 We're going to start off this morning dealing with S 34, which is a repeat of a bill that came out of our committee. Last year trying to establish a second housing bond and also doing other miscellaneous things and then after 45 minutes or so we're going to move into a housing round table discussion for like an hour and 20 minutes. I'm aware of the uphill battle on a second housing bond, and this was put in before the governor's speech yesterday where is he alluded to the fact that he talked about the success of the first bond. And then he said, but instead of doing bonding, let's just pay for it. Some of it now by putting $20 million more million into VHC be one of the things I want to accomplish is to understand how he makes that equation. Obviously, that's very welcome news and is a great down payment but I don't think it's anywhere near what a bond would produce if we had the wherewithal to produce a bond. So I'm going to ask people like more and others to give us some ideas as to if there and I'm not going to spend a lot of time because it's as I say it's an uphill thing but I just want to keep our thinking caps on. And offer potentially that kind of significant money, how we can leverage even more money or parlay that into more housing. So let's start off with Becky, if you could just walk us through and because of the framing I'm putting on this, we can do it fairly briefly and I'm not going to get caught up in the weeds here but just the general approach that was being put forth in this bill which I think several members of this committee co-sponsored with me and I thank you for that. Oh, I see I am a co-host now. Okay, I will bring it up on my screen. And it's on our website right so we can all just pull it up. And do you also see it on the screen now. Yeah, it's a tiny. Could you just make it. Yeah, just a little bit bigger Becky. Thanks. Okay, I think if I. Is that okay or is that too big. Good. That's good. That's better. Okay, great. So Becky Wasserman legislative council. This is S 34, which is an act relating to funding affordable housing. As the chair just mentioned, this is essentially rerunning a bill from last year to create a second housing bond. That would be issued by VHFA and to be used by the VHCB to support more affordable housing. I'll highlight some changes just from last year as I go along, but the first section of this bill is the sort of intent findings intent and purpose. So in the findings there is there's language which was similar to last year that there was this housing for all revenue bond that was issued in 2017 to support the development of affordable housing throughout the state. And the what's updated is at the top of page two is the, what, what that bond generated. So the results of that bond are generating a total of 37 million and bond proceeds that VHCB used to fund the creation and improvement of 843 homes across the state leveraging 200 million and other resources so I think just compared to last year the the funding was able to be used. Over the past year in in addition to what was reported last year. Subdivision three talks about the continuing need for housing, particularly a housing shortage in light of COVID-19 there's an increase in the incidence of homelessness. As well as the difficulty in finding a home even for individuals and families with financial support for rent. Subdivision four finds that additional investments are needed to create these affordable housing options for Vermonters. And it has the same goals stated as last year to reverse demographic trends contributing to a more inclusive and equitable state and supporting growth based on existing infrastructure and settlement patterns. The purpose of the bill is to develop and improve affordable housing for current and future state residents. And then finally, the intent intent and subdivision two at the top of page three is to authorize VHF a to issue a new bond and this can be a single bond or series of bonds. Between FY23 and FY28 and then transfer those proceeds to VHCB to support this development of additional affordable housing. Section, the next few sections are are sort of the substance of creating the authority for both VHCB to use this funding and for VHFA to issue the bonds. Section two is relating to VHCB's it's creating a new section to allow them to use the bonds for this second this the second bond to fund housing that meets community needs. There's, there's some language in there about funding the creation and improvement of owner occupied and rental housing for Vermonters with very low to middle income up to 120% of the area median in areas targeted for growth and re-investment and there's some priorities set forth in this section which are to create a new new multifamily and single family homes address blighted properties and other existing housing stock that require re-investment and this includes mobile home parks and then finally at the top of page four the the last priority is to provide service supported housing in coordination with AHS and this includes those who are elderly homeless in recovery experiencing severe mental illness or leaving the area of emergency incarceration. Section three is a is in statute and it's the VHCB annual report requirement. So this section is just saying that in addition to the reporting that VHCB has to do on lines 12 through 14 it says in addition to that that report has to include the list of projects funded from this second bond. Section and I'll just pause if anyone has any questions. Nope. Section four is the section of law that deals with the property transfer tax. So this bond. The idea is that it would be supported by property transfer tax revenues. The section of law sets out how those property transfer tax revenues are distributed and just I'm just scrolling down here for some context. There are there's already in statute ways that this tax revenue should be used. It is I think as you all know is not followed every year but there is 50% that that should go to VH the Vermont housing conservation trust fund 17% to the municipal and regional planning fund and 33% to the general fund and then before all that happens 2% goes to the Department of taxes for property valuation and review a special fund. So what happened with the first housing bond, as you'll see on lines, sort of 12 through 19 is that language was added here that says before you distribute any of those property tax. Transfer tax revenues are set out in statute 2.5 million will go to pay for the principal and interest of that that first housing for all revenue bond. So what this bill is doing is moving to page six. It's saying sort of in addition to that before you distribute all those other ways that the statute sets out for for the property transfer transfer tax revenue. And in addition to that 2.5 million that's going to the first bond where this is setting aside 4 million of that revenue received to be transferred to VH FA to pay the principal of an interest due on those bonds on this second bond. Are there any questions on that that number just higher because the bond proceeds are $50 million now or the interest rates have changed or what. I just use the number from last year's bill I think it was because it was a higher bond amount but so I don't I don't know if this still sort of corresponds this year to what what is the correct amount but this was what was put in place in in last year's bill. Okay. And then subsection F here is is saying that while both bonds are outstanding. The rate of tax on the property transfer tax hat can be reduced below a certain amount that produces $30 million in subdivision one in the instance when both bonds are outstanding and at least 18 million when the second bond is outstanding and I believe the first bond is set to end in 2039 and this bond would be 2043. I would can we pause there and have some questions so how much do we usually get annually in revenue from the property transfer tax. That's a great question I have to check with the joint fiscal office and I think it changes every year and I don't know what. Yeah, yeah, I could probably answer that. Yeah, Jen will know. Good morning everyone Jen holler with the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board so it's been running about 38 to 45 million over the last couple of years. And that's a fair amount to the state and of course it goes to different purposes. As a result of the recent surge in home sales and prices. The forecast is now that FY 21 will be up to about 54 million and the forecast for FY 22 is 68 million. Wow. So that's right. But was I reading it incorrect. These are one time amounts in that section of the bill or their annual amounts because it's such a volatile tax that I just feel like it's committing a lot of money that we may not have if it's annual. Yeah, that that is that is annual so that saying you. So that that is sort of suggesting that you have to have the tax rate at you can set the tax rate at an amount that will produce at least that amount every year for the next 20 years while these bonds are outstanding. So the general thinking here that I, I certainly subscribe to is that in the last bond, we were giving. We're taking away from VHC be genuine correct. I can't remember if it's a million and a half a year of their annual appropriation to help pay for the debt service of this $37 million bond over 20 years. So instead of giving, I'm simplifying this greatly, instead of giving VHC be an extra million and a half each year to produce a million and a half worth of housing. They were getting 37 million right up front and can produce a multitude of housing now and and and lose that one and a half million every year for 20 years, where they would be hopefully building housing over the 20 years but it would coming out much much slower. And then that 37 million wound up to produce 250 million of construction housing in the first couple of years of the bond. So in my mind it's sort of like, if we were developing a community part of Burlington we're building like 100 houses, you know, and we had a certain amount of money. We had a fraction of those houses right now, if we had to pay 100% of the cost of the housing immediately, but everybody takes out mortgages, and they only pay 5% now so you build 20 times as many houses right now, as opposed to waiting by spending the money so we're basically trying to leverage funds, and the problem we faced is rating agencies say there's too much borrowing in the state of Vermont. So this idea while creative potentially makes Vermont higher a higher risk in terms of defaulting. So what I would hope to do and I wouldn't at this point, we're not going to spend a lot of time on this bill but I'd like to hear from Jen and more. Unless people have further questions or Becky has more to say from Jen and more just briefly the success of the last bond some some metrics and is there other ideas out there now that we mean the $20 million extra that's going to be HB is not a done deal we haven't gotten into all the needs and how that money is going to be used, but it's a huge amount of money that we're really happy to see, but how can we leverage that into more money. So we can build more housing now, and not necessarily wait for it to trickle out over the years ahead. And Michael may I just add to that I guess one questions Becky are you done. It was anything else you want to highlight. Okay, I think the rest of the language is just the sort of statutory authority relating to VH FA being able to issue the bonds. I think I would just highlight, just for the, just to go through it quickly is that section seven is saying that the fiscal year at least 4 million would be set aside for this purpose from the, those revenues, and then section eight of the bill repeals all of these authorities and 2043 when the bond matures. So, that's, that's the quick summary and I can stop the share now. Great. Thanks. Thank you Becky. Thanks. Okay. And Michael, my question for you was, you know, when it was exciting to hear about the 20 million there's no question, but you know, gosh, that's day one of this process and there's going to be a lot of buying for that one time money. And we, it's a top priority of ours but there's a lot of other one time money priorities, whether we end up at 20 million I think we, as you wisely I think say we, it's great. We should keep moving in. I mean, I think we should keep all the burners going because who knows where we'll end up with with that proposal. Correct. And if we can get some multiplier effect, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone or solve some of the other one time needs and not in any way reduce the amount of housing projected to be built with that $20 million. Yeah. Senator Brock, you're muted. Randy, we can't hear you. Can you just refresh our memory Becky on the definition of affordable housing. I believe the one that I see is in the chapter in title 32 regarding tax credit charitable investments in housing. But there may be other definition somewhere. This one essentially says that VACB shall adopt a rule in which the definition and it meets certain tests but is there any other definition of affordable housing in statute. I think there is, I would have to find it. And I guess I would also point to the fact that this bill specifically says that the creation of funding is for owner occupied and rental housing for Vermont. And I think that with very low to middle income up to 100% of the area median in areas targeted for growth and investment, but I can, there's another statutory section and I can, unless maybe more or Jen know that offhand I can find it for you quickly. So I'm sure more can or Jen can tell us the, at least for the purpose of introduction as bill, we were trying to replicate the standards of who this housing would be built for that was in the first bond, and they could tell us what the criteria was. Okay, so let's move on to. I'm sorry. I think my hands like but when Jen and Mora are sharing I just love to hear sort of a philosophical thinking around the mix. And I know with the rental assistance that mostly probably has to go to rental housing, but the sort of mix of homeownership and rental housing that we're talking about because it just feels really disproportionate we know it is disproportionate in the state who stays in a cycle of rental housing, you know, and who faces barriers to accessing homeownership and just want to see more focus on homeownership. You want to see more focus on homeownership rather than rental is that what you're saying. Yes. Okay. Just as, you know, we, we've discussed, you know, we've discussed that at length and we're also wanting to focus on the asset gap to at a later point but we, you know, we push homeownership in this state big time. And, you know, there is definitely been more. There is a, there is a major need for rental housing to and it's not just, you know, for all people. I mean there is. So, and homeownership obviously represents a huge asset for many. I think as we look at that at that those questions. I'd also love to look at our homeownership mix of our income brackets because I think Randy's getting at this we need more housing in all areas and the cost of housing is such a barrier to any housing being bill. And, and I would love to see us also from you sort of expand the range of what we're looking at. And as Jen and more start their testimony, I'd love to hear sort of also what some of the lessons learned are from the last bond and how we can improve and improve this work as we go forward because that you know we, it was great but it wasn't, you know, there's always things to improve. Okay, so more would you mind starting out and just give a brief history of your feelings about the last bond and what it accomplished and then go into the, the, I guess the larger question. If you see anything in your world that we should explore, given this fact that I think we're going to have significant monies to put towards housing. It would be wonderful if just the $20 million survive for VHCB, but it would be nice to see if we can even do better somehow in producing housing stock. Can do that and that can be quite brief to leave time for Jen because I think a lot of your questions are really on what VHCB accomplished with the last bond so my name is more Collins I'm the director of Vermont Housing Agency, VHCB's role in the last housing bond was to issue the bond because that is what we do, and then turn the proceeds over to VHCB who then deployed it which is why I'd like to leave. Thank you Jen but the majority of the time to Jen because a lot of the discussion you're talking about was on the outcomes of the last bond because it sounds like you want to replicate some of the great work in the future. Thank you to a couple of the questions that I've heard so far. Center Sorok and the numbers that you were talking with Becky about of the $4 million of PTT and such are based on the fact that it's now a $50 million bond. So we will need to double check with our industry partners about if those numbers need tweaking. Since last year's bill was introduced but I will tell you that in the two years between last year and when the bond was the first bond was done. Those ratios did not change and therefore since it's based on a ratio of the size of the bond I wouldn't expect those numbers to change dramatically. So Senator Rahm you were asking about the volatility of the property transfer tax and I can tell you that in the first five years of the tax, it was between 12 and $15 million a year, but then since 1998, when it was $15 million a year, that has been the floor. It's always been far above that. It grew to a previous peak in 2005 of $45 million, but as Jen mentioned it's projected to be far higher now. The chart I'm looking at is a year too old so it doesn't have the current numbers in it. And even during the financial crisis, the very low point was just shy of $25 million. So in all the years going back to 93, just the July collections of the property transfer tax have covered the debt service for the last bond for the last 20 years. So actually looking at chart that goes back to 93 for the last 20 years, just what the state has received in July has covered that $2.5 million. So there is, it is a volatile source as we're seeing that there's an uptick in it now. And yet the $12 million floor to it does seem, I