 So we're going to get started. We're live. Pardon me, sir. Can folks hear me? Some microphone troubles earlier, but it looks like I'm good now. You're okay. It sort of goes up and down. I'm curious. Talking this morning about. What's what, how should I refer to the program? Federal level. What is the federal program is called the emergency rental assistance program. Okay. Okay. Okay. But we would like to add. Emergency rental and utility assistance program. Okay. So what's the acronym? E R a U P. Yes. Okay. Cause I don't want to say that whole thing every time. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're going to be talking about that. We've talked a lot in our committee about the. Henshin of getting the money out the door quickly. Versus giving. I could say negatively or positive giving too much discretion. To the executive branch and the structure of the program or. You know, the executive branch. We're trying to balance those interests. You and the executive branch and the Vermont State housing authority have probably. Heard that, you know, It's a challenge. We saw it all through the cares funding. Not only was. Did money out the door quickly. Sort of rule, but then the guidelines kept changing on us. So we're used to doing due diligence and taking our time. In designing programs of a half a million dollars, let alone programs of $200 million. So, um, We want to, uh, Get into that. I think, um, I'm hearing just this morning. Several people on this call are way ahead of me that some of the administrative dollars you needed quickly. The cost may have gone down somewhat. Um, The latest word is that there'll probably be an interim sort of spending bill. So we can sort of balance those tensions a little bit where we don't have to wait until May. To get money out the door. But we could also have a couple of weeks to. Give us, Give, have some input legislatively on what the program will look like. So with that introduction, um, Uh, I want to start with Josh. Because Josh, actually, you're probably the recipient. Of the monies. And then you subcontract with Richard and he subcontracts with other people. So follow the dollar. I'm going to start at the top with you. And where are things. At, uh, we understand from the pro 10 that late last night. The Senate in Washington has gone forward with their 1.9. Is it must be 1.9 trillion trillion, right? So there's more money probably coming for housing. Take five minutes. Give us the lay of the land, Josh. Sure. Thank you. So for the record, Josh Hanford commissioner housing community development. And certainly a lot has happened since the last time we talked about this program at the round table with the congressional delegation. The one thing that hasn't happened is more flexibility for this program. You know, uh, treasury guidance, new treasury guidance has not been issued. We expect something soon. But I think the congressional delegation, you know, made it clear and we've talked to them. Uh, and follow up that, you know, they're not interested in changing any of the statute, uh, requirements in this program. You know, the new 1.9 trillion may have more flexibility and that's coming down the road and we can work on that. But that the general, um, program design is in statute and it's already laid out on the federal treasury website. And a number of other states have already started this program. Money's flowing. Um, our 200 million has been in the state coffers for three to four months. Um, and I will give you a heightened, um, sense of, uh, despair that, you know, Richard and I were caught were have been commensurating at how many nights this week. We've been up at one or two in the morning, um, replaying the stories we're getting and the calls we're getting, um, knowing this money's there. It is, there is some desperation. And there is, you know, I think there's a lot of, um, money's there. It is, there is some desperation and there is, you know, landlords that are being forced to provide credit and their small businesses are on the line. You know, they not only are not getting rent payments, but they also are responsible for heat, utilities, sewer, water bills, municipalities are putting liens on their property that they can't pay. Um, and so, you know, the eviction moratorium is still in place. We're still in emergency order. And this $200 million is directly, um, provided to address these needs. So with that setting the stage, a lot's happened. Um, we have been meeting, um, our team, uh, Richard's team, uh, Remotley Glade, landlords association, public service department, agency, human service divisions and other partners. And have designed a skeleton program design, which is included in the a one grant acceptance for them that was submitted to joint fiscal a couple of days ago signed by the governor, which lays out a plan for spending the full $200 million. Um, that plan includes 110 million for, uh, from Austin housing authority for rental assistance and rental arrearages, 16 million for the public service department for utility, uh, assistance and arrearages, 30 million to agency of human services for, uh, those exiting homelessness, um, and paying for their rental assistance going forward. 