 Good morning, it's Thursday, May 6th and we are here this morning on some housing issues. The first half of the morning we'll be taking up talking to the folks of this urgency housing recovery working group and the letter and our this letter is posted online on today's it's under Josh Hanford's name. And I just wanted to do our continuing our due diligence on how we how we can hear about how this money is being spent that we are receiving from the federal government. And I know that we have had you all in the committee throughout the session. And we're just interested to hear what this letter contains why it contains what it contains and what the next steps through the through our budgeting process over the next couple of weeks is going to look like with respect to how this money is discussed and managed. So with that, I'd just like to again welcome you all and pass the microphone first to Josh Hanford. Welcome Commissioner. Well, thank you. Thank you and good morning. Thanks for having us in for the record Josh Hanford commissioner housing community development. And you were talking about housing 101 housing 101 right now is we need more units. Period. A whole bunch of different types and price points. And the time to do it is now with the ARPA funds housing has been one of the areas most impacted by covid and our opinion. You know, we have folks that are homeless living in temporary unsustainable and affordable situations and we need to build more units for them to live permanently and much safer places. We also need to address the rising cost of housing across a number of our, you know, demographics and needs in particular, you know, sort of entry home ownership is really disappeared at this point with our costs rising. You know, folks have moved to Vermont relative safety during this pandemic and that's had an impact on our housing stock. We know from our housing needs assessments and looking at actual unit production over the last four decades that really, you know, in the 80s was the last time that it looked like we were meeting our needs of building housing stock compared to what we need. And it's gotten worse over the decades and so the, you know, the governor's ARPA proposal for housing investment was large, you know, pretty much right up there with broadband in the $249 million proposed. And in the first fiscal year, it was the largest allocation of all of the ARPA buckets $129 million and that was based on the acute housing needs right now that, you know, 102 million of that was dedicated towards providing rapid housing to address the homeless situation we have and move people from the hotels and hotels into stable housing rapidly. And the rest was some more mixed income development and to start a program with a modest $2 million ask in the first year to start a program, a home builder program to address that missing middle home ownership development in year one. This working group was established in the House of Appropriation Language to get that the players involved in housing the funders, if you will, together and the language, you know, asked us to look at the funding available and make recommendations for its use in particularly the ARPA funding and the Housing Recovery Work Group consisted of Department of Housing Development, Department of Children and Families, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, Vermont Housing Finance Agency and Vermont City Housing Authority. So we met several times. The reality is we were already meeting and talking, but this sort of formalized things and you can see from our letter that, you know, we talked about that the tremendous resources already dedicated towards housing as the budget process moved and the governors, you know, one time at the time historic support for housing when the budget was first introduced in January, you know, an additional 20 million to VHCB, an additional one time three million to do VHIP, but that just, you know, pales in comparison to what we're asking for now and a lot's changed since that time. And, you know, the letter points out appreciative of the House approach increase and then the Senate appropriations increase, but those numbers aren't enough. And they, in our opinion, also don't fully utilize the ARPA funds available to address this critical need of housing right now. And so I think we're suggesting there's a lot more available housing funding on the table that should be put towards housing now. Any delay is going to exacerbate the problem further. We know that housing has been severely impacted and is eligible for ARPA funds. And so waiting even another six, eight months to signal that to the development community that that this money we're holding back is not going to help us at this point. We're sort of an erase to build an erase to get ahead of the lack of labor to build this housing and to coordinate our large contractors and construction companies to, you know, stay here in Vermont and build the housing that we need here rather than, you know, move to other big projects. This is going to be, you know, sort of a race to infrastructure builds and I'm putting housing in the infrastructure bucket. It is infrastructure. And we have a plan here that coordinates housing development, other infrastructure, water sewer and broadband and climate change initiatives all at once at the same time. And the other piece and I