 We are students from CCV, and we're here to talk about housing and sustainability and some of the projects we did individually. We're going to go around and introduce ourselves first. I'm Nick, and we'll start tomorrow. I'm Nashran. My research was about homelessness in Vermont, especially in regards to veterans and youth and young adults. I'm Jake, and I did the housing crisis in Vermont. I'm Dylan. I also studied homelessness. I'm Kai. I also did the housing crisis, but I focused more on solutions. And I'm Carly, and I focused a lot on environmental sustainability, a lot regarding climate change and what we can do about it and what we're not doing that we could be. I had studied the City Place project in Burlington, so essentially the huge hole in the ground where the mall used to stand. So I think what we're going to do is kind of go around and talk about the individual projects and the takeaways that we got from them. So again, we'll just go in a circle and Nashran. So after I did my research, I understand that the government works hand in hand with the stakeholders in every state in the U.S. to fight homelessness. And it is important that they work alongside with these stakeholders because the government needs... Oh my God, I fucked up. Well the thing is, I'll talk about Burlington and veterans specifically. So many of the veterans choose to move to Vermont because of the state benefits that they receive from the government, and this shows how a lot of veterans choose to come to Vermont. They get a lot of benefits in terms of housing, a lot of benefits in terms of financial crisis and stuff like that. And it is important that the government works along with other agencies in the state to help them provide with the basic necessities they need in order to live life. What I learned from my research is that the cost of living in Vermont is 21 percent larger than the national average, and Vermont is among the top ten highest in property tax rates. So I studied homelessness and what they're doing about the problem. They're creating more opportunities for certain things to help live out. And how the ongoing problem is, and there's becoming less. Okay, so during my research I found that 12 million people in the US annually pay 50 percent of their household income towards their rent. And I also found that people in Vermont can't really live in Vermont without some kind of housing support, specifically low-income middle-class people. With the minimum wage, which is $10.78, you have to work 85 hours in order to afford a two-bedroom house and 67 hours for a one-bedroom house. And the majority of your money probably just goes to rent, those are. And so some of the solutions that I came across during my research was, one, to increase the amount of houses in Burlington. And they've been working on that project for a few years now, but it hasn't been going very great. And then other people like the Affordable Housing Coalition, I think, for Vermont say that we need more assistance programs for people in Vermont in order for them to be able to pay for housing but also have enough money left for other expenses that they may have. Another thing that relates to that is, ultimately I feel like if we hold in what I studied, Vermont is the second, has the second lowest carbon footprint in the US besides Washington, DC, which is more of a city rather than a state. That's a lot smaller. But even so, I feel like that kind of puts this facade of security in that, oh, we don't have to do much because we're not tripping, but I feel like that's not the case because if Vermont could be saving a lot of money if they switched to greener alternatives of energy like renewable, initially it would be expensive. In the long run, it would save money by, you know, you wouldn't have to get oil constantly because oil isn't renewable and it's very expensive, but if you were to switch it to something like solar power, which has started becoming more affordable, but yeah. That, in a way, kind of ties into the thing that I studied because I know with the City Place project there were proposals for renewable energy to run it and it would be a big project if it's actually completed, if it's actually completed. So they started in, I think, early 2017 or late 2016. There's been a lot of delays with it, obviously. A lot of that has come from disagreements between the developers and the city council. The developers got approval to lay foundation for it in late 2018 and it's almost 2020 and they still haven't laid the foundation for it. I think the way that connects to what we've all been talking about is this model of having more expensive housing units in the center of Burlington, which would draw in people that generally have more money, which I think if that gets out of hand, the issue can be that it drives out people to live on the outskirts of a Burlington, so you have this huge discrepancy in the price of housing and it happens in a lot of other big cities too, is that center city is very expensive. The outskirts is generally middle to lower class people and so it creates this huge discrepancy and there isn't generally a big middle class. That is a concern of mine when it comes to the new City Place project. Of course, it isn't finished yet, so we don't know if that's actually going to happen, but that is a big concern of mine. So I guess what we can do here to wrap it up, we have two questions that I'm going to pose and hopefully we can all kind of answer them together. The first one I have, which is pretty broad, is do you think the issue of homelessness in our community specifically in Burlington, do you think it's going to get any better and do you think there are things specifically we can do to reduce it or make it better? So what I found out is that there is a long term and a short term solution to this. First of all, tax the big tech companies. Why? Like here, if you tax tech companies by half percent, you can earn up to three