18 million for other housing services. This is where we would contract with legal aid from our landlords association, folks to provide translation services and reach, you know, underrepresented populations and a whole host of other. Discretion. Frankly, this is where the flexibility pot of money could, could be expanded as we get more flexibility. It's just a sort of a lump sum that has this general guidance that we could work towards more flexibility as it, uh, comes down from treasury and then proposes to hold 26 million in reserve, just for the purposes of expanding the uses of this program and identifying more needs and the design of this would go to agency of administration as the most efficient way to not have multiple grants and contracts that are transferring between different agencies and departments and, and partners that they could be the holder of the money and do direct allocations upon, you know, with, um, your appropriation approval and maybe these numbers are only half right now or some other in this first, first bill. Um, I've talked to Senator Kitchell this morning, uh, you know, represented Hooper and others, um, you know, about this, they've, they've reached out. Um, and also we've learned more about how this money could be spent. I mean, that 110 million seems huge, but the reality is we have about 76,000 renter households in Vermont. We know that about 60% of those, at least 60% of those are low income. They meet the definitions of this money, meaning they're 80% AMI or below. If we just said, okay, that represents 49 or 50,000 households in Vermont, we could only help 15,000 of those for six months with this 110,000. We can spend this money. The people need, have this need out there. The challenge is getting a robust system that reaches everyone is easy to access. And we can meet the need that's out there with this money and it's no longer, oh, we don't think we can spend it. It's going to sit around. There is the need. There are the number of households. It's a matter of how do we get them all to participate in this program and help meet their basic needs. And that's most efficiently done through a robust, easy to access. Marketing and a web based application system that's easy, user friendly and integrated. What I'm worried about is, you know, we haven't even talked about the utility assistance side. You know, the number from public service department is based on their past program. They know they probably have even more than $16 million in need. We've talked about combining programs, how we can do the application. So what I'm afraid of is if we work at small batches of this money and not look at this plan comprehensively, the public is going to be confused about what's out there, where to go. All these different elements of this program need to be delivered at the same time. And with some coordination. So that the public knows where to go to get these funds, how they're available. And that's going to be, you know, my understanding of this next mini budget bill or what have you that could have a portion of this in it would be, you know, that that's going to happen in the next few weeks. And it could be quite a lot of time before there's a chance to deploy more money. So, you know, I, I recognize the, in respect that policy committees needing to understand where this goes and have an influence on that here from everyone. You know, and then also working through the joint fiscal committees, pressures and timeframe and appropriators. And I think we can come up with some balance here that allows a chunk of this money that has some element of each of these four pieces that I laid out to have enough money to get started. You know, maybe it's half of the allocation there. Maybe what if we gave you all the money. I mean, I don't think we have the ability to tweak the program as we went along. Well, yeah, obviously we would support that. I think that, you know, the details of, of distributing it and how we go back. The sort of behind the scenes. Accounting bureaucracy. I think there's, we can do some work to get that. To prepare for the most efficiency there. There are so many contracts and programs going out that there could be bottlenecks that we could avoid just by taking a little bit of time to talk to the various players and say, what's the best way to allocate a large chunk of money. Authorize a certain amount under each of these programs to go forward now and hold back the rest so we can come back in and check in with you and say, okay, this is going well. This, this is the right amount. We don't need any more there. We underestimated this piece. So let's talk about appropriating or releasing a second portion would be a great strategy going forward. And then knowing that the new bite, the new proposal from DC could have a whole, another set of flexible uses. One thing that's left out here is mortgage assistance. You know, we have a lot of low income houses, households, but we do have some other things in the works. It's not this kind of money, but we have our CDBG money. Our coronavirus relief money that we're going to put out just for mortgage assistance because we know we have so much rental assistance and none of this can be used for that. And our congressional delegation has been very clear. They don't think they're going to open this back up and try to get that they're going to deal with that with the new money. And can we use the couple million that we have in CDBG to focus just on the mortgage knowing that they're left out right now. So we have those flexibilities and, you know, I'm happy to, you know, bring other folks in with you. I just know that we haven't in this committee brought in the utility component, but yet we've been working with them for a while and I would hate for us only to move just rental assistance because they go together. In fact, the system that Richard's been talking about has the ability to capture the utility needs right in that same form. It even has the ability to look