing so I think it's time. This is the time to really listen to these communities and not only their complaints, but the solutions that they are bringing. We can spend a lot of money on task force and research and more research and more conversations and more paying people to do more questionaries and surveys. But we're saying it's enough. We have the result we have the people we have direct access to dairy farm workers. And we know that the farmers even if they want to change the things, the price or milk are so low still as the 70s. We know that immigrants are not eligible for so many housing benefits from the state. So we have to be practical we have to be creative Vermont is very known as a state that it's ahead in the country. So let's be ahead on this listening to these communities. I just want to pass it to Tom fritchie because he's going to talk to you about the solution that these workers themselves have brought to you. There's the only program in there you right now that is enforcing standards standards that have been created by the workers themselves. And it's financed by corporations. So if the state has the money and has the opportunity to support the expansion of milk with dignity and this model, because it's a model that can be replicated in many industries, I think you have the responsibility to do it. Because again I'm going to say this phrase that we use a lot. You might think you know where your milk comes from. And the answer is always the cows, but the cows don't milk themselves. So think about it. And thank you so much again, and I invite you to to read John Ryan's report as well. So thank you. Thank you Maria and I do want to acknowledge that one of the one of the difficulties in this work is that the voices that we do need to hear our at work and and we do acknowledge that that that permeates a lot of the issues that our committees deal with our you know when we deal with our working people. It's not easy to take time off to do this even remotely so I thank you for lending your voice and for for acknowledging that that that's that we're not hearing all the voices that we need to hear so thank you. Thank you very much to representative Stevens and representative partridge and all the members of both committees for inviting us to testify it's an honor to talk to you about this important issue. And I think also a big responsibility to convey to you as best I can what we know about farm worker housing in Vermont. Thank you for chair the executive director of the milk with dignity standards Council. I've dedicated my career and significant part to safety and health on farms and another workplace to starting in 2001 with the main migrant health program, continuing with the Southern Poverty Law Center and elsewhere before joining this effort here. The milk with dignity standards Councils of Vermont nonprofit organization that was created in order to get to work together with dairy farmers and dairy farm workers participating in the milk with dignity program. The program launched in Vermont after migrant justice who just heard from another Vermont based nonprofit reached agreement with Ben and Jerry's in October 2017 to implement standards for working in housing conditions on the dairy farms and Ben and Jerry supply chain. We estimate that about 20% of Vermont milk production is covered by the milk with dignity program now. And so since October 2017 MDSC has been working together with between 50 and 70 dairy farms to ensure that farms are meeting the standards in the milk with dignity code of conduct, and then in areas where farms are not yet meeting the standards that they may concrete and verifiable progress towards the standards. So the code of conduct, which Marita introduced includes standards covering health and safety wages schedules non discrimination freedom from retaliation and sexual harassment and housing for farms where housing is provided to employees. And the code also incorporates standards from existing federal and state laws, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Most of the housing standards we uphold actually come from the Vermont rental housing health code and other state laws that apply to farm worker housing. So to assess compliance with all the standards in housing in another areas and DC operates a 24 hour workers support line, via which farmers and farm workers can call with questions or concerns at any time. We answer in English and Spanish, and we conduct objective factual investigations and engage the farm in a problem solving discussion, specific to their context to look for solutions to any problems that are confirmed through an investigation. The other major way that we assess compliance with standards in the code of conduct is through annual farm audits. In our audit process we interview farm workers and farm owners or managers, inspect employee housing in some areas of worksites and review farm policies and other written records. Our housing inspections include measurements of square footage of habitable space available, air quality measurements and visual inspections of requirements such as smoke detectors and other fire safety devices. To my knowledge we're the only agency or organization that has inspected dairy farm worker housing for compliance with Vermont laws. And so after our audit we compile this information into a written report that's only for the farm. Farmers that are not yet meeting all standards in the code of conduct we then work with them using the audit report as a tool to develop corrective action plans that ask farms to make commitments to concrete progress within workable timelines. And I say context specific problem solving because we know that whether it's housing or occupational safety and health, a plan that solves a problem on one farm might not necessarily work to solve a similar issue on another farm. Also to the success of the program has been the annual know your rights and responsibilities education component that ensures that people on farms are informed about how the program works and how to use it. So our auditors are not parachuting into talk to people who have no idea what the purpose of the visit is, but rather we're speaking to people both farmers and farm workers who are informed about relevant topics and the goals of the process, which is to ensure that farms are meeting standards and consistent improvements are made where needed specifically about farm worker housing. It's obviously it's important for many reasons. Farm workers who denied have adequate rest and sleep when they're not working. If it's because of housing conditions may face short and long term healthcare concert health consequences from poor indoor air quality or interruptions of sleep. And businesses also suffer if their workforce is not in good health or well rested. Everyone involved in dairy farm work including milkers hurts people feeders farm owners and managers works very hard doing important jobs that require a great deal of concentration and skill and often physical exertion and often for long hours. So obviously for farms in operation 24 hours a day or close to it, having employees always close by is also a major benefit. As you know, every farm is different during our first round of farm assessments, we found farms providing excellent farm worker housing that included adequate space and safe conditions. We also found farms providing housing to employees that does not meet legal standards in a variety of ways. So the first year we did audits was 2018. I have, I'm going to give some numbers from our 2019 audits, which is our second, our second round. In 2019 we found on participating farms 178 qualifying workers lived in the housing provided by their employers. And the farms were providing the farms in the program work together providing a total of 72 housing units to employees out of those units 46% were fully compliant with the Vermont rental housing health code. And this for non compliance on other ones in other housing units include holes and structural problems pest infestations inconsistent heater water, inadequate habitable space lack of fate fire safety devices and some other things out of those units, 22% had less than square feet of habitable space per occupant 17% had only one exit 10% had one or more workers permanently sleeping in a living room or other common area and 8% were closets or other spaces inside barns. One example of that last situation was a 10 foot by 14 foot concrete room that's next to a milking parlor in which three adults working full time at the farm lived on a full time year round basis. They had two bunk beds. And so the three of them use the one empty bug to store their clothing and other belongings. It is stove and refrigerator inside this room and use the worksite bathroom for their necessities. A visitor to the farm would not have known that there were people living behind the closed door in the hallway right outside the parlor. So the data that the numbers I just gave a cover hasn't provided the farm workers who speak any language or of any national origin. So that includes hasn't provided a people whose primary language is English, some whose primary language is Spanish, and some whose primary language is an indigenous language such as talk a lot about the program uses the term qualifying programs, which includes any non managerial employees of dairy farms who milk script manure care for animals or do certain other jobs, regardless of where they're from, or what their languages. So also I want to note that the 2019 data I gave reflect improvements from the conditions found in our 2018 assessments of participating farms, and a lot of that progress is detailed in our first program report which I've shared with the We don't yet have complete data for the 2020 audit year, but I'm confident that that data will show additional improvements beyond the numbers that I just shared from 2019. The improvements that farms have made