hundred million dollars of revenue. And then you can use that to build permanent supportive housings. That is a long term solution. But for short term, you need to provide mental health support, which is very important in terms of especially for veterans and youth and young adults. Because one of the major reasons why youth and young adults are homeless right now in Vermont is because of child abuse. And they need a lot of mental health support. And I think that's a very good way to go. And the other two solutions for short term are rental assistance, because not all veterans know where to go to help if they want to rent a house. And it's really hard for them to rent a house in Vermont, especially because they don't have any history of renting a house in Vermont, which, you know, it's hard for them to just rent a house because they don't have any histories of doing it. And shelters, like an open place where you can just go and get some sleep or get some food, especially if you're like a young child. You need to go somewhere. You can't just sleep on the road and die, especially in this weather. It gets really cold in Vermont in the winter. So these are just some of the solutions that the government and the stakeholders in all the states in America can work towards. I know there's shelters in Burlington. I'm not entirely sure how many, but I don't think it's a lot. So it's definitely something that could help people. I feel like we can talk a lot about like government shareholders, but I feel like as citizens, there's things that we can do to help this problem. Like for me, for instance, I work at the YMCA, which is a nonprofit and we do a lot for families in need. Like I can find resources to help parents get diapers for their children or I can provide snacks for my kids to give them food. And also just like on the side, I also reach out through Facebook groups and offer free child care for like people who might need some assistance, like say they need to go look for a job. Like I can watch their four-year-olds. There's lots of different things people can do to support this population. So kind of more of a community model, a community model, like say, like there's this one Facebook group, it's like buy nothing. And it's like, if someone needs help, you can lend them things. Like instead of going out and buying, like say a generator, like here you can borrow mine and things like that. Maybe a community model, like if someone, being the friendly neighbor, like that kind of person being helpers. Anyone else have comments? If you think the issue of homelessness is going to get reduced or? I think it could to add on to like the rentals assistance. Like a lot of the programs that I found when I was doing research, like Word, things like that, they had subsidized. Yeah, where they, the government would pay a portion of your rent, give it to the landlord so that you have like this much left to pay and then you could cover that. And I think we definitely need more programs like that, especially for low-income and middle-class people. Like you said, they're going to have to pay for childcare in order to work, which is another expense. And then, you know, other bills like, you know, heating and electricity, things like that. As for, I don't, maybe building more houses, it could be a good solution. But like Nick said, if it's like going to be expensive houses, there's no point in building them because the people still can't afford them. What if you build, so I know tiny houses like are kind of like this trend. Oh, yeah. And they're not super expensive to build, but what if you had like a nice, like beautiful plot of land and just put like some small little houses because a lot of people like, most people I've met who struggle with money, they're like, you know, I don't even want a big house. I just want somewhere to live and you can have it because in reality, you don't need a huge house to survive. You need a small area, but if you made the land beautiful so people could be outside and enjoy the weather, it would be so much better and also be more sustainable because you see these huge houses. But imagine like how much carbon emissions are going into that. And a lot of these houses are old, so they're not powered sustainably. So it'd be interesting to see if that could be an option, like kind of a big plot of land where it's like a community of neighbors who are living in this like outdoor cookouts, like sharing food, you know, it would be really nice. It would be a nice community to live. It would be safe, good place to raise children. I think the issue with things like that, I think it's always funding. Yeah, it doesn't get funded. They're like there's a lot of good ideas that are possible. But the lack of funding that the lack of funding like the other things like if I looked, I'd look on the mayor's website, they have a lot of other things they're focusing on like they're trying to do. They planted a storm drain gardens to like so the storm drain water can go naturally into the plants, like make it beautiful, which is good. So it's not just like housing, like there's a lot of different things you have to do to run a city and it's not easy. But I mean, there's all sorts of things that we could do. And there's a lot of good ideas here. Yeah, I would agree. Well, let's see. Our next question was, does it seem like Burlington is going to become more expensive in the future? And I have, unfortunately, I think it may if the city place project is actually completed at any point. There's going to be a lot of apartment units there, like I said, and I do fear the pricing for that. And as I had mentioned before, kind of the discrepancy between lower and higher classes of people when it comes to the amount of money they make and how that might actually drive kind of a divide. Because I know there are definitely places in the center of Burlington that are already expensive to live in. But I fear that the divide will become bigger if that project is actually completed. And also, like I said earlier, we don't know because it's not actually completed yet. But that's kind of my theory on that. It's hardly started. Yeah. Yeah. They're bringing a couple of machines back. They're what? They're bringing a couple of machines back. Yeah, I hope so. I saw. We'll see. All right. Well, I think that is I think that's it for us, unless anyone else has anything else they'd like to add. Yeah, I think that's I think that's it. Is that it? Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for watching. Have a great day. Bye. What do you think when you hear the word sustainability? Sustainability, I have positive thoughts. And I think about like something that's going to be able to survive into the future. It can be it can be like a sustainable activity, like something that you can continue doing for a long time throughout life. Mostly, I think about like renewable energy and ways to make the environment better. I think it's about creating a society that can last for generations longer, not something that's just, you know, you use it once and then you toss and toss it in the trash or like using something and then completely just everything else being completely destroyed. I think it's about being able to continue to use things. I don't know. Yeah. Being able to just like live life without struggle or in a way that doesn't affect. That doesn't negative negatively affect other people. That makes sense, I guess. Recycling, like being able to be kind of like an independent. Do you think Vermont struggles with any issues regarding sustainability, be it environmental, economic? It's interesting, because I think that Vermont is struggling for economic sustainability, because even though Burlington area is is really popular and alive and vibrant, the cost of housing and some of the cost of living stuff is really tough in this area. And then when you look at the rest of the state in terms of being able to have good jobs for people, the population is dropping in other parts and that isn't sustainable either. And there's parts of Vermont that are really beautiful that I wish there was more kind of economic economic sustainability. They like definitely with homelessness, there is an issue around that. Also, like connecting to the homelessness, like affordable living is a I think is a huge issue in Vermont, specifically like in Burlington. On a scale of one to ten, one being without basic human necessities, ten being living a filling life without struggle. Where do you think Vermont stands there? I would say probably a six, just because, like I said before, we're doing better, we're definitely doing better than other states, but we're definitely not a ten. And I think there is room for improvement. Well, it's interesting, because I was listening to VPR and there was a survey about how lives in rural Vermont are really different than lives in this part of Vermont and also how economics play a huge part of it, so that if you're educated and if you have a good income, then you are usually pretty satisfied. And so, and if you have less education or not a good income, it's pretty dissatisfying to live in Vermont. So where do I think Vermont is? About halfway, maybe a six. Certainly the things that they're doing here kind of seem to look like that they're going in the right direction with the recycling and whatnot. It's a hard place to live, I think. I think economically it's developed. I think Burlington is more and more for the affluent. And I find that really disturbing. I think housing is a huge issue in Burlington. And I think that is part of sustainability. People don't have good places to live in Burlington. I would say, I mean, if you're living outside of Burlington, I would say probably not great. There's probably like fewer opportunities or job opportunities. I would say in Burlington, there's a decent amount. And I would say that I don't think the taxes are the rent is that high that I would say it's pretty good, probably on average. Are you a student here? Yes, I'm a student here. There are exactly not exactly about one thousand two hundred ninety one people experiencing homelessness in Vermont. And of that one hundred sixty nine were family households. One hundred four were veterans. One hundred one were unaccompanied young adults. And one hundred sixty were experiencing chronic homelessness. I'm not happy with the mayor. I don't feel like he has the best interest at heart for the working class people. And so I think that the gap not just here in Vermont, but certainly here between the rich and the poor are, you know, is the divide is much bigger than it used to be. Well, I'm a high school teacher. And one of the things, although I work in Winooski, where the population has been pretty stable of the school, most places in the state have actually lost a lot of population. And so from a teacher point of view, like all of the issues, not all, but many of the issues we have around education, finance, I think wouldn't be such a big issue if we had still had the vibrant population of kids that we had back in the like in the nineteen nineties when I started teaching. So I do think it's an issue. The other thing to keep in mind, though, is I've heard the population is pretty stable, like that ten thousand have left, but ten thousand have also come in from other places. But I think as long as people keep leaving the rural areas of Vermont, that is going to be a problem. So would you say overall you enjoy living here and has it been sustainable for you? I enjoy living here. I'm pretty lucky because I think I'm in an income bracket that makes it possible for me to live here. But my daughter lives here and she's on poverty level and I can't really afford to support her and myself. So I do see a lot of poverty here, but it has been sustainable for me personally, just because of my income. Thank you for your time. It was great. All right, bye.