backwards at previous CRF funds and say, what did you, what was your eligibility considerations for that money so we can start to calculate. Is there any ability to free up some of that CRF money to use for something else? But until we start this program and have a robust system to track all that, we can't even help you help folks to get more flexible money out. If that makes sense. Well, you know, I, I, I'm not sure. I sense that you feel we're at somewhat of cross purposes. I don't, I don't feel that way. I feel like the numbers may vary as to what we were talking about initially, but at least from personally, I was trying to achieve the same thing, whether it's $10 million, $25 million, $15 million. Let's get this program started and refine it as we go as soon as possible. And we ran into this complication with administrative dollars where you couldn't spend a significant amount of that $10 million we were proposing on administrative stuff. I don't know if that number has changed or where we are, but I think we're on the same page, but I think this committee has heard preciously little about this program other than what's in the federal law. And, you know, I look back and I see $25 million spent on back rent. Even before 2020 for a program that is, you could say it's a year long with unrestricted access. And now it's restricted access and we have $110 million. And I'm trying to think creatively, how can, if we don't need all that money, how can we save it and use it towards other needs in housing or state government and all of those things beg. Scores of questions that we haven't even started to touch upon in terms of the legislature. And, you know, it sort of feels like give us this money and go away, you know, and we'll take care of this. So that's the tension that we feel. And I think now that I've made my spiel, unless somebody has, do you have a question? Kasia has a question. Yeah. And then I want to hear from Richard because we only have 1130. I think it's, I think it's related, but I mean what, I'm hearing overwhelmingly and I really hear your passion, Josh, and we all want to get money to people who are, you know, needing support and assistance you've been holding on for a long time. We have so much unmet need and this money won't even meet all of that need. So how then are we prioritizing within the unmet need? What we're going to do with this money? I think that's all I want to hear. Like I've heard you say thousands of people and household units, et cetera, are in need. How is this, how do you want to roll it out so that you pride, you know, what does the priority scheme look like for those who are most at need? That's what I feel like I haven't heard yet. Yeah. Richard can expand on this, but I mean the federal law is pretty clear that the folks below 50% AMI need to be prioritized first. You know, this is what's so different about this and this year of money. I mean they've literally written what we can use this money for. And there are programs that just simply designed around that and are moving this money and cutting checks and that most of these software systems out there that have been in the game of providing rental voucher programs since the beginning of rental voucher programs have this down already. They've taken the federal law. They've written software to program and people apply. They answer a number of questions. They, they're income and checks are cut and money's moving because the law requires a prioritization just as you said, the most needy first and then up, up the ranks of income up to the 80% AMI. And it allows you to go forward and to qualify you for months, 12 months going forward. They have to fill out a form. Have we been able to shed any of the requirements of what they have to fill out because I think that just presents a huge barrier to people is what we've heard even if you call them, et cetera. So I'm wondering if they have to fill out a form. And if this amount of money you're talking about something like 110 million is what I'm hearing would take care of everyone at 50% and then you'd open it up to people at 80%. I mean, are you, how are you talking about rolling it out to meet that need first? Well, I think you could look at the numbers a lot. Like, you know, if everyone below 50% applied and received 12 months of rental assistance, it could use all of that 110%. But that's 100% up tick. You know, that's unlikely even with the most robust program. So it's scalable amongst all those different income levels. You know, all as I was trying to express is even at only a roughly 30% of the eligible households in the state taking advantage of this, it would only provide up to six months of help for only 30% of the eligible household. So, you know, the fact that we only spent 25 million in the first round, you know, Richard's team stood that up in 10 days and used paper applications. This would be a system. Therefore the need for this administration dollars that would be robust call centers, people that will help you fill out the application over the phone and data entry right from a phone call. So we don't have to have people mailing in applications, waiting two weeks for the landlord. This would, this, this, these organizations, these software companies have set this up. For an example, state of New Jersey, their rental assistance program with the CRF money was off to a dismal start. They'd only spent a couple hundred thousand dollars. They hired the same group and they got out $90 million of rental assistance in 30 days because folks were eligible and New Jersey state government wasn't meeting the