 This is the Ward 8 NPA's planning, no steering, not steering, planning meeting. Yes. This is the actual meeting that we plan for another meeting. And so I, just the ground rules on this meeting is we really want to hear from people who are living in Ward 8. And we want to give you plenty of opportunity to express concerns, talk to our newly elected City Councilor. Hannah King is here. Gary Bolden is the East District School Attendance. And it doesn't have to necessarily about the issue we're going to try to talk about with this homeless families in the Burlington School District. But possibly anything that you want to talk about, we want to make sure during the meeting that we get to hear your voice. And so that's kind of how we're going to approach this and have approach that successfully, I think. I think we should go around and introduce Charlie and Sam. They're the ones that moderate make this meeting happen. Gary, you want to just tell a little bit about yourself and culture? Gary Bolden and I actually have a resident of Ward 1 and newly elected unhosed, thankfully. Lucky you. School Commissioner for East District and former employee of Burlington School District. I'm feeling the weirdness of that, which I attend the meeting. But as soon as I'm official, I'll put out ways for you to contact me. I'll start posting probably semi-monthly audio and written newsletters for people. And you'll be able to post questions to me and I'll be back to you. I'm Bill Church. I'm moderating today. I'm part of the steering committee. I live on Bradley Street. That's probably all you need to know. Them going to use yourself. Yes, hi, I'm Tim Doherty. I am the Councilor-Elect for the East District and I live on Colonial Square over at Ward 1. Hi, everyone. My name is Romeo. I am the Station and Custom Service Supervisor for Green Mountain Transit. I am also part of the NPA here for Ward 8. I'm Susanna. I'm a UVM student and I'm a warding resident at 348 College. Hi, everyone. I'm Hannah. I am the Councilor-Elect for Ward 8 and I also am a College Street resident. Anne Brenna, I recognize your name. Do you want to introduce yourself briefly? Okay. Hi, I'm Anne Brenna. I live in Ward 8. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I'm Anne Brenna. I live on Bradley Street in Ward 8. And can I ask two quick questions? Let's finish the introductions and then we'll open it up for questions and discussions. Okay. Dick and Linda, you want to introduce yourself quickly? Sure. Hi, I'm Linda Risve. I live in hunger for terrorists in Ward 8. Mary, I recognize your name from the library. Yes, I'm Mary Danko. I'm the Director of the Fletcher Free Library and I just had an announcement. Do you want me to make it now or to wait? In two minutes. Okay. Dick, it's good to see you. You're on mute. I'm Dick Brab. Hi. I live in Ward 8 on Hungerford, Belinda. And Sarah, thank you very much for attending. Can you introduce yourselves so we know who you, others know who you are? Sure. Thanks for having me tonight. My name is Sarah Russell and I am the Special Assistant to End Homelessness for the City of Burlington. Also the Co-Chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. Yes, sort of a first announcement. I'll make this for the three of us. None of us have been sworn in either to City Council or school boards, so we can't speak officially. We can at this point only pass long information and pass back information from irrespective organizations. But if you ask the theme tonight, it's me as a Ward 1 citizen and my colleagues as Ward 8 citizens. Or Ward 1. So we can't have any favors tonight. Mary, can you promise me anything? Mary, you want to tell us something good about the library? Sure. Well, I actually have a request. It's always great at the library, but we are looking to do our strategic plan refresh. Oh, I love it. We're looking to do our strategic plan refresh and we need input from the community on what they would like to see. So very quickly, if I could just give you the URL to go and fill out our survey. It's very simple. It's four questions will take under 10 minutes. It's fletcherfree.org slash survey. And if you wouldn't mind putting that out in your minutes, that would be great. A big part of how we want to move forward on the strategic plan is to know what the community wants. So they're open-ended questions we want to hear from as many people as possible. I've been going to all the NPAs. We're pushing this survey out as wide as we can to hear what you want from the library. So that's really all I have for today. And hopefully you can amplify our need for getting that input. So would you be able to come to a future NPA meeting, Ward 8, and take specific questions and input from Ward 8 members? Absolutely. So we'll make that, and that may be something that we might invite you back with. OK. The library is a very stabilized influence in Ward 8. Well, we love being in Ward 8, and we love being a polling place for Ward 8. OK. Dr. Brenia, if you're dying to ask those questions, go ahead. I'm not dying to ask any questions. Mary, if you're still there, can you access that survey just on the fletcherfree library website? Yes, you can. And that's our website is fletcherfree.org slash survey. Oh, OK. All right. And I just wanted to ask Gary, are you could you clarify? Are you the East District School Board Commissioner-elect? I am. I am. Oh, OK. I'm going to go to Ward 8, and she has a lab on 392. OK. So and then there's I'm not sure who the Ward 1 representative, but representative is, but you are our representative as well. Good. And I was going to ask that. The steering committee members, have you given any thought to. Reuniting with Ward 1 for the MPI meetings? And I have, I can just speak for myself. I don't want to. I think that our voice gets lost at Ward 1. I think those meetings tend to drag on for reasons other than. Important business in the wards. And having attended those meetings for a while, I don't really feel like they represent Ward 8. And I think part of that was actually shown in the redistricting, where our attempts to work with other people to improve our work were kind of undermined in the