won't take up, you know, all the other folks that have joined joined us here to talk about their elements. But one of the points we tried to reference in some of the sort of check marks there is we've had unprecedented dollars available for rental assistance, support and stability assistance throughout this pandemic and it's and it continues to be available. But what's been missing from all these federal bills is actual capital dollars to build the housing to put this to best use and to help people in our communities long term by building the housing we need. And that is so apparent when, you know, we put together a funding chart of all the available funds to date plus proposals and the big gap is capital with and that's what this ARPA proposal for housing is all about. But it's purposely not about additional support services and rental assistance because those dollars are already available. And I think what you'll hear from some of our other funders. And I know Vermont Housing Authority couldn't be here today, but they sent an email or a letter talking about all the vouchers they have sitting on the table that they can't use because no one can find an apartment. You know, I was on the refugee resettlement program housing work group yesterday for a long meeting. You know, the governor's, you know, asked for more refugee allocation to Vermont. We want to serve that community, but they are so struggling finding a place to move people are our housing stock is just not there. You know, they need larger units. And so this building of housing at all these different income levels and strategies, we think is the right solution right now. And it needs to make it over the finish line before the end of the year. So hopefully, you know, I hit on the high level elements that you were looking for in just one last piece. You know, it housing really doesn't work. It's it's unless it's holistically, you can't work on one element of housing and think you've solved, you know, that demographic without affecting every other sort of housing need, you know, folks that can move into a starter home are opening up rental properties that folks maybe that were in subsidized apartments are now moving into unsubsidized but quality rental and it's a whole cycle of housing and Vermont has been missing a very big piece of that, which is that moderate naturally occurring starter home builds in the state for a long time. And we have no programs to sort of incentivize and work on the supply side of that. And so that's new in here. You know, and there's a large element of this, obviously, that is dedicated toward the acute housing needs of the folks that are homeless at this point as this sort of emergency element and what's been dedicated so far. Forty million of general fund is not not enough to address that need. And so this work group letter basically asked for larger infusion of ARPA dollars to build housing. So I will stop there and either take questions or pass it on to whoever you'd like, chair. Yeah, I've just got we have a question from represent from a couple of people, but just very broadly. And I think this is a question for everybody who's in who's reporting on this letter. First of all, I cannot I cannot understate the the disconnect that's in my head when I hear about how much money we have to spend on housing and how quickly we have to spend it after, you know, being under capitalized for other reasons. But that due to this this pandemic and that these funds are available that that that we're seeking ways to spend this money correctly and and and worthily. And I appreciate all the work that's that's going into it, Josh. And again, for everybody, one of the things that I want to make sure and not necessarily for today only, but just in general, what I'm not hearing is what it's going to take. I mean, we've referred to this as a moonshot in the letter. And that's kind of what we're talking about. But housing has to be built on land. And we, the affordable housing world has been largely reactive over the years, right? It's it's like, Oh, look, there's a fire downtown, we can rebuild low. Look, there's a flood downtown, we can rebuild. And it's using land kind of in a reactive way. I'm just thinking, are we? I hope we're including the need that we're being proactive here, which means we're entering a market that will potentially, you know, make I mean, we know that land is competitive, and it's going to affect the price of everything. And it's just this is just a long way of saying a lot of this. Are we accounting for the fact that land purchases may be going up and that people are going to, you know, not sell or be drive a hard bargain? Or, you know, is that been built in the timeframe at all? You know, so what I would say, I would, I would not agree 100% with what you said, Chair Stevens, there are housing projects that have been very proactive and planned for years. They just take 10 years to develop the funding. I mean, I can think of several that I went on site visits five years ago, under a different governor as Deputy Commissioner, and they still haven't made it to the funding even rounds yet, because there's so much of a pipeline. And I think this letter points out that there's 30 projects that we already know of, that if we had this funding, we could get underway all across the state. And that's not even putting a message out and