needs. This group came in with 150 employees and got $90 million of rental assistance out in the last month of the CRF eligible date. Because they brought to bear, you know, what you can do with that sort of resources. So I think maybe you best have Sean and Richard kind of go into a little bit of details. Maybe we should transition to Richard then. Yeah. So Richard, let's pick it up from there. You know, what. Do you need to get the program. Jump started in terms of dollars and timing, et cetera. And. Is there a jump start that's not. Where you're not a hundred percent. In, I mean, can we get started and. You know, tweak the program as we go and. Get benefits. Out. Partially. I mean. At the same time, there's a lot of enthusiasm for a need to go forward. What's happening here is exactly what I'm talking about. Last week, we never heard anything about these programs. All we heard is that there's like $5 million of need for new programs. And we didn't, we didn't hear about these new programs. These computer programs. We didn't hear about New Jersey. Every day that goes on new information comes available. Now we're having a second, a second federal funding. So we need. But I think that's how fast it's evolving. Michael, I think. I know. So that's. That's the tension again. So Richard, tell us. Where we are in terms of standing up the program administrative system. And what you're now thinking. Good morning, Chairman Serotkin and community members. It's a pleasure to be before you today. My, my name is Richard Williams. And I'm the executive director of ribbon state housing authority. And as you know, we did administer the. The 2020 CRF rental. Rental stabilization housing program. You folks trusted us. To make sure we have the best equipment for the community. And we all had to pay $5 million to run that program. So. My apologies. I got out before this committee before I intended to. But it happened actually on January 14th. When commissioner Hanford and I. Were requested to make an appearance before the Senate. Finance committee. In that committee, you know, which we need to fund the remaining applications that we took in December and that expanded into the new program, that discussion. And I was through interrogation in the program was asked, what do you need to stand up the program? And at that time I had requested $50 million of the full amount of monies that Commissioner Hanford has recommended. I think I believe I immediately wrote you over the weekend and apologized for not being before the policy, Housing Policy Committee making that recommendation and just it came out through the process that way. That's the number I've been sticking with even when I've been asked on the house side of things. I know that wasn't the full amount that Commissioner Hanford had asked for but I thought it was a reasonable amount to start the program because we did spend $25 million in six months. I believe that that's easily obtainable number. I believe we can go further with that, with a robust program, which we did not have, not saying we didn't do a good job getting it out but I know it wasn't the most efficient way to get the money out and I know it was very difficult to do it with the existing staff that I had. So we have been looking at outside vendors, Mr. Chairman and it found some, we were looking at the platforms and but that didn't give us the people to get the work done and a new vendor approached us actually, it was, we were on a conference call with Guide House the other day with the administration and they presented a vendor that is working in as Commissioner Hanford already said in New Jersey, they're also in Miami-Dade County, Florida they're doing similar work in California. They have a workforce of 1,500 folks that they can tap into that work 24 seven and they have the call centers, the people that they can talk directly, they can take the applications online, they can take the applications over the phone, they have access to information that we do not. Like as you know, some people actually have access to IRS that can verify for landlords or whatever, an EIN number or such and they have access to GIS platforms to identify where that property is in location. So through that process, you can reduce the potential for any fraud applications. They work on a percentage and it's typically a four to seven percent percentage based on the total amount of the ERAP money that they would be administering. You can set up a program for a smaller program but their service fee goes up, it's more like would be 9%. So for example, a $10 million program, it would cost us 9% for their services only. I know it sounds like a lot of money, but they're bringing a lot to the table. They're bringing the workforce, they're bringing full access to the program. They provide another robust marketing process to get the word out and they also, we have conversations about the new American population. They have access to 11 different languages and will add in language that we choose to do here that might not be something as their, so Richard, this is a company that provides the platform and the people. The people, they do everything. And for 100. We would process the final payment. And the larger the program. So if we went with 110 million to housing, let's say, I mean, would they handle all these other aspects that Josh identified, would they handle the utilities and the AHS piece also, or just the housing piece? Well, it really depends on how Vermont wants to design that. I don't want to throw a wrench into if something is working well with public service department and