last minute. So I have some. You're in Ward. No, Ward 5. Well, no, you're in Ward 1. I'm in Ward 1. Maybe with leadership in Ward 1, things have changed, but I'm not in favor. Anyway, I live in Ward 1, but I was I'm East District, so I represent you guys too. Yeah. What do you think Dan, should we reignite? You were a member of that for a long time. What do you think? I just think it would make it much easier for the city counselors and the school commissioners if Ward 1 and 8 met together. Linda, you also were a part of that. What do you think? So I'm not on the steering committee. I'm not a member of it. Yeah. I actually hadn't given it any thought at all. So pros and cons or anything. So I'm not willing at this point to give a point. I mean, I can see the good and the bad. So it's another topic for a steering committee. Let me just make note of that. We have to elect Romeo as a member of the steering committee. And I'm not sure of the process. I don't have the bylaws for that. And do you know what they are? Somebody nominate and then vote. And then vote. Anybody in Ward 8 can vote. Yeah. OK. Go ahead. So I want to nominate Romeo to join the Ward 8 by the steering committee. And then all Ward 8. So you're on Ward 8, so you can vote. So I think it's just the handrails, yeah. And it's just people who live in Ward 8. OK, all in favor. Oh, yeah, Romeo, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us why you're here. What Ward 8 needs as an NPA member? Well, first and foremost, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. But at the same time, one of the key reasons why I want to be part of the steering committee is to be able to amplify some of the key things that I see happening at Ward 8, but also create a holistic discussion where I can bring to bear what I know best as far as my top is concerned and what I see happening at the transit center with transportation-wise, with homelessness issues, and so on and so forth. So more than anything else, just bring my talent to the steering committee and bring some resolutions to the table is the key thing that I want to be part of the steering committee. And I think the NPA is one way to help the committee in being able to see what can be done for the committee as well as the neighborhood as well. So yeah, so thank you for having me. And I look forward to helping. And where is your address? 26 University Terror. OK, that's right. You're at Paris. Yeah. All right. All in favor? Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Romeo. So that was unanimous, one, two. Dick voted, Dick voted, right? Yeah, three, four, five, seven to zero. Thank you guys. Thank you very much. Thanks, Romeo. Thank you. Anybody else from the ward want to speak up here before we get to the topic of discussion, Anna? Just a couple of quick announcements. I've been posting on Front Forge Forum, but obviously, as you mentioned, I'm not sworn in yet. But once I am, I'll be doing a weekly newsletter. And so you can sign up for my email list. I'll post it again on Front Forge Forum. I'll also be posting videos on my social media, like talking about a recap of our council meetings and anything important. Also on Front Forge Forum. On April 1st at 1.30 at Fletcher Free Library, I'm posting a listening session. So feel free to stop by. And I'll be happy to talk to folks. And I think that's everything. But we really can't engage you or Tim right now on specific issues. So here's one. I hadn't heard. It can be a listening tool. We can't, yeah, we can't speak on behalf of the city yet, but we can engage in the same way that we did during the campaign. So at least that's what I've been doing and it hasn't, no one's told me that it wasn't allowed. Right, more than you can even hear thoughts and things. Yeah. You can't ask us about what's going on in the city council, because we're not on the city council, but I think you can otherwise, speak as we normally would. Unless it's something of public record. Yeah, we just, we aren't an entity of the city. Technically. So I would just like to throw out there as animal one. It's just me and other people feel differently around the board aid that part of the problem that we have had as long time residents of board aid is being listened to by our city council people. And we had reached out many times we don't expect people to agree with us, but to at least listen to us. And that was never happening. And there at the end, it was, we were told everything and I can read newsletter after newsletter about how it was going to be, but there was never any opportunity for us to have input or to build a relationship that we could move forward together with our city council people. And subsequently they felt whatever they felt and it disappeared. So hopefully we can maybe change some of that now. I hope it would be my hope. Can I ask you a question? Sure. So was there a time you and Anne have been long time board aid folks, was there a time when your relationship with your city council person, whether it was the district city council person or the word specific or both was different and what made it successful? Because I don't think either Hannah and I want to reinvent the wheel. We don't want to reinvent the wheel. So we'd rather go back to an old successful practice and then maybe riff on it a little bit, but. Anne and Linda can weigh in on this. The reason there was a YMCA between College and Bradley Street is that was originally going to be a Champlain College dormitory. They were going to jump Main Street, which they had an agreement with the city that they were going to stay on the other side of Main Street, but they proposed a dormitory of 360 students at the old Ethan Allen Club. That was when the neighborhood got very active and with Max Tracy's help, who was the city council person, we were able to push back with that. And Emily Lee was on the planning commission or something and was able to push back at that. But it was so, we made it, we raised enough issues with Champlain College that for what, maybe that their Democrats were changing, they didn't say that, they didn't want to deal with the neighborhood. And it was then that we even