so far include increased access to smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers. Numerous repairs to appliances and structures, at least a dozen new windows, one new roof to new employee housing units to better units that were opened up to employees to live in, and the expansion of three other housing units in order to alleviate overcrowding. And these are just the beginning. These improvements are the result of hard work and good faith participation by farm workers and farm owners cooperating in a process made possible by the local dignity code, the education sessions and the MDSE detailed monitoring facilitation. Participating farmers in the local dignity program deserve credit for their work with us to allow transparent verification of conditions and to make improvements where needed. Farm workers also deserve credit for their leap of faith to participate in the process. For many of them at various points it's been scary they've been afraid to speak up about concerns for fear that their employer will be unhappy that they've said something and retaliate. And Ben and Jerry's also deserves credit as the historic first participating buyer in the program. Among other contributions, the requirement that farms meet code standards have set expectations that did not exist before. And their premiums paid to participating farms have helped make housing improvements possible that appeared to be impossible before. A piece of this work that we're doing is an exciting pilot project with efficiency Vermont to begin connecting farms with zero energy modular housing that would provide safe indoor air quality excellent ventilation and efficiency efficient energy use that would benefit primarily farm owners but also have secondary benefits for farm for all verminers. We're also excited about potential future collaboration to expand the range of solutions with groups like new frameworks and excited to hear from from John Ryan about his report and any additional solutions that come into the field to help help accelerate the process of improvements where they are needed. So thank you to everyone for your attention it's important issue. Thank you, Tom and Tom and marita before we go on to our next witness gussie like from BHC be where we'll start to hear about some of these studies and the other in the programs. Can you just, this is a simple question, I think, but it never is with housing. Do farm workers when farm workers are hired are hired on and and offered housing. Do they offered leases. Do they sign a lease to live in the properties on the farm. Is that required through. I mean, again, this is a difference between what we deal with every day in our committee and what might be available on the farms. I think that it's just a verbal agreement. And we work very close with the Vermont law school to have like a fact sheet about how to deal as a landlord or a tenant when you have just a verbal agreement. So also people don't know which kind of situation are they going to have with housing when they get to a farm. Okay, I just, there's a lot to that simple statement but I appreciate it because it's. There's, there's just a lot to it and I think we'll get to that as we keep investigating the situation here. Thank you. And thank you Tom for that for that information. Gus ceiling. Welcome back. Good morning for the record Gus ceiling director for the Vermont housing and conservation board was Gleason, the director of our farm and forest viability program is also with me this morning. Let me be very brief. Mr chairman, because I think it's important for you to hear from john and hear from Mr Baker. Let me start by just saying a big thanks to Buster and to marita and Tom for the work that they've done to raise the profile of this issue which is so important. As you were just indicating with your question a complex one when your housing is tied to your employment in the way that it is and it makes it much more difficult to raise concerns about it. And we're at a very difficult time in the agriculture industry and covids made it worse and makes it harder to come by investment. I was talking with a member of the other body. A few weeks ago, and one of his thoughts was G we could pull in a lot of federal money on this issue and I think that's going to be really difficult and it points to something you've always been an advocate of chair Stevens of the transfer process being fully utilized. Because the legal status of some employees may make it hard to match this with the programs USDA offers. I, I, I told I had a chance for the first time to talk to Buster probably about a month ago. And at that point, your appropriations committee was talking about supporting the governor's recommend of $20 million in one time and what I told him that day was that we would at least at the very least based on the report that you're about to hear about from John beginner repair program with a half a million dollars. Your committee then doubled the governor's recommendation to $40 million. The Senate is considering that now and we would certainly be committed to doing more. I had the opportunity to meet with marita and Tom, probably a week or 10 days ago to talk about the zero energy modular project. We've done about 50 zero energy modular homes across Vermont. It's a great product. We just brought eight of them into Vermont with the CRF funding. And we've done a lot of work with the state funds that we did last year that those dollars were directed only for homeless folks in order to pass muster with the federal government, but it's a good product. Not an expensive one but a good product and we're prepared to do more with that, assuming the state funds are there to do it. Be easy. And I just want to point to two difficulties in terms of so that we may ask you to make sure there's some language in the bill that authorizes a demonstration program of some sort. The first is that we are told to conduct our mission without ever displacing anybody and again there, we may make investments in housing and somebody may lose their employment and then lose their housing. So, for whatever reasons, good or bad. The second is that we always strive for permanent affordability as agriculture changes. It may not always be possible to achieve that goal, but I think fundamentally, the time is right to do right here. And we should begin the process of utilizing the state trust fund to address this very fundamental issue of human decency and human dignity. So I'm going to stop there for the moment because I think it's more important for you to get into the the particulars that John and Dan can offer unless Liz, you want to add a few things from the from your perspective. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thanks Gus. Liz. Thank you. Good morning everyone and thanks for having me and the program director for our farm and forest viability program. I guess I'll just share a few quick notes. Our program works with over 150 farmers a year where a long term in depth business assistance program, mostly focused on working with farm owners and how to improve their businesses on, you know, whatever, working towards whatever their goals might be and I guess I'll just note that we really see farm owners acknowledging the incredible importance of their employees and as John's report states there's about 20,000 people who work on farms in Vermont, about 8,500 of those are people who are not owners and not family members. I think that the agricultural industry and all of the products that Vermont is known for couldn't be produced without the incredibly important work of those employees. I think we'll get into these details later but the some of the challenges that farm owners face in making investments in their farm are important to understand so that however we structure some of the ways to make improvements are structured specifically so that people will use them and they'll have a positive impact. And I really think the, the points that came out in the report and that we all have heard about around the low margins and agricultural the incredible instability right now in the dairy industry. Some of the important sort of downward pressure on prices are real factors and really understanding how that impacts farmer decision making will help us structure programs that can help make improvements. I'll also note that one interesting component came up. And that was sort of the complexity and lack of awareness around the design and permitting and building. Farm owners are to invest in new structures and I think that's an interesting and really specific component of this and the viability program can be helpful to this effort in a variety of ways one major one is that we often play a big role in helping with access financing. We often do play a really big sort of connecting role making sure people know about the resources that are out there. So if there were a more sort of streamlined way to have access to understanding the permitting and regulations. That's also something that we might be able to assist with. So I think that's all add and just really appreciate being here and appreciate hearing from all these amazing people. Thanks so much. Thank you Liz and welcome. That's your first time in my in our committee as well and so it's always good to see the other facets of VHCB and what they provide. So when we talk about the property transfer tax. We're not only talking about. I mean we're talking about VHCB at large. And it's great to meet you. Thank you. Nice to meet you too. Thanks so much. Thank you Dan Baker. Dan welcome. And if you could just introduce yourself where you're where you're from and please share your story. Thank you. Thank you to the committees for the invitation to come this morning and be an associate professor of community and international development at University of Vermont. And as an academic you know we like to go if it's okay with the committee I'm just going to go