 Thank you all very much for coming out. If you missed that, I'm Rebecca Lawrence Gomez. I work with Pathways Vermont and I'm here as the co-chair of the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness. And we are gathered here today because we have a problem in our state. And the problem is that there are neighbors and friends, community members and family, and perhaps some of us who are even here today who don't have a place to call home and don't have a permanent, comfortable, safe place to go at the end of this day and in the middle of the winter in Vermont. I'm going to go ahead and pass things off to my co-facilitator. Hi, my name is Margaret Bozik and I work for the Champlain Housing Trust. I'm also the co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. Home means different things to different people, but I think we can all agree that having a home is important. It's the place that's yours. It's the place that, to quote one of our tenants, you can put your feet up and shut the door and shut the world out if you want to. I am personally aware of two people who died this year while they didn't have a home. And I'd like this to take a moment to think about them and about others who may have been struggling with mental illness or substance use disorder, with a physical health ailment, with the continuing corrosive effects of trauma, sometimes with loneliness and despair, but who were also each unique and special people with their own gifts, courage, and resilience. So, a moment for them. Thank you. We will proceed with inviting some folks who are here with us to speak and share their thoughts and we'll start with Representative Mitzi Johnson. Hello. I want to thank you all for being here, for showing up, and saying that everybody deserves a place to put their feet up and shut out the world if they need to. Lord knows I need that on occasion myself. I, many of you have heard me say that I think of homelessness as one of these keystone issues. You can't ask somebody to successfully deal with an addiction issue if they don't know where they're putting their head at night. You can't ask somebody to stabilize mental health issues if they don't have stable housing. And you can't ask kids to come to school prepared, ready to learn if their home life is constantly in chaos. And since I've been speaker and before that is Chair of Appropes, when I've come to speak at this event, it's the same message. And we still have the same problem. And there are parts of it that are intensifying. And I thank all of you providers and folks on the front line who come forward and tell me and tell our various committee chairs that, you know, what you're seeing. It's really important for us to have the whole range of the news, especially the bad news that needs our attention. And I'm incredibly proud of the work we did on the housing bond to expand the number of units available to make affordable housing a reality for some people. And I am very well aware that it is not enough and that money is going to run out and we will still have homeless people in Vermont and it's not acceptable. I thank you for your work. You have my commitment in partnership to continue to make progress on this issue. And I also really want to thank our majority leader, Gerald Kurinsky, and our two committee chairs that wrestle with this frequently representative and Pew, Chair of Human Services, who has dealt with this issue for a long time in the work that she does both in and out of the State House and Representative Tom Stevens, Chair of the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee who has really dedicated so much of his legislative career to this. So please consider all of us a resource. Know that we know that it's necessary for us to hear from you and thank you for speaking up. Thank you for being here. And I look forward to continuing to make progress on this issue. Next we'll hear from Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg? Oh, that's fine. I've been Mark. I've been Zuckerberg, but it is David and it is Zuckerberg. But that's fine. It is, you know, if I had the money he had, we would end homelessness in Vermont. I'll tell you that right now. You know, I was walking out of the office coming over here thinking about we do this every year and I think it's shameful that we have to do this every year. I think we have failed the citizens of our state that we even have to have this day at all. When we look at our society both nationally and at the state level, we have the money to solve this challenge. We should get those resources from our community, those that have their resources and put them towards the range of different issues that create homelessness in our state, whether it's job training, whether it's mental health support, whether it's building affordable housing, whether it's tackling permitting issues that would then allow for more affordable housing near the jobs that people might be able to get. All of these issues are intertwined and we are failing. The fact that we're out here today means we're failing. And it is incumbent upon us as political leaders to recognize that failure, to own that failure and work to solve it. And I plead also with the 600,000 Vermonters that are not here to think about the role that each of us has to end this failure. In our day-to-day activity, whether it's taking someone under our wing to mentor them, whether it's supporting a family that's challenged, whether it's smiling at someone and giving them the dignity of humanity rather than scowling or looking away when you see someone who's homeless, how we talk about our homeless population, how we treat our individuals who are homeless is a part of what each