proposed that the YMCA take that site. Because they pulled out of that, then Parmahlow came through and the YMCA leaders came through. And that was something that significantly improved the neighborhood, but I had a stabilized structure instead of 300 students and what was essentially all the time. And so there's an issue that by having the city council help us at that time. I felt like that was effective. And you have a, do you remember any better days or Linda? I just wanted to say that when Adam Roof was our city councilor, he was great. He was specifically very responsive in terms of constituent services and hearing concerns of all kinds. And he actually met with us regularly, not as part of the NPA meeting, pretty regularly. And how did he set that up, Linda? Was it like a monthly coffee hour meeting? Was it informal? I'm looking to set up, and Hannah and I had this discussion secret, we're looking to set up a mechanism, mechanisms, systems by which we can be present, that fit and that work and that we can accomplish. He said in my backyard. Yeah, so I think with Adam we were meeting regularly and we invited him. I think that was what usually happened. And it was really productive. So I think we kept meeting. That doesn't mean that that's the mechanism it has to be, but that's, we have kind of little neighborhood association which I don't think we necessarily have to be exclusive about, but before when we were part of Ward 8, we had this people street community. So that was what it was then, but it doesn't have to be that way. Could work again, I suppose. Okay. Well, that's my hope with the listening session, but I'm doing those once or twice a month. And so that should be an opportunity for you all to join over Zoom or in person with me and we'll be able to talk about things before we have to. Yeah, we're very clear that we want a neighborhood and be part of the neighborhood. And it doesn't mean that we agree on everything, but we at least kind of have to look out for each other, which a lot of that happens already and it comes from a long time residence, but it would be good if you could make some time available for that and we're gonna be able to. Excellent, yeah. And do you want us to throw anything in there? No, I don't really have anything else to add. Okay, so the business part of this, which I would like to turn over to Sarah and also with Greg is as we find out even last week at the YMCA that war date is particularly affected by the homeless situation in Burlington, probably more so than any other ward. And as a consequence of that, I think it would be good for us to have a discussion about not so much the extent of the problem, but what should we do or what can we do to take a position about how we can help end a problem that nobody wants? If not that we don't want homeless people, but how do we help the city and especially ward aid focus on that? Because when you see a bunch of people, I'll give an example, the YMCA has a little enclave that became kind of a homeless city a week ago. And you couldn't walk by there, there was drug use usual, but what they don't know is right across the street is a building where several years ago, somebody tried to sleep on the grill or the old telephone company and died. And so it's a relatively dangerous situation to be living on the streets like that. And I know the city is invested into that and Sarah has agreed to come talk to us, but I think that that's an opportunity for us in Ward 8 to maybe understand the situation and maybe if not provide direct help, at least ask our representatives to take this issue on. It's different than living in the people that are trying to live in the parks. I don't think we have a park in Ward 8 unless a memorial, unless a city call it in Ward 8. I don't think it is. It's not, it's Ward 3. Yeah, so sleeping in the parks is not an issue with us. People sleeping on the street or behind garages or the behavior that goes there is something that we should, I think it'd be good to talk about. And I'm particularly interested in a subset of the homeless people, which are those kids whose families are homeless. Because I think that there's not a lot of resource dependent what we can do, but if we can shine the light in our neighborhoods about these kids who really need a stable place in order for them to get through school, that I would be something I would like to see supported and maybe we can discuss how resources have come to that segment, how big of a problem is it? And I think it's particularly pertinent to Ward 8 because the entire demographic of Ward 8 includes what I think is the biggest landlord in the state of Vermont, which is the University of Vermont. They have more people living in university housing than any other institution I know makes up maybe the prison. And I'm not saying that they need to solve the problem but as members of Ward 8 and our neighbors, maybe they have resources that could be addressed to that that they might wanna think about. Or the reason the school district I think needs to be involved is the city has very generously provided a brand new school very generously have, I've never seen them vote down a school budget. And I'm questioning why are we building these big plants and things we need to provide some element of housing? Or if you're talking $175 million dollars, well, we need housing. University Medical Center has identified housing opportunities in South Burlington. Why can't the Burlington school district think in terms of building some housing in order to house the students' families that need that? I mean, I think there are just ideas that we could attach to big things that are happening here that would help the problem in Ward 8. And that's, you know, why can't landlord or why can't we rent from landlords for students? I mean, just, I don't get it a brainstorming here but I think that there's, it's a uniquely Ward 8 problem that we can probably come up with some ideas about with support. And so I asked Sarah to come to kind of talk about if I just met Sarah at a meeting about camping in parks. And so I guess I didn't know who you were and what you were doing, but could you