 Good morning, everybody. This is a joint hearing with General Housing Military Affairs and House Human Services. I'm Representative Tom Stevens, Chair of General Housing Military Affairs, and I will pass the mic to Representative Pugh in a moment. I just wanted to welcome you to Homelessness Awareness Day. This is a tradition for us to spend some time really just contemplating what the effects of homelessness are on Vermonters who unfortunately are experiencing it. We had an interesting year last year by accident with the pandemic and there is a lot of information. We have a lot of witnesses to hear from today who we're going to let us know what it is we did, but also what it is we continue to need to do. Our committee being focused on housing has been trying to get a handle on the good stuff that we've done last year, but also to try to understand what's in front of us and certainly some of the budget information that was released yesterday is a good start as a proposal and we look forward to working with everyone here today to try to get across programs that will get more people in housing because as we know, we can't be safe at home. Unless we have a home to be safe in during this pandemic and that goes a long way to using the phrase that we've used many times in the past where housing is a vaccine or housing is healthcare. I think those are issues that we'll hear about today. Representative Pugh. Thank you, Representative Stevens. And I just want to highlight the importance of having a roof over your head to be healthy, to succeed, to have a job, to be able to go to school. And the Human Services Committee appreciates the collaboration that we have with the committee that representative Stevens chairs, House General in housing because while a roof over one's head is exceedingly important, there are also supportive services that individuals may need to get that roof and to be able to stay housed. And our committee looks forward to this every year as do I and we are here to listen and to hear from you how it's been and what we can do differently. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Pugh. And just on that, I think last year was a classic example of really being able to take the years of sitting next to each other up on the top floor and understanding each other's work where the package that was put together was full of services that came from resources that your committee was in that could understand the way to get at the money that was used for services and that can be used for services along with the money that came from the CRF to build some of this transitional housing that has been put forward in the last year. So thank you and thank you to the committees for being here today. I'd also wanna thank Erhard Manka for helping as always to organize the witnesses for this hearing. And after the hearing at noon, there will be a vigil. We usually held out in the front steps but this year it'll be a special Zoom meeting and there is information about that if you go to our webpage and I believe the Human Services webpage under the witness list there you'll see under Erhard Manka, a link to register for the homeless vigil this afternoon at noon or at noon time. I'd also like to thank Ron Wilde and Julie Tucker for really organizing behind the scenes to make sure that we can do this in this format. With that, I'd just like to get going here. We have a handful of folks and the first witness on the list today is Kara Casey who is the Economic Justice and Housing Specialist for the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Welcome back Kara, good to see you. Hi, thank you. So today for the record, my name is Kara Casey. Here as I'm actually now the Director of Economic Empowerment at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and as the co-chair for the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness. So thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. And I wanted to start off by thanking you for the hard work that you all did last year to allocate federal funding to programs and organizations that have been able to safely shelter and house those without housing, create new housing stock and prevent homelessness. So just a little bit of background for the new folks in the Zoom room. The Vermont Network is Vermont's federally recognized Domestic and Sexual Violence Coalition. We represent 15 independent nonprofit member organizations which provide advocacy and support to victims of domestic and sexual violence. And the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness is the planning and governing body for the HUD Department for Housing and Urban Development recognized balance of state continuum of care which applies for and receives millions of dollars annually in HUD homelessness funding. And we include the entire state except for Chittenden County which has its own COC which we work really closely with. We support the work of local COCs, connect them to broader network of stakeholders, administer federal funds, and advocate for funding and policy changes so that Vermonters have a safe, stable, affordable home and if homelessness occurs, it is a brief and rare occurrence during which everyone is treated with dignity and respect. So now I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about the impact of the pandemic on homelessness. And we created some fact sheets that Earhart had shared that should be on your committee's site, fact sheet and some background materials. So at the beginning of the pandemic, our system of care was tested with the high risk of spreading COVID for those housed in congregate settings, the state service providers and the greater community responded quickly to move households experiencing homelessness into motels. The response looks slightly different in every community and you'll hear from some of the folks giving testimony today about