 Hello and welcome to Live at 525 with Vermont Interfaith Action. My name is Debbie Ingram and I'm the Executive Director of VIA. And we are a group of over 70 member and affiliated congregations throughout the state of many different faiths who come together to use a community organizing methodology to try to affect systemic change on issues of social justice. So our topic for today is we're calling it mass evictions, which maybe sounds a little bit scary, but it should because this is something unusual and really kind of terrible we think that's happening in Vermont. So my guest for today is one of our very active and very knowledgeable volunteers. Amy would you like to introduce yourself? Hi everybody, my name is Amy Roth. I'm a member of the VIA Committee on Affordable Housing and Homelessness. I'm also a member of Temple Sinai and the Social Action Committee at Temple Sinai. I live in South Burlington. Great, thanks for being with me today Amy and we're going to have an interesting conversation I think and hopefully share some information with folks and also help them to understand how they might get involved if they are so moved from what they hear from us. Right. So, so just to kind of give folks background, first of all, I wanted to say that during the pandemic here in Vermont, we provided the state provided temporary shelter for unhoused individuals and families. Now that of course we've been doing that even before the pandemic, but we actually expanded the eligibility because we got additional federal funds and we were able to house even more precariously housed people than we knew existed really in Vermont. We discovered through the pandemic that there were more people. So for almost three years now, we have temporarily housed around 4,000 Vermonters and most of this has been done in motels and hotels throughout the state. But we've had the opportunity to talk to people who've lived in these motels and people who've run programs all over the state. And Amy, can you tell us a little bit about what we've heard about what these motels have been like? Sure. So the motel program has been, I mean it just expanded dramatically. It's cost about six to seven million dollars per month. It's been run by the Department for Children and Families, although not in a very coordinated fashion because it was all with these emergency dollars and under emergency conditions around COVID. So there really hasn't been very good oversight. There's been a real mix of living conditions for individuals in these motels and a lot of issues. It certainly has kept a roof over many people's heads who otherwise would not have had that. But it has not been ideal, clearly. Yes. Yeah. We have mixed reports, right? Now who was eligible during the pandemic? They expanded eligibility, right? Yes. They expanded eligibility. So it was a much broader swath of individuals than were typically found eligible to access emergency housing in Vermont. So some of the criteria include individuals who are victims of domestic violence, families with children under the age of 18. That was expanded. Typically it was just families with very young children. Individuals who have significant mental health challenges, people with disabilities and health problems, people who are age 60 and older. You must have an income at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. So it's not every single person who has housing concerns and difficult housing conditions, but it certainly expanded. Oh, persons who are pregnant too and people who are victims of natural disasters. Okay. Right. Okay, great. That's why the numbers went up to about 4,000 people, right? Because the eligibility was expanded. Right. But yeah, we've heard some other things too about the program, right? Would you say that it has been stable and reliable the way it's been administered by the state for these people? No, because there's just been insufficient staffing resources to provide the kind of oversight, to provide case management for individuals, to help people with their planning, for transitioning to more stable circumstances. We've heard some horror stories about some places where owners of the hotels and motels really were taking advantage of folks and charging the state exorbitant prices. So it's been, and plus, of course it was going to be, the administration was going to cut it off a few different times at different junctures during the pandemic. And then it would get, so people would be obviously quite anxious about what was going to happen with them. And then it would be reinstated because there would be an uproar. So it has, again, it's been a roof over folks' heads. Some people have certainly been able to make the best of their circumstances and try to find employment or try to set themselves up. But it's been very uneven. Yeah, and that's where VA has come in, you mentioned that several times the state has said that we're running out of money and we're going to have to send people out of the program. And folks in our congregations have been really upset about that and it is very traumatizing, of course, to people if any of us put ourselves in that position. If you heard all of a sudden, you're not going to be able to live where you're living, you've only got maybe three weeks left or even a couple of months. So you start kind of frantically looking for a new situation. And then there's a big uproar, though, from folks like VA. And then the government goes, oh, gosh, okay, well, we can find a little bit more money, so you can stay longer and then you relax, right? So people have gone on this roller coaster ride up and down over these last three years, right? Yeah, yeah. And it would be traumatizing for anybody, I think. And I think we have to think about also just the broadness of this population because we're not just talking about individuals who are chronically experienced, you know, not having a home, but we're also talking about individuals who, you know, something through their circumstances over the edge during the time of COVID and pandemic. And so they were, you know, suddenly experiencing homelessness. And that happened for a good number of people, you know, who lost their jobs because we know that so many of our folks in our communities are just one or two paychecks away from not being able to pay their rent or their mortgage. Absolutely, yes, yeah. So during that time when the state kept changing its mind, right, we had a couple of different press conferences to try to shine light on that. And one of the things we kept asking