through a few slides with some research results related to housing. Did we did we make you a co host. I am I think I think Ron's already there you are. Great. I'm just going to flip through a few things here. And I'll share this with Ron so you can share this committee afterwards. For the last year I've been, as Buster mentioned I've been facilitating an informal group that's kind of been interested in farm worker housing and the reason I want to mention that is just really for two reasons. The number of organizations that have been joining that group increasing over the last year, and the surprising range of participants, you know from traditional housing to farm worker advocates. It's been really to energy to energy has been quite a broad array of interest that have been involved. I also just want to talk or kind of note that when we talk about farm workers, there's really several sort of groupings of farm workers. One might be the considered more like the traditional or local group of dairy farm workers. Some of them are kind of live in our community and some kind of do move from farm to farm across the region. For them for that group they live. Some of them have on farm housing and many of them have off on farm housing. For this group you know they face the affordable housing crisis, you know that is kind of a statewide challenge. The second group are the h2a visa holders. They are temporary seasonal workers here on legal visas. They are kind of their housing is regulated. Mostly they work on kind of our fruit and vegetable farms for dairy farms, dairy farms, you know do not have a program at this moment for for farm workers. You know the range of how many folks kind of in this category here in Vermont is quite broad we don't have a census of it, roughly 800 at the low end 13 and 1500 at the high end. And for these folks on farm housing is absolutely essential all of these of these workers live on farm. Very briefly kind of the data I'm going to share is from a series of research projects I've done sort of my approach to understanding the dairy industry has been to go back and forth between interviewing dairy farmers and interviewing dairy farm workers. I've done a series of those you can see in 2000 and 2018 with dairy farmers in 2016 and 2018 and 2019 with primarily Latinx farm workers. And right now I'm working on a project with the Vermont Department of Health on on dairy farm response to COVID. Last little note to be my last slide is I also do an annual poll. It's part of the Vermont poll, looking at farm at Vermonters opinions on dairy farm or migrant labor and I'll show you that last slide. Most of the farms that I've interviewed are all the farms I dairy farmer farms I interviewed are dairy farms that hire non family labor. So kind of this data set is only for farms that hire kind of off farm labor. In 2018 amongst the 71 farms that we interviewed a 57% of the workers were Latinx workers. So it's a very substantial portion of our dairy farm labor force. There's some differences between kind of the US workers and the Latinx workers in addition to kind of the relate to housing outside of documentation or jobs. We tended to have kind of more experience and longer time on each farm and the Latinx workers are have much shorter tenure. And so there's more turnover. And that is important for housing. Kind of in terms of both, you know, kind of maintenance and the social environment when we in 2018 we were looking at both wages and non farm benefits. And what we found is that housing is one of the major non farm, not to me non wage benefits that dairy farmers provide to their workers for Latinx workers housing and utilities provided by 100% of the farms we surveyed housing was provided about for about 62% of farms for us workers. So for Latinx workers. Housing is is central. When we asked the farm workers about their housing. As you can see about a third said that their housing caused them either moderate or extreme stress. And about for about 11% of their housing was actually extremely stressful. And we found about 13% of farms had at least one farm farm worker reporting extreme stress related to housing. So the majority of workers have low to no stress, but for about 10% it's extreme stress and about a third have some have some stress and we're particularly interested in COVID about housing density, and we do find that for some farms density can be quite high, you're nine people per living living in each house with an average of about four people per house. And so for COVID, almost 11% of over 10% share bedroom with an unrelated person. And so for these for these workers and these housing in this housing, clearly that space and crowding is an issue. And what I wanted to point out though is that density is complicated. When we actually when we asked people workers about the stress related to density. The vast majority said that density was not a cause of significant stress. And that may be because they live with family members, it may be because the housing itself is a sort of an opportunity to live in a space that where people share similar culture speak a similar language. And kind of complicates things. So the last two slides. Just have a few recommendations kind of based on our research. You know one is that it's important, I think, to note that for the majority of farm workers. Housing appears to be a relatively low cause of stress, but for about a third. It is a it is a significant cause of stress. So it's a third of the workers that we've surveyed. Housing is quite an important issue. There needs to be in it. There needs to be more research on the specific housing issues, and whether or not we need, and for some housing, this is absolutely the case, you need a whole new house like that particular is not going to be salvageable. It's a significant other share. You know we can that repairs are possible working on a bathroom working on the heating or ventilation. Repairing issues in the kitchen. And I just want to make a note that much of this housing are manufactured homes or some, you know, often called mobile homes or trailers. And if any of you have ever worked on or visited one of these homes, particularly older homes. It's challenging. You know they weren't particularly well built to begin with, and they don't age well. And that's a very significant share of farm worker housing. I've been currently talking to some farmers as well as I just was talking yesterday to cover home repair in southern Vermont, trying to get an idea of what people feel right now would be a useful amount of money to do kind of just the repairs not the replacement in the range is probably somewhere between 10 and $20,000. We all know materials prices have increased dramatically at this, this year. I just wanted to give kind of a round figure there. And, and of course, recommend that the community consider assistance for farmers and that need to simply replace whole homes. And the last thing I want to circle back to what Buster said, there is this broad group stakeholder group. It's informal and some process for sort of formalizing that group that includes absolutely the housing folks, but also farmers and farm worker representatives. I work right now with the UVM Medical Center on kind of some health related issues. So, I guess I would recommend that we think broadly when we think about housing and how to move forward. And then the last slide I just want to show this to you this is my public opinion research. I just want to finish with this. And we've asked since excuse me, since 2000. Since 2010 about Vermonters opinions of the impacts that undocumented farm workers have on Vermont communities. We've seen consistently high support for these workers, and that's actually risen over those years. And so the environment that whatever policy you choose to make to help these workers. That environment is actually very positive. And the people feel strong that these are, this is a community of foreign born workers that contribute positively to Vermont, and to the support of our dairy farms and I'll stop there. Thank you very much. Dan, Dan, can you share this with us. Can you send a copy of the slide deck to our assistant and he posted for us. Absolutely will sell it send it to Ron. Yes. Great. Thank you. And now let's move right to john john Ryan welcome. And I have a report that is that I don't even know if it's officially released yet but you have a report on the housing needs assessment and if you could just give us a rundown of, of this study and and how long it can just give us a story of the study and what you've provided to us is is quite full of information some of which we've heard today but really points to what what we're really getting at here. So welcome thank you. Thank you. Chairman Stevens and Parkage. Others thanks for inviting me today. By way of introduction, I have been a affordable housing consultant for the last 30 years working largely in communities in rural Vermont and around rural New England. I did happen to spend six years as the head of the agricultural development development program for the Vermont sustainable jobs fund, and have had an opportunity to work with and do deep dive coaching with 40 or 50 agricultural enterprises in Vermont over the last several years. The use to the occupational hazard of the consultant is you, you prepare a port and sits on somebody's desk forever and you know little of it ever gets read so it was a particularly pleasurable to have my virtually hot off the press last draft. You know sort of rushed to this committee because the interest was there and I'm really grateful for that. From a political sense in the best use of that word. This is as complex and challenging a problem as I could imagine constructing. You have the interplay of a challenged sector of our economy in that is central to the sort of this sort of the brand and and value of the state. And you have that intersecting with a group of