can tell you that the are underwriters and rating agencies and investors all feel like that is a very comfortable floor or that folks aren't worried are going to have a risk of dropping below. As for defining affordable housing, it is in several places in statute, Becky will probably find it in the Act 250 statute where priority housing projects are defined. VHCB and VHFA both have statutes where we work with primarily our mission service for low and moderate income folks. And then we can talk about the specific income targeting that the last bond had that was unique to this bond, because this bond was trying to do something of reaching not just the historically low income affordable housing that Vermont has served, but trying to really include home ownership as you mentioned, Senator Rom, and trying to reach into some might say the missing middle of the kind of workforce development housing that isn't traditionally eligible for government subsidy, but this bond could support that kind of housing. We'll let Jen talk about the homeownership projects that were supported by the bond I can say that VHFA is a home ownership lender would support a mix as we had last time of rental and home ownership options I think there are a lot of opportunities as we try to reach underserved populations who have not been able to achieve home ownership through market forces that a government supported initiative like this could really allow for some specialized targeting and marketing and working with partners to deploy this money in a special way. And I will say that there is nothing I see from the investor bonding side of the equation that should prevent the state from considering doing a bond. This is still a viable option interest rates are still low interest rates are actually projected to remain low. My belief based on the economist I listened to is that interest rates will remain low for probably the next two years so you could take your time a bit with this and we could try to hit the market as best as possible. As I said, we spoke about the treasures concerns about the idea of borrowing versus appropriations those are other issues I'm just here to deliver the news that the markets are still, you know, working well and I would, and I would expect that VHFA could achieve a really good rate, the same strong rating that was achieved last time on the bond, if you structured the bond in a similar ways last time, which is what S 34 proposes is to keep that same kind of structure, and some of those things that help the investors are things like having it be the first, however much a PTT revenue that goes to support the bond investors don't like being last paid they want to be first paid so that's why I'm saying, you know, starting in the fiscal year, those taxes are paid with just the July revenues, you know, and so they like being first they also like knowing that the legislature is committed to keep the property transfer tax revenue at a certain level, so that they don't have to worry about if they will get paid and they want you to keep that but as I mentioned with the history that we have of the PTT. It seems very feasible to everyone looking at which is why we achieved a high rating. I'm happy to answer technical questions about the financing or turn it over to Jen to talk about the much more exciting work which is the question of, you know, what's the good that came out of this investment. Thank you very much more any questions for more. So, just before we get into Jen's testimony has been very helpful. I guess, part of the reason for introducing this bill is that there's a significant amount of money being made available for housing, as I've said before, I want to think outside the box as to how we might creatively use that money to produce the most housing possible. I strongly support the work of VHCB and I think they do a remarkable job in leveraging what money we give them to produce a lot of housing and in full disclosure, my firm represented the Vermont Housing Conservation Coalition for two decades and I was in the room with Governor Dean when the group there decided to use the property transfer tax as a funding source for VHCB. So I'm tied to this, but at the same time, with that kind of money on the table. Are there more creative ideas than just giving all the money to VHCB and let them figure it out. They're very well may not be, but I think this committee should have its antenna up to see if we can find some other idea, other tweaks to maximize, you know, I fully believe in the bonding function but unfortunately we have other pressures there but maybe there are some other ideas and and having said that I know VHCB supports that kind of thinking as well. The leadership at VHCB so Jen with that introduction. Welcome. Good to see you. Can you. There's a lot to talk about there thank you for the opportunity and let me begin by saying of course we're delighted that the governor recognizes the need for more housing. I think that the work that your committee has done and even the introduction of this bill and the ongoing conversation around the potential of a bond has set the stage for agreement. Around housing being a priority and that it being an appropriate place for one time investments and so I think maybe that's helped put us where we are today. The first bond was, we think and I believe it's been your impression to a big success. You might be delighted to know I don't have an actual presentation for you so no lots of pictures I've showed them the results. I'm very gracious about letting us come in and share those results with you in the past but 843 homes over 23 different communities in 11 counties around the state. And the construction on some of those is finishing up now. It was paused and delayed a little bit when there were construction shutdowns early on in the earlier this year related to to COVID, but construction has picked back up and is now underway. And so those are happening around the state. So much that I'd like to share with you. So, this news is very fresh to us. In fact, Gussie like our executive director is just sharing it with our board right now. We only began to understand that there might be a proposal in the governor's budget over the last few days and had seen nothing in writing so we are very much still absorbing it and I cannot speak to you today about exactly how we're supposed to do it and what proportion of different types of housing would would be the best. I think that the priorities that you just looked at an S 34 are really appropriate priorities. As we think about what could be done with that 20 million we might add creating more BIPOC access to, to, to homes and thinking about how we create housing options in communities of opportunity, a little bit more. And then also, there are 2000 people in motels right now, due to the pandemic and that it feels like that's got to continue to be a focus for all of us to create permanent homes and help folks transition out of those situations. They are hopefully sheltered but they are not in sustainable viable situations that it's something we all need to try to address together. Yeah, I mean speaking of all of those particular populations. I'm afraid that saying we should prioritize them doesn't really get us there. It doesn't have accountability measures that say we're going to tie ourselves to increasing BIPOC home ownership in the state and closing the gap. So, I just wonder how you all feel about kind of real metrics that move the needle on some of these things rather than just sort of, it would be nice to have I really want to get more scientific with equity in the legislature. It's very like we're just going to sprinkle it in, but I think we need real numbers so just want to say that. Well, I have to confess one of the reasons I love working and is in housing because it's easy to count you've got you've got an apartment you've got a home and you know who lives in it so those are things that we can report to you and when things are embedded in legislation as a priority. That's what we do, and then we are accountable to you because we need to come before you every single year and report to you what we've done with those dollars you've decided to entrust to us so I absolutely appreciate. Appreciate that concern. But later on today and over time, particularly in the area. I think affordable housing is one of the areas of state investment that has done nowhere near well enough, but pretty well in terms of creating more opportunity for people who may have been managed in the past and later on this morning I think in your roundtable is Michael Monty from the Champlain Housing Trust and he, they're very attentive and have good data and around who is living in their housing and and he might be able to share with you. What the demographics are there. So that's, that's one quick possibility for continuing the conversation about that. I wanted to. So the chairman mentioned leverage and, and also that the 37 million. The new bond did leverage about 200 million and other sources for those projects. When the bond was first proposed, we, and Gus said to you we would try to achieve a three to one, you know, state funds to other sources for that investment in the money ended ended up being about five to one. And you might recall that when Gus and I testified last week we actually showed you a specific project example with a pie chart that showed that the state's investment to the housing revenue bond was about 20% of that total funding. With, we always try to achieve leverage with other sources we were fortunate with the, when the bond was issued it was good timing because of interest rates but also because more I happened to get a bump in the amount of federal housing tax credits and the state housing authority got a bump in the amount of rental assistance that they could contribute to projects so all those things coming together in addition to coordination between us allowed us to achieve a five to one leverage in that sense. One of the really exciting things about this. The $20 million proposals is that it sets us up really well to take advantage of whatever federal resources may be coming along. $20 million is a lot of money, but we know that the need is enormous. And if the state is really talking about a significant investment here and doing its part, but the federal government has not been meeting its obligations around housing. And we would argue that there's there needs to be significant investment at the federal level, whether in a new infrastructure bill or in some of the stimulus packages that would be made available for creating new homes. And if with this flexible more flexible state funding, it would allow us to wrap around that fill in gaps match if needed. It just puts us in a good position in order to make the most of whatever resources may come there. I'm going to just check to look down on my notes and see what other things that you mentioned. Home ownership under the first housing bond I will. We did not create as many homeownership units as we would have liked and I think there's some lessons learned there and I think that the proposal both in terms of the funding that would come to us, but and I think you'll probably hear more about this later on the weatherization money that's proposed to go through VHFA and some of the funding through the Department of Housing Community Development gives us some opportunities to keep working on that. I think the simplest way I can describe it is that there are fewer funding sources for homeownership than there are for rental housing, and especially from the federal government, it takes a lot more state money per home to make something to rehab it and then make it affordable to someone who's low and moderate income. So it takes a lot more investments what's harder to create as many units in that way, honestly, and then also we've had tried a couple a number of pilot programs and I need to check back on the specifics of that of those results. While there are many homes in many parts of the state that do need rehab and could be good homes for somebody. They're not necessarily always in the places where people can get jobs, and they are not always necessarily places at a level of investment that where something can be made energy efficient and meet all health and safety codes and still be affordable to somebody you have to find something that needs some work. It's in a good locations got transportation, but isn't completely falling apart. So there's absolutely work to be done there I don't want to suggest that there isn't. But it takes some good coordination and strategic targeting and I would hope that we can work with the HFA and the Department of Housing and Community Development to do better around that. And then we have in the past. BHCB has had for many, many years a shared equity program we called the Homeland Program where essentially we provide funding to the nonprofits that are home ownership centers and they use that for subsidy gifts give lower income households a grant they go out and purchase a home, along with the agreement that they'll share the equity. When they eventually sell and that has been a good stepping stone from traditional rental housing to the more traditional and the traditional housing market it's worked very well in some parts of the state in some parts of the state. It's not as good a tool and people are looking that right now to see if there are ways in which that could be made more effective. So I've said a lot I think I'll pause right there and take the chairman's question. When we did the revenue bond last time, I assume that the money's generated from that bond, or for the purposes of creating housing, but they did go from the VHFA to VHCB. Did the statute that we passed, govern that all of those monies going to VHCB had to be used for housing versus your dual purpose of housing and conservation. Yes, that's right. It was the housing bond was very specifically to housing and actually there were some income. Targets within that and more reference or referred to this a little bit ago, 25% of it for housing that was more moderate income or for. And 25% was to be for the very, very lowest income households and the rest could be anywhere in between and we were able to meet meet those targets so we know that there is a desire certainly on the governor's to still hit both of those both of those demographics. Again, it takes more, more state funding to do the more moderate income homes because the federal programs are more targeted to people that are at 65% of the median or below but one of the lessons learned from the last housing bond is that when we were thinking about worker housing we thought that would be between 80 and 120% of median. And one of the lessons we learned is that we really should have broadened that target to be because of the way the federal programs work specifically Morris on federal tax credits 65% to 120% is a better range. So my. Thank you for that my question was more geared towards the mission of VHC be and to use funds they receive as close to 5050 for housing and conservation and we overrode that mission on the bond. So I think that that process should be used exclusively for housing, and I know you haven't seen any language yet, but given that housing. It seems to be is what driving the governor's suggestion for $20 million. Is he going to say that that $20 million be used exclusively for housing, or is that $20 million once it gets into your hands is it going to be $10 million to buy farms and $10 million for housing or to buy forest land and things like that. Oh, I'm sorry I didn't answer the question you asked me before so I will answer it now. So the housing revenue bond was very specific to housing. The 20 million that the governor is proposing our understanding is that the emphasis is to be on housing but we have talked to his staff and they have indicated because we also feel like and we touched on this. In our testimony last week that there are programs within VHC be that greatly support the rural economy and can help with the economic recovery so we have spoken to the governor staff around this proposal. And urge that we be allowed some flexibility with that in order to fund our conservation activities, like the farm and forest viability program the rural economic development initiative, maybe outdoor recreation projects and they, and he, they have indicated to us they'd like us to have some flexibility around that so we, as I said we're just beginning to discuss this with our board we feel it's important to be able to continue to do some of those activities with this funding. But it's not set in stone. So that I'm afraid that's as much as I can be on that right now it's it's brand new. Okay, well, let's not lose sight of what brought you to this point. I don't think you would have gotten $20 million if it wasn't for the housing crisis. So, yeah, no understood we understand that that's the, that that's the priority. Second, excuse me one more second mark, because this was the next question involves you. The huge amount of money going into weatherization which is going to be run through VHFA. I've read somewhere that the 20 or 25 million through that may produce as much as $70 million in weatherization projects which is music to my ears, and is also the weatherization is also very closely aligned with housing so I assume that our committee will have some role in working with natural resources in terms of how we compare those pots of money but it seems like there may be some creativity going on that we're looking for here in this bill for instance with the weatherization money. And I'd like to hear more about why it works there and why we can't multiply here. I thought that question was going to come at one point. Yes, of the $25 million investment that the governor proposed for weatherization 16 million of it is slated to come to VHFA as one time monies. The $259 million is going to support the existing weatherization assistance program through OEO as well as state's energy management program. The 16 million in one time money that's coming to VHFA is intended to be seed money to set up VHFA for to be able to play a new role in the state where we can use weatherization resources instead of being a dollar in dollar out which is how our state has traditionally used this money instead trying to use bonding and