saying, bring us your other projects we don't know about, there's already 30 we know about. So, you know, I don't think it's just just reactive. It's, it's looking ahead to the opportunities. And, you know, I think you're right about the added expense, you know, I've heard it described as the four or five L's, you know, labor, land, you know, lumber, you know, just as representative of the cost drivers these days. But, you know, some of these projects have opportunities that, you know, land has been donated, or there's been other ways to acquire this property. And that in and of itself doesn't bring down the cost to make these, you know, all of a sudden, a lot cheaper. We know that costs are going up. I've talked to dozens of different developers since the governor's plan has been announced talking about their planned projects. Or I should say things that are already underway and they've seen the costs go up $50,000 per unit just in the last nine months. And there's no expectation that those costs are coming down anytime soon. In fact, just the opposite. So without a big infusion of dollars, the housing bills are going to go down and the problem is going to be worse. So I don't think the choices are anything other than that. We have to invest more to stay ahead of worsening this problem. And so yeah, there are lots of planning that goes into many of these projects and a signal that there's more support to build housing that is not just shovel ready, but shovel worthy. You know, we talk about that. These projects all have to go through the same sort of review and scrutiny and, you know, permitting that they always do. So, you know, it's public funds that will be that oversight to ensure that these are worthy projects to be funded in the end. So. Oh, that's great. Thanks. And I don't I didn't need to diminish that by by saying reactive. It just. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. So representative Kalaki. Thank you chair and Josh and Sarah and the team. Thank you so much for all the work you're doing. And you know, it is 249 million dollar plan that you put together. I think there's amazing components to it. I'm unclear right now. In your letter, are you talking about adding to the 70 million dollar ask that you have for the things in the existing pipeline? I'm a little unclear about what your ask literally is in each of your mitigating homelessness. There's about 102 million dollars in your plan. There was the 90 million dollars and so your letters. I just have to be kind of lying specific about what you're actually asking for so that we can work with just up there from our housing perspective. I mean, I'll put it in, you know, really basic turns, at least from the governor's office. So far there's only 17 million dollars of ARPA money put towards housing. The governor out in fiscal year 22 recommendation. The governor asked for 129 million. That's a pretty big difference. You know, you if you look at 40 million of general funds that was put towards VHCB and deduct that and say, well, that's getting closer. There's still a big gap in the governor's proposal in the legislation that was presented in year one. There's 102 million dedicated to VHCB. You know, we're only at 40 right now. So I think the letter, you know, you know, basically is saying the housing investments that the governor proposed is what we think is needed to actually solve the problem. And you know, policy choices around where this money goes. What are the highest and best uses of it? What we're saying is housing is the highest and best uses of it. It's clearly eligible for ARPA money and it should receive a higher priority of ARPA investment. And you know, you could go line by line. You could go however you want to look at it. But the amount of support of ARPA money for housing is very different as the budget stands right now compared to what the governor proposed. My last question. Do you have a grid of what the governor proposed and what's currently been appropriated in the legislature for each for the 249 million? Yes. I mean, probably the best way is to look at what was submitted to chair Cooper by finance and management. It has a very specific line of every area. But if you focus on the housing, it's really only a couple lines. It shows the difference between what's been proposed so far and the recommendations of where ARPA housing dollars should be filled in compared to what's available. And so at least from my perspective, I would point to that as being the, you know, line by line specific asked to sort of correct the investment in housing that we think is needed to address the very real problems and challenges ahead. Okay. Thank you. Representative Trinna. Thank you, Chair Stevens. As always, thanks, Josh, for coming in and giving a great presentation. But so my question is we're seeing more restrictions or eligibility requirements on the new rental arrears program. So my question is can we, do we, are we able to direct or appropriate ARPA funds to capital investments at this point? Is that within the guidelines that we're seeing? So the emergency rental assistance program, there's ARPA 1 and ARPA 2. ARPA 2 is funded out of, not, I'm sorry, ERAP. ERAP 1 and ERAP 2. ERAP 1 is what is being deployed right now. And there's, and that was in the December recovery bill. There's no questions. It's been a challenge. It's been