those responses, but households were connected to food, resources and support. This system has not been without its challenges but has been extremely successful in its goal of limiting the spread of the virus among the population and ensuring that people have a place to shelter at home even if they do not have a permanent home, which Chair Stevens highlighted at the beginning. As of the first week in January, there were over 2,500 people in motels through general assistance, 386 of them were children. There were another 12 households in motels funded through domestic and sexual violence programs and approximately 350 households in shelter and emergency apartments. So that number is compared to a little over 1,100 that was identified in last year's point in time count. And so that was around this time last year, a count of all of the folks that were homeless in the state. And just wanted to point out that tonight is actually the point in time count for 2021 and it has been a monumental effort on the part of communities to be able to organize to figure out a way to get all those folks that are in motels counted. But the response that hasn't just been about getting Vermonters temporarily housed has gone further in connecting to and investing in longer-term housing solutions. There's been a great effort in communities to get households onto their local coordinated entry lists where they can be connected with services and prioritize for housing. Programs such as the CRF-funded Rapid Resolution Housing Initiative through the Department for Children and Families have assisted households in moving out of motels. The network was lucky to receive some of those rapid resolution funds and were able to spend over $70,000 to assist 33 households. The flexibility of these funds were key and is something that providers need more of. We were able to provide not only security deposit and rental assistance, but also things like transportation to safer location and essential furniture. Really being able to allow survivors to access housing that works best for them and not try to kind of fit that into a certain box. About 50% of those that we supported just needed some help getting back on their feet and were able to pay market rent on their own or move in with family. The other households were able to secure subsidies. And the 12 to 18 month rental subsidies that were created during this time put a much needed infusion of assistance into our system of care. As of January with the Vermont Red Hill subsidy, 52 families were able to secure those vouchers and 40 families were leased up. And through the CARES housing project that was created, 275 households had received vouchers and 91 had been leased up as of early January. So with the increase in these subsidies, we are seeing as we did before the pandemic a significant challenge in finding rental units. So many households are still struggling to find a place to live even with support and subsidy in place. That is why the investment in all three legs of the stool that you will have heard so much about services, subsidy and housing infrastructure are all so important now more than ever. The housing that Vermont Housing and Conservation Board was able to help create in such a short time was remarkable and continued investment in them as integral. We would urge you to support the governor's recommendation to use $20 million in one-time funds and 34.8 million overall to go toward BHCB to meet and address the critical needs that we have today. So in conclusion, the pandemic has largely uncovered many systemic issues that existed before and also highlights the commitment to community and collaboration that we all value so much as Vermonters. Our communities, legislature and the state as a whole has been able to work together to respond quickly during the crisis and really support our most vulnerable populations. And we know that the system that was created is not sustainable, but this is really an opportunity to put investments into a system that works long-term for those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity as well as the folks that support them. So thank you all again for the work that you do and we look forward to working with you on these issues in the future and creating a Vermont where all people can thrive. Again, I just wanna highlight Chair Stevens in saying that you are all invited to the vigil today at noon and that vigil will be followed by a short video that was created for the day. So thank you. Great. Thank you, Kara. Next up, we have Emily Taylor who is a service coordinator with Champlain Housing Trust. Emily, are you here? I am. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. My name is Emily Taylor and I'm currently a service coordinator at Champlain Housing Trust out of Burlington. Thank you for your time this morning and for the opportunity to testify to the amazing work that Champlain Housing Trust and agencies around the state have been doing. This is actually my third year attending Vermont Homelessness Awareness Day, though it is my first year testifying. The previous two years I attended as a housing advocate when I was working with Chittenden Community Action. I started with Champlain Housing Trust in March of last year, just two weeks before Governor Scott issued the Stay Home, Stay Safe Order. And immediately after Champlain Housing Trust started working with the state of Vermont and community partners to transform the Harbor Place Hotel in Shelburne into a COVID-19 isolation and recovery housing site for those who did not have a home to stay safe in and for those who might struggle to isolate in their homes due to living with immunocompromised persons. My role very quickly shifted to providing short-term service coordination to guests staying in the COVID-19 motel, which included helping them connect to coordinated entry, apply for three squares