other financial tools to expand the pot of money. Some of those other financial tools besides bonding could be building on existing strong programs that already exist where private lenders put up their capital to support weatherization efforts and then the public subsidy could fund a loan loss reserve for those lenders so that there's a shared loss and those loans become less risky. Or the public money could be an interest rate buy down to make that money more affordable to the lower income Vermoners that VHFA is dedicated to. So one of the reasons that we can take this smaller one time investment and turn it into something bigger is the difference in the types of loans that we're talking about with permanently affordable housing versus weatherization project. For one, a weatherization project is usually a loan for 10 to 15 years. And so that's a much shorter term than perpetual. So therefore weatherization doesn't come with the longer lasting affordability provisions so there's less of public subsidy going to support the weatherization because it helps that household it will help the next household to buy that home. But there and so the affordability remains by the ongoing lower utility bills but it's not the same kind of income based affordability protections that's so important in the housing that VHCB and VHFA traditionally create in the ways we've been talking about. Also, there is a difference with weatherization loans are a bit more even if they're just a 0% interest rate because we can buy down that interest rate. They are still paid back when at least the home sells if not principal payments for those 10 to 15 years. And that's different than traditional, the creation of affordable rental housing, where to remain affordable to tenants in perpetuity that investment needs to stay in that community in that housing. And so it's more likely, I think that the better equation of what we're hoping to do with the weatherization investment probably looks more a bit like our VH phase down payment assistance where we give a household some money, but then eventually they do pay it back, and we're revolving that assistance to help more households, we're not keeping that investment in that one property. So those are some of the reasons why you can't give us $20 million and we can turn it into 100 of one time money it's just a different beast. It's a different mechanism to do shorter term lending that gets repaid versus the kind of deep investment that we're making in our downtowns and communities through the housing created through the last housing bomb. Well, I'm not sure I follow all that I'm stuck on the 16 million versus 20 million, and they're very similar numbers. Some of the differences you talk about the housing bond could be thrown in terms of its perpetual affordability requirements and lengths of the loans. There could be tweaks that could make it very comparable to the weatherization and maybe we wouldn't get the ideal bond for housing but I'm very, I'm very, I'm very concerned. I'm skeptical that more can't be done with the $20 million, especially when there's and I would like we'll hear from the treasure, why she's, I guess on board with the $16 million program for weatherization that doesn't affect that service of the state of Vermont but yet $20 million in a second housing bond is a non starter for her. Because I think it's important. I really want to get to clarity on this, and it may take more than one conversation but a weatherization loan gets repaid every month. So we can use those loan repayments to pay the bond holders a PTT bond loan is not repaid every month by the housing property. And so it needs another source to repay those investors so it uses the PTT revenue. So that is what makes that an ongoing obligation of the state on weatherization loans get repaid every month and are of a much shorter term. And so after that loan term is done, we can use that money to make another loan. That's very different when Jen talks about the tremendous leverage that VHC be achieved. It's because the state tax credit program and the federal tax credit program, which all require perpetual affordability were the main source of money for these projects. So when VHFA awards federal tax credits, it pays for 70% of the cost of construction, and we require with that program perpetual affordability. And so that housing has to remain affordable. And so VHC be is limited in how much they can make loans that get repaid monthly like a weatherization loan, because that money, that project I'm sorry that housing needs to remain affordable and the more that there's debt that those projects have to pay back the less affordable that housing gets. And so it would not if if PTT bond, if the $20 million turned into a bond and was made bigger, it would not be as valuable because the housing development would have to make monthly mortgage payments to pay back that loan over that loan term, and to pay that mortgage payment, the rents would have to be higher. Well, I guess I have a lot more questions, even if the rents would have to be higher. I think it triples the amount of housing that we can develop. Maybe it doesn't quadruple or or couple the amount of housing but it produces still a multiple of housing. Maybe that's a trade off that we would be willing to to live with. So I mean I think we just need to think outside the box, and it's food for thought we'll talk some more you're right it is in Paris and I think that we need to hear a little bit more about. So I think one point of good news. Just I don't want to leave on a down note I want to point out to you that in the past I have made your eyes water with confusion about various tax credit federal tax credit programs and I'm not going to do that. But I want you to know that there are two we've talked about how there's two types of tax credits. One is very valuable and limited and the other one the treasure points out to you repeatedly is pretty much unlimited in Vermont, yet then I show up and say yeah but it's not that valuable. The federal government late in December with the stimulus and the budget, they fixed a systematic problem with that less valuable credit, and it bumps up the value, not as high as the first credit, but it's still really improves the program. And what we know is that right now, the projects the housing projects that are in the queue that have been approved by each day or about to be approved next month or two. That means another $6.8 million of money for housing in Vermont, which is going to help 467 households in 11 different communities across the state. And those are just the approvals that we have in the pipeline right now. That's going to be a ongoing that's a permanent fix to this program so that every year this federal tax credit program is going to remain more valuable to housing in Vermont. So this is now a more meaningful program upon which a state investment could be leveraged. And so it's a it's a great thing for Vermont and I know that Jen and Gus and I have already been talking about ways that we can try to make sure that we're being really smart about pairing these resources together. And on a good note that that would be a wonderful resource with whatever housing investments state makes to use that program those 4% tax credits as a more valuable leveraging tool. That is good news. What's the name of the tax credit. The 4% federal tax credit compared to the 9% credits which are that more valuable competitive one but the 4% credits are the ones that Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders and Congressman Welch all really have champion for fixing this problem for years and they finally got over the finish line for us. Could you send us a link to a description of the program and the changes that have been made. If I may, I'd rather write one myself because all the links, your eyes really water. Sounds great. Her gift of translating it will be helpful. Does anybody have any more questions for our witnesses we're at our bathroom break for 10 minutes now. And we, if not, we'll see you all at 940 or 940. We do have more questions but at another time. Good morning everybody. We're about to get started. Okay. Let me begin by saying how we're going to conduct this round table thank you all for being here and being available to participate. There's a lot of us. I'm not going to go around the room and have everybody introduce themselves but when you do get your first opportunity to speak if you could introduce yourself and tell us your position and your role would be very helpful. I would like to structure this is I'm going to have I've just given Josh a very short heads up that I'd like him to start and just give us a five minute preview of the governor's new housing initiatives in the budget bill and the state of the ongoing housing programs from the most recent to COVID bills. And then we'll turn it over to the congressional delegation to get their view of things of what's in the late December bill what might be in the president's new bill and some of the parameters restrictions opportunities what they're looking at what's being talked about. And then after we get that overview, which probably will take about 20 minutes total. We'll move into having a more free flowing discussion I think Nathan sent you all out what I'm hoping to get out here is how we can think outside the box and develop some housing policies for the state of Vermont that maximizes access to affordable housing will break at that'll be about 40 will break at 1030 for 10 minutes and we'll come back for 25 minutes after that and then we'll move into homelessness prevention witnesses. So, with that said, thank you again for all being here and Josh can you introduce yourself and get us launched. Good morning everyone. For the record, Josh Hanford commissioner of Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development. To talk with folks this morning and I'll just kick things off quickly just by saying that, you know, in my more than are close to 20 years of doing housing work in Vermont, I've never seen, you know, more opportunity before us. And we have right now at the same time more need to act quickly and and and get to work and do what needs to be done out there. You know, there is a gap right now, and the money available to both landlords that are housing people with sort of no recourse for not nonpayment of rent and of course tenants that need resources to pay the rent not to fall into worse financial hardship. So with that stage, just quickly run through the housing related items that were in the governor's proposal. We'll start with a few that maybe are not on the top of this committee's this group's list and this roundtable but do do impact in a very positive way housing. So there was a 1.75 million dollar increase to ongoing increase to the neighborhood to the downtown tax credits, which is specifically to expand those into the neighborhood neighborhood development areas. So that's a piece of housing work that we hope is supported and we can do that ongoing. There was also the Vermont warms program and involvement with VHFA and others were 25 million for weatherization, which much most of that touches anything about 16 million carved out for Vermont Housing Finance AG to work on weatherizing low and moderate income homes and apartments, another 4 million for programs in a chess with low income heating assistance program for fuel switching and system switching and another 5 million that really isn't housing but from municipal buildings to do weatherization. Getting into more of the specific areas that we're going to talk about more is additional 3 million for the Vermont Housing Investment Program. Three of that is one time at dollars and 1 million of that is in our base for ongoing support. And that is split between rental assistance and not rental assistance rental rehab of apartments that are you know vacant offline, you know code deficiencies, as well as a homeowner new homeowner purchase rehab with a set aside or a target for BIPOC community in Vermont. Then we also have the mobile home replacement tax credit. There's an increase there specifically for that of $250,000 of ongoing support to, you know more than double the resources that are going into that successful program year over year. As a reminder, those those credits are sold by the HFA and the proceeds granted to Champlain Housing Trust, which runs a statewide program to replace old, you know, non energy efficient mobile homes with new energy star and zero energy homes across the state. It acts as a 0% deferred second mortgage that's paid back upon sale or transfer and that money recycles and it's essentially a self sustaining program at this point that does a lot of good work across the state. And then there's the governor's proposal to significantly increase VHCB's budget. This year, bringing it up to it's actually $30.8 million as I've looked into the details. So a more than $20 million increase over last year's budget. So hopefully that rounds out the sort of housing proposals that the governor presented and kicks us off for some discussion. Is that what you're hoping for, Senator Shrocken? You're muted, Mike. Exactly. Yes. Thank you very much, Josh. Let's move on to the congressional delegation. We'll go by seniority, Polly. Good morning, everyone. My name is Polly Major. I'm a field representative for Senator Leahy covering housing here in Vermont. And thank you for inviting us all in. I think how we're going to divide up our congressional update is all given overview of the bill that was passed in December. Alex Beaton from Senator Sanders office will talk about Biden's proposal for new coronavirus legislation and Rebecca Ellis from Congressman Welch's office will talk about how we're working with Treasury on their rental assistance program that was authorized in December. So I can start us off. I shared with the committee a federal housing resources document that my office put together that outlines the federal housing resources in the bill passed in December. So the December bill was really in three parts. You had the FY 21 appropriations, the funding for the government for this year. There was a portion of the bill that was authorizing language relating to existing and new programs. And then there was the $900 billion coronavirus relief package, the second package that we've seen for the fiscal year 21 appropriations section of that bill. This was the second year of a two-year budget agreement. So we didn't have a lot of big changes in the federal funding for housing programs. You can see in the document that I've shared we've laid out what the major housing programs received in fiscal year 20 versus fiscal year 21. There are some increases but fairly steady across the board. So if you're looking ahead at what Vermont expects to receive in this upcoming year, you can really use what it received last year as a proxy. So I just want to give the committee that sense there's a lot of individual programs so I'm not going to run through them all. But I wanted to provide that context around the fiscal year 21 budget. Senator Leahy was Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee as they negotiated this bill. And he said who's glad to put a final nail in the coffin of the Trump budget proposals that have gutted most of these housing programs. He's glad to see they still exist and he's looking forward to serving as chair of the Appropriations Committee moving forward and strengthening our country's investments in housing. For the coronavirus portion of that bill there, the program that's probably of most interest to this committee is the rental housing assistance emergency rental assistance program. This program is authorized through the Treasury Department much like the coronavirus relief fund. However, it is, has some real significant differences from the CRF fund. It's a much more defined and rigid program with specific language in the bill about how it needs to be implemented in the state. So through that program there's $25 billion nationally and there's a small state minimum that ensures that Vermont will receive and has received $200 million to implement that program. I do want to flag for this committee some of the eligibility requirements that are outlined again in the statute that set this program apart from Vermont's existing rental assistance program that you all stood up with CRF dollars. So the most significant difference is that there is means testing included in this program. So to be eligible to receive this funding renter or households must be at or below 80% AMI. They also have to be able to show that they have some financial hardship that's related to COVID, though there's certainly room for interpretation about what that looks like. The bill also prioritizes for funding for households that are below 50% AMI and those experiencing unemployment. The $200 million well wonderful does come with some very strict deadlines that are coming up pretty quickly. The first deadline is September 30 2021 where the bill says that the secretary shall recapture excess funds and reallocate those funds to grantees who have obligated 65% of their allocation or more, which should mean that Vermont in order to receive funding past September will need to have spent down that 65% of the $200 million. After September, the secretary has some discretion on how the funds are reallocated. The reallocation is based on demonstrated need within the district or a jurisdiction, but it doesn't get the statute doesn't define what what that looks like and how those funds will be reallocated once they are reallocated. The bill is available through December 30 2021 with an option for grantees to request and 90 day extension. So, this is a short term rental program that is targeted to households that are below 80% AMI and those two things really set it apart from the Vermont stood up with CRF so I want to flag that and I'm sure we'll have lots more discussion on what that means for the state and what that looks like as we try to implement this program. So, with that, I think I'm going to turn it over to my colleague and Senator Sanders office. Thank you Polly Alex. Yeah, for those of you who don't know me my name is Alex beaten. I'm a policy advisor for Senator Sanders and the Senate Budget Committee based in the DC office, although I am a proud Vermont native. So happy