for was a comprehensive plan, right, to use this time when we did know that we had federal funds coming in to think ahead and say, you know, what's going to happen when the money runs out, which we all knew that would eventually, right? And we, you know, we met with various players in the government. We never were able to get a meeting with the Secretary of the Agency of Human Services, who's kind of really the highest ranking official of the governor himself in charge of this. Although I will say that we did find out today that we do have a meeting with her, so we're glad for that. So we'll talk with her. But we also did things like, you know, some of our allies, we supported work that they did, like Brenda Siegel and Josh Leesonby did a camp out in the state house to draw attention, right? So we've been, you know, anyway, we've been in this, we've been in this for a while, right? So what's the, you know, sometimes you'll hear actually from the legislature and the governor that they've been doing all kinds of great things around affordable housing in the state. What are they, what are they referring to when they say that? Well, there's, there, because of, you know, this is perceived as a crisis. And I think there have been a lot of legislators who have perceived it as a crisis. And I think there are folks within the administration, within the governor's administration who recognize, you know, the dire circumstances. But and so there has been more money allocated in this upcoming budget for the next fiscal year, I think close to $300 million, which is a considerable amount. But most of it is targeted to creating more long term housing, so permanent buildings. And that means actual construction or the rehab of older buildings, you know, existing buildings in order to create units for people, affordable housing for people. And that's really excellent. Excuse me. But of course, that doesn't just materialize overnight. It can take, you know, months, if not years to get all of that in place. So that's very problematic because this motel program that's been funded with these additional federal dollars is coming to an end. And what is going to happen to all of these folks in the meantime in the interim, they're just not going to have any place to be. And that puts them in grave jeopardy. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. Because we are, again, we're grateful that, you know, we did some advocacy work with the legislature and the governor to try to make sure that they're that they did use a lot of the federal money coming into the state for the construction and the rehab of affordable housing, permanent housing, as you say. But yeah, here we are in a position where can't can't just snap your fingers and say it's going to happen overnight. And so what we're asking for really at this juncture is is a stopgap measure. We're not, you know, we're not asking to, you know, for the next 30 years, you know, house 4000 Vermonters who were precariously housed, we're we're asking for until the these new units of construction can come online, just not to send these folks out into the street in for a temporary period of time. Right. Yeah. So so what so this is the juncture that we're in now, right? So the the administration intends to return the emergency housing program to pre pandemic eligibility. So this means that people have to be certified. It's a lengthy process for their disabilities, whereas it was a little bit easier for them to qualify with chronic illnesses before. And then children only children six and under can qualify instead of children 18 and under. So we're looking at, you know, nine and 10 year old children out on, you know, out with their parents couch surfing or in their cars or who knows where. Right. And so this is where we are with the FY 24 budget. Now the motels, you know, none of us are going to praise the motel program and you've already pointed out, you know, some of the problems with it. But they really, the motel owners, some of them have been charging what we would consider to be exorbitant rates. I mean, what they would get, you know, market rates really for, you know, for tourists coming into Vermont. And the the administration doesn't seem to have done anything to negotiate lower prices. So that's been that's been a source of consternation for quite a while. But so now what we're told, though, is that with the new eligibility rules and the lack of money to pay these exorbitant rates, what's going to happen is 1000 households will lose their eligibility at the end of May at the end of this month. And then another 800 households will lose it at the end of June for a total of so that's about 2500 people, 1800 households, 2500 people, including children for the state of the state of Vermont. That's a huge number of people. That's a town, you know, that's a town in Vermont. So just people to sort of conceptualize, you know, what what that means to destabilize. And we're talking about individuals and families with, you know, a whole range, you know, of kids and people with a broad scope of needs. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So what, you know, what what do we expect to happen to our our communities, our towns and cities when this starts happening? Well, there's a we already know there's deep concern being voiced by by many towns and communities. And there have been if folks have been, you know, kind of watching the news or, you know, reading articles in their local papers. There have been, you know, town council meetings. There have been, you know, sort of community partners coming together to talk about this, because they're very fearful and they're very concerned about the everybody's well being. There's, you know, police departments are very concerned, the, you know, all of the agencies and entity that entities that provide services to people with disabilities and people with mental health challenges, you know, are deeply concerned, because this is going to be so destabilizing for hundreds and hundreds of people. And of course, you know, churches and synagogues in, in, you know, areas of the state wind up, you know, kind of picking up the slack. And they're already, you know, we know of some congregations that are already like housing people in different parts of the state, and they are not going to have expanded capacity to do that. So this will put a strain on, you know, on many, on the service sector and on police forces, on the emergency rooms potentially and all of the hospitals or any kind of emergency services. So it's, it really truly is, you know, a local, statewide and a local crisis. This is very real. That's right. Yes. Yeah. I mean, we've been using the term crisis. And some people may think that's overstating it, but, but it really is not. It is not. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, we've been following very closely the process in the legislative session, right? So, you know, we're not going to go into too much detail for the folks at home. I mean, I'll be seeing how all the sausage is made, right? But, but we do want to share a little bit about what kind of the back and forth and what, you know, what the different proposals have been to help people understand, you know, where we are now. So the, actually, the house did have in the original budget that they were working on additional funds for the emergency housing program. And, you know, the governor's budget did not have that though. And, you know, the in conversations with the Senate, they the House had to had to kind of back off because they took the stance that, you know, this kind of one time federal money should not be used for ongoing, ongoing programs, which, you know, I mean, I guess there's some logic to that. And we want our lawmakers to be fiscally responsible. But, but we have to set priorities about, you know, what, what do we want to spend our money on, right? And so sending people, especially families with children out and just expecting them to kind of figure it out themselves is no is really not not humane or moral, you know, in our opinion, right, as people of faith. So, so way what happened then was the budget got passed by both chambers. And because the the version of the budget was slightly different, the way our system works. They have a conference committee. And that's made up of three people from the House, three people from the Senate, they get together. So they, you know, we follow that we were you can good thing about the pandemic too, is that now everything's recorded. That's right. You can watch everything you can sit all day and stare at your TV and watch the legislative committees, your your computer screen, your phone, that's right. You can. You can. Hopefully you don't do that. But yet, but we did some of that. Right. And we were watching what what the discussions were. And so that there was a presentation from the House about adding 12 and a half million dollars to the budget. Now, unfortunately, though, that that money is well, it's woefully inadequate. Yeah. But also, it was geared more towards like staff, like human services, staff and mental health and substance use disorder staff, all which is good. But it was to try to kind of provide support and guidance to people to try to figure out how they're going to find their own housing. Right. And the governor has said repeatedly that, you know, when we've, you know, actually said, there's no plan, the only plan is to kick people out. The governor and his his administration have said, Oh, the plan is to is to help people. We're, you know, we're meeting, we have staff to sit down with every single person and provide them assistance. So, you know, yeah, what what what's your personal reaction to provide them assistance, but not provide them with an actual place to go. So, I, you know, I think the very frustrating thing, you know, for me, and I think for a lot of folks is that, you know, we have had, we have been in this pandemic mode for three years now. Now, of course, you know, the first eight months or so we were, you know, in total crisis mode, and there was very little coordination. But we've had a long time for, you know, for the administration to do some work to really, you know, think about this problem in a more thoughtful, long term coordinated way and to put some staff in place, you know, at the at the state level to really, you know, create a coordinated response to think about this, you know, and have people dedicated to that work. And that has not happened, or it's been, again, woefully inadequate. So it's been left to all of those local agencies to kind of scramble and try to figure things out on their own, which I think we have to give them some credit for doing the best that they can to try to help people and to provide that kind of case management and then that kind of support. But again, it's not it's not actual space. You know, so at this point, you know, I think the these House members are, you know, are trying to, you know, are trying to have more conversation about what to do and what might be their response to now that the actual budget for Fiscal Year 24 has passed both the House and the Senate, and it's been sent to the governor's desk. The governor has said that he wants to veto the budget, not specifically to do with the dollars in there for housing, but just it is historically very large budget with a lot of, you know, a lot of dollars for a lot of very worthy things that need to be addressed in our state, you know, housing being being one of them, affordable housing, childcare, the, you know, energy crisis, you know, there are so many concerns that we've been facing and that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. So the budget has a lot of worthy things in it. But it is letting slide the needs of these, you know, potentially 2000 or more individuals who are going to be struggling, which we just don't see as a moral thing or a ethical response for from, you know, from our state leaders, from leadership. Absolutely. Yes. Well said. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of great things in, you know, in the budget. But again, it's a matter of, you know, making of priorities and of addressing emergencies and crises, rather than sort of adding new programs. So and again, I want to stress that we're what we're asking for would be temporary. It's not short term interim short term right stopgap measure until some of this new housing can be built. So, you know, and another thing that's been kind of disturbing is some of the response has been, Oh, well, there's actually in I never thought I would live to see this in legislation, but there's actually in the bill, talking about money for handing out tents and camping equipment to people, you know, so this is what this is what we've come to, you know, and, you know, and I guess people can do that in the summer and maybe even into the fall. But when we get into Vermont winter, you know, gonna want to camp outside. Well, we're talking about meeting people's basic needs. I mean, just, you know, humanely in our, you know, in our