benefits and begin planning a temporary housing plan for after their quarantine period ended. We served 102 households through the end of September at Harbor Place. And in October, CARES Act funding allowed us to purchase the Ho Hum Motel in South Burlington for the same purpose, which is still operational today. To date, we have served 169 households at the Ho Hum. So that is 271 unduplicated households served between the two COVID-19 sites in 10 months. Harbor Place has since reverted to its original model, which is a motel serving GA emergency housing guests. I've met a lot of interesting people in my time working with households in quarantine and I've heard so many stories about what has led people to need isolation and quarantine housing. One woman in particular, Megan, was evicted from her apartment in Addison County before the moratorium on evictions was placed. She had briefly traveled out of state to try and see if long lost family would be able to support her while she worked out some issues she was having in Vermont. But she quickly found out that family was not going to be able to support her. So when she returned back home to Vermont, she applied for emergency housing through economic services and was asked to complete a quarantine period before being screened for GA housing. So in the 14 days that she spent at Harbor Place, I was able to work with her to begin kind of breaking down a lot of the stress in her life and setting goals for what she could immediately work on, which included reconnecting to the Community Justice Center to start working on addressing her now challenging housing history. She also was able to reinstate her three squares, Vermont's food stamp benefit. And we were also able to help her connect to a housing advocate through coordinated entry as well as establish some mental health support through the Howard Center. Megan is not in permanent housing today, but knowing that there was a safe space in the state where she could go to isolate because of COVID and still make progress in quarantine towards building a support team around her really made all the difference in her ability to maintain stability and move forward. In addition to purchasing the Ho Hum Motel to continue the isolation and recovery housing site, Champlain Housing Trust also purchased the Handy's Extended Stay Suites in Colchester. This building was purchased with coronavirus relief funds made available through the CARES Act and was converted into office and shelter space for up to 21 households for steps to end domestic violence who as of last month are fully moved in. Steps had reported a 50% increase in domestic violence cases due to the pandemic in May. And finally yet importantly, Champlain Housing Trust purchased the Baymont Inn in Essex Junction with CARES Act funding and converted the building into 68 permanent apartments. The building was renamed Susan's Place aptly named after Susan Ainsworth Daniels. Susan was a longtime social worker at Champlain Housing Trust for over 25 years and began the development of our resident services department until her passing last March. All of these projects, but Susan's Place especially have been a major demonstration of the extraordinary partnership that Champlain Housing Trust maintains with the Chittenden Containment of Care and Coordinated Entry System. I'm sure that you have heard about these partnerships from all across the state. All 68 households who moved into Susan's Place moved in from literal homelessness and through vouchers made available from both the Burlington and Vermont State Housing Authorities as well as many Vermont rental subsidy vouchers and CARES support from the state of Vermont. We were able to ensure affordable housing to some of the most vulnerable Vermonters in our community. I am now the site-based service coordinator for Susan's Place. I'm still moving into my office here and I'm offering support to all 68 households here. I'm now working with a gentleman, John, who experienced chronic homelessness before moving into Susan's Place. He was housed in Vermont over five years ago but was evicted after his apartment sustained significant property damage inflicted by guests that he was frequently inviting over. Unfortunately, in this case, these guests were not coming over for dinner insurance but because they knew that there was a place in the community where they could go to abuse heroin and substances alike, John grew up in an extremely abusive household and so over time he thought he learned that always saying yes and letting others do what they wanted was how he would build lasting relationships and make other people happy but not too long after meeting these people did John become addicted himself. Suddenly paying rent, keeping the utilities on and respecting his neighbors just weren't much of a priority for him. John declined services from agencies who had reached out wanting to help and ultimately it wasn't until he was evicted that he understood the gravity of the lifestyle he had been living even though John will tell you today that he wasn't really living for himself. The last five years were a constant uphill battle for him to meet his basic needs every day and work towards stable housing again. He entered into a lengthy rehabilitation program and still goes to the clinic to maintain his sobriety. He had large debts to pay off to his previous landlords and housing subsidy provider which is a major housing barrier that we see in so many cases but thankfully this past year he was able to finish those payments thanks to the Rapid Resolution Housing Initiative Fund that was made available from the CARES Act. Over time he began saying no to toxic people in his life and has maintained connections with his support team which now includes me. And every few days here at Susan's place I'll see him come and sit in the lobby so he can wave and say hello to