to walk through what President Biden has put out so far and kind of some of the next steps in Congress as we look forward to the current session. You know, and I believe Polly shared a document with the committee on this, you know, the president released a plan that would spend 1.9 trillion. The American rescue plan related to kind of the immediate public health needs including vaccination, economic support for working families and aid to communities want to highlight some of the interest to the committee and for this round table. So $25 billion in funding for emergency rental assistance. $5 billion in additional funding to secure stable housing for persons experiencing or risk of experiencing homelessness. The plan calls on Congress to extend the federal eviction and foreclosure moratorium through at least September. However, that would likely not affect states like Vermont that have their own moratoriums in the books. That would be $8 billion in additional funding to state and local governments to ensure they don't need to decrease public services or cut public jobs in order to keep up with just the rising needs like distributing the vaccine reopening schools and other services. So, you know, the president's plan is as you all see from the document, you know, it's only 19 pages. It's mainly focused on kind of these top line numbers so it will be left to Congress to kind of sort out the parameters of these various programs. We certainly have heard and hope to continue to hear from you all some of the needs for Vermont and issues with the existing programs that I think Rebecca will speak to that will keep in mind as we shape the programs. I think some of the issues around the rental assistance program that Congress will consider things like the time limit and recapture provisions for rental payments. Other other aspects of that program so looking forward to hearing more from you all about that. So, you know, Congress is going to need to take this plan and turn it into legislation. I think we are actively keeping the March 14 deadline for the expiration of the enhanced unemployment benefits in mind. The process, you know, it's certainly our hope, certainly President Biden's hope that this relief will be passed on a bipartisan basis, and I understand some of those discussions are already in the early phases. We should know more soon. But I would say, you know, if not, you know, as the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Sanders is prepared to use the budget reconciliation process to pass COVID relief. And that legislation is a special congressional budget tool that allows us to pass budgetary legislation on a fast track basis without being subject to the 60 foot filibuster in the Senate. So happy to answer any questions about that. But looking a little longer term, we also expect President Biden to release a recovery plan based on his build back better plan he discussed during the campaign. And we expect to be largely focused on kind of investments in infrastructure and addressing climate change. And this can be an opportunity for efforts on things like housing capital investments and other energy efficiency and weatherization programs. So, with that I'll turn it over to my colleague in congressman congressman office. So, Alex, I have one question. The, is there a small state minimum proposed or is for the next bill or is that always the case that there's a small state minimum and these kinds of bills. Yeah, I would say that the Biden plan does not address a small state minimum he is left that up to Congress, but it certainly has always been Senator Sanders hope that, you know, we ensure that states like Vermont with lower populations received their fair share of funding. And could you just give us in terms of additional rental assistance I think you had a number in there, what would that. Do you do you know what that would translate to for Vermont and additional funds if there was a small state minimum, and if there was not a small state minimum. You know I don't think those details have been put out by, you know, those are still being considered by Congress, if we adopt the 25 billion recommendation from the president, what the small state minimum would look like. I don't want to give you all a number and then it will change in the coming weeks so definitely let you all know. For this for any what was the overall number in the December bill for rent assistance was that 25 billion as well. So, you know if that is precedent than that $200 million small same minimum could continue but you know again this would be subject to another round of congressional negotiations so that that could certainly change. Okay. Rebecca good to see you. I'm not sure you've ever testified before our committee before but have you back in the State House virtually virtually here. Well thank you it's fun to be here so for the record my name is Rebecca Ellis and I'm state, the State Hector for Congressman Welch. It's fun to be here today and the Congressman says hello to everyone. And he wanted to also mention that he was able to visit the holiday in in Burlington in I think was October, where CBO EO had created housing for homeless and people facing housing and stability. And he found this really an inspiring visit and overall he's just been so impressed with all the work that all of the partners here on this call today have done to find creative ways to help people who are facing housing instability. And I was on a call a couple months ago. I don't remember who it was who said it but I think was someone on this panel. Just mentioned the fact that housing instability is really facing so many people these days, and the face of housing instability is really diverse now from young people facing student that to middle aged people who lost their jobs to older educators who are on fixed income so it's really a problem across the state and for all people. The Congressman has really been pushing hard for more money to go into the coronavirus relief fund. You know, Vermont was allocated $1.25 billion in March through the CARES Act, and that has really helped the state through this, this, this period and this hardship, and, and, and hopefully we'll get more of that type of money because it is that flexible money that comes to the state that allows the state to continue funding programs that really work for the state of Vermont. So, as Polly has already mentioned, there was this great program that to the $25 billion nationally or $200 million for Vermont for the emergency rental assistance program. And that does come with some pretty strict guides that have to be worked out and Congressman Welch did meet in late December with Commissioner Hanford and with housing stakeholders and partners to talk a little bit about that program and to hear from folks what their concerns were. And the department has provided us with them and the delegation with five pages of questions about how that program is going to work. And unfortunately, we really don't have the answers quite yet to those questions, but suffice it to say it will not probably be as flexible as the money that came through the coronavirus relief fund. So the big questions that have already been hinted at are how to define eligibility and what is the paperwork requirement for meeting eligibility, what is going to be the definition of other housing expenses. There is some allowance for money to go to other housing expenses but depending on how that's interpreted it could create opportunity of Vermont or or not. So we'll really just have to see how that comes out. The Trump administration on the day before it left office so on the 19th issued a four page frequently asked questions on through the Treasury Department. Most people felt that those guidelines really didn't answer any questions and if they did anything, they made it harder to access this money than necessary. Congressman Welch joined a letter yesterday asking the Treasury Department to rescind those four pages of frequently asked questions and just start anew. The delegation has been seeking out contacts with the new administration at the Treasury and Senator Leahy's office was able to get an answer within one day yesterday or at least a response maybe not an answer but provided the questions from the department to the new Treasury got a response within a one day which is really promising. I thought not all the answers are exactly what we want at least we're getting some answers. So the other sort of route that we have for working on getting regulations is through the Senate Banking Committee who has direct line with the Treasury Department to implement the program. So again the Senate offices are working directly with the Senate Banking Committee. So I think that's it for the update and just to stress that Congressman Welch certainly knows that the flexible money is the preferred money and will continue fighting for that. Can you had a question about how much money would come to the state of Vermont with the new the Biden proposal. The CARES Act had the CARES 2.0 Act had a similar amount of money devoted to states and local governments and the total amount that came to the state and local governments was around $800 million. So those were the last estimates that I saw just to give you a ballpark idea of what how much money has been floated in the recent proposals. So thank you and look forward to your questions and thanks for having a delegation here today. Is there any way to translate that 800 million to what piece of piece of that pot would be for rent assistance. That would that would be the equivalent equivalent of the money that came to the state in the coronavirus relief fund. So you would compare that to the 1.25 billion and you know there was pretty, you know there were some guidelines to that but it was, there was a lot of discretion given to the state on where to allocate the money. So the same would be for this this pot of money. Right but that would, that was subject to the small state minimum the 1.25. That's why we got so much money and the small state minimum be 800 million in this second COVID but I'm just wondering if we didn't get the small state minimum. So the amount of money that the government would get in rental assistance people are saying 200 million under the small state minimum but I assume it's far less if we don't get that small state minimum for rental assistance. So, so there's two different pots of money. So there was the 25 billion proposed by President Biden for rental assistance where there may or may not be a small state minimum. Also, Alex gave the full number it was somewhere in the 350 billion that would go to state and local governments. And on that, again, there's no for the President Biden's proposal we don't really have a breakdown, but, or a small state minimum at this point, but the last time that 350 billion number was being floated around it translated to about a total of 800 million to the state of Vermont in both state and local for both state and local governments. Okay. And just before we leave this. We'll probably be talking about that this, but if the, if the goal of a small state minimum under the Biden under the December bill is to be achieved. With some degree of certainty, the Biden bill has to put as one avenue has to extend greater flexibility to the funds from the COVID to bill in December. It's probably a naive question I don't know how Washington works but do people respond to that kind of argument you know you wanted to give us this amount of money in December. We're working for us, so we need to correct that. Or is that just a totally a political question. I think we look at the national context with many states that did not do what Vermont didn't stand up or rental assistance program there is a lot of need out there. I think from a national perspective, altering the rental assistance program is going to be difficult because I know there are advocates that are pushing hard for that income eligibility that is in there. So, certainly, we, from a Vermont perspective would like to see additional flexibility, but I'm not sure how likely that is to go into a next bill. And I think where our bosses are going to be focusing or my bosses can be focusing and Rebecca said the same about Congress and Welch is getting additional state and local aid that really has that flexibility that Vermont needs and has done such a great job with in the past. Okay. Okay, we're going to open it up to the rest of the folks in the round table and a person that might be a good place to start but anybody can jump in with questions or comments would be Richard Williams and the challenges. He sees as the opportunities and the challenges that he sees with this $200 million that's come in the December bill and what the where you are and the other stakeholders in Vermont are in assessing that at the present time. Good morning. Senate committee members. And thank you, Mr Chairman, and I just want to say thank you to this committee and to the leadership. I'm a special Senator Sratkin, over the years that you've always been strong and loud and have always supported you know, housing for Vermonters. And we always look forward to testifying before you even though you asked some pretty tough questions. So, I will tell you what what we know at this time, regarding the $200 million. And I think it's from other testimony that it's going to be less flexible than the CF dollars that we've received earlier. As you know, we were successfully ran rental assistance a rearage program. We worked well with us and Vermont legal aid and from landlords associations and, and like many states, there was restrictions on how far rental rearage went back. A lot of them chose not before March 1. Vermont stood up there is different, much more flexible realizing that, you know, low income renters had problems prior to coven, you know, paying paying rent in Vermont, you know, we have higher. We have high rents in Vermont, I think everybody knows that. And many were behind, even prior to coven. This committee took to position and legislature took to position that it was housing and health. It was important not to evict anyone or create a homeless situation, especially during the coven period. And as a result of that, I think the program was successful and that's why we're asking you to give us $2.8 million so we can fund the last 1500 applications that we have on the table. Some of the congressional testimony you've already heard about the, the Biden proposal that $25 billion, I think we'll come down in way of the regular federal programs and it will be for what I've been reading, it will be like the housing choice voucher program and that will be allocated to local housing authorities and to other entities that administer the housing choice voucher program on a national basis and here in Vermont, it's, it's obviously my agency, along with eight other public housing authorities. There won't be a lot of flexibility with that, but there is the benefit of receiving it. By the way of housing choice vouchers is that we can make those in the project based vouchers there's a percentage that under the rules and regulations and the laws under the HUD program that allows us to make a basically 25% of our allocation of our total housing choice voucher program and we can allocate that towards project based vouchers. And if you really want to get affordable housing in Vermont you need to combine rental assistance, along with, you know, mortgage monies and low income housing tax credits and VHCB funding and CDBG. You need all those sources of fun really to create affordable housing here in the state of Vermont, but rental assistance is really critical if you're going to serve the low income housing population. Typically, you know, we're assisting, you know, as high as 75% of our monies under the section eight voucher program go to folks below 30% of medium income. And without that assistance, as much as the tax credit program is a great production program without rental assistance, many of those folks wouldn't be able to get into that beautiful housing that's being developed by for profits and nonprofits here in Vermont. So we're looking forward to that. The $200 billion will be will frankly be a challenge for Vermont to spend under the current FAQs as was mentioned that was issued the day before the president left the office. These FAQs were were issued. As it was already previously said, probably it's caused more confusion than it has helped. So we, we have been working, you know, with the administration and agency of commerce community development has been putting together many, many questions that now our congressional folks are submitting to our new treasurer Jerry and we're all hoping for more flexibility, but we also understand that the act really sets the guidelines. There's a lot of statutory changes that we think would be helpful to make, but I think the likelihood of those getting those statutory changes would be very difficult and it's probably not the time to open that up for discussion. Hopefully maybe some, some changes may be able to come through the budget process later, but that's going to be very late. As you know, in 2021 when we will see a federal budget, but hopefully that there can be some extensions to this money. Senator Reed from Rhode Island, originally had pushed that grantees have until December of 2022 to obligate the funds and had an additional 90 days to to expend that money. So there are in also Senator Reed from Rhode Island. Why I'm mentioning Rhode Island. Some of you may remember Amy Ray known that worked for Senator Leahy's office probably 20 years ago. Amy works for the Rhode Island Housing Authority as their legislative director and policy. So, Amy and I have been keeping in touch. As you know she's a Vermonter from St. Johnsbury as well. They haven't been able to be as flexible as the state of Vermont they've been sort of under a gag order of not asking a lot of questions, you know, from their administrations and such. We're not afraid to ask questions. So, Commissioner Hanford has been asking a lot of questions so we do have a lot of, a lot of recommendations we'd like to see the assistance extended from you know 18 to 24 months right now it's 12 months, and potentially you know three months. But our challenges will be getting that money out the door quickly. And so we're