one of us can do along with the policy work that we have to do here in this building. And so I thank those of you who have taken the time to come here, our elected leaders, our community leaders, our housing advocates, our mental health leaders, our educational leaders, our community that's here today as concerned citizens and ask that we all work and struggle together to overcome this failure on our part. Thank you. I'd like to invite Senator Tim Ash, President Boatem. Good afternoon, everyone. We're here in a somewhat, for a somber reason to recognize all those who experience homelessness in this state, but we also have to acknowledge the work we do collectively, and I know so many of the people in the crowd here today, to try and address these issues and turn things around. The Lieutenant Governor is absolutely right that we have structurally failed to prevent homelessness that is avoidable. I think those of you who have been here the last couple of years know that the Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker and the Governor, we've all been up here saying that this is an area we plan to work together on, and I'm very happy that we took action to follow up on those words and make some of the largest investments in housing in the state's history, and of course we have much more to do. I'll tell you that even though I've been in the affordable housing community for more than a decade, my appreciation for the issues of homelessness have grown especially in the last couple of years. The Cots Day Station is now located just 150 yards or so from my house. So every time I drive or walk or go anywhere from my place, I'm not only seeing the people who've been housed in their new facility on North Avenue in Burlington, I'm also seeing all the services and programming that are being delivered by the types of people who are in the audience here today. Christmas Eve Day, when I went in to make a donation, seeing hundreds of people, especially kids, having a place to be where they're being served with dignity was a very special moment for me and also a visual that encapsulates all the work we still need to do. So the pledge from myself and other members of the Senate and I know that the Speaker, Lieutenant Governor, and our administration all would share this is that we know the job's not done and that we will continue to try to do everything we can to eliminate avoidable homelessness and to provide the types of services that are so desperately needed throughout the state. Thank you. Well, next here from Ted Brady is the Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Commercial Development. Thank you so much. Well, first on behalf of Governor Scott and behalf of the Agency of Human Services, Secretary Algo Bay, I think we all are grateful to take this moment and realize that the job's not done. I think the Lieutenant Governor, Senate Pro Tem said it well. I don't need to say it again. When I say the job's not done, I want to be clear that the governor and the entire administration think of this issue on a daily basis. We've established homelessness as an essential breakthrough metric that says if we are not addressing that number, we as a government are failing, period. We call them breakthrough indicators. And the rate of homelessness in Vermont needs to go down in order for us to say the government is effectively working. Commissioner Ken Schatz from DCF, people like Paul Dragon, people like Sarah Phillips, people like Emily Higgins. These are people that every day are trying to make the system work in a better way to address the issues. We're doing some things right. As Tim, as Senator Ash just pointed out, we have a leading edge model in the country that the Family Supportive Services, one of the only states in the country that are using Medicaid funding to address services for supportive housing. We're also doing something else right. We understand that there's kind of a three or four-part piece to this. Number one, we need more units of housing. End of story. The governor, the speaker, and the Senate pro tem and all the committee chairs are all on board with that. We're trying to make record investments in housing. However, that's just a tiny piece of it. We need to do better with mental health services. We need to do better with workforce development and getting people into the workforce here in Vermont. We need to do better in our substance abuse tied to that mental health substance abuse crisis that's facing Vermont. We understand this complex system. The only crazy thing that I'd say that I disagree with the lieutenant governor on is it's not just money, right? It is this complex system. And while we need to make a bigger investment end of story and homelessness, we need to figure out this complex system and use modern government to address that complex system in a different way. So to everybody who's struggling with homelessness right now, know that the governor and the highest levels of the government are thinking of you and trying to find a way to make life just that bit easier for you so that you have the same opportunity as other Romaners. And God bless you and thank you for this opportunity and thank you to the coalition for making this happen today. Thank you, Jesse Tipton. Hey, everyone. Thank you for giving me a moment to speak to you today. Thank you to all of our leaders and everything you're working so hard to help the homeless community. My name is Jesse Tipton. I currently live in a tent up in Burlington with my best friend, 80-pound mixed breed dog named Sadie. Six years ago, I was like most of you in this crowd. I had a good job. I baked bread. Had a nice apartment. I was married. Our son was fixing to graduate