his neighbors that are coming home. Susan's place has been a very bittersweet project for me. I could not be happier to see so many familiar faces in permanent housing and yet it's so heartbreaking to know that many of them couldn't access affordable permanent housing until Susan's place opened in November which was almost a full eight months since I last worked with some of them as their housing advocate. Helping these 68 households find housing in two or three months is definitely something to celebrate and we have been but there is still so much work to be done for the hundreds if not thousands of Vermonters currently experiencing homelessness and temporarily living in hotels across the state. And I couldn't help but notice yesterday that Governor Scott proposed a one-time appropriation for affordable housing development in addition to the normal allocation. So as I conclude my testimony to all of you today I will leave you with this. Champlain housing trust is ready to create or build more affordable housing just as soon as we can. Thank you so much again for your time today. Thank you, Emily. Thank you for sharing the story and Susan's place is an amazing story. Thank you. Next up we have Jean Young Hamilton from Vermont Everyone Eats who's another part of the response that we've seen was the need that people not only need housing but they need to be able to sustain themselves in this program really kicked it up and not during the crisis. Jean, are you here? I'm here. Can you hear me? I can now. Thank you. Yes, yes. Oh, thank you and thank you, Emily for your amazing work. I'm feeling really moved by the stories you just shared. Yes, I'm Jean and I serve as the statewide coordinator for the new Vermont Everyone Eats program. And I'll just tell you a little bit about how I came into this work. I came into the role through my work with Shift Meals which was a project that was launched last March by the Skinny Pancake which is a Vermont-based restaurant group to provide emergency meals from the local restaurant community in response to the COVID crisis. And from my work with Shift Meals I joined with other grassroots organizers and state leaders to advocate for the development of a statewide program that could sort of expand this pilot to more restaurants and more Vermonters. And this advocacy resulted in the launch of Everyone Eats. And Everyone Eats was launched last July by an act of the Legislature Act 137 which initially allocated $5 million from the CRF and to start the program. And by the end of December, a total of nearly six and a half million dollars of the CRF was utilized by the program which put $5.3 million directly into Vermont's restaurant economy and served over 530,000 meals in all 14 counties of the state. The legislative purpose of the program is to provide assistance to Vermonters who are food insecure due to the COVID-19 public health emergency by engaging Vermont restaurants that have suffered economic harm by COVID to prepare meals using food stuffs purchased from Vermont farms and food producers. So you hear already in the legislative intent to have this sort of win-win-win that we have really experienced through the implementation of the program. And I'll just let you know that Everyone Eats is funded through the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. It's administered by Sevka, the Southeast Vermont Community Action Agency. It is steered by a stakeholder task force that includes representatives from Agency of Human Services, ACCD, Agency of Agriculture, the Vermont Food Bank, Hunger Free Vermont, the Vermont Restaurant Coalition, Sustainable Jobs Fund and the Vermont Community Foundation. So throughout my comments, you'll hear me continually reiterate the importance of linking economic development with poverty relief and social services. That's really been sort of the special sauce of Everyone Eats. And the program design is pretty straightforward. Basically, our program pays Vermont restaurants $10 a meal to produce nourishing nutritious meals for Vermonters whose food access has been negatively impacted by COVID or our otherwise experiencing food insecurity. And in a different to sort of what I said, or this tool of linking poverty relief with local economic development is proving to have a sort of surprising uplifting and regenerative impact on our communities. And I think I mentioned that part of the legislative intent was to support Vermont food producers. So in addition to making meals, all of the participating restaurants are required to purchase 10%, at least 10% of their ingredients from local farms and food producers. And we found in our 2020 programming that our restaurants far exceeded and surpassed that goal and actually our program averaged closer to 30% which has translated last year into about a half a million dollars reinvested into our farm and food economy. So this program is all about collaboration which I think is probably a theme of this day. And we have worked to implement the program across the state through a series of community hubs. So we partner with 14 community hubs that have interpreted and implemented the program uniquely in each of their communities. So I'll just say as an example here in Washington County, there's a central Vermont, everyone eats hub that is a partnership between Capstone and Shift Meals. And we service all of the Capstone territory. So that includes Loma Oil, Washington and Orange Counties. Another example in Bennington, the hub there is managed by a partnership between the Collaborative, which is a grassroots community development organization, Shires Housing and receives lots of student support from Bennington College. And while I would love to talk about all the hubs, I certainly don't have time to do that, but one more hub I wanna highlight because it's really unique is that we've partnered with LocalVorm which is a Burlington