working with you folks. We'd asked, we were invited into the Center Appropriations Committee by Senator Kitchell about two weeks ago. Commissioner Hanford and myself, and they put me on the spot they says, how much money would you like. And I said well I'd like a placeholder of $50 million to begin with. I thought that was a reasonable amount to ask for out of the 200 million. And it's twice what we spent in six months so it seemed like it was a realistic number to ask for, we could then start setting up this program which is going to be very expensive. As I said there's less flexibility. There's lots of, you know, in our past program, you know we relied on self certification. We're asking for that now. And I'm not sure if we're going to get that or not, but if we have to do all the means testing, and we have to verify, you know, w twos and unemployment. You know through third parties or whatever that's, it's just going to drag and slow down the program but so I've had conversations with Commissioner Hanford about trying to combine section eight funding you know the housing choice vouchers with a rental rehab program. And if you can look at my face you can say hello I am. I've been around here a long time and can remember when hot actually had a program that combined rental subsidies with wood capital dollars and Vermont did receive allocations of that. And it was a successful program. And sometimes when you have successful programs they get canceled because they cost too much. So, something similar like that in Vermont I think would be would be would be very helpful because of the program that we're just wrapping up their rental housing stabilization program. A lot of landlords have a lot of vacant units out there they do not have money to make those repairs. And anything that we could do to help them would would help with the shortage of affordable housing here in Vermont, and we need all we need everyone we need nonprofits we need for profits. We all need to be working on this problem but the clear thing is, we have a definitely a shortage in housing and affordable housing for low income families. We do a means testing it through the rental housing stabilization program, but we did ask them to, you know, kind of indicate where their income was for their household, and I can tell you that they're very low to low income folks that we serve through that program. I'll stop because I know you get a lot of people here and always available to you folks. Thank you. I just wanted to say that this is the first of many conversations on this topic, and there's many interest groups that have contacted us that want to be part of this discussion, including realtors and local public housing authorities and regional groups, and we will have all those people in the discussion as we move forward. I'll take your question a second center on but that's a good start what what I wrote to folks is that we want to make as strong of an effort as possible to use all these resources that are available to us. My understanding is that this group of people here has been meeting with the commissioner on a weekly basis, whatever and we want to be this committee wants to be kept abreast of what those conversations are so this hopefully the rest of this half hour or 45 minutes that we have, we can start brainstorming about ideas of which way we can somehow gain greater flexibility we've already heard of a few ideas but would like people to weigh in nothing's beyond the bounds of discussion here it's just a brainstorming session. Our committee needs to hear what you folks have been you experts have been thinking about as to how we can maximize the use at the very least of that $200 million. Senator Ram. Mr Chair. So, I think I know we have shamblin housing trust here I don't know what it means to not have Burlington and when you ski housing authorities here just in the kind of framing around how to help particularly low income BIPOC families I feel like they have a very high concentration of those folks who might benefit from a program to transition them to home ownership. I think that would probably end up being pretty concentrated in Chittenden County and so I think we need to also address that it's hard to have BIPOC people move their lives to somewhere more rural in Vermont if they're not feeling safe or connected to So wanted to flag that and just say because it's it's a pet issue of mine that I'm I really like Senator Sanders signing on to something that would look like the green workforce in in the New York City area that helps get people in low income housing into jobs that fix up housing weatherized housing and you know how help them. Maybe do the rehab projects as well so just trying to think about how we get really creative to make sure this works for people of color and people in affordable housing to access jobs and home ownership. If I could quickly respond to you Senator Senator Rom through the housing choice voucher program the federal federal program. There is a home ownership program with that so where that they can actually use that voucher to pay for for mortgage and cost of home ownership. Vermont City Housing already has had a successful successful run with that money and have created a lot of great opportunities and and I think there's there's you know I'm sure we could team up a lot of folks in Vermont Housing Finance Agency and others that are on this and and be pretty pretty creative we've we've also worked very closely with US Department of Agriculture USDA role development. We've worked very closely with their home ownership programs and have many people that receive mortgages through through that federal agency and and in using this voucher you know as as flexible as we can it's it's has created a lot of a lot of housing opportunities at home ownership opportunities that wouldn't have happened. Thank you. Michael Monty. Senator Sorok and thank you for this opportunity Senator Rom. Thank you for the question. We have done more access to vouchers for home ownership and than anyone naturally built and housing authority itself has been very active working with us on doing that. We also take the importance of taking getting folks who are people of color into home ownership into our rental housing good a good number of rental housing properties do have people of color and about 25% of the sales are at home ownership over the last five years have been for people of color. So we are we really are leaning into it. I was late for this meeting because I was at the Vermont Housing Conservation Board meeting and we do have the support of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency and this one I want to make more for that to actually do a very specific project with new ski to support people called moving into home ownership and we are looking for ways. Night and day to be able to do this, within the context of remarkably enough, you know that the federal laws that discriminate against people so we are working through that and doing working through their various racial justice aligns I had a conversation with Mark yesterday. We're working with an A or B and range of others to really move that as best as we can, and as strongly as we can. So we take that to heart and be glad and conversations with you about the work we're doing with the city when we speak in Burlington also. If I could just reflect on what Dick Williams has said, I think that with the $200 million, I think flexibility is the key word here. Self certification isn't really important. It's been it was difficult to go through the process we went through. In the last six months that money was essential for renters for our renters and for our properties in order for us to be successful but landlords and renters across the state. So it's still nevertheless, pretty flexible relatively in terms of how it's going to work compared to the new rules. And so for our delegation here and and I think our delegation in Washington, allowing for self certification for attachment of properties allowing for different systems of to allow people to get that at rental systems more easily is going to be key. The second part of that flexibility is in terms of timing. I agree with Dick also more time to better the other part of that flexibility is, we may not use that $200 million and in frankly in Chittenden County our issue as much as everything is production we need more of that. We have a 1.5% vacancy rate as of June still, no matter how many units we built over the last few years of private sector housing and affordable housing. The vacancy rate went down again people are moving here. If you go to Reddit which I do on occasion I don't want to admit that too much. It's remarkable how many folks are moving to to Vermont because it's easier and better here than it is from the communities that they're escaping from the impact and the demands on the market. And I think more I could speak to I think she has a number of 2000 new households being formed I think it's in the county only that's five years I think I got that correct. That's the case. And we're lagging production this past year. And may in the future, frankly, we're going to be not get out of the continued need for for production so production with programs at Dick runs and the housing authorities run and and services depending upon the population people we are working with are also critical pieces of $1 billion at $200 million or the next round of stimulus money is really going to be important. So we just, that's that would be my pitch for you for you today. Thank you very much. That's very helpful that's exactly what I wanted to hear starting to get a laundry list of ideas. I've heard some others out of the box like paying for the shelter allowance for TANF recipients out of this freeing up, perhaps general fund dollars or the impact this might have on the renters rebate program if people's rent is paid. Is there money to be used there those kinds of ideas. Well, it's, it's about our break time will take 10 minutes. Now, unless somebody has a pressing question, and we'll come back for about half hour. I'm not going to hear from everybody who's on the call, but please focus on creative thinking of ideas that how we can get to greater flexibility. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair. Yes, Senator balance. I know that's because I'm a I'm a disembodied voice. Before we go to the break, I just want to mention one thing that I was reflecting on with our money chairs yesterday and thinking about the budget address that we heard is that I want all of us on this committee to really see that budget address from the governor as a reflection of a point in time. And what I mean by that is, over the next few weeks and months, we're going to probably be getting more federal funds. And so I want us to make a laundry list of creative ideas for the money that we know that we have right now. But I also would love to have an additional list, which is, you know, what are we going to do and in what order, if more flexible funds come to us in Vermont because I feel pretty strongly that that will happen at some point, just wanted to make that plug. Yeah, I agree. You and I have talked a bunch. And I know we're in agreement about this moving target phenomenon. And it's really hard to lock on a decision when the grant the sands are going to shift underneath your feet at any moment so Exactly. And we will definitely be keeping that in mind. So we'll see see everybody in 10 minutes. Thank you very much. So I want to make sure everybody gets it was invited gets a chance to speak we have about 35 minutes left before we hear from homelessness advocates at 1115. Let me just go around and pick people to add to the conversation from where we were going with any thoughts they may have. I'm going to suggest we start with more. I'm happy to jump in although you hear from me a lot so I think there's a lot of people just out of fairness. I'll just say briefly in support of what Michael was saying about the strong need and demand and appreciate. Well, let me slow down the appreciation for this committee for so doggedly pursuing this topic year after year and not giving up because the need has clearly not gone away yet. We do get so much more than just wealth from what we build with real estate we know that real estate is the biggest source of private assets at dwarf stocks bonds and all that but it's more than just money. This environment can provide health innovation community connection culture, the center ROM keeps speaking to access. And so there is a need for creative thinking around this, and I sometimes sense from this committee and other legislators that it's like, okay you want us this time we're going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to get creative and think about other states and just, I'm on some national boards of other state housing agencies, and I really want to reassure you that in so many ways what is happening here as the normal course of business is the thinking outside the box. I just want, we are doing things that other states are desperate to learn more about I spend a good chunk of my life my working days answering calls from other state housing finance agencies, wondering about how did you get CRF money to pay for capital that was, you know, a bright line no. And yet between the governor's administration the legislature support VHCB strong network and nonprofits they support. It happened. Richard was right the homeownership program of section eight. We've won awards in Vermont because we have used that pairing of section eight for homeownership more than any other state. And there's so much that we naturally do here that already is outside the box that at some point. We just start looking a little illegal with our four pages of questions for the US Treasury about I know you said rental assistance but could I define that as, you know, something that's really pushing the envelope. And then one plug or question if you want to know, like what other thoughts besides what you've already heard over email or testimony. And that would be the 200 million of rental assistance also goes to utility assistance and as you heard yesterday VHFA is going to be playing, hopefully a larger role in supporting the great weatherization work that OEO and all the organization contractors have been implementing for decades. And so I'd like to look at that utility assistance allowed for with that 200 million and find out if there's a way that that could be some kind of down payment or loan source of a compensation loan or program. And I don't have that answer. It overwhelms me to think about what that would look like, but that is something that we plan to look into and pursue in partnership with our congressional delegation as well as with our weatherization partners to see if we could use some of that utility assistance that can only be used this year. And is there any way we could make some strong down payments on some meaningful weatherization efforts. But again, I already talked too much. I think it'd be great to hear from others unless you had questions always happy. Well, I appreciate that and no one's going to ever accuse you of not being creative more don't worry. Weatherization will want to I want to talk with and get together with Senator Bray on that. I mean I'm wondering if the weatherization grants or loans can be made so attractive that that part of money could leverage other housing repairs for people who want that money. So I'm always interested in using these pots of money as carrots to bring some private sharing or contributions into the equation. Michelle Hanford and I have talked about that and that's another reason to really why VHFA really supports the governor's VHIP program is that we've been talking about ways to use these two programs together, because the VHIP program is modeled on taking the private equity of the landlord and pairing it with some public resources. And so if that program can pay for the housing rehabilitation, and then the weatherization funding can pay for some kind of loan to support the energy efficiency. So maybe we could bring in some of OEO's money to provide a grant if the ultimate household is eligible maybe I'm getting too creative but there's different ways that we are talking about pairing these resources to be most efficient and leveraging them all with each other to get the most bang for the buck. Senator Clarkson. Yeah, I'd love to just tag on to Maura's thought because we could also, and I don't know if this is possible because I know there's such a tight income, there's so many tight income restraints around this 209. But we could also, as we look at weatherization, we could also look at higher, you know, the middle crowd, middle income people who are desperate to switch out of fossil fuel and heat pumps and I'm wondering if we can also, you know, use it as a stimulus to really move people in some substantive way off of what they want to get off of and help finance that as we look at an all fuel efficiency model, and that it would be partnering with natural resources. So it's, I'm wondering if we can possibly do that at the same time. Yes, fuel switching is absolutely a part of the proposal that we are planning and when I say weatherization work it absolutely includes that. Great. Jen, do you have some thoughts about what you've heard so far. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Briefly, I appreciate the opportunity you have put in front of us to think creatively. And I think it's really important for us to always be checking our assumptions about the way that we do things and to take a hard look at those. At the same time, there's much of the work that we do that does work really well and has performed well over time and I want us to be able to build on that. I appreciate, as always, the strong support from the delegation for the federal home program, Senator Lay, he's a national leader on that Senator Sanders created and has continued to fight for the national housing trust fund program both of which are capital sources and can help us, you know, address the supply problem over time and we hope that those will will be considered favorably in any, you know, upcoming legislation. I just want us also if it's okay to think about the capacity. I think we have incredible opportunity as Josh mentioned with this potential funding and a lot of folks that work in this realm have been working at a sprint for months and months and months. So if there are ways in which we can support decisions that's going to allow them to get going faster and more efficiently and I'm thinking about the state housing authority it's terrific that the legislature is going to give them. Or at least the Senate's approved another 2.8 and CRF to allow them wrap up those applications of folks that are already qualified and are just sitting waiting, and then is about to give them a signal for 10 million at least to get the new program up and going. So that's going to really help their their capacity challenge and we're really appreciative of the Senate support for that and hope the House will do the same. So I think those are just the just really couple high level things that that up that I'll leave for now. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Nope. I thought of one more thing. Mobile home parks we we know that they're this committee's been very supportive of mobile home parks and infrastructure we know there's a tremendous amount of need there. We'd love to see that in a federal infrastructure bill we'll be thinking about it with a 20 million that the governor has proposed if that's what others think make a lot of sense and I'm really delighted about the governor's proposal to increase the the state tax credit for the manufactured housing program. Sarah, we're going to be talking more about homelessness later this morning we had some witnesses last week, and I'm not sure in my time that every time we've wanted to have you in either you or I have been unavailable so I want to welcome you I've heard wonderful things about your work. I know you guys have been paying a lot of attention to this issue and it's been a while since I've been in front of you. So, you know, I'll just try and add to what my colleagues around the state have already mentioned, which I think is, you know, some really important points. I think I should definitely highlight the fact that as of today we have almost 1900 households that DCF is housing and motels around the state. And to that another 300 plus households and emergency shelters around the state as well. So, I think the numbers are still large and I think that always speaks to the point that others are making around the level of housing instability that we that folks are facing. We have been in conversation with Commissioner Hanford's team and the state housing authority. Obviously, one major outstanding question is whether or not that emergency rental systems funds will be able to be made use to help folks who are not currently in housing right could we use those funds to help help people exit motels into rental housing and I think that's an outstanding question we're still trying to answer. That being said, you know, of those 1900 households in motels. You know, we did issue quite a bit of rental systems funds through, you know, our HUD emergency solutions grant funds and through some CRF funds paired creatively with a Vermont rental subsidy and you know, more than more than 180 households have already been leased up and exited motels into housing. Another 265 have been approved for vouchers and are actively seeking housing and of those mostly their families right so we know of the folks in motels about 250 are households with children and many of them have housing vouchers that are seeking housing and so I say that just to raise up the point that one of the primary barriers is just the availability of housing stock across the state. And I think that point's been made but I think when we look at, you know, those folks seeking housing have been doing that for two months, three months, four months, right? So it's not a small effort to find a unit that's available. So I just want to also just lift up the, I think Jen was saying the hard work of folks who've been sprinting. I think that's the right statement for many months now and that includes our community partners that are continuing to do the work on the ground to work with folks in households to help get them rehoused. So I think one of the key things that we are continuing to think about at DCF is how we help rehouse households. What are the strategies we need at play? How are we leveraging services? How are we continuing to fund additional services? I know we're ready to partner with the State Housing Authority where it will be allowed to qualify folks who may be in benefits programs, right? Which is one way that we can support the eligibility piece. You know, I just, we looked at some numbers at DCF and here I get outside of the work at OEO a little bit because we don't administer the benefit programs at OEO. My colleagues at Economic Services do that, but, you know, they pull some data and the folks, you know, in three squares, Vermont, who are renter households, there's more than 7,000, right? So we know there are a lot of renter households out there who are living with very low income who have been, their financial security has been negatively impacted because of COVID. And I think we're a ready and willing partner to reach out to those households and help them apply for rental assistance if and when that becomes available. So I think for us it's looking to move forward with those programs quickly, those things that we know work and we need to do. And so we're looking forward to that. And then I'll just, you know, I'll mention that the Governor's budget proposal also included a shift for a long time that we've been looking to make in the next fiscal year to actually end the General Assistance Motel Voucher Program and instead shift those investments to the community. And so I know that's not the goal of this conversation this morning to talk about that, but I need to bring it to your attention. I look forward to, you know, many future conversations with you to talk about that initiative and answer questions. So I think those are the things that are coming to mind for me this morning, as I'm listening to others as well. So that shift you talked about, does that require a legislative approval? As far as you know. Well, yes, it's a budgetary shift. Yes, so it's in the budget. Okay. Could you I should know the answer to this but a lot of talk about vouchers. When you have a voucher, and you don't have a house to apply it to a rental unit to apply it to. I guess the question is, is the voucher worth the entire rent or does that put a cap on what the tenant can pay based upon their income? The rental assistance programs I'm referring to are sometimes called rapid rehousing or they're really temporary rental assistance programs that are intended to bridge to a long term housing choice voucher, right? Or section eight or to, or household exits, you know, graduates from that temporary rental assistance because they increase their income and can afford their rent. And how much that voucher covers in terms of the rent for the household depends on the program. The two very large COVID related rental assistance initiatives that we have are both looking at households paying 30% of their income towards rent. So, so it mirrors how the housing choice voucher program works until household pay 30% of their income towards housing costs. So when households have a voucher, they're tentatively approved they go through that process and then they start and then they continue the search for housing and they have a certain amount of time to do that. Sometimes the voucher will expire before they do that and they, they lose the voucher but we haven't, we haven't expired any vouchers we're still helping people seek housing. And so the goal would be that they have that voucher they know they have it when they're looking for housing. I guess I'm trying to get at the question, just using your classic section eight voucher, even pre COVID, you would take that voucher find a find an apartment, and that would entitle the tenant to have rent be limited to 30% of their income. Correct. Okay. With the new program that we established or the vs ha to pay back rent for people. Did that cover that 30% for those people for to my colleagues in state housing 30 can probably answer more specifically on that. It might be a good time to go to gene. I would think she could answer that. I think it's a good case of whether that we have a lot of people out there who are not on section eight, who by virtue of our rent stabilization program for the cares fund, we're paying no rent. And yet, is it possible that low income people who had section eight vouchers was still required to pay rent. Michael Sean, I think had his hand up with an answer. Sure. And I'm sure gene could answer this as well but Sean Gilpin from the Department of Housing and Community Development, the rental housing stabilization program did cover rental obligations for people with section eight vouchers so the difference between, or that 30% of their income that they were required to pay, despite having, despite having a voucher and it should also be noted the the voucher housing choice voucher. It caps the amount of payment that a particular renter pays to between 30 and actually 40% of the rent depending on some, some situations, but it also caps the amount of rent that's allowed so one one can only can only rent an apartment that's being rented at the fair market and the rent payments that HUD dictates every year with some allowances for utility payments. But in short the rental housing stabilization program covered tenant obligations that we're holding housing choice vouchers. So I guess this is a follow up question for the congressional delegation is there anything in the new legislation of pending that disqualifies people have vouchers for getting rent payments. I'd have to look more this polly and thunderly he's office that have to look more closely at the legislation I think there is language in there about not sir planting other federal housing funds, but we'll have to do more research on that. And that is, if I may that's actually one of the clarifying questions that we sent to the US Treasury Department as well. There's language in there about individuals who receive federal assistance. And it's unclear whether a housing choice voucher would be considered federal assistance that would disqualify them from the emergency rental assistance funds so that's something we're seeking clarity on. We may want to, I mean, I don't, if we're, if we're concerned about clawback and things like that we may want to also ask the question, if we're giving rent a rebate checks to people in the state of Vermont, could that possibly disqualify somebody from help. And actually the the rental housing stabilization program we worked with tax and they currently have instructions on the rental rebate program that funds received by the landlord from the rental housing stabilization program should not be included on line three of the LC 142 which is the landlord certificate that dictates what the rental rebate amount is eligible. So in, in other words, without the jargon payments received from the rental housing stabilization program are not eligible for the rent a rebate. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much we'll go to Jean you have some comments and then we'll go to Angela. Yes, thank you very much. Thank the committee for being very interested in in how this is all going to work. I'm Jim or am from Vermont legal aid. I think the question is, can we think creatively about how era can be used, even in its current form to do things that that we really need to have happen here in Vermont and there is a part of the era that says other expenses related to housing, and I hope that that is interpreted to allow people who are currently housed in our housing stock for their landlords to make repairs. I mean, one of the things that we see it legal aid all the time is that lots and lots of tenants are living in places that are standard, and that they, and that there are repairs needed to the places that people are living. And so that it would be good to make sure that our housing stock gets improved even for the folks who are already living in it. Another thing. When I think about what I want the money to be used for. It says it's supposed to go to tenant households to help them and I think the people who already have evictions filed against them, we need to be able to have the money like we did with the last program. It's available for the tenant household to negotiate an end to a current eviction case. Those are the people who are about to become homeless and so using the funds, we, the rental assistance to tenant households we need to be able to use that to end eviction cases. I think about people experiencing homelessness. Yes, the biggest barrier is there's not units to move into but there are other barriers. People experiencing homelessness have been housing insecure for a while they may have other debts. They may have bad credit they may have a need for expungement. They may have need for ongoing case management or at least a guarantee of some case management for the foreseeable future and so I hope that the era money can be used under the framework that's not defined very well about housing stability services to help those people who are experiencing homelessness get the help they need perhaps, you know bankruptcies or expungements or things like that that would make them more viable tenants when they can find some housing. The other thing that I'm really worried about is that people who are on the lower income levels, the, and maybe this is just a generalized anxiety as opposed to an idea, people who are at lower income levels who have been housing insecure for a while. Those are the people that have the hardest time getting their documents together so that they can prove that they're eligible for the programs. And so we need to be able to figure out a system that's broader than the last time. I mean when people could self certify about any number of things and of course if they could self certify about income and they could self certify about their hardship and things like that that would be the best solution. But short of being able to self certify if there are verification documents needed. We're all working remotely we're all at home. This is an incredible problem for low income people who don't necessarily have internet connectivity, who don't necessarily have devices. And even if they do have devices they don't have any way to reproduce a document and send it via the internet. So we need to have some of the era money either under housing stability services or administration. Have staff to help people who are the lowest income get their documents together. And that's it on that it's a very good point. But there were dual beneficiaries. In terms of the past background program, the landlord and the tenant both were helped, and I assume the landlords a little bit more. In terms of the tenant, I think that the tenant's services are more sophisticated than the tenant in terms of computer skills and financial skills and etc. Did you see in your experience that landlords were stepping up and I know Michael Monty is a landlord in these cases and applied for some of the stuff I you know it comes from a little different perspective but I assume if he had a tenant that qualified he did his darndest to make sure they applied. The that question is is better answered by Vermont State Housing Authority but we all did our group knew that housing providers and subsidized housing providers really did reach out to their tenants and put together a list every month. The last program that people recall would would you could apply over and over again for the rent arrears that you owed so in other words rent would have to be in arrears in order to be eligible for the program. So people would catch up with their rent arrears and then the next month they'd apply in the next so housing providers such as Champlain Housing Trust was really good at working with their tenants and and doing applications and and certainly many landlords were very good with reaching out to their tenants and helping but if Angela gets a chance to talk she'll also say that not having technical ability to do things is not just limited to tenants. Some landlords aren't and if you look at who landlords are in Vermont, there is a significant percentage of them that are really small landlords that only rent one or two units and and may not have all sorts of technical sophistication available to them. So I can make it say we our property managers were knocking on doors to help tenants to make sure that they got their stuff in but let me say that I think the notion of self certification no matter what program you're in. The ability to certify with within a program that you did that you're in so if you are getting a voucher if you're with a nonprofits affordable housing organization, if you are getting support for any other program. So that should be enough to be able to sort of say yep, this person qualifies and then we can move them through the system, probably a little faster because everybody, all the, all the, all the nonprofits and all the state organizations are constantly certifying income. It isn't like there's a lack of that there's a there's plenty of that going on so I think the question that becomes is there's certain people who are not in the system how we could work through that. But if we could extend the certification to other other other agencies, the ability to do that that may be a way of getting to jeans notion and I'm not. I'm outside my circle. Right here but it's a good segue to Angela. Because she maybe represent people who are not nonprofits or public housing organizations and she could talk a little bit about the application process and what we can do differently perhaps what we need to look out for as we move forward into the new monies. Welcome Angela. Thank you, Senator Sirachan thank you everybody for this opportunity. I will echo what my colleagues have said about avenues for this money for programs and that need to stand up a new program as quickly as possible. For monstate housing authorities stop taking applications on December 11. And so that means there has been no rental assistance available. After that time and we are still waiting for waiting for an allocation to cover all of the applications that came in on the prior program. So the, so