agency human services, but the application can take, it can go two directions. It can take just the application for rental assistance, but it can also take the application for utility assistance. And I think we would reach more people through that process. Got it. But I guess what I'm getting at is the larger amount we run through this operation, and I hope you'll give us the name of it in a minute. The smaller the percent is, so you'd say it could be four to 7% to administer rather than 9%. Correct. The more money that runs through, the percentage goes down. Right. So we could, yeah. One thing that just, important questions being raised here about what are we doing about utility assistance? We've only talked in this committee about the rental piece and only, whether it's 10 million or 50 million, this all works together as a package, the best way to communicate in the public to not be confused. And what Richard's pointing out is if we launch a rental assistance, a rearage and going forward, it can be at the same time launched to the utility. And if we only move just the rental side, we're leaving that whole piece out. And what's different about this utility is it can pay heat, sewer, water. It's much more expansive than the system that public service department ran before. And they're aware of that. They've got this $16 million number, which is conservative in this plan. And this plan and outline was from meetings after your round table, what was that, a week or two ago, continuing these discussions. And I know I shared the memo that is buried in the AA1 grant submission to Joint Fiscal with you Senator Schrock and a few days ago, so you could see kind of where this plays out. I think the two elements in this plan that aren't as the numbers aren't exact, that you may wanna consider holding back more to have more discretion down the road, that $18 million for other housing services. That is not something that we have, I'll be honest, it's not a scope of everything we have. We don't know how much we need to send to legal aid or how much we need to send to landlord's association. We just know there's this other housing services that allows 10% after we deduct out the admin and other pieces that we can use for these more flexible areas, which is where the increased flexibility from Treasury guidance we're all seeking and waiting for is gonna live. And so, in my discussions with Senator Kitchell this morning, she was asking about those funds and it's true, we do not have that part scoped out, but we know the need is there and that if, for example, after some more policy discussions bringing in the public service players and some other partners that you wanna hear from, you would support some level of this plan, each element getting a half or a third as the initial appropriation to get started, that other housing services one, you may wanna hold back more there because we can't give you the exact numbers of what that $18 million is made up from. May I just say that I think the other housing services is critically important to actually the long-term impact of the success of moving people out of homelessness for new Americans, for people who don't, who are round pegs trying to fit into a square space. This would be, and mental health, the huge mental health needs, if we can serve those people and solve some of those challenges, we can have permanent impact on some of the housing issues that we've talked about in this committee at great length. So I think this committee gets the other housing services big time. I mean. So, Josh, Allison raises a good point there. I guess what I'm trying to, what I need to understand, I don't know if you're the right person to ask, but what joint fiscal has done in accepting the grant has any substantive decisions been made other than it will be used in accordance with the federal law? Have any details been laid out? Has any breakdown of the appropriation of the $200 million been decided yet? Or in your mind, that's what you're here for today and your conversations with Senator Kitchell to get some of it out there where you can actually spend the money in accordance with some legislative direction. That's the latter, Senator Schrock. And the hope is that the grant acceptance form lays out the big picture, how much is going to admin? There's some limited service positions hired in a few agencies to help move this money. And then the real plan is my little short memo. It's rental assistance in a rearage, utilities, AHS, homeless support, and then this other housing services and then a reserve for future allocation. And that the hope was that with coordination with policy committees, you and Senator Stevens committee that we could present a unified plan of perhaps saying, fine, joint fiscal is going to accept this grant, this $200 million, of course, but that the policy committees would recommend allocating half of each of these programs to get started now and reserve the remainder for a future budget allocation. And you could take more testimony, more discussions and plan for more of it, but the initial approval just takes into account the federal statute around this, which requires us to serve people below 80%. Have a clear preference for folks under and a priority for under 50%. Takes into account the utility that we can't unfortunately include telephone and internet right now. That's one thing we're hoping treasury change. If they do, we can come back to you and say, this has been added, let's add more money and bring that in. Those sort of things where we're operating a program with what the feds allow now with