high school. I got a new puppy to train as a fishing buddy. Life was really good for me then and my family. Fast forward from there two years and the bakery worked out close. They lost my job. We stopped being able to pay rent. Went through a stressful time and decided that we would move into our station wagon. So it ended up me and my wife and my dog in the station wagon which was kind of fun for a minute but then it wasn't anymore. Things got bad. Next thing you know we were heading for divorce. Shortly after that I found myself by myself with my dog in a tent. I struggled for a little while. I got a motel room for a little while to the state. That lasted until someone seen my dog in a room and called me in and I was back outside again. I went through a period there when I felt that all the injustice was directed at me because I knew that if I tied my dog to a tree and I went into a motel room at night in the morning the cops would come arrest me for animal cruelty. So why was it right for those people to put me out there with her and not be charged? So I became a bit angry for quite a while. I looked for help in all the usual places but they couldn't help me. I feel like I want to say they wouldn't help me. I soon became really embittered that my community would not help me help myself from my best friend. We just didn't fit any of the traditional boxes. There has been a couple of bright spots. I recently found CBOAO has supported me and my dog which has become a welcome relief finally. There's so many others out there like me. Usually they're out there for different reasons but it's always because they don't fit into the box the mold that's been set before them. There's a lady I sometimes have dinner with at the 7-N-8 dinner at the Red Door Church. She's smart, she's bright, she's got a wonderful smile and she's very open until she gets amongst the crowd and putting her into a shelter with 28 beds all strangers around her drives her anxiety level so high, so fast she has to leave. So she just chooses to stay outside. I've seen people adapt in many ways. I know a couple who've been together quite a while and they can't stay in the shelter because she suffers some social anxiety and he has been her support and comfort all this time but the shelter only accepts adults as singles so they have to split up to go there so they can't. There's people in recovery that can't stay in the warming shelter because it affects their recovery and meanwhile they can't stay in the regular shelter because all the beds are full. So in order to be inside they have to be around up people who are high and it affects their recovery. Oops, just lost my page. There's the people that no one wants to deal with, you know, that the belligerent drunks and the developmentally disabled that should be in group homes, the sex offender and then there's those that have been trying for so many years and been turned away so many times that they're just too embittered to care or try anymore. Where do I go next? Sorry, technical difficulties. Nope, I found it. There's dozens and dozens of people on the streets that I know personally that I really don't have any respect or empathy for them because of how they are but I believe that they need help. I believe they deserve help from us just like everybody else. All of us here have heroes and idols that we look up to and respect. For me, most of the people on my hero list, the men and women who give up everything to fight and die for the things that we get to keep here. These people, my heroes, have a motto that they live by and a lot of times die for. That motto is no one left behind. Ask for the question of what should we do. I'm just a guy who struggled for the last four years to get out of this mess, unsuccessfully, so I really don't have any answers. And like me and the rest of the people out here, I know that I can't find those answers by myself. So the answer that I would give to that question is the same answer that my heroes would give. We must do whatever we have to. Thank you. Next we'd like to hear from Representative Anfield. Jesse, thank you. Coming past, coming next after Jesse, I don't know if I can say it any better. There's so much more that we need to do. There's so much that we have done. And what we've done, we've done because of people like you standing around, shining a light, doing the work, and people like Jesse who are sharing their lived experience with us. Every Vermonter deserves to be safe and secure. I'm standing here. I'm freezing. I have a long coat. I have boots. I have a sweater on. And when this vigil is finished, I have a safe and secure place to go. I can't say it any better than Jesse. And I can't say it any better than Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. There's no place like home. And every Vermonter deserves a home. JR Burns, if you could come speak. That would be wonderful. Hello, good afternoon to everyone. My name is JR. I am part of the Vermont Homelessness Demonstration Project's Youth Action Board. The DEMO project is a two-year initiative to increase capacity in Vermont to make youth homelessness rare, brief, and one-time. The Youth Action Board is the committee of youth ages 16 to 25 with lived experiences advising the DEMO project. In my experience of being homeless, I learned that youth homelessness is sadly happening far too often. And there is a surprising amount of youth that are unaware of the assistance they could be getting. I was homeless for about a year before I was aware of some of the key resources that could help me, including Emancipation and the McKinney-Vento Act. During that time, I was living in a homeless shelter in Maine and attending high school. It