describe the impact of the housing of the homeless population in Burlington from your standpoint? Sure, I'm happy to speak to that. I'll start off by saying that we, in terms of, so the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, I mentioned I was co-chair of that group, is comprised of stakeholders from the community, including some community members. And we always hope people with lived experience of homelessness, however, sometimes those folks are tough to connect with and we're working really hard on that. So the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance looks at data every month. We do not break that data down by town. So that's county level data. So what I can share with you from a county level perspective is that we have currently about 584 total households who are experiencing homelessness in Chittenden County, about 64 families of those 584. We see 191 chronic households, which would indicate that a chronic household would be a household that has been homeless for at minimum of 12 consecutive months. We have 42 youth who are homeless. And when we talk about youth in terms of this homeless data, those are transition age youth. So they are ages 18 to 24. That is an increased number of youth that we're seeing in that age range. Additionally, we have I think 34 veterans who are homeless. So that 584 is kind of we break down into those sub-populations that I just mentioned. We have 218 households that are in the transitional housing program in motels. There are no motels in Burlington. Those motels are in Williston, Shelburne, Colchester, for the most part, and in South Burlington. So those families that are in motel, or will households that are in motels are not in Chittenden County. We also have an additional 126 households that are in the adverse weather conditions program, or AWC. They entered that stay sometime after December 15th and were supposed to be exited March 15th. However, I don't know if you've been following this at all. I sort of breathe it lately, but there has been a budget adjustment that has gone through without governor's signature to extend the both the transitional housing program and the adverse weather motel programs through either May 31st or June 30th, depending on eligibility. So what I will say about Burlington specifically is that Burlington sees the highest number of unsheltered homeless. And so when we say unsheltered, we refer to people who are sleeping rough, camping tents, parking garages, a shelter sometimes, garages, storage units, vehicles. For the most part, we see the highest concentration of people sleeping in what we call places not meant for human habitation is the HUD definition. We see the highest concentration of those folks in Burlington. So I think that that's really what many of you are seeing. Bill, you mentioned the Memorial Auditorium. There were folks there. They were kind of moved out of there. They moved down the street to the YMCA. Sometimes there are tents around some of the parks, such as in their urban reserve, for example, down in the waterfront and some of the other parks, occasionally Callahan and not small, so recently, Peaslick has some campers who are occasionally there as well. So I think that when we think about homelessness in terms of the data is that there are far less people in Burlington who are homeless than there are in the rest of Tooting County. So what we see in Burlington is around 50 to 60 folks who are unsheltered within the city right now. Some of those could be in outlying areas. For example, there's some spots in Colchester and Winooski where folks are, there's tend to be more people in living in vehicles in Williston and in Essex, actually. So when we think about that kind of like 50ish, number, 50 to 60 number of people who are unsheltered, who are mostly in Burlington, it's kind of a smaller chunk than that 584 that we see across the whole county. Nevertheless, the folks who are unsheltered, I don't need to tell you are the most vulnerable and the folks that we should really be most concerned about because they don't have a safe place to kind of be. I would love to give some updates about where the city is at with some of our policies and upcoming work. I'd be happy to provide an update on the Elmwood emergency shelter that was opened about six weeks ago. And I can certainly speak to some of the really recent outreach that we've done with the school district. But before I move on, does anyone, I went over some of that really quickly. Does anyone have any questions about that data or those numbers that I just presented or the subpopulations or anything? Sarah, I have a quick question. Will you be able to email those data to us? So we have an idea in via email in a written form to look at. So I can do that for sure. I can also direct you to the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance website where we have current meeting minutes from the steering committee meetings and current data is posted on that website. And we do look at that data once a month at the steering committee meetings. All of the meetings are open to the public. So anyone is welcome to join. We meet the first Thursday of every month from nine to 11 at Contways. There's also a virtual option that's so far less than ideal, but you're welcome to join virtually as well. So I can certainly follow up with some slides on that data, but also just so you know, in the future, if you're curious about that, you could find that on that website as well. So I'd like to make the point that probably Ward 8 is the best ward in the state of Vermont at finding places to live, right? Every time that students turn over, there's scattering around looking for apartments. So that's something that I think is unique to Ward 8 is that there's available housing, but you have to kind of know about these things ahead of time. You have to be tapped into that, but students are very good at that, right? Now they may have six or seven people in an apartment for four, but that kind of housing, it sounds like you have resources and could certain properties be identified as not homeless shelters, but as transition housing for families with children