less to say half, but in each of these buckets, so we can stand up a unified program across all elements. I know Sean's probably, he's been looking to get in here. He has some details and- I just want to be clear. So without some action by the legislature signed by the governor, even though you're accepting this grant for $200 million, at this point you can't spend any others. That's my understanding. And I think we don't want to be in some sort of power struggle here with we want to get your policy approval to move forward with a good chunk of this. It doesn't have to be all of it so we can get moving. And is there any, let's assume we did half whatever the number is. And we put some language in there sort of like notwithstanding, which we could always do. We pass another law down the road and say, okay, only a third of the half has been spent so far. And now we get new direction from the new federal bill that gives us flexibility to use this money for bricks and mortar and long-term housing development and units. And we decide we don't want to go at the pace that the original program was stood up at. I think we obviously have the right to change that and may screw up the vendor contracts. It may disappoint some people, but I just want to know that we have the flexibility as the rules change on us that as long as we haven't spent that money we've authorized you to spend that we could redirect it in a more nimble fashion. Is that clear? I don't think we're gonna have the opportunity to change how we can spend this money. We may have opportunities with the next pot of money but this money, it sounds like what Josh has said, the feds of hunkered down on the fact that this money is not gonna change how we can spend it. This money is very sad. That was not my understanding. So clarify that for us, Josh. My understanding was that as of now the feds aren't changing it but that as the Pro Tem's letter and other people wrote in the next bill they were asking to give flexibility back to the December 27th, more flexibility back to the December 27th monies that they could, Congress could do that. Congress can amend a law that they passed in December and we were asking them to do exactly that. As of now we're stuck with what the law is but that could change in the bill that's going through Congress. Sean, do you wanna? Or so no, so Sean Gilpin with the Department of Housing and Community Development. From my conversations with our congressional delegation the message that we're hearing loud and clear is that this 200 million is, if not set in stone it's at least set in clay that's drying pretty rapidly and they don't want to really rechisel any of that. There is, as has been mentioned there's this 18 million of that that's for quote unquote other housing services that might get some more flexibility. Basically what we've been told is that the US Treasury literally on the last day of the Trump administration issued a guidance document that laid out a number of questions and some answers to them and what I've been told from Leahy and Senator Sanders staff and Congressman Welch's office is that they expect the Treasury will basically go in change the answers to those questions but not the questions themselves and not the structure of what the legislation that was passed in December is going to do. And a majority of that must go to rental assistance and utility payments for people who are at 80% area median income or lower with prioritization. And I think the key issue right here right now is that in order to create a system to do the logistical groundwork to create a system that can actually service that amount of funding for rental assistance we need a certain level of administrative upfront. And I think one thing that I'd like to underscore is that if we're allowed to actually build out a system that could be more accessible, have better staffing than what was run for the $25 million program. If we're able to build that out with some of these consultants that I was actually involved with peppering them with questions the other day as well. They actually to speak to a conversation that you all were having earlier this morning the reporting ability of that sort of system is going to be dramatically increased over what we've been able to do. So I mean, no knock on Richard's team they put together incredible amounts of data that were collected from the people who applied for this program. And I was privy to daily deluge of spreadsheets about updates, but this group that, and it's Nan McKay is one of the, is the vendor that we've been, we've been probably most impressed with I think. And they run a number of housing choice voucher programs in other states. So they have some experience in this, but the reporting and data availability will be vastly superior to what we were able to do with the $25 million program, which I think would actually speak to a lot of the ability to, for us to report back to you folks to let you know about how the program is going and see what tweaks need to be made, if any. So that's sort of where I think we're coming from right now. Dr. Chair. Hey, Kasia has a question. I'd just be really curious when you peppered them with questions, which is great. You know, my hypothesis is just that people on the lower end of the income scale just have a harder time with staying on the phone and doing forms. Did they have results of being able to say we reached people across this spectrum between, you know, 50% and 80% or we had really good results getting the people who would seem to need the most help? That's one question. The second question