individuals who are who for the largest portion of are not even recognized officially as being here. You've got a whole series of challenges that range from the, you know, the ones that are beyond the control of this body to resolve and things which are quite specific to the experiences of individual farms and individual situations. So it's a little challenging to try to understand what would be the best information to convey to this group so I'll be brief and say that nothing that I heard from any of the previous speakers. Would I disagree with I think there was real value presented in the perspective that you've already heard. I would say that I was brought in by the HCB probably for reasons not dissimilar from your two committees which is to say they knew the problem was they are there hadn't been a lot there's not a lot of information out there to be gotten and there was value in having somebody come take a look at what data was available. At what were the issues that needed to be addressed what were the challenges. What was the scale of the problem. And what were the, you know what were some of the potential solutions or processes that could be followed going forward. I think the idea that these two committees are going to, you know, keep their attention on this issue now I think is really valuable. I don't think it's going to be a quick fix in any sense of the word to try to address it. And I think at the very beginning there was a lot of for me discomfort after doing most of my study work in the area of affordable housing where there is relatively reliable data sets over a long periods of time. To really look at changes and trends in the situation. But that is not the case here. It was essentially trying to look into a black box and try to figure out well what is the nature of the, the issue that we're really trying to look at. There was a lot of good work done by Dan by migrant justice and the milk with dignity program to provide some insight. There are a lot of individuals that I had the opportunity to interview that have been on many farms have understood it if only anecdotally the nature of the experience. And from that I was, I did my best to give the HCB enough a sense of the scale of the issues that are there, and the challenges that are that are presented when trying to address this need. And by saying, I didn't speak with anyone in my entire process who was not supportive of both the rights of workers to live with decency in the homes that they had, but also to have agricultural agricultural industry be sustainable in Vermont. And I'm hopeful and I realized there will be challenges that whatever solutions we need to do has to address both of those things this is not a case of one or the other they both need to be understood. The key issues that I would point to are that most of my focus and most of the focus of these previous testimonies has been about housing for workers who are on who are working on who live on the farm. That group represents roughly 2000 workers living on about 600 on about 600 farms. So, that's only a relatively small portion of the roughly 7000 farms that are that are in Vermont, and 20,000, you know farm workers, both the principals their families and those that are hired. So, I before I turn my attention to that focus group of folks who are on working on the farm. I want to acknowledge that there are a significant number of farm workers who are who are commuting to work from their homes in rural Vermont, and that their needs, because they are low wage workers are the are the needs of all low income workers in rural Vermont and that much of the of the housing development and for good reasons based on infrastructure infrastructure and social services and other issues tends to concentrate in the sub regional centers and that there is little opportunity in the rural communities where the farm, the farm labor exists for affordable housing in the traditional sense. The largest group is actually the farmers themselves, the owners and their family members, those who make the decisions around farming. When you look at the, at the incomes that they earn from the the profits of their farm, they represent a pretty reasonable share of the low income homeowners living in rural Vermont. It is not a group of people who can afford to go take out home improvement loans, and other kinds of things the way many, many folks can in suburban more urban centers, because their incomes are also limited. So I think this is no, this should come as no surprise to any of us who've been in Vermont for a while but it is to recognize that there is a need that goes beyond that which is targeted at the folks who are working and living on the farm as employees. When I turn my attention to that. I would, I would sort of point out this quality and it's been referenced before. The majority of those who live on the on the farm are in the dairy industry. The majority of those are in the larger dairies. The majority of that is concentrated in Addison Franklin in Orleans County. The majority of those who are living on farm on farms in dairy in those three counties do not have their full authorization to be working in the United States. And so they are not eligible to be housed in programs that are funded by the US by the USDA. And, and they live often with the uncertainty in the fear of being deported. And so their need to stay on farm is as much a function of that insecurity as it is of their occupation. And so there's a real need to find ways to improve the conditions in those farms, which are relatively concentrated in a relatively small number of farms. That is workable both for the farmer and for the and for the workers and the funding sources. And that that can be brought to bear. So that's one of the challenging issues that I think you will need to be able to address is how to de-link the citizenship. As Gus alluded to, perhaps even the permanent affordability component from some of this in a way that will sustain both agriculture and the goals of affordable housing. The second thing that I would point out is that the second largest group is a group of folks who are migrant workers here legally under the H2A program. Group two works largely in non-dairy and orchards and in and field crops. They're in a very targeted group of farms, there's probably about 50 or 60 at most a year who have ongoing contracts to have H2A workers. And that program is intended to provide for oversight to the quality of the housing that those individuals have. I can only say that the overall standards of H2A housing and the and the and the other farm worker housing are not significantly different. They range dramatically and there's some pretty inadequate housing in the H2A program. The USDA does allow for their funds to be used now. It's just a recent improvement with H2A workers. So it is possible for projects to be built both on farm and off farm that can combine housing for migrant workers or H2A workers as well as for domestic workers. And even in some instances in their pilots are made available to non-farm working folks as well. So there is both opportunity and complete and ability to provide more scaled housing in certain communities that addresses the needs of both farm workers as well as non-farm workers. And I guess that draws to me the attention to what I think is probably the most important issue that I can see if we're trying to make progress immediately. The individuals who've spoken already spoke as I wholly agree on the need to have a group of folks committed to addressing this issue from a variety of areas. Money is an important factor. We've surveyed 65 farms, almost all of whom have farm workers about their needs, their willingness to address those needs and the challenges to doing so. And certainly money is the most important factor. But it is not the only factor and in some cases it wasn't even the primary factor. All of these farms are protected in one way or another. They're either have land trust restrictions or they are under the current use. The challenges of making expansions or additions within those can often be quite daunting to individuals who have plenty on their plate already. There are issues around, you know, septic capacity and simple issues of design and construction management that make a willingness and even in some instances of financial ability to make improvements or additions to their housing. Really difficult to embrace. And so the idea that as part of a willingness to address this issue. Having there be individual organization that is there to solve the problem on a case by case basis that is able to look at whether this is a situation that is about funding. Whether it is about zoning, whether it is about other kind of regulatory purposes, who can work with the land trust around their values that they allow for for properties that are in their control. And I think that is the key to the need for there to be a staff person or an entity that is saying, this is my focus. My focus is to build trust between the workers and the farmers to give them to expand the opportunities and the funding and to, and to work to address this situation. That it needs addressing. I think what the milk with dignity program has done has been really impressive. I think their ability to build communication links between the farmers and the farm workers is a model that we should be really trying to emulate and scale. The ability to bring in private funding, essentially corporate incentives to do this is something which I think could be leveraged with additional potentially public funding to be able to make that happen. But I really see that as one of many possible avenues that could be explored, but it needs someone to say this is my job. This is what I am doing. And so convening a group of stakeholders is a really important issue. But providing the funding to staff that in my view will be the difference between seeing real progress in the