tech company to build an app so that some users, the way that some users access the program is they actually go through their smartphone or tablet and order meals directly from participating restaurants and then the app, the LocalVorm app, pays the restaurants directly for those meals. So as I said, the community hub model has been a really important strategy for empowering the diversity and multiplicity of Vermont communities to best utilize this resource given the unique assets and challenges that each of these communities have. And we've seen all of our different community hubs nimbly partner with local hunger councils, their downtown chambers and associations, food shelves, community organizations, and volunteers to really target and strategically target everyone eats in a way that best serves their local communities. You may be wondering how individuals actually get the meals. Basically, as I said, the hubs have worked with their local communities to determine the best strategies. And many of the hubs are distributing meals through weekly or daily public distribution sites. And some of these are new, but some of them, many of them are partnering with existing community meal sites or food shelves and providing a really critical resource for these organizations that have long held the responsibility of feeding our populations, but were really extra stressed by COVID. In addition to bolstering that important emergency channel, I'm really proud of the innovative ways hubs are using this resource to forge new partnerships and to deepen the web of food resources. So many of our hubs are partnering with childcare, early childcare centers and health clinics to make sure that those places have meals on hand for when clients and patients screen as food insecure. We've also seen many of our hubs partner in really impressive and heartwarming ways with the partners on the ground who have long standing relationships with unhoused individuals. And those organizations have done what they always do, which is to leverage this resource so that they can best serve our most vulnerable neighbors. And so even as we've worked to make sure that this program is widely available and is widely available to everyone from our most vulnerable residents even to folks who are experiencing hunger for the first time. We've also worked strategically with more institutionalized programs to really leverage everyone eats, to increase awareness and participation in other resources like Three Squares Vermont, school meals, food shelves. We've worked very hard to not duplicate services but to really plug everyone eats in a way that sort of brings more people into the fold. I know everyone is always wondering what's happening with everyone today. So I can say that it's every day is a new day in terms of funding. We operated last year from August through December 30th with funding from the CRF. We took a pause from December 30th through January 18th. We have been working with the administration and the legislature to secure and identify additional funding. An important part of that has been that we submitted and received initial ruling from FEMA that everyone eats is a reimbursable expense at their standard 75% rate. And yesterday I heard Governor Scott along with many of you indicate that a willingness of his administration to continue funding the program as well as last week Senate passed S36 which indicated that as long as there was FEMA support the Senate is also interested in continuing the program. And as of today I'm really happy to report that all 14 hubs are back up and running. I'm really just overjoyed and sort of speechless in how much I can express my joy that we have an opportunity to continue to serve the state during these challenging times. And I'm really, I'm looking forward with all of my partners to continue serving these nourishing meals and providing the critical, acute relief both to restaurants and farms and to eaters that this program has provided. But I also wanna just highlight that in addition to the successful aid everyone eats has also set a new tone for how we can think about assistance. And we've received feedback from all of our stakeholders that have pointed to the important way this program has lifted morale and provided assistance that reinforces the dignity of all of the participants. Everyone from people who have asked for help to get meals from restaurants who have asked for help to stay in business, everyone has appreciated the opportunity to give something back even as they are receiving help. And I just wanna close kind of on that point with something that I heard from one of our partners through the Brattleboro hub and Christine shared with me and asked to share with all of you that there's a hotel in Brattleboro that sits adjacent to one of the town's favorite restaurants. People have been living here since the pandemic started. Everyone eats has helped people living with homelessness feel deserving of high quality food like from the restaurant they see out their door every day. When you have nothing, you are told that beggars can't be choosers. Everyone eats has helped to change that narrative and the community is saying, no, you are deserving. You have dignity and should have choice in food which is often the highlight of someone's day. I just really wanna thank you for giving me time to share a little bit about everyone eats today and thank you all, all of the legislators for your service to our state, especially in this really challenging time. And I just wanna say that I'm really grateful for everyone who is on this call for working together to confront homelessness and just say that because of the collaborations that I've directly experienced from everyone eats, I'm hearing increasingly opportunistic that our state can unite and uplift ourselves out of poverty and into the wealth and abundance of a caring