is with all of this eligibility around income, are we looking back at people's income from last year or is there a way for them to verify that this is the hit they took this year? Sure, both good questions. So on the first question, the group certainly has, as I said, has experienced running programs that are targeted towards low income individuals. They, one thing that they will be able to bring to bear is probably several hundred people actually being able to answer phones and walk folks through it, which we did not have before. I do think that as Josh, as Commissioner Hanford mentioned, using some of the, quote unquote, other housing services funding to contract with Vermont Legal Aid, to contract with the Vermont Landlords Association to have a local connection, I think is actually going to be helpful. I think it will. The Nan McKay Group did, I did ask them about language, as Richard mentioned, language availability. They do try to have somebody, it sounds like they have a couple sort of regional call centers. So they do like to have somebody who has various different language skills in each call center. So we, there is demonstrated history of targeting towards low income individuals for sure. And I think we would also want to have our own sort of local flavor on how we make sure that folks who might be falling through the cracks get connected with this organization. To your second question, forgive me, could you repeat the second question that you had? Oh gosh, I was looking at this question. Income verification. How do you do income verification for this year rather than looking back? Since it's... Yeah, so the way the statute is set up currently, and I don't know if our attorney is watching right now, but he might be shooting me a message as I speak to you, but the way that it's set up is sort of there's sort of two tracks. A person can verify their 2020 income for the entire year and basically be pre-approved for a longer amount of time or somebody can apply using their previous month's income and then have to recertify in a three month period. So there is opportunities for both of those options. So if somebody has been chronically low income, perhaps despite the COVID crisis, they could use their previous tax year information. If they have hours dropped or from the previous month, and obviously we're gonna be operating this through the calendar year. So if something happens to somebody's employment situation in 2021, they would have the option of verifying their income from the previous month for up to three months worth of assistance before they had to recertify. Okay, so we're gonna go on the floor, Josh. I would like you to send us a memo as soon as possible with an outline of a proposal that even, I don't know if it's too late for budget adjustment or a bill that would come out very quickly for the minimal amount that you would need that would meet your needs and the needs you've heard expressed here. And then that's one scenario. And the other would be more of the optimal amount that you think we should do. And what the pros and cons are of those two. And that's about as all we can do in the next two minutes. We're all housing advocates. We're all wanna spend all the money and we wanna get people help as soon as possible. But we also wanna have some input in terms of that certainly that $18 million. Maybe if there's more discretion as things we learn more and we go forward, we wanna have that flexibility too. So we've got some practical and ideal tensions, Maxine. But if you can send us a page and a half memo on two scenarios like that, we'll pick it up. Even if even a budget adjustment has sailed, I think it probably wouldn't, I don't know if we're talking, I haven't heard that we're talking about on the floor today. So it's gonna go into next week. We'll hope we get impacted. And this isn't general fund money. This is the money that's in the bank waiting for us to spend. Chairman Seraf, I heard that the 10 million came out of that Budget Adjustment Act. Well, the budget adjustment has not passed yet. I heard it's not as well because in deference to a second bill where several situations are like this that are pending, that would give the policy committees a little bit more time, but not certainly waiting until May. But January rent is now. Things change. So the ship is not fully sailed, but if it's gonna sail, there'd be another boat right behind it. But why don't we do that? We really have to go to the floor. It's 1127, yeah. Can you give us, if you're gonna go with Nan McKay, the website's just pretty general. If you could get a one-pager on what other states they're working with and how they do this. We could probably get the PowerPoint that they provided. And I'm sure we'll have to go through some contracting procurement. So we shouldn't be saying we're gonna go with them. It's just been most impressive of the robust work in that their entire platform is based on rental assistance since day one for 30 years. So it wasn't like their Johnny come lately and jumped into all this relief money. They've already been doing this and said, we should switch to help people move this money fast. One of the things in terms of your memo that I hope I won't see is that these providers are saying that you gotta put all this money upfront right now to get a real favorable deal. I think there could be a clause put in any contract that says we're anticipating expanding this and this is what we would get if we do expand it rather than put all your money up right now. I want to see that impediment. Great. Thank you. It's flexible. Thank you.