the longer that there is a delay in our ability to stand up a new program, the greater the hardship it is for both the landlord and the tenant. And this is part of the reason why the ask has been made for even just a portion of these funds. Richard Williams referred to $50 million request to allow a new program to get up off the ground. We do have a lot of challenges I think in terms of the type of documents and certifications that are going to be required for this new program. We saw challenges on the landlord side. So the technology and access to technology is not something that is unique to the tenant population. There were also many landlords who do not have access to computers, scanners, had to mail in their paperwork to Vermont State Housing Authority in some sort of avenue or way for everybody to have this. The normally what we would tell folks is, you can go to your public library you can use the computers and the systems there. That is not available currently for many people with the COVID situation so the normal avenue to get access to that technology is not available. I think the other challenge that we are going to have is this new program does allow requires a landlord and a tenant certification or application, and then a standalone tenant application if the landlord's not willing to participate. But there's not one for the converse. So, as a part of the Vermont program under CRF, we had a mechanism for the landlord to apply on their own. If the tenant wasn't participating or wasn't able or in some circumstances if the landlord had other reasons, they received less funding under that aspect of the program. So that mechanism there for them to access the funds with the information that Richard Williams has provided it seems as though a majority of those landlords applying into that section of the program was because they could not get tenant participation for the documents that the tenant was required to produce. So I think as a gap in this new fund or this new program if there's a way to address that with regulations or guidance that would be helpful, because, you know, you have a landlord that's taking walking paperwork over to a tenant's door knocking on their door has already filled out the paperwork asking them for a signature and they still can't get that. So that's to benefit the tenant for this rental payment to keep their rearage from piling up to keep them housed. So we would ask for some sort of mechanism along those lines that is going to allow landlords to access this money as well if the tenant is not participating. I will echo about the mobile home park assistance and the rehab program, I think, being able to use funds to rehabilitate units, get new units online that currently aren't in compliance, do repairs to existing units that need work are a benefit to everybody here it creates safer housing. And if you know that gets packaged with some energy efficiency work, it's sort of a win across the board for everybody. One final plug, one of the things that hasn't been mentioned is we did have a mediation program that we were offering as a way for landlords and tenants to have a professional mediator paid for. So this was really is really been important with our eviction moratorium, again to continue that housing stability approach, where we're offering resources for folks to work out their differences and see if they can't reestablish the relationship. So it will continue forward even beyond our normal eviction moratorium. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. I'm going to be very brief, and we have other witnesses coming in right now on homelessness I want to thank everybody stay tuned we're going to be in touch with all of you. As we move forward the legislature, I hope will not take a wait and see or a backseat in these discussions we want to be an integral part of the discussion in coming up with ideas to maximize affordable housing and maximize this opportunity specific thanks to our congressional delegation for giving us this challenge to deal with, but it's a good challenge to have so thank you all for participating and we will be back in touch appreciate it. Bye bye. Those on homelessness. I'm going to turn over to air hard right away, and let him guide this discussion. In terms of his wisdom, he would like to have speak to us. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Sirotkin can you hear me. I can. Well, thank you, Senator and committee members. We have Kara Casey. I can't see if Kara's in the room. I apologize. I'm also monitoring the House committee hearings which, you know, were co scheduled with the round table. Kara should be up first. And I just wanted to ask if it's possible. There was someone who had been inadvertently left off of one of my witness list. And if you may have a little bit of additional time for maybe two minutes of testimony from Steven Marshall who's a Chittin County long time Chittin County. I got your email on that I said I thought I responded yes. So we're also fantastic if maybe we could slot Steven in right after Emily before before Sue Minter and Eileen Peltier. That would be great. I will connect Steven with the zoom link that I got from Nathan and thanks again for your time. Thank you, Kara. Welcome. Hello. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me here today. My name is Kara Casey and I work for the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence I do housing and economic justice work there. And I'm also the new co chair of the Vermont coalition to end homelessness. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and I want to start off by thanking you for your hard work on allocating federal funding. Last year to the programs and organizations that have been able to safely shelter and house those without housing and create new housing stock and prevent homelessness. Just for a little background on the network and the coalition to end homelessness. 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. We have several other programs that are underneath the Vermont network. And one is the divas program that works within the Chittenden regional correctional facility that's been around for about 20 years. We also platform the deaf for modern advocacy services and the statewide sexual nurse examiners program. The Vermont coalition to end homelessness is the planning and governing body for the HUD recognized balance of state continuum of care, which applies for and receives millions of dollars of funding annually and competitive HUD homelessness funding. We support the work of local continuums of care, connect them to a broader network of stakeholders administer federal funds and advocate for funding and policy changes. And people living in Vermont have safe, stable and affordable homes. And if homelessness does occur, it's brief and rare occurrence during which everyone is treated with dignity and respect. So now I'll just talk to you a little bit about the impact of the pandemic on homelessness and I understand you just had a housing round table so I'm sure that you heard about that in different perspectives but we also have, Air Art has created a fact sheet and provided some other background materials for you all to take a look at on your committee site. So, at the beginning of the pandemic, our system of care was really tested with the high risk of spreading coven for those housed in congregate settings in the state. The state providers, the state and the greater community responded quickly to move households experiencing homelessness into motels. The response looks slightly different in every community households were connected to food resources and support. This system was not without its challenges, but was extremely 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 don't have a permanent home. So as of the first week in January there were over 2500 people in motels through the general assistance program. 386 of them were children. There were another 12 households in motels through the domestic domestic and sexual violence programs. So there are a number of our programs actually get funding through the general assistance program and they, they pay motels directly to house survivors as kind of an overflow for their shelters. And then there were approximately 350 households and shelter and emergency apartments. So that's compared to a little over 1100 people that were identified in 2020s point in time count so that's last January. I will point out that tonight is actually the point in time count this year. And although we're not. We're pretty confident that most people are sheltered we're not counting on sheltered folks this year, due to safety issues, but I think that that will be a real reflection of the change from one year to another. It's been a really remarkable effort on parts on the part of communities to be able to figure out a way to get all those folks counted this year. But their response hasn't just been about getting Vermonters temporarily housed has gone further and connecting to an investing in longer term housing solutions. There's been a monumental 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 and moving out of motels. The Vermont network received these rapid resolution funds and were able to spend over $70,000 to assist 33 households that were experiencing homelessness. The flexibility of these funds was really key and something that providers need more of. We were able to not only provide security deposit and rental assistance but also things like transportation to a safer location, we had one one survivor who was going was moving out of state to live with family. And things like essential furniture to move into their own place, just really being able to allow survivors to access housing that works best for them. And 50% of those that we supported just needed help getting back on their feet, and then we're able to pay market rate, market rate rent on their own or moving with family. And the other households were able to secure subsidies. We had 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 early January, with the Vermont rental subsidy 52 families were able to secure vouchers and 40 released up. And through the cares housing project that was created 275 households received vouchers and 91 had been leased up. With this increase in subsidy we're seeing as with before the pandemic significant challenge and finding rental units. As my colleagues from one of our member organizations just spoke to in the House committees. You know they have been working really diligently with all community partners and local landlords but still have folks that are subsidy in hand services attached and not able to find a physical unit to move into. Ask a question. Yes, what do you. Is it just a supply issue or is it some discrimination going on at all that you see out there. I think that it's definitely a supply issue in terms of not enough housing in terms of the housing being outside of the fair market rent standard. And also, I mean with such a tight housing market we are seeing that, you know, it's, you know why rent to somebody with some like really complex challenges and, you know poor rental history when you could kind of have the pick of people to choose from. So we, I just heard from our divas program that's helping women moving out of the correctional facility and just the, you know it's really hard to be able to find a landlord that's going to rent to someone with a criminal background. So it's I think it's a multitude of things but you know they're all kind of compounded. So is there any way that you can think of that. I'm sure part of the problem is fair market rents out there that qualify for vouchers and rents being sky high so a lot of the rents are above the level and therefore they're not accessible to people with vouchers. So what do we have coming in is there any way that we can get around that problem for from landlords perspective so that they could open their property up. I'm not, I'm not exactly sure, like, I don't know if thinking about something like that. But I do pay the other percentage of the rent that's kind of over with some programs I'm not sure that that is eligible. But I do know that in some communities, they have actually paid for a new kind of survey and and been able to say to HUD like hey, we've actually done our own survey. And what you say is kind of fair market rent in this area is actually way too low. And here's what the actual, you know rental market looks like. I think that the barrier to doing that is that it costs, it costs money. I just probably missing some key factors but it seems like if we have a pot of money to do rehab of buildings we have a pot of money to do weatherization of buildings, we have a pot of money to pay people's rent. A lot of those things are going to help landlords immeasurably. Why can't we ask something of the landlord in terms of opening up more units to low income folks. So, yeah, yeah, I definitely think that a lot of the projects that VHCB has done in collaboration with communities have had that have had certain standards you know that those units need to meet in terms of meeting fair market rent. So, you know that's something that's that I think our housing partners are skilled at doing at creating that housing that does meet that fair market rent, and also has, you know, units set aside for folks that are experiencing homelessness. And it's another way of saying I mean we do all our economic development programs. We give money out to corporations and things like that we ask something in return that they provide good paying jobs or higher wages and then might otherwise pay. So this is sort of we're putting an infusion of money into housing. Well, enough said about that we're going to have to start moving on we have about four more witnesses and we only have like the minutes that are Clarkson. Yeah, I mean it just it was a question I had with our last group of our roundtable which is, we didn't really talk about supportive services and I think landlords would be far. It just strikes me that if we could partner. I mean most of these people moving out of homelessness into housing have a support service somewhere attached to them and if we could guarantee that with every person moving out of homelessness into a into a housing unit. I would hope that that landlords would be much, you know, more open to to enabling this transition into permanent housing for people. And I don't know how much that's discussed as an asset that's a huge asset for for both the landlord and for the incoming tenant to have that support service working with them to hopefully ensure the success of this transition. Yeah, I think that certainly helps a landlord to know like hey this person has had challenges in the past but they actually have somebody there supporting them. And there's also been an investment in landlord liaisons, which are folks that are really that are working at those same organizations but they are actually the person that reaches out to landlords and supports the landlords as well. So I think that's a great. That's a great model to I have one question if I can, and then maybe we can move on to other witnesses do you're not associated with a direct provider like a CAP agency or OEO you're a freestanding advocacy group correct. The coalition and homelessness or the Vermont network. Sorry, Vermont network. Yes, we're a freestanding. I don't know the coalition as well. I guess I'm do you have an opinion on this pending transition to local agencies of the motel program. We don't have an official opinion what I will tell you is that our members, because we have 15 member organizations that are our member organizations, some of them were actually the first to transition from the, you know, ESD holding the money to actually the, the member organizations holding the money. So many of our domestic violence and sexual violence organizations actually get funding from GA to, to house people in motel so you know that middle man. And I think the key that those folks will tell you is that there really needs to also be an investment in the staff time and the administrative time to be able to do that work. Okay. Anything else Kara would like to move on to other witnesses if I could. Yeah, well I just, you know, thank you so much for all your work and in the continued investment in those, those three legs of the stool services subsidy and housing infrastructure. And I just wanted to also urge you to support the governor's recommendation to use the to use 20 million and one time funds and 34.8 million overall to VHCB to help to address some of those critical needs that we were talking about. Thank you. Is there an order. I see we have three more three or maybe more if we include Sue witnesses, do you have guys have an order that you prefer to go. Senator if I could interrupt quickly yes. Emily was next I believe, and then Steven and Sue and Eileen. Okay. Sorry, Emily welcome. Thank you. Good morning everyone. My name is Emily Taylor and I'm currently a service coordinator at Champlain Housing Trust out of Burlington. Thank you for your time today and for the opportunity to testify to the amazing work that Champlain Housing Trust and agencies all around the state have been doing. This is actually my third year attending Vermont homelessness Awareness Day but my first year testifying the previous two years I attended as a housing advocate when I worked for 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 works 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 would struggle to isolate at home due to living with immunocompromised persons. My role very quickly shifted into providing short term service coordination for guests staying in the COVID-19 motel to help them connect with coordinated entry to apply for three squares and begin working on a temporary housing plan for after their quarantine period ended. We served 102 households through the end of September at Harbor Place and then in October CARES Act funding allowed us to purchase the Ho Hum Motel in South Burlington for this purpose, which is still operational today. To date we have served 169 households at the Ho Hum, so that's 271 unduplicated households served between the two COVID sites in 10 months. Harbor Place has since reverted to its original model, a motel serving GA emergency housing guests. In addition to purchasing the Ho Hum, Champlain Housing Trust also purchased Handys extended stay suites in Colchester with coronavirus relief funds made available through the CARES Act. This hotel converted into office and shelter space for up to 21 households for steps to end domestic violence, who as of last month have fully moved in. Steps reported a 50% increase in domestic violence cases due to the pandemic. And finally, yet importantly, Champlain Housing Trust also purchased the Baymont Inn in Essex Junction with CARES Act funding to convert 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 Champlain Housing Trust maintains with the Chittenden Continuum of Care and coordinated entry system. I'm sure that you've been hearing about these partnerships from all around the state today. 