and reciprocal community. So thank you all so much. Thank you, Jean. Thank you for sharing and I'm glad to hear we're back up and running. That's really key. Thank you. I just received a text from someone who's listening on YouTube and they've asked me to ask our witnesses and ourselves to try to be acronym free. People may not know what all of our acronyms are yet. So moving forward. Thank you. Next up and I wanna take a break after we have Sean Elsass is next and then Jess Graff and we'll take a break after Jess. So Sean, are you with us? Yes, sir. Great. Well, Sean Elsass, thank you. Would you, you are from Bethel, please the microphone is yours. Yes. Hi, y'all. I appreciate y'all having me here today. My name's Sean Elsass. I'm actually originally from Texas. If you can't tell by the accent. I moved up here in 2011. I was a former lieutenant for the state of Texas and worked in the penitentiary. And then I came up here and worked for the state of Vermont for a few years and then went into retail. I became homeless. That's just a little bit of background about me. I always worked two to three jobs just to maintain myself and to have things that I needed and wanted. I became homeless in 2019 due to the fact I have illnesses and I can't work anymore. I never in a million years would have ever thought I'd become homeless. And I also have to admit that I thought all homeless people were drug addicts, thieves and no one like me. So I was kind of dumb to that idea until I became homeless. And it opened up my mind more for that fact that not all addicts are homeless. I couldn't survive off my savings anymore. So one of my friends, because I was like, what do I do? I'm losing my housing. I'm living in my car, winter's coming. I had no resources, no family up here. And one of my friends sent me to economic services. From economic services, I got in touch with the Haven. Now, my view, winter was coming. I was living in my car. Economic services got me a few motel stays. And I talked to a service coordinator, Nancy Griffin at the Haven. And she got in touch with whoever runs the Hickson house and was able to get me in there in December of 2019. The pandemic hit, and of course, I was the first one to leave the Hickson house to go into the motels. I'm high-risk, but in April, they got me housing. And now I'm in Ethel, have my own apartment. I don't even know how to express how I felt being homeless, the way that other people looked at me and treated me. I felt like I was stoned on the bottom of their shoes when people would talk to me. I'm grateful for the staff at the Haven for telling me everything would be okay and finding me housing. But I also think some things need to be changed. I don't think that everybody should judge a book by cover that they need to open it up and start reading it and talk to individuals to find out what their background is. Some of the changes I feel being homeless when I entered the Hickson house, I was lost. I feel like that there should be some kind of psychologists on board there for people that never face homeless or the people that have faced homeless because mental issues start to come up. I had PTSD and anxiety. I didn't realize how bad I had until I had to stop working. And then dealing with everybody else's personalities, you've gotta have someone to talk to, not just the psychologist outside of where you're at, but you need someone that's gonna be there to help you along the way. I know affordable housing. To me, it doesn't seem that affordable. 30% of my income and then having life expenses, I'll never be able to save and get ahead like I did in the past. I'll never have that home that I've won again. I'll never have that land that I've won. I've had it all, but I've lost it. I'd like to have it again. I don't wanna live in an apartment forever, but that's my life and it's gonna be my life because I can't afford to put savings back. I still have friends that are in the motels and I feel like that there's not enough people out there reaching out to them. Like they sit in that motel day in and day out wondering what's next, what's next. Yes, they have case workers for them, but I don't think there's enough check-ins for them to ease their mind and to let them know, hey, we're trying, we're trying. It just saddens me. I wish I had a million dollars where I could go out and buy 100 acres and put some trailers out there and have homeless people work the land and work hard at getting on their feet and getting back out there in the world. There's still people in tents in White River Junction. Now, most people that are out there, they have mental illness and anxiety in the PTSD and they don't have any healthcare or anybody they can trust to go talk to. I don't know what could be done about that. I know I met one really good friend of mine which he passed away this year. He was schizophrenic and bipolar and he had no one to talk to, but I talked to him. I got him a little bit of help that I could but I can't help everybody. I become a better person. I'm grateful for the service providers at the Haven. I'm grateful for the case workers that I have in Bethel and I still have a case worker at the Haven. That's the gripping that I keep in touch with if I need something. I kind of got lost. I'm a little nervous, so. Thank you, time. All right. I know it's not gonna be easy. Things don't change overnight. I understand that. I know our president wants America to be great again. I'd like for Vermont to set that example for other states to make America great again, to help the economic crisis with homelessness and hunger. When I'll speak about that too, when I got my disability a couple months ago, my food stamps were taken away. I was in shock. My food bill is over $300 a month because of my illness. I got it back because of the economic crisis that we're in, but it'll be taken away again. Like how's the