current society, such as it is, you know, is that going to meet the needs of, you know, of individuals who are struggling or of a family who is trying to figure out, you know, how to feed and house and educate their, you know, their children, you know, and take care of themselves, identify jobs, transportation, address mental health needs, address their, you know, their medical needs, giving them a tent, really. Yes. Exactly. Yeah, it's just, yeah, it seems seems like we can do better. It seems like we can do better. Can do better. Yeah. Yeah. So we like the help of folks at home, right? We have we have volunteers who've been in touch with a lot of our legislators and we've, we did a campaign where we had people from our congregations calling the governor's office for a solid week. But but we need people to jump in to do that kind of thing now, right? So yes, we do. So I think our friends here at the station can put on screen the if you go to the legislative website, you can look up your your own legislator. They like to hear if they respond more to their direct constituents. So you know, so please go to legislature.vermont.gov and find their email address and email them or try to call them. And then also calling the governor's office. That that number is now on your screen 828-3333. And sometimes you get a live person and sometimes you get a machine, but you can also express your dismay at the way our unhoused neighbors are being treated. Vermont is being treated. And you can make a really simple statement. You don't have to have all the details or all the numbers. You can just express your deep concern and frustration about the way, you know, Vermont is treating these individuals and families at this at this point in time. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean it is if you're a political wonk, it is kind of an interesting point where we are now because as you said, the the budget has passed both both chambers. So it's gone to the governor. The governor has said previously that he is going to veto it for other reasons because there are other things that he doesn't like. So that means that then there will be an override session. They call it the legislature's already scheduled that for the end of June. It's June 20th through the 22nd. And that means that people who would ordinarily, you know, we've talked a lot about how we the Democrats and the progressives together have super majorities in both both chambers, which means that they have enough votes theoretically if everyone votes the same way. They have enough votes to override the governor any veto of anything if they all hang together. But I know we've talked to a lot of legislators personally now and been in contact with them. And many of them are really feeling caught between, you know, rocking a hard place. They're they're trying to decide what they can do. And I know that they're having conversations kind of behind the scenes. And many of them are trying to come up with new ideas, fresh ideas about how to handle this. But because if they did sustain the governor's veto, you know, not override it, then, you know, we'd be back at the governor's, as I understand it, at the governor's original budget proposals, which means that some of the things, the programs that the Democrats and progressives really wanted to see happen would be in jeopardy. So they're really trying to weigh, you know, what what can be done. You know, only nine, the budget only got 90 votes in the original vote just last week in the House, which is not it. They need 101 to override a veto. So obviously they're a little short of that. So it's, anyway, it's going to be an interesting time. If you if you like to follow this kind of thing in politics, it's interesting from that point of view. But of course, if you're a person who's about to be kicked out on the street and who's losing their housing, it's not it's not a it's it's not a game. It's not something to a spectator sport. It's something that really affects you deeply and personally. Personally. Yeah. So we're we'll keep watching this to see what happens. And I don't think we can project because we really don't know exactly how this all is going to play out. But we encourage folks, you know, at home. Also, if this if this topic engages you and you're as concerned as many of us are, that you will follow it as well, you know, and hopefully also follow up with calls to the governor and to your legislators. That's right. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And we are hoping that, you know, long term that I think everybody in Vermont now agrees we have a big problem with affordable housing, not only for people at the lowest income levels, but on up into our middle income levels. It's affecting attracting people to the state to work in jobs that we need for them to do. It's it's having all kinds of, you know, impacts on our state. And so we are, you know, we're glad that long term more units of housing are coming up. But, you know, we alluded to this earlier. We do hope that, you know, this will kind of shake our lawmakers up in the executive branch and the legislative branch to say maybe we need to kind of rethink some of the structure about how we make these decisions, too, because, you know, right now some of it's in the agency of human services, some of it's in the agency of community development, you know, some of it's with under the auspices of the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. So it's all over the place. It's right out. Yeah, and we and we hope that there will be some, you know, some examination of how decisions are made also. So at any rate, we, you know, we hope folks at home have found this informative and interesting. It's certainly, you know, kind of up-to-date information. And I thank you, Amy, so much for for being here and so that we could have this discussion and share what we know. Yeah, thanks, Debbie. Yeah, and yeah, please do make those calls. This is the governor's office. The number again and check that website out to contact your legislators as well. This is a very important time in the life of a lot of Vermonters. So thanks very much for tuning in. We really appreciate it and check out Vermont Interfaith Actions website also if we work on other issues as well. If you'd like to get more involved in our work, vivt.org. And we're always happy to have, you don't have to belong to a congregation to join with us to try to make systemic change on issues of social justice. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.