slow. It's not as nimble as what we stood up with the CRF money. There's been challenges nationwide. Tons of them. We're doing better than I would say what you're seeing across the nation. Vermont State Housing Authority has already approved 1,216 applications despite all the challenges. Over six and a half million dollars has been approved and is out the door this week. And that's in a soft launch. If you'll notice there's been no marketing or advertising of this program yet. Because the vendors have had challenges, there's been issues. We should see by the end of this week that sort of changing. They're feeling comfortable enough that the web portals and all that aren't going to crash and be problematic. They've worked out the bugs. So you should see more, but you should know that that amount we've spent is more than huge states like California and New York. We've already beaten what they've been able to do with this money. The next round of that emergency rental assistance that was funded in ARPA is they haven't released all the rules yet. We have to submit an application May 10th to just be eligible for the funds which the agency of administration is doing. They're on top of it. But the ARPA flexible state recovery dollars are read of the limited guidance so far. And it's true. All the guidance isn't out, but that there's no one that can argue with a straight face that the pandemic hasn't affected housing. It has affected housing very clearly. And so we're very confident that when that full guidance comes out, housing construction capital to address the need will be in allowable use. That's great to hear. That was my primary question. Thanks, Josh. All right. Tommy and then Barbara, and then I want to move on to Sarah Phillips from the Office of Economic Opportunity. Tommy. Thank you, Chair Stevens. Representative Collack, he's still part of my thunder, but I'm going to build on that. Housing funding is bewildering in normal times and with this manner of dropping from heaven, this time I think I find it even more bewildering. And so I'm wondering if if it exists or if it doesn't exist, does somebody create a flowchart for us of which includes the asks and which includes our regular funding and what might be what is available through ARPA and where is going to go? What kind of program? Because it's so hard to track how much money there really is available and where it's going. I find that, like I said, in normal times bewildering and it's even worse now. Is there such a document or if not, is there somebody who could create that for us? I think we have created that and we've certainly shared it with leadership in the legislature, the appropriations committees, committees I believe this committee and senate, it's a massive spreadsheet that shows all of the new money that we've already put to work and all the proposed money sort of related to this pandemic and all the eligible uses and it's massive and we can share it again. What it doesn't take into account is sort of the regular ongoing commitments to housing that we see in every regular year. There's a housing investment report that DHCD does each year and we submit to the legislature, it's on our website that does that. It sort of shows all the capital dollars for affordable housing development as well as service and rental assistance dollars from AHS and HUD and everyone else every year and you can look back and see multiple years of if the money's going up or going down, I often feel it's under reference document by policymakers to look at what really is available as housing funding from the state and federal government. I can send that to the committee and then between those two is the entire picture which is very large and will take some time to digest for sure. Thank you and I appreciate that even if it's a massive spreadsheet that would be helpful but there isn't a simplified flow chart kind of thing that might be really easy to say oh it goes from here to here to here because part of the problem it goes from into an agency and then it may go into different programs and it's really hard to track. Yeah, we can find it. We may have that we may have had that on our on our wall at some point. We'll try to find that time. There's there is a simple two-page listing of money that's come in since last year and where it's been assigned to in general but but we can let's just take a look before we ask them to do whip up anything or even we'll take a look through our files and see if we can find that. Okay thank you. That would be very helpful. All right, Representative Murphy. Thank you Chair Stevens. I'm just curious and and this could be kind of to anybody here I think but certainly to Josh and thank you all for being with us. One of my concerns with the ARPA money is only that once spent it it's done and and I especially thinking of entry-level homes and trying to make it something that is sustainable and and to go forward and keep those homes affordable that the revolving loan fund system where it it's a pact and it it it's all structured what you can gain in equity but then it comes back into the program and that we can't do that with with the ARPA monies or any money that if you know if not spent by has to go back I know there's and maybe I'm misidentifying my concern but I just do appreciate that I think one of the things being looked at in trying to use ARPA