person supposed to buy food and pay the rent and upkeep their vehicle? It's, I hope things can change in that. I know when I got services through economic services, I was getting $56 a month plus my food stamps. I don't know what $56 a month could buy a person. It bought me to wash my clothes. That was it. But there were other things that I needed that I couldn't get that I had to go without. That was hard for me and it was medical things I needed. I felt like I looked like someone that came off a train in a hobo because I couldn't upkeep myself. I'm grateful that I got to experience that. I hope to never have to experience it again. I felt lost. I didn't, if it wasn't for that one person in my life, I don't think I'd be here today. If I didn't get out of the cold, I would have probably committed suicide. When you go from having everything to losing everything, you lose yourself. I just want people to know that it's not, even though addicts are homeless too, talk to them, we're people. We're already at the lowest point in our life. Don't talk to us or talk about us. Help us. Even asking, are you okay? It gives that person a little hope. I guess that's, I had more to say and I just kind of forgot it. I know I heard something about FEMA. I guess I'm not understanding why with all the land up here, why can't there be trailers put out there? I know there's not a lot of housing out there right now. I know it, you know, y'all are doing your best to get the people out of the hotels. But I see so much land up here that can be used. I think y'all, I guess that's really all I got to say. I appreciate like the haven, the food shelves. I appreciate that they still stay in contact with me because I still do have that fear of what if I can't pay my bills anymore? Even though I have an income coming in, but what if something happens? So it's just, you know, take, I want people to take their time and get to know homeless people. It's people that can't work anymore, so elderly, even the addicts that are trying to get in recovery, mental health issues that people are afraid to go get help because they have mental health issues. Not everybody's a scumbag out there. It could be your mother, brother, sister, or father out there on the street because they lost that paycheck. Or something traumatic happened to them in their life. I just would like to see people be more kind to each other. That's one of the reasons why I moved up here, Vermont's a beautiful place to live. And y'all do take care of the community. There's just more people need to be out there helping. Thank you, Sean. I think that's the message that we carry with us in this work. Oh, thank you. No, thank you for joining us and thank you for reaching out to everybody. And I'm glad that you've found people to do that for you and for you to do it for your friends. Thank you for joining us today. You're welcome. I do, can I add one other thing? Of course. I mentioned. Sure. I'm a transgender man. I used to be email on the mail now. I had fear of going into the homeless shelter. The Haven staff there eased my fear. There are a lot of transgender people out there that are homeless, that are afraid to get the help. But the kindness that staff gave me helped me. When people in the shelter residents found out that I was transgender, the staff nipped it in the bud. They took my safety seriously. So I just wanted to mention that and to say how much I appreciated that they cared enough for my safety and made me feel comfortable. And I wanted other transgender people to know you could go out there and get the help. I understand fear. You wouldn't know I was transgender unless I told you. But we still have safety issues that we face and our insecurities. So on that, thank you for letting me add that. Yeah, thank you for sharing, Sean. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and lay it out there like that. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for coming. Yes, sir. Thank you again. Wow. Next up, I have Jess Graff from the Franklin Grand Isle Community Action. Jess, are you here? Yes, I'm here, good morning. Great, good morning. Thank you. The microphone's yours. Thank you. Sean, it's gonna be a hard act to follow. Thank you for sharing that. That was just a beautiful story of strength and a moment of vulnerability to bring it here. So thank you. And I would like to say that certainly Sean's not alone. At Community Action, we hear from dozens of people each week calling in and sharing similar stories. Okay, so good morning. Thank you for taking time this morning to hear our testimony. My name is Jess Graff and I was born and raised in Fletcher, Vermont, which is also where I live now and where I'm raising my family with two young children. I work in St. Albans as the Associate Director of Franklin Grand Isle Community Action. I joined Community Action in June of this past year and before that, I worked for 17 years at the Parent Child Center of Northwestern Counseling and Support Services. My present work has a strong focus on issues of homelessness and housing insecurity in our region. I would like to thank the legislature and the state government for its thoughtful and insightful allocations of funding that have allowed us to respond to housing insecurity during this pandemic in a way that kept our homeless neighbors safe and in so doing provided protection from COVID-19 for all of our monitors. According to the point in time data from last year on January 22nd, 2020 in Franklin County, we had 49 people living in emergency shelters and transitional housing programs and 26 people that were living in motels paid for by the Economic Services Division and two people who were living outside. As of January 25th of this year, we have 137 individuals in motels. That's 116 adults and 21 children. We have 242 individuals enrolled in our coordinated entry system, 190 adults and 52 