was my school guidance counselor who informed me of these resources, but it was over a year into my experiences. I needed that information sooner. I became homeless shortly after coming out as Kay, and today with the support I received from transitional living programs designed specifically for young people, I'm happy to say that I'm going on 11 years of being a proud, open-the-game man. Thank you. I'd like to thank them for housing me during my time of most need, but the best help I received was from staff helping me learn to not only love myself, but be proud in doing so. It was a journey, and along the way, I didn't want people to know that I was what I was going through. Being a homeless youth is stigmatizing. People make us feel bad for not being able to live with our families, or they think we are beggars. I found that the best way I could hide the fact that I was homeless was by always wearing a smile regardless of the situation at hand. Hiding my feelings made it hard to get the support I needed, and they were mental health consequences. We need to be better at identifying youth who are homeless or at risk earlier and wrapping supports around them. My experience has helped me identify a few things we need most to help prevent and reduce the length of youth homelessness. More resources for well-trained staff and housing programs who know how to address the unique needs of each youth, and who can help guide through the tough times and say I'm here for you through thick and thin. It's not an easy job and making sure these workers are paid livable wages is important because we need them to stick around. Peer outreach workers to share information youth to youth. Drop in centers where we can feel comfortable and welcome and learn about and access resources, including educational and employment supports, food and connections with peers. Educational supports, completing high school well-being homeless was hard, but also critically important to my future. We need more alternatives and more support for homeless youth enrolled in school. And lastly, I feel that Vermont could create a better safe space for LGBTQ youth. Discrimination on all levels be they orientation related or racially related needs to be stamped out. Thank you. Thank you. I'm coming towards the end of the speaking. I can honestly say that everyone has said just about everything that we need to say for today. We're not doing a job that we think we can do better. We're not succeeding, but we are finding successes all along the way one by one. And I think we're looking at something that's far more systemic. And I would just leave with everybody here. We started off today with a moment of silence for people who were lost, but I would like to turn that over and say this is not a moment for silence. We've been silent for too long about what this means for our communities across the state. And so always talk to us. Always fill our ears with what you know. I found in this business that you can't hear from where you're standing the thoughts in my head. And I can only express them to you with my voices. And so lift higher voices to us. Keep them present all the time. Remind us from now until the end of session and next session in the year after that of the needs that you have, the wants that you have, and the suggestions to help us to gain the courage to do the job that still has yet to do. Thank you. Thank you. And we will be wrapping up shortly. I want to express appreciation and gratitude for those of you who are present today, for those who are representing a constituent, our fellow remanters, for those of you who are here on behalf of agencies, organizations, serve folks who have experienced homelessness to give an extra explanation of appreciation and awe for those of you who have experienced homelessness or who may lack a secure, sure place to go this evening. At the conclusion of this, we will be meeting at the gallery inside for a resolution. So I encourage folks to go there and we'll close up our moment right now with Spencer Nolton, who is going to speak to us. Woo! So I'm not from Vermont, but what I do know is the people from Vermont are great. I came here from a foreign country to a foreign land, had what I needed, but when I came here, I had an apartment. I had everything I wanted. I was good until it wasn't good. Drinking and alcoholism? Yeah, it's affected my life. I'm 22 years old, but it's affected my life and it brought me to the point that I'm at with nowhere to go. And places like Bethany Church in another way, Tyler, who manages the place, they've saved me. They've given me a place to stay at night, given me a place to go during the day. And without that, I think I would have frozen to death because I'm not a snowman. So I'm just glad that I have the resources that are provided. I don't know. There's a lot of resources that are provided by the state of Vermont compared to other states that I've been in, including New Hampshire, which is right next door in Twin State. But there's opportunities here for people that are homeless that are much better than other places that I have seen. And I would like to thank the whole state of Vermont as well as all you guys who are out here in the cold right now willing to listen to my word. And I appreciate everything. And I know that there is work to be done, but you guys have done a great job so far, making me feel like I am able to be as comfortable as I can be right now. So I'd like to thank everybody. And I'd like to also thank the state of Vermont and the official workers that help make this possible as well as we can make it better. But so far, this is a great job and it's probably the best state to be homeless in. That's a fact.