who need a stable environment near the bus stop, near Edmond School, near city market? If we were able to find that kind of housing, is there support for it through your office? Support meaning? Pay the rent. Well, so the city of Burlington doesn't pay, doesn't provide housing subsidy. We do have- They just know all the hotel rooms, I'm sorry. Who pays for the hotel rooms? The state of Vermont. Okay, what about that funding? Would that be available in Burlington for families? The state of Vermont does have a new, they have a temporary rental assistance program for families. It's called the Homes Voucher Program. And that provides up to 12 months of rental assistance for families. So that is a voucher for a family to move into an apartment. I think that one of the challenges we see is that there is a huge lack of affordable housing. And one of the main challenges around affordable housing, especially in a college town, is that when you have, like you're saying, six or seven or eight college students living in a four bedroom home, that really would be suitable for a family is that their parents are co-signing on that lease and they're able to have really good credit. They're able to each pay $1,000 for each bedroom that their student is staying in a month, which raises the rent, right? So if you have six kids living in a four bedroom and the rent is $4,000 a month, working down by six individual families, they can pay for that. But looking at that same apartment at that same rent cost for a family that may be a single earner family, for example, that's completely out of reach. In order to use rental assistance, whether that has had rental assistance or rental assistance from the state, the rent for the apartment needs to fall within the fair market rate, which means that it needs to fall within a certain threshold and those are set every year by HUD. If those rents are too high, then you're unable to use a rental subsidy there. So this is an adult, but there is a house in Ward 8 that is owned by several people in the neighborhood that rent to an Afghan refugee family to the refugee resettlement program at sub-market rate. So to me, the issue is not how that's going to be paid for or what the rate is, but just the availability of a property that would be acceptable to housing standards for families with children. And so if we could identify that, could there be resource to maybe duplicate that effort which has been done with the refugee resettlement program, but we would have to have a consensus of how we're going to find that housing, right? Yeah, and a landlord who will be willing to accept those households for sure. So we have really tried the Chittin County Homeless Alliance has tried in the last year to expand our housing resources to private developers and private landlords. We have not had any success so far with private landlords. We have with two private housing developers, Summit Properties and Netty Properties and Development have entered into agreements with the Chittin County Homeless Alliance to accept up to a certain threshold of referrals for a couple of their new developments through coordinated entry, which is our system that allows access to housing resources. So there are some models around that, but we have not been able to formulate those same kinds of agreements with private landlords in part because it would require them to in many, many cases lower the rents on their apartments in order for a family to be eligible to have been there. So I have tried to inquire from the school board how many families with students in the Burlington there are that are homeless. And I'm sure that number is a very difficult number to get, but I don't remember what it is, but I think it's around anywhere from four to five families at any given time. So we're not talking about a lot of apartments. We're talking about a unique population, which is really different than the homeless encampment population that have mental health addiction problems. These are just families that maybe are related to some of these issues, but just need a place to stay so they can organize themselves with the support of possibly the community. And it doesn't have to necessarily, but who can write the check and where can we find the housing? I don't know if that's something that can happen in Ward 8, but I see that as a way that we can help address some of the issue, which is one of the biggest issues in Burlington. Well, it's also like currently the rental market in Burlington is working off of a June 1st rental period. And so I know we had to sign our lease in October, but we had to give verbal confirmation by August for the upcoming June. And I think that's what a majority of folks, not just students, but other residents and long-term renters in Burlington are working with too. Like it's the year before you're committing to living somewhere. And so with the vacancy rate being so low as well, there's just not apartments available, unfortunately to house folks that are experiencing houselessness. And so, and then until we get more housing, there just are not apartments to put people in. That's right. You have to know about what housing is becoming available and then you have to work and deal with a landlord. You have to have a consideration that yes, June 1st, but maybe that house should be rented by the year by the school district. And the school district isn't in the housing business, but they provide buses, they provide meals, they provide social services to students. Well, maybe a few students need some housing. So I see that as an extension in schools of them, but you're right, we have to hit the market at the same time, because you're competing against 8,000 college students. But I don't see it as something we can probably think about coming up with a plan. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a community housing model, right? Like that's an entity buying. Well, let's bring it to Ward 8. Yeah. Let's bring it down to the most local level we can do anything about. And maybe it's just one family, maybe it's two families, but at least I feel like we're doing something. Yeah. I have a question for Sarah again. How are the pots going? Are you involved in buying in any way or shape? And what can Ward 8 do with some similar effect if possible? Thanks for asking that, Romeo. I want to definitely talk about the Elmwood Community Shelter. Currently, there are 33 guests staying at the shelter. So we're at capacity. Our capacity is anywhere from 30 to 35. And we are at capacity with 32 guests on site. We had one guest actually within a few weeks of moving into the shelter community was able to secure permanent housing and has since transitioned out of the shelter. And we experienced our first turnover of a shelter unit this month, which was exciting. I knew it happened really quick. So that was great. So their CHT, as you know, is the operating partner and things are going really well. We've had some, you know, a couple of challenges here and there with, you know, behavior or whatever, but they've been remedied right on site by staff. They, you know, have not needed to engage law enforcement in any way and have been able to really manage any kind of behaviors or challenges or conflicts that have been right on site amongst staff. So we are looking for the first quarter of reporting ends on March 30th. And we are looking forward to seeing some outcomes to be able to report to the state by the end of April. We'll be submitting our first quarterly report. So things are going really well. We have a number of people on site who are engaged with a number of different kinds of recovery services that are, you know, coming to the community gathering space there, in addition to some people who have engaged with a contingency management program, which is a pilot program of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform. Their focus is on incentivizing fentanyl testing and education and prevention of overdose. And that's going really well, really well too. We had our first community meeting there. The just on the 13th, I think, and had a great turnout. We had about 40 people come. We certainly exceeded capacity on the community space, you know, with a number of people who came. One of the sort of, I guess, awarenesses that we gained from that was that we only had about two, we had four guests show up to that and only two of them were able to stay. So they felt quite overwhelmed by being in a small space with a huge number of people. And we realized that, you know, our takeaway from that was that we need to kind of rethink about that, you know, going forward for the next meeting, but overwhelmingly positive, you know, feedback from the neighborhood. There have not been issues in the neighborhood. I want to knock on like every piece of wood around because I, you know, I know, you know, or not, I'm certainly not naive in thinking that, you know, introducing 35 new people to any neighborhood is not going to have some kind of an impact there. But, you know, so far we have not experienced any significant challenges. So things are going well overall. Okay, I have another question if you don't mind. Just to follow up on what you just said. So the pods accommodates one person per pod or two people per pod? We have, there are 25 single occupancy shelter units and there are five double occupancy shelter units. So there are five units that two people, or I mean, I don't want to say a couple because they don't have to be like a couple, but two people who want to sleep. For example, we have a mom and her adult daughter who are staying in one shelter unit. So historically, I'll just throw out here that Ward 8 at one time had a combination with the Ethan Allen Club before the YMCA was built to have a wedge shelter there one winter. And it was wild. A lot of ambulances, it wasn't unusual to have people laying past that on the parking lot in the middle of February. And I think that they learned from that. But that was something that the Ward 8 neighborhood said, you know, they asked us about it. And we said, well, I think we're trying. So Ward 8 has a special compassion for these people because we see them on a regular basis. We're just looking to see, well, how can we help? And who can help us help them? Yeah. Linda, do you have anything you want to ask Sarah or? Anne has her hand up. Oh, Anne has her hand up. Sarah, I remember when the pod idea was first proposed and then developed, there were people living in a house adjacent to that site. I think it was McKenzie house. And they expressed some reservations about having the pods there. Have you engaged with any of those residents? Yeah, absolutely. And a number of them who incidentally were pretty vocal in their opposition and fears about this project. We had about, I think, five, four or five residents from McKenzie house join the community meeting and have been really engaged and positive. Great, thank you. Sure. Linda, did you add anything? Go ahead, Sarah. No. Sorry. I really support trying to do something. I feel like the problem is really big and I don't think a town can solve it. I'm glad that you're working, Sarah, with the county and their state programs. I mean, I don't know. I mean, maybe there's not enough charitable organizations. Maybe that was, there used to be more of that or, but it just seems like if I can put it this way, I'm not necessarily pointing only to this, but the distribution of income just gets worse and worse and opportunities and hope for the future. You know, it's really changed during my lifetime from when, say, I was in my 20s versus now. I'm not talking about recessions. I'm talking about something else. And I'm not saying a drop in the bucket doesn't matter because a drop in the bucket can matter to a family like Bill is saying, but this seems like a really huge national problem. You know, even if there's not enough housing, I mean, literally there's not enough housing, not just for homeless, you know, there's not enough housing for people otherwise, right? Who are homeless, right? That they have to pile up together or go be living with their families because they can't afford to live alone. So I don't know, could you just maybe address this issue in the larger context? Yeah, I can for sure, Linda. I think what you're, as I listen to you talk, I