dollars to supplement general fund it which makes it complicated in trying to follow where they're spent is that when you spend the general fund dollar we do have the ability to say when it comes back to us we can ship it back out to another home buyer to another structure and grow a system that hopefully does keep the housing ongoing and and I just I don't know if my question's been clear but I just am a little bit curious if some of the monies the governor's looking to allocate in the big picture don't allow that perpetuity piece I guess my question is how would how would the state continue to own some right to that structure of house if they just give a grant to somebody to buy a small entry-level home? Yes I know what you're getting at and I think you know that there's a couple things going on here you know certainly the VHIP homeowner revolving loan piece is in the base budget and that's meant to go ongoing so that money revolves as those homes are sold or transferred and that's a small amount to pilot hopefully it grows the thought here with this home builder program is a little less of a incentive per unit and it's simply to try to to address the supply side problem to get more home builders to bring homes online for sale at a price point below what they naturally would bring them on right now to make any margins those homes are going to be six hundred thousand dollars we want to bring them down and we're seeing that already happening I was talking to a home builder that has a 50 unit project half of the homes are built they were bringing them online unsubsidized private at the high three hundreds ten months ago they're now at the mid four hundreds and that gap is only costs of construction that have been seen in the last ten months in increase and they've already seen the people buying them change they had families now they're seeing early retirees no no kids in those new homes and it's it's a stark contrast that we think that subsidizing the cost to bring these online whether that goes towards construction labor land acquisition is worth a thirty forty thousand dollar subsidy to bring these homes to a more affordable level and they but they wouldn't have an ongoing state ownership or you know that sort of this is a lower subsidy it's a market supply infusion and there are other programs that do have ongoing you know leans and covenants and perpetual affordability that is still general fund money is still doubled in whatever it's ever been and those those programs will be in place and they'll be enhanced and with this ARPA money that goes through VHCB or other affordable housing partners that end up in perpetually affordable housing projects that'll all still be there the difference is the ARPA money can't be revolved and relent out it'll have to go in and as a grant but most of those even state resources at least in the multi-family perpetual affordability they often don't revolve they stay in the project as a commitment they're always there but the reality is that the cash flow is not enough on those affordable rents to pay back those loans they act as an ongoing you know deferred loan in perpetuity in most cases so I don't think that's going to be drastically different with this this money it's going to you know fact work the same but we may have to call it an outright grant with ongoing perpetual affordability covenants to achieve the same goal so I don't think that'll be diminished it just will be some different ways of doing business but happy to open it up to Jen or Mora to talk about this aspect they may have some other thoughts or strategies here yeah let's thank you I'm going to go off mic but I just did want to say I appreciate the affordable covenants aspect that that something like that that is some kind of claim to this so thank you all right thank you so much Josh it is so much information and you know I certainly hope that the capacity of your your your department is increased a little bit through this to help you manage what is you know what is this an incredible increase in the hours that you'll need to get this work done so I hope that the administrative fees are going to help you out there Sarah Phillips same I'll say the same thing I I appreciate the fact that you're probably working 128 hours a week and and took part in this in today's I'm so grateful for your time so if you could just share from from your office's perspective what what's in this letter that's important for us to know right now thank you chair Stevens for the record Sarah Phillips I'm the director at the office of economic opportunity and the department for children and families and really appreciate that this committee is taking up this letter and invited us in today to talk about what we raised up and so I'll just try and again I'm not going to repeat what commissioner hamford has laid out but just highlight a couple things like you said chair Stevens that rise up for DCF in particular and that I think the committee might be interested in just to start by saying this morning we had we have 1900 households approximately in motels 250 are families with children we know that the cares housing voucher program which is how if you all remember how we mobilized our HUD emergency solutions grant cares funds to provide rental assistance vouchers to almost 400 households experiencing homelessness prioritized families with children