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'm now the site-based service coordinator for Susan's Place and I'm offering support to all 68 households here. I'm actually still in the process of moving into my office out here. And I'm now offering support to 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. And unfortunately in this case they were not coming over for dinner and charades, but because they knew that they had a place in the community where they could go to abuse heroin and substances alike. John grew up in an extremely abusive household and over time he thought that he learned that saying yes to other people and letting people do what they wanted to do was how to build lasting relationships and make other people happy. But not long after meeting these people did he become addicted himself, suddenly paying rent, keeping the utilities on and respecting his neighbors weren't much of a priority. He learned services from agencies who reached out wanting to help him, and ultimately it wasn't until he was evicted that he understood the gravity of the lifestyle he had been living, though today he would tell you 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 Chittenden Clinic to maintain his sobriety. He had very large debts to pay to his previous landlord and housing subsidy provider, which is a barrier to housing that we see in many cases. But thankfully for John he was able to finish those payments last year due to the rapid resolution housing initiative fund, which was made available from the CARES Act as well. 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 into the lobby and just sit so he can say hi to his neighbors who are coming home. Susan's Place has been a really better sweet project for me personally. I couldn't be happier to see so many people in permanent housing, but yet it's heartbreaking to know that they 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 the 68 households find housing in just two or three months is really certainly something to celebrate and we have celebrated. But there is still so much work to be done for the hundreds if not thousands of other Vermonters that are still experiencing homelessness and temporarily living in hotels all across the state. I couldn't help notice yesterday that Governor Scott proposed a one time appropriation for affordable housing development on top of the normal allocation so as I conclude my testimony for you today I will just leave you with this that Champlain Housing Trust is absolutely ready to create or build more affordable housing just as soon as we can. Thank you again for your time. Thank you. Any questions. Okay I'm going to move on to Steve Marshall. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Steven Marshall I've been an advocate and an activist for homeless community here in Burlington for at least five years. And in that time, I mostly circulated with the folks who are living outdoors. They speak for them. I'm really grateful for and admire the testimony that has come today. House testimony and said testimony about housing, about services to homeless folks, but the group that is unspoken for who I stand to speak for are those who lose their permission to live anywhere. When you lose your housing, you move to a car, you move to a tent. You might move into an ATM. There are the situations when you lose your housing or can be very desperate. And what I what I'm here to ask you to do is to consider a plan that I call safe parking safe camping. And the folks in this phase, they don't have permission to live anywhere. So the proposal is to require towns have a plan so that when someone loses their housing. There's a plan to help them do something. One story that I heard was from a guy who's sleeping in his car, and the cop would come and knock on the window. So you can't sleep here. If you're homeless and you're living in your car, you have to be you're constantly being shuttled along. I lived in my vehicle for a long time it was really hard to find someplace I could safely park. So the idea is to bring everyone who is between housing within the law by having a law that helps them find a way to be safe. So the proposal is on the piece, the CH is a vehicle. I'm not forgetting the Google Drive, the folder. And I probably could find it. But anyway, it's in the folder with the other documents prepared for today. And it's called safe camping safe parking and I hope we'll take a look at it. It's probably for somebody in the legislative committee a little immature, but I think you'll see that I've covered a lot of the details. Thank you very much for the chance to speak. Thank you, Steven. Sue, would you like to talk to us. I do. Are you, can you hear me okay. You loud and clear. Okay. Thank you so much for having us here today. I think you met me last week. And you know that I'm the executive director of capstone community action. The anti poverty organization in Washington, LaMoyle and Orange counties and part of a network of community action agencies around the state. And today I am here really as a member of the Washington County homeless response team, which really the state brought together in the immediate onset of COVID, but has become an ongoing task force, and we've been working collectively ever since and we've really worked as a collective force ever since the first days of the shutdown, and we have together stood up critical supports for our homeless neighbors in our county. I'm really pleased to really be testifying together with down streets, tremendous asset director Eileen Peltier, who has also worked with me as what we called the unified commanders really early on we set up the Washington County incident command center. She also continues and we meet weekly and she's really a key leader of our task force so we will be submitting written testimony and just speak briefly today, sharing our insights are experienced the data and how we've worked through this crisis but also where we go from here. Thank you all so much for taking the time, like you are today to really reflect and listen and advocate for solutions for homelessness and housing and security. We know that homeless being homeless is deeply traumatic. It's stigmatizing and can really result in long term negative impacts on people's physical mental and financial health and just want to say thank you for taking on this responsibility forward today, and throughout your session. You know, we just came from the house and heard quite extensive tense testimony from around the state and really the point is that every region of our state has responded to the pandemic in different ways. So critical to understand is we have all been stepping up really tires tirelessly to meet extraordinary and unfolding demands of our time, and I want to emphasize that we've worked very closely with our state agencies and I want to shout out and commend tremendous appreciation work from the Agency of Human Services, particularly DCF children's and families the Office of Economic Opportunity, as well as the departments of health and mental health, and also the Emergency Operations Center, all of these agencies and entities have been dedicated to their partners. And we feel thrilled, especially by the state's proactive agreement to actually place homeless neighbors into hotels that's a huge leap. They eventually took over the feeding of the hotel guests that many organizations like Capstone were doing actually for five months. And they have also been very much supporting the team with resources. So housing counseling helping moving people out of housing and security, mental health, medical supports, safety and security at the hotels which has become quite acute. But I also want to recognize the key programs that you have funded through CARES Act. These have been essential from the housing subsidy vouchers you were talking about the rental assistance and rental rehab for our landlords. We have a rapid resolution funding which is really essential because it's flexible and how it's used and the eligibility for these funds. And all of these collective resources have made really the difference in our community and we are hugely optimistic and hopeful that these resources will continue to be available at least for six months, but we need believe we need them much longer. I want to ask Nathan if he can put a slide up we have prepared an impact report, which really tries to lay out what we've done but also to emphasize that while we've done a tremendous amount. We continue to face dire numbers that you will see here. I want to say at the outset that the bottom really shows you, I think, if you can see the whole thing. The point is that a home is part of the solution but it's not the whole solution and as you look at all of the services and we lay them out in the second page of this report I encourage you to really see the numbers of things we've done. It really shows you how much it takes to serve this community. Up the upper left here you will see the the graph that really looks at the numbers and the change the dramatic escalation of the numbers of people in our hotel based on our coordinated entry report. Early March, we had in Washington County 128 households now 324 households 153% increase that represents 396 adults and 91 children. So many children that are homeless and we serve many of them through our Head Start program. On the positive side we've actually managed to house permanently 65 of these households that's a huge accomplishment but not nearly enough, and just as critical, we've created 67 new units incredible advance, but again, not meeting the need a paralleling this we have our wonderful shelter, and I do want to recognize at the bottom of the slide there you'll see all of the members of our task force you're almost there one little bit further down can you see, includes another way it includes the Agency of Human Services, the Good Samaritan Haven, the parent child center of Washington County, and it includes our Good Samaritan Haven, and the Washington County Mental Health Services so all of them work together. Our shelter. Before the pandemic we had 76 bed capacity. Now we have 25 bed capacity. So this 51 bed decrease is not going to simply come back after COVID. On top of that these are only shelter beds for individuals, no families, and we already heard 91 children. So we have a tremendous challenge. I think that these numbers can feel overwhelming. But we really feel that also this year has taught us that we're stronger than we think we're more capable than we believe and we are even more resilient than we ever imagined but I feel it is so important to remember that we can do amazing things and we have to use this crisis as a foundational time to go forward and not back to where we had been. So with that I'm going to hand the screen to Eileen to give you more of where we go from here. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you, sir. Eileen, welcome. Good morning, Nathan. You can take the slide down now if you'd like. Thank you. I'm Eileen Peltier, Executive Director of Downstreet Housing and Community Development. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on Homeless Awareness Day. My role today is to share some specifics about what we, the Washington County Homeless Task Force, together believe is needed. Sorry, I usually do the verbose inspirational speech but not today. Today we need action. So here we go. First, I will touch on the three-legged stool of housing supply, subsidy, and case management. Supply in Washington County is tenuous and totally inadequate. I don't overuse the word crisis, especially these days, but I do think it is time to think of our housing supply challenge as a crisis. Capital funding is critical. For our region, we can immediately use capital funding to support development like our upcoming project in Berlin that will serve 30 families, as well as the many pipeline projects waiting to queue up for funding. We can use capital to bring more offline privately owned rentals back online, which would mean a continuation of the rental rehab program that was so successful in the past year. We believe there is a strong potential to successfully house individuals in a single room occupancy peer-based model. Washington County Mental Health Services has leased four buildings and is currently housing a total of 14 individuals with great success. We would use capital to expand on this model. Yesterday's news that the governor's budget includes an overall 34.8 million to Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is very welcome. We hope you all will support the governor's recommendation, which will truly begin to address the housing supply crisis. The second leg of the stool is subsidy. We need more and we need it to be committed to projects early. Housing supply and subsidy are codependent. The Biden administration signaling they will be increasing voucher availability and the governor's increased capital proposal. There is some reason for hope. Case management is the final leg of the stool. To be clear, case management directly impacts housing retention, which is the household's ability to stay permanently housed. This is no small issue in Vermont. For some of our neighbors, an apartment is a temporary respite between episodes of homelessness. Permanent housing is a misnomer for too many Vermonters. Our task force is working hard to understand the many and varied ways in which we case manage our vulnerable neighbors. There are many successful programs and a strong group of providers, but we can do more. We need the flexibility to use our funds in innovative ways, and we need more funds to meet the growing need for case management. Speaking to the emergency shelter beds for individuals, as Sue said, we've lost 51 beds due to COVID restrictions. In the near term, we need to develop 40 to 50 new beds. To make this happen, we need both capital to develop the building and a commitment to ongoing operating support through the Agency of Human Services. For families, we believe expanding family supportive housing vouchers and associated programs is critical. This program combines vouchers and case management, and it works. The Family Center of Washington County has increased case management in the hotels, but more is needed both immediately and as part of a long term solution for families. If we can adjust the supply issue, putting families directly into permanent housing through the family supportive housing program is a far better option than hotel stays. For families, we can do more for the 91 children in our hotels today. To ensure we coordinate effectively and efficiently, we need financial support to invest in the development of a virtual hub for homeless services in central Vermont. Our task force has built a sense of purpose and partnership, and we would embrace the opportunity to develop a virtual hub that provides cohesive coordinated programs for people experiencing homeless across Washington County. We are committed to our partnership and strongly believe we can have a greater impact if we can get capacity support to move our vision along. Many of these requests can have an immediate impact. Others will take time. Time, we may not have. At this point, we understand that the hotel system, including the enhanced case management, will end sometime in 2021. We want to say clearly that we believe this would create not only a short term disaster, but would critically reduce the long term success of the programs I've just highlighted. Continuing to invest in the hotels, while simultaneously funding the innovative solutions identified is the only humane option. This is not to suggest that we don't have problems at the hotels with so many people congregating, but we are working on that for a joint approach of security and supports with other community partners. Certainly, it is a costly solution, but we have the opportunity in this moment to permanently reinvent our system so that the likelihood of homelessness will be greatly reduced and the quality of life for our neighbors will be greatly improved. Before I close, I do want to speak briefly to the AHS's proposal to transfer the GA, the general assistance hotel funds to each county. Although we understand there is much more to discuss about this proposed program. We want to say at this time, our task force has very serious concerns, and we do not support the proposal. We will be pleased to testify more specifically on this in the future. In closing, I want to thank the committee for your time today, your dedication to helping our most vulnerable Vermonters and your support over many years. We certainly can say these are challenging times they are, but for too many Vermonters every day is a struggle that begins and ends with a worry about whether or not they will be able to rest with a roof over their head and a warm bed. Too often, we stigmatize individuals and families experiencing homelessness. We believe that focusing on housing neighbors as a systemic challenge is a moral imperative for Vermont, moving the conversation from homeless to unhoused neighbors speaks to the need to address the system as a whole. With that, we stand ready to continue our work and to do more and more and more. Thank you. Thanks, Eileen. It's about noon and the vigil is about to get started. Committee members if you want to join that you can do it on YouTube or you can connect with Nathan or air heart and they could let you into the room. I want to thank everybody it's been a long morning and great presentations and incredible amount to think about. So, a bid you do until I guess this afternoon at one.