children. This is a larger number because it's reflective of people living in shelters and transitional housing as well as some in their cars and places otherwise unfit for human habitation in addition to the individuals in the motels. The increase in numbers that we are seeing is not only an increase in homelessness as a result of our current health crisis. In fact, we believe that we are finally seeing a more honest representation of households who experience housing insecurity. Before the pandemic, we simply did not have programs and services that could be responsive to the need and homelessness was driven underground with families who would often be doubled up or couchsurfing in overcrowded homes or living outdoors, camping and in their cars. We had an incredibly long list of people waiting for shelter space to open. Now that we have through the emergency housing program held by Economic Services Division essentially extended our available shelter space through the use of local mortals, we are seeing a more honest and full picture of the housing needs in our state. I know you've heard people talk today about three legs of the stool as a response to and planning tool around combatting homelessness in our communities. These include a need to have affordable and subsidized housing, a need for housing case management and the need for an increase in housing stock. In my low region of the state, we are experiencing a lack of needed vouchers. Of the 190 adults enrolled in our coordinated entry master list, 81% of them report having no income, zero income. Another 71 individuals report having income under $1,000 per month. With rent reasonableness standards in our region, Franklin County set at $1,139 for one bedroom apartment and $1,466 for two bedroom apartment. These individuals are not likely to be able to afford and sustain housing on their own without subsidies. 78 individuals report having mental health conditions, 22 report issues with drug and alcohol and 98 report either physical or developmental disability or chronic health condition. These are not only issues that have impacted their ability to maintain housing but also their ability to acquire and maintain employment. 63 of these 161 adults report either a developmental or physical disability that impacts their ability to sustain employment and housing. 60 of our coordinated entry enrolled individuals rely on some type of social security as their only income. This really exasperates the need for subsidized housing and housing vouchers as these individuals are often not able to increase income to do an inability to secure or sustain employment. We have had 21 individuals exit our coordinated entry list since December 1st. 19 of them left with some sort of subsidy, mostly a Vermont rental subsidy or a CARES voucher. Only two were able to exit into units they could afford without one. We also have a lack of available housing. In the Franklin Grand Isle region, we were grateful to be allocated 29 CARES vouchers and about 13 Vermont rental subsidies during the pandemic. Of our 29 CARES vouchers, about 20 households have been able to find apartments and utilize their vouchers. We have nine households who are still in the process for looking for apartments and have a deadline of the end of February to be able to use the voucher or they will lose it. Housing is as basic a need as water and for these nine households losing this voucher will be as devastating as a parched person wandering the desert who watches water slip through their fingers before they can take a sip. These households have a voucher. We have skilled housing case management and wraparound services, but despite great effort, they are simply not able to find an available rental unit because there aren't any. 145 of our 242 individuals enrolled in court in the Indian entry have been homeless for between 90 and 365 days. They are actively looking for apartments or room rentals or someplace to live. They simply cannot find them. We also have a lack of housing case management. We have 242 individuals enrolled in our coordinated entry program. We have maybe 15 people across four agencies that can provide housing case management to them. And for the most part, that case management is categorized by population. For example, we have two staff that can provide services only to individuals with a history of involvement with the Department of Corrections. And another who works only with the 29 households who are eligible to receive a care voucher. These households represent people in crisis. And as you can imagine, housing is not usually the only issue that they need support around. We have a desperate need for skilled experienced staff who can assist these families in accessing housing as well as support accessing other needed services and resources. Thank you for taking this time today. Although the numbers of homeless Vermonters look like they have increased dramatically, we are in a better position than ever before to actually do something about this issue. We are a small state and compared to other states, these numbers are small. I believe it is possible to essentially end homelessness and to make housing insecurity a rare and short-term experience. I believe Vermont can do that. Vermonters are practical people. We are well poised and ready to respond to the needs of our neighbors. We're asking for your support and participation in our endeavor. Thank you so much for your time today and for your attentiveness to this critical issue. Thank you, Jess. And thank you for sharing from a section of the state that we rarely hear from in such detail. So thank you for sharing those numbers with us and the needs of the Northwest Kingdom. All right, with that, I think we will take a break. It's 10.37 on my computer and we will take a 10-minute break. We'll be back here at 10.47 just to restart with our final four witnesses.