hear kind of in your voice where kind of what all of us feel, which is like this problem is overwhelming. And it feels like it's so big, you know? And I think that you're right. So there is a recent HUD report that came out. It was utilizing 2022 data. We won't have the 2023 data available until the next probably month or month and a half. But according to the 2022 data, Vermont has the second worst rate of homelessness, the second highest rate of homelessness per capita in the entire country, second only to California. So when we think about it in those terms, what you're feeling is absolutely validated and backed up by the data. I think that what we are doing is coming together as a whole county. And I know that there was a real focus, you know, or you wanted to have more of a focus tonight on schools and families. And I wanted to share with you that we have done some recent, very recent outreach. I've been working really closely actually with Mayor Christine Lott from Winooski. Winooski, I can tell you is seeing a tremendous challenge with both homeless families within their school district and families who are at risk of losing homelessness or housing insecure or housing unstable. We've referred to that. And in response to that, we've held a couple of round table meetings with the Winooski school district and some housing resource providers and housing providers. And we've decided to dedicate a good chunk of our April Chittenden County Homeless Alliance meeting to discussing with both Winooski school district and with Burlington school district, sort of what they're seeing with families. I think, I don't know if any of you happen to see the recent Burlington Free Press article that talked about a really innovative and I think amazing. So Bill, when you're talking about what the school district can do, maybe the school district can't rent apartments, but they're in the Champlain Valley School District, they have actually employed a full-time housing, or she's called a family assessment coordinator. And she's doing full-time housing case management with families within the Champlain Valley School District. She put together an assessment and her first, I think it covers her first 10 months or first 11 months in her position and found that she interacted with 90 families within the CVSD and found that 41 of those families that she interacted with were not connected to any other services in Chittenden County and were either homeless, doubled up, or housing insecure. That equated in CVSD, which is the largest school district in the state and in some cases, pretty affluent school district compared to others that roughly one in every 38 students within the school district is either homeless or housing insecure. And that's like incredible data that we have now. Her position has been proved to be so vital in their work. And I really see that as a model as a way that school districts can support families, they can dedicate a staff person, a social worker, to be able to focus specifically on these housing resources for families. We can't ask teachers or guidance counselors or mental health providers within the school district what they're managing in terms of post pandemic, emotional and mental health challenges with the students that they're seeing is like profound. I have three children and I know that the school is out straight, we can't ask them to know all of the housing resources and to be able to navigate these incredibly complex social service systems in addition to teaching our kids. And so when we think about what the school district can do, that's a really good example of how the school district is recognizing that there's a challenge. They don't know the full scope of it and resourcing a position to be able to measure the scope of it and to be able to respond to it. So in the time we have left, I'd like to hear from UBM, our school district member and our four east district, your thoughts on this particular issue. You want to tell us about UBM? Sure, I mean, I definitely don't think I can speak to the administration. I am a social worker major. I'm Ward 8, yeah, so I guess I have UBMs for understanding for that. Ward 8 is not a UBM. It's certainly not at all. Yeah, as a social worker major, actually one of my field placements potentially could be working in line with the Burlington Housing Authority. I know a lot of my peers are certainly concerned about the care for unhoused people in our community and our curriculum we constantly talk about, just as Sarah mentioned, basically the extremely challenging social services, like programs that we have in the state. I know also stuff like COVID is going to be really scary. Once I'm that extra funding, I believe that they put into like the Motel housing program sort of comes out, that's at the top of my mind, but... So if we pride a few rooms out at UBM with the students there to support families that might be living in those spaces. Where are those students going to live? It's really just all... There's no housing. There's just not housing and I don't really see the administration at UBM already doesn't necessarily meet students needs. I have a whole obligation as a member of the community to support those needs in the community. They absolutely do. They don't want to ask about that. What about the school board? The issues school board might take up or not? Yeah, they would take it up. The housing is not in our charter as such. We are really limited to the education and resources to provide that really accessible public education by law. But to go farther than that is just, it's not really possible. But to model what Sarah was talking about with the Hentai Valley School District, that would be possible. We probably are already doing it through our school-based social work staff. I can check and I'll come back and fill in on what we're currently doing. And then Sarah, I think I can come to the April meeting and become better versed about what the school, our school will be doing. And your wife will probably be there from Winooski or Jean, one or the other. Yeah, so Sarah, my wife Kate is the principal of the Winooski Middle and High School. So this