short term, and, and planning, which though I've made my livelihood helping do planning isn't what we're after in the long run. So I'll stop there. There was so much that I could have talked about about the study itself. But again, trying to understand the perspective of you as as decision makers and a pretty important role. I thought it best to really speak to what I think is needed from that perspective going forward. So I'll stop there. Thank you, John. The pages that are that you shared with us would be testimony of on the next step of just like what exactly you're you're recommending and but I touched on so much that is that is a great report. So thank you for that. You know the difficulty of working with, as you said the zoning current use issues, septic issues, those are those are almost the primary barriers. And I remind funding, and being able to afford those things having that infrastructure in place on in areas where we're where we're trying to make sure that they're clean soils and that things are taken care of etc you know it's it's it's it's that's exactly what I think we wanted to know about today. Thank you. I get I have real empathy for both, both the workers and the farmers in this situation and I think that's really important to keep in mind through all of this. The, you know for the farmers to ask them to be housing developers is asking a lot there's really no other industry in Vermont that still has that. And at the same time, you know there's no other industry in Vermont that doesn't need to pay minimum wage or pay overtime to the extent that that's true in the farm community. So it's, it's hard to put an extra burden on them, but it's equally hard to assume that we can therefore put the burden on the people who they are working for them. And I'm glad it's not my job to figure out how to solve that problem that that's up to you guys but anything I can do to help. I'm happy to try to answer at this point. Thank you john I'm going to represent a partridge. Thanks. Thanks, Tom. I, I really appreciate the testimony today. And I have to. I have a just a couple of, I may have some questions but also just a couple of things that I want to say and I have sort of an dying frustration with the situation we have where dairy workers can't be part of the h2a program. I was dismayed to hear john say that in some cases h2a housing is not up to snuff, and that's that's disappointing. So, folks that I know who use h2a workers. You know it might not be the Taj Mahal but it's not half bad. Anyway, it's so that I just want to put that out there I wish that we could at some point and it's not us it's a federal government but I wish that at some point we could get to a point where dairy workers could be part of the h2a program. I heard you say how many workers, I'm curious. I have, I do have a question and then a couple of other things to add but how, how much are these undocumented workers who I really appreciate because we know they keep our farms, our dairy farms in particular. Many of them anyway running. How much are they paid per hour. Are they paid Vermont's minimum wage. Well allow others who are closer to that to try to answer it. Tom or marita. I can jump in as well if you'd like. That was Dan does Dan sure. Yeah. In 2018 we found a medium of about 1015 hour in wages and then we about a little over $2 an hour additional and we value the value of the particularly housing and utilities. Okay, thanks Dan. That's helpful to the two things I want to add or this yesterday we were taking testimony from the commissioner, Michael Snyder on just an update on forestry and logging and what have you and he was talking we were tight we kind of launched into the parks because that's part of his purview, and he talked about how successful the cabins are at our state parks, and how there is, and I'm putting this out there just on the table as something to talk about for how, how they have it. I think they maybe launched it but they, the pandemic put the kibosh on it, but they had an earn and learn program going on where folks at tech centers could could build cabins and I sort of envision some for us to bring the larger community into this in terms of using Vermont would we know our our our foresters and and loggers are struggling using Vermont would to potentially make what we're calling I guess tiny houses for some of these folks. I get that there's their complications that septic and what have you could be a problematic but there might be ways to solve that problem but I'm just putting that out there so working with a high school tech centers, potentially building some structures for the very worthy workers. And the other one is current use and let you know there's this whole issue about if you have structures on your, your property, you have to withdraw two acres from your current use land to take account for that well last year, we passed a bill which which allows you to cluster housing and potentially only take two acres out from maybe five units maybe more as long as they're on the two acres so I'm just putting that out there. As I said in case I get hit by a truck you all you have that knowledge could be helpful. All right, that's it thanks Tom. Can I answer to representative Caroline about your idea of cabins. Please go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, it's something that farm workers already have been thinking about we've been partnering with new frameworks to have former farm workers building cabins that are efficiency like sustainable partnership with efficiency Vermont for other housing in the program. The problem there is that there is need for more funding to have another shop to have more, you know, former farm workers building those housing or even you know using the high school. As you said, programs, there's this program of youth, you know build, you build that brings you also. So there are opportunities but we need is financing and ways to have the voices of these farm workers, letting us know what is the, you know, housing for the place and then how to study it so I think that they had to think about developers and thinking who can be the developers and trying to figure out a program where you have the knowledge of which farms need these things which farmers want to get into a program like this with developers and having farm workers for former farm workers building housing for farm workers. That will be the dream. So again we go back again to allocation of money, we're giving money for conservation land, but no thinking about the housing on those land I think that's really important. But thank you for your suggestions. And tell me I just respond a little bit. I thank you marita and thank you for your work. I'm just going to mention here that there is a cottage shop in Jamaica and might be the Jamaica cottage shot I'm not sure, and I mean Jamaica Vermont which a borders when them at where I live. And I, they've been having sales on these cottages for not that much, you know, it kind of a tiny house but maybe $15,000 and you're right, it's a matter of funding. But with this, the COVID money coming and if I don't know how this fits into the code, the infrastructure picture but it seems to me that it's, it's really applicable. So, but that's, you know that was if I were queen for the day and ruled the world so, but thank you and thank you for your work really appreciate it. Representative Norris, and then hang on I just want to say before actually before representative Norris, you know we had thought that this would be a 90 minute hearing but this is, I'd like to have these questions asked and talked about and it looks like agriculture has a fairly free schedule after this as anyway but we're going to continue asking questions till we, you know, till we're done this has been this has been really quite quite good so thank you representative Norris and then Hango. Yeah, I mean I was a farmer for 40 years, and all of our Howard or hired help either lived in the house with us or, or we had other housing on other farms but I think, you know, until we can ensure that dairy farmers are getting a profitable price for their milk and not up and down and up and down. You, if you asked the farmers, every one of them appreciates their Latino workers, I mean, if they, they weren't here. These farmers would not be able to exist and they know that and they treat them well. But if they had any extra money to, you know, to build another house, I'm sure they would but you know, a lot of times that money goes to the grain bill or the mortgage, just to continue to survive. I think you have to take that into account. I mean, farming is low margin at best. I mean, when we were farming. There was never any money left over at the end of the month at all went barely enough to cover everything so I don't think things have changed a whole lot but I wish they would. Thanks. Thank you representative Hango, then try on. Thank you very much. I have some very specific questions that should be one sentence answers from some of the witnesses because I didn't quite get the facts and figures. So, the first one is for Tom, and the, the figure was 70% of Vermont farms belong to the milk with dignity standards is that correct. There, there have been the number of farms in the program at a given time changes a little bit because it's based on the size of Ben and Jerry supply chain, but there have been around 70 dairy farms in the program. I'm sure you made that the milk produced by those farms is about 20% of Vermont's milk. 20% I'm, I apologize. I'm sure I heard the wrong number. And the other question is also for you. And that is in terms of violations of the rental housing codes when when you do inspections. Did you say there were, it was about a 46% compliance rate. Okay, great. Thank you very much. And the next question is for Liz Gleason, please. Did you say that there are approximately 8000 workers who are not family members on farms in Vermont. Yes, that's what was in john's report about 8500 non family workers, not all of whom are living on farms. Great. Thank you very much. And the last questions are for Dan Baker, please. Seasonal h2a visa holders does is there. There is a requirement that housing needs to be provided is there a requirement for inspections of those of that housing. My research is primarily on dairy farms, but I believe I know that let me say that I know that there are standards. Yeah, okay, great. If I may add in there are requirements for inspections. Excellent. Thank you very much. That's what I thought, being that it was a government program. And the last question is also for Professor Baker, please. Undocumented migrant farm workers you had a slide and you took it down before I could get any get the rest of the information you did say you were going to supply that that slide deck to us. I have. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Can you just tell me what the approximate number of undocumented migrant farm workers. There are in Vermont. I can give you the range, because there is no census. Right. And it's around 800. And that would include workers and their kind of family members. And at the very high end of the 1500, I think the most folks would now would be closer to 1300. If I could just make a comment. In our research with farmers and this goes to the previous representative representative Norris was saying in our research with farmers consistently farmers express very, very high levels of appreciation for their Latin X workers. I just want to make that as and for their US workers as well, but I just wanted to make that point that that's been very consistent in our research. Yes, I understand that I have several farms in my district that have a great difficulty finding folks to work for them. So it is an important piece of our economy. I understand that for sure. And I appreciate everybody being here today this has been extremely informative, and I'm really happy to work with the agricultural community in, in the housing sense in the housing realm. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Stevens and I wanted to thank everyone for their presentations here today. It's obvious to me and I'm sure most everyone else on these committees that set a subject that's been overlooked, not intentionally but it just happened that way that in our discussions and funding around housing. And I'm fortunate that this happens because we all know at least I know and I'm sure, again, most others know that as representative Norris said, farmers can exist without help at this point. So, you know, it's really something that we need to think a lot more about and and put some creative thinking in it and when Merida was speaking about farm workers building cabins or building homes on on farms, where farmers are not able to afford to provide better housing. It occurred to me, you know, back in the mid 70s I worked a community action up in the Northeast Kingdom here and we had a program that was stumped the house basically that we had, we had crews working in the woods and we had a sawmill that mill these these logs out and we had a crew that were building low and low income housing as a result of that. And it came to mind that, you know, every farm has timber on it. I don't believe there's any that don't that maybe we should be thinking in terms of a portable sawmill and an operator that can be transported from farm to farm and provide lumber to build housing with farmers that are willing to take this on and to build better homes for themselves. And I just think you know it's it would not be a terrible expense and you know about purchasing a couple of portable sawmills would not be a terrible expense. And there's lots of folks around that are capable of operating them just move them from farm to farm and get some of these things going where both farmers and are unable to afford better housing for their help. So that just came to mind. I did have a question on H2As, but Chair Partridge kind of answered that, that Darrys for some reason do not qualify for this program. I did have a question for John, is there a massive waiting list to get on to that program and get workers into this country as on that program? To my knowledge, the program has been relatively consistent in the number of farms and the number of H2A workers in Vermont. But as to whether or not there are those who are unable to, I can't answer that. I can tell you that many workers opposed to the H2A expansion, it's being put on the House for the Farm Workers Modernization Act, because even that there are supposedly in like regulations for housing, those rarely happen. People that come into with an H2A visa, they are linked to their workplace if there is bad conditions, they don't have a mechanism to complain, because they will be taken out of that worker visa and just send back home. So there is a lot of problems with the H2A program as well. So I want you to acknowledge that many, many farm worker organizations are opposing to the expansion to H2A. Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming in and enlightening us. Thank you. Representative O'Brien and then Graham. Thank you, Chair Stevens and thanks for everybody for coming in today. I'm not really sure who wants to answer this, but one thing I'd love to hear a little bit about is just what are the stories of these workers where, how do they end up in Vermont both both some of the documented ones and the undocumented and then what's, what's leading to the high turnover rate? Is it partly housing and wages or do they return to their homes? Do they move on to other jobs? Any of those questions like Tom, you mentioned even that there were some indigenous dialects and I had no idea where who speaks that dialect and where they were from. So any answers to those questions would be great. Yeah, I can answer about that because you know, migrant justice is the organization in the state that it's coming with all these people together leading. Most of the refund workers are from South Mexico and Guatemala. They ended up in Vermont because they hear from other family members or people from their towns that there is this job that is all year round. So it's not seasonal, you don't have to be going around the harvest following the harvest, housing is provided so you don't have to pay rent. And the main reason why people migrate to the USA is because of all so many treats that as NAFTA had happened years ago where people that were farming in their countries or were living, they got out of options. Now there are pipelines passing through their crops so they are losing everything, the economy is really bad in Mexico and Latin America. So it's like more of a forced migration. Also the conditions, like I said, you know people end up in Vermont geographically not knowing where are they going to stay. And by living at the farm, you know they live where they work and they work where they live. They don't have access to go to different places or to know other parts of the state. You know migrant justice exists so people can get together, get the driver's licenses to move around, have access to the driver's license and also this policy like putting a wall between the police and immigration enforcement. We're a border state so we have border patrol all around. And I hear a lot of people saying you know farm workers are appreciated by the farmers. I have to say yes they are appreciated as a labor force as their workers but not as people. Not every farmer I just don't want to say every farmer is bad, but many many times we encounter situations where this worker end up in a farm where they didn't know exactly how much they were going to earn. How many hours they were going to work we have the data about, you know, people work about 6080 hours per week, sometimes without a day off without breaks. Sometimes they say sharing housing, you know, sometimes people sharing one bed when one person is going to work the other person is coming to sleep. People sleeping in couches where people are cooking. We have a lot of information again in our webpage and I could pull out slideshows but I asked you to trust what we've been saying for the past 10 years. I kind of answered a lot of your questions there are indigenous language we have found people from Guatemala that weren't able to communicate we were able to find translators. Yeah, so just going back to appreciation for farm workers I think we need to figure it out and really understand what is appreciation, what does work means when we talk about that and we really appreciate our workers we have to understand if they have good housing if they don't have good schedules, they're going to come to work happy like any of us, if we have a dignified work we're going to be working happy and the protocols are going to be better. Thank you President O'Brien, if I could just just jump in, I just want to say, really what Marietta said, I just want to confirm. And our research with interviewing farm workers in Vermont, it's totally unusual that Vermont up here on the Canadian border, you know, Northern, Northern United States, the workers that are here on our farms come from the southern the majority are from Chiapas as the department. We found about 89% from Mexico and about 11% from Guatemala. So just confirming what Marietta said. I also I've been working on projects in Honduras for almost 20 for more than 20 years now. And the situations down there are is really dire and getting more difficult. Some of the workers here are from Mexico and Guatemala but that it is surprising that we do not have more from Central America and that may, I could see that changing. This last thing I'll add is that, you know, hours worked is a complex question. When we asked workers how many hours they want to work. We found about 70 hours a week. And there's certainly some workers that are that are overworked and some workers that want