is an issue that we hear about quite a bit. And I'm encouraged to hear that you guys are devoting so much time to the April meeting on this. And I wonder if this might be an opportunity for both the Burlington School District and the Winooski School District to work together. That's our hope is to bring both school districts together. And I've been talking to Victor, what is his last name, from the Burlington School District, he's the community engagement coordinator. And I will say that I do think that social workers are working hard. I know he's reached out to me a couple of times around families who are receiving like a notice to vacate and what does this mean and how do we help them and that kind of thing. But I also think kind of the beauty of the position at CVSD is she's completely mobile. So she's going to motels to meet with families. She's going to meet with them. None of the work is happening in the school. So she's going to exactly where families are. Their children may be at school during the day and she's going to meet with a parent. She sat on hold with a parent for 90 minutes trying to renew her motel voucher because the parent didn't have enough minutes left on her phone to sit on hold for 90 minutes. So yeah, so I think we're doing, we're really working to kind of bridge between Winooski and Bryanton School District also with the great learning that we've had from the CVSD position. So that's really great. So I appreciate the fact that you've let me take a very small splinter of a very large problem and try to focus on it to scale of what Ward 8 can do. We can't solve substance abuse. We can't solve jobs. We can't build more housing, but we can help maybe some families in temporary need if we have resource or could find resource in Ward 8 and housing is one that is nothing, Ward 8 is nothing, it's not a bunch of apartments. So that's kind of what I'm hoping and I appreciate everybody coming here to share on this. And I hope that we can get to know each other and maybe come up with some plans or ideas about how we can look for available resource in Ward 8 that might help a very small population but a very important population. So that's what I think we're up to for this meeting. Anybody want to have four more minutes? Charlie, you want to separate another one? Linda, Dick, Anne? Well, Sarah, since we have a minute left, can we ask you, you know, from your professional in this area, what do you think a neighborhood group like they have and potentially have in Ward 8, what would be the best use of their energies to help with this problem? Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, I think that largely social service agencies are flat out, so they're experiencing huge staffing challenges, you know, and being able to fill positions and they're pretty under resourced. I know that donations can certainly be made to those nonprofits, including the United Way. They do a lot of work with those nonprofits and, you know, I'm also on their board, so I should say that as a disclaimer. But, you know, it's a great way to be able to invest in the work that's happening, you know, at these nonprofit organizations. I mean, the other thing is to reach out to landlords that you know and encourage them to be in touch with the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance and talk to them about some of these challenges. There are some great new incentives for landlords. For example, there's the Vermont Home Improvement Program through the state, which provides up to $50,000 per unit to get a unit to make necessary rehab to that unit to get it up to housing code as long. And the only thing they have to do, agree to is to, once the unit is fully rehabbed, is to rent to a household that is exiting homelessness. So we also have a new program called the Landlord Relief Program, which provides in some cases up to $10,000 to landlords in terms of excess security deposit, if there are, you know, damages to an apartment or that the security deposit doesn't cover if they are renting to someone who receives HUD rental assistance or Section 8 or if they're renting to a previously homeless household as well. So, I mean, I think we're trying to incentivize private landlords and the more that you all could talk about that and share about that, that would be great. And the last thing I would say is something that I don't know a whole ton about, but certainly you could find out more from CEDO is around adding accessory dwelling units, so ADUs. If you are a, you know, homeowner and have a space for an ADU, there are some really great financial support through the city to be able to, to be able to become a landlord in some cases. So that, what I would say is probably the most, hi, Marcella. Yeah, for a second, but I would say that what's important are the relationships that each of us have with each other to know what's going on. And I think that that probably proceeds that we have to have a non-profit in order to handle the money. I think it's about who we know and the trust we have amongst ourselves that we can make it do something that we don't have to depend on the organization to do. So, just coming to the NPA budget, you can make a donation. And Linda, can you remind me, we don't have to say what that money is going to be spent tonight. We have another shot at saving our money. Right. I think, I think we probably have to spend it by the end of the fiscal year, which probably was June 30th. Kamie, do you have some ideas so that can be knocked around? Right, as far as publicizing the meeting and getting more involved. So. Kamie, what was your idea that you said? Well, I don't know if you could use it to make a contribution. One of the papers, the parking floater. Yeah, definitely. If it promotes the NPA, you can, if you can find a way to connect it to expanding participation in the NPA, maybe you could. It drives to the meeting, so it needs a parking vehicle. All right, any last words? If not, we'll close. Thank you very much. Sarah, thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Thanks for having me, everyone. Thanks, Sam and Charlie. Okay, thanks for coming. Yeah, thanks, Linda. Thank you.