more workers. But in our most recent surveys, workers on the average worker, the median workers working about the number of hours that we were told they would like to work. That's not to say that some are not being overworked or something underworked but 70 hours is what we find is what they'd like and if they don't get 50 hours I'll leave the farm. That's because of the amount of money they can make in 70 hours because they will make more of course they will work less hours like most of us. Could I ask one more question. Sure, Tom. Just, is there a feeling of of the migrant workers wanting to put down roots in Vermont because I would assume the affordable housing question changes. If I mean immigrant populations are so important to the United States and Vermont and it'd be fabulous if a lot of these workers stayed here. And we saw, you know, subsequent generations. Well, demographics are changing in our survey. Like our first survey we have like a 6% of female in farms, not everyone working more mostly as partners or sisters. That number has double it's not big enough still, but there are families growing here, or more people staying here and when we ask our members you know, what's the reason. Most of the reason is because very more has more access for immigrants, like the driver's license and the foreign partial policy, all the things that as an organization we've been achieving on the past years has been like an ad for this migrant workers to stay. There are other crews of farm work or no farm workers but immigrant workers like from Honduras for example they in Salvador they work in construction. They come and go. There is a, there is an immigrant population in Vermont. Now that we've been distributing the Vermont. COVID fund. That was released we've seen a lot of immigrant families and people that, you know, are undocumented. We're still invisible. I have to say there's no a neighborhood or town, a store that brings people together and that's why it's so important that organization exists for for getting these people together. Great, thank you. Representative Graham that Bach. Yes, I don't have a question but I just want to kind of make a general statement. Being a former dairy farmer now transitioning into crops and beef but one of the issues on dairy farms, the biggest issue is there's no profit. No profit marriage and almost any farm. The last place money goes is in the buildings, because there is none left when they get done being for your grain or your power and you can find several farm owners that are living in inadequate housing, because there is no money. You could. It's easy to say you can build a cabin and pump it on it from farmers land. But then there's other factors you got to consider that building's gonna have to have water, the building's going to have sewer, the building's going to have electricity. And you're going to have to pay property tax on that bill. And it probably has taken some land away that you were using for your animals feed your animal. So this is a deeper problem than just not having a house or not having affordable housing. It goes much deeper than that. And firms that have undocumented workers. What's going to happen when people start seeing houses popping up or cabins popping up, or buildings being remodeled. It's going to raise a red flag. And somebody's going to go find out why. And those farmers are going to be taking those workers are going to be taken off the farm. So, I hope, as this move toward is there's a fully fully support the issue. I hope that people will take into account the whole picture, and not just part, because it is a big issue overall. Thank you. Thank you and representative back I'm going to ask you to hold for a second. Buster had a had his hand up before and then and then I lost him buster are you still here. Yes, I am here. Are you able to hear me okay. Yep. Okay. One question that I've been advocating for. Is, I don't know if you know or not, but from what I know. Okay, we have lots of organizations that have been talking about this issue. And I think it matches a lot of it with the macro dignity, and I would suggest because we're almost you're out of your session and everyone wants to learn more at the very least. I apologize side to the farm to play in different parts. It'd be very simple and very easy to form a working group and or to me. And there is no housing organization to work with farmers in particular. We work with efficiency Vermont to work with the USDA, which is underutilized. And many of you folks, she's there's funding at the USDA level specifically for farm housing that's underutilized. Well in every state that I've been communicating. And I'm going to say there's about a dozen states that I've communicated with on this subject on how do you build homes for farmers. How are you able to build homes for farm workers. And everything that I hear whether it's Oregon, California, Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey. They have the same thing. It starts with housing organizations builders farmers farmers utilizing the resources, and it starts with a working committee. Committee here in Vermont, which could be formed tomorrow. And it may take three working committees. And the other thing is, there's many success stories across the country that have utilized was funding and address the issues talked about here on h2a workers on documented workers and so much data we don't need data. We need a housing organization to work with our farmers work with planners and work with organizations that can do the work. For example, one that's not here today, Yoast bill. They've been eager. They're factored in with the Department of Labor, their construction workers and their learning. It's a combination of action that could take place immediately. And similar action that has taken place in many other states. So Vermont needs to build a committee, have a housing organization. One or two of them be a part of it utilize the funds that are out there, work together and advocate for new funding utilizing the public sector utilizing the private sector. There's so much private sector that we could eliminate all the federal money and just work with the private sector and community funds to address. Other states have Vermont needs to do this, and we need to form a committee. We need to find that Vermont housing organization that typically does the work of what has been talked about, working together with farmers to build homes and prove the present homes and work with nonprofits builders and planners find workers and farmers and build homes, much needed in rural communities in Vermont that has been done in several states, and it takes housing organizations. Because they are the experts. They have in place every day tools to put things together, but they can't put things together without what we are talking about without there being a committee without funding resources being put into place. So that's, that's what really needs to be done ASAP is data committee and get a housing organizations builders, youth build and everyone work together. Thank you for your time. Representative Bach then bloomly and then we'll close off the morning with after representative only. Thanks Tom. This might be for buster this is kind of related to what he was talking about but I was wondering, they must have the same problems we have in the dairy industry in Canada are they dealing with it any differently than we are. And if so what is it. Maybe when it comes to farm housing in Canada. I have not done much research, but I do know when it comes to dairy. It's a multiple problem. I believe Canada has similar problems as something that's often talked about is over supply. Well, we could talk about the dairy industry. We could talk about it all day all day. And what really needs to happen in my opinion, just talking dairy because I want to be specific to agriculture. As a whole, the farmers need to set the price and eliminate the processors, the processors need to ask the farmers. Hey, how much do you want for your mouth. The way it is now everything is taken advantage of, but here in Vermont processors farmers on all sectors of agriculture's in different states whether you're talking New Mexico, Oregon, New Jersey, Maine. They have all addressed the issues of agriculture address the issue in the needs of the labor agriculture needs labor. Agriculture is essential housing is essential. So we need to work together because other states have built homes after farm. They've built homes on the farm, working together and utilizing that. I don't think there's ever been homes built in agriculture communities here in Vermont as they have other states. And by having a committee and working together, we can have success stories. We can say, Hey, Vermont, our farmers made improvements. We're working toward positive success stories. Hey, we built homes on farms. We built homes off the farms. We address the needs of affordability addressing it is, is the need in action. Now is the greater need because we've been talking about this, my sense number of point 19 with many organizations like, Hey, we have boots ground we want to work, but connecting the dots. That's the challenging part. And putting dollars to work for our farmers, our farmers walking into the USDA and say, Hey, we want to build a home. Well, here's about 50 pages for you, Mr farmer on top of all the other work. That's where housing organizations can assist farmers on that process, because it's very daunting. It's very hard for our farmers and want to address these things. That's why our farmers are here. Our farmers are talking about this and we need need to hear from them to informing a committee is the best way to get voices heard and put dollars and blueprints in place. Okay, thank you. Representative. Excuse me represented blooming. Last question for a comment. My comment is that I've just found this really, really interesting and helpful, and I'm very grateful to both chairs for bringing our committees together and to all of you who have visited with us today. I, I had one kind of kind of technical or practical question and then a more open ended one and the first is. When code violations are reported or discovered what happens. Who acts our repairs made and I, I, I don't know if Tom this is the best question for you. I think Tom can answer as farmers under the military program I can answer under farms not under great program and I think what happens is nothing. Other reports maybe the farmer is going to receive a letter saying you have certain amount of time to do something. We know that unfortunately the capacity of having investigations at the farm level don't happen if you ask any farm worker if somebody came to inspect the house that never happened. So we, we had to create this program in a response of, of the lack of, of this happening housing. And yeah, I don't just take it on on that wouldn't be but if you also want to answer to representative Graham or projects that we're working on. Thank you so much. Yeah, I could say, in a way that the milk with dignity program, we as the status council are part of our job is exactly what what you were just asking about represented blooming up that that when there's a housing housing unit that's not yet up to code. Our job is to work with the farm on a solution that addresses whatever the issue may be. Housing is a tricky area for, for all the reasons that folks have discussed including what represented Norris representative Graham raised that, you know, just one of the many is that you can get by providing housing that doesn't meet code standards for a while, you can get by if you stop paying the grain bill or the power bill or your lender. And so there's, there's a lot of structural pressure that leads to farm worker housing being one of the things that's at the bottom of the priority list. But that that is one of the things that the milk with dignity program is designed as best we can to try to help address that factor and the other ones that that folks have raised including as representative Norris pointed out milk prices have been not only low but very unpredictable that even if they go up for a month, they're likely to go right back down soon and you don't know exactly when or by how much. But the program is designed as much as we can to try to look at those factors as well as the really important one money to just mentioned just that that a kind of farm worker fear that that the realities, you know, many farm workers are in many regards in a day to day basis many people that I have a I have a decent relationship with my employer. It feels very tenuous that that it could all fall apart on a moment's notice that if I if I'm perceived as having asked for too much or push you or and I'm gone and there's no real it's a real high wire act feeling from any farm workers in that regard and so the program is also designed to help make it possible for people to come forward and to look for solutions together where people are risking jobs and or at least don't feel don't feel like it even if even if the farmer might say no I want to hear from you workers experience may not they may not feel the same way and may come come forward about those things. I just wanted to just really briefly add one thing that just to the extent that that that the committees are as represent our partners noted it's a federal legal issue but to the extent that folks are discussing the relevance of the H2 a visa program to the dairy industry. I think just a couple things that that's important to be aware of. One is that that even if the federal government were to change the H2 a program so that year round farm workers could be in such as dairy could be covered through the program. It's not a way for people who are currently milking cows in Vermont as undocumented immigrants to regularize their status, they would be ineligible to apply for each to a visa so the program would be other people who are not here now would be potentially able to apply for each to a visa but everyone who's here now would not be included in that in that program I think sometimes folks, you know, in some ways my guess is that that they may have an appeal because it feels like the current status quo is very difficult there's a lot of challenges and drawbacks, and there's an apple farm down the road that's using each to a let's give that a try. H2 a is not designed to look at those issues or to take into account some of the issues that are that are affecting farms and workers such as low and volatile milk prices structural pressures to to where you have to put other other issues, other other priorities ahead of farm worker housing, or the fear the experience by many farm workers about that that makes it pretty scary to come forward about a concern. Each to a program is not designed towards those things and but the milk with dignity program is and I think that that the progress happening so far that farms in the program are making is evidence that that those those factors are being done as best we can. And I just want to jump in on what Tom said, I think it is for dairy you know dairy is not seasonal and each to a setup to be a something to a visa program for seasonal farm workers. So the possibility of developing a temporary visa program for year round workers is one of the things that may be considered by the federal government. So your your first comment on enforcement. You know one of the things that milk with dignity provides is it provides some funds for improving houses. So it's not just. Here's the violation, but it's here's the issue and there's some funds. I think that is one of the issues that we're hoping. One of the things that the committee is going to continue to consider is how do we help farmers given their current given their protracted struggle right now with those volatile but generally low milk prices. If we want to improve housing where's that money going to come from and so if the committee could consider creating a fund that farmers could access I think that'd be very helpful. Sorry, I'm sorry one more thing and on that I think Tom can share also you know a little bit about the work that's been doing around collaborating with developers collaborating with not only putting a cabin just responding to representative Graham is not just putting a cabin without thinking about the sewer system and electricity and all that is really working to making housing affordable efficient, but maybe out of the cost not going to the farmer. And we can create a plan that already efficiency Vermont is working on where the developer is owning the house, and they are the one the landlords so farmers don't have that burden on them but I don't know Tom you want to add more detail on that. No, I think that's about it yeah I think I think what represent Graham raised was really important and that's part of what I meant. When I said in my own testimony that one of our crucial goals is to engage in context specific problem solving and that means that that there are some farms where the current septic and power hookups can be can be used with with new housing and in that piece of it is relatively straightforward there's other situations where that's a real complicated headache. So I have to take that into account in working with farms and farm workers on what type of solution is going to work for this farm and, and that's part of why bringing in partners like efficiency Vermont has been helpful for us to see, you know to have additional partners ready to to engage in all of the details that it's going to take to to tackle the challenge as best as best we can. All right, thank you everybody. This is a lot this is an introduction to another simple solution. Moving forward I'm sure it's all I know it's the introduction to the complexities of what we're facing are exactly what I anticipated and I think that that agriculture committee has lives in. You know, on that side of this, this equation and I really appreciate the time before Carolyn do you have final comments from your point of view. Yeah, Tom I think I ended up with more questions than I did answers. But I'm just going to make a recommendation I I'm finishing up a book called the plane of snakes by Paul through, which is all about Mexico and he his travel through Mexico. He ends up in Chiapas, and it's been really fascinating and it's opened my eyes to the situation that many in particular Mexicans and Guatemalans are dealing with. And it, I think I already knew why folks were moving north to come to the States, but this book just lays it right out I highly recommend it the plane of snakes by Paul through. I want to thank you Tom for including us in this conversation I think it's been really, really fantastic. And I'm kind of excited about taking up this more I would look, you know, would look forward to maybe having an additional meeting or two with you with I think it would be really, really helpful and I want to thank everyone for all of your work on this the data and your hard work of bringing this all to our attention. Thanks so much. And just wait till we have a joint hearing on compensation and minimum wage. That's another big chunk of the same story. So thank you everybody this our committee. We have witnesses who are waiting to testify on another bill. We're going to take a break until 1130 and we'll be back so the witnesses can can hang out till then that would be great. And again, for the witnesses who came today. Great. Tom, Dan, Gus, Liz, and Buster. Thank you so much for your time and for bringing this to us and we're going to keep working on it thank you this is really illuminating so thank you so much and thanks to the committee, the agricultural committee for joining us today real treat. So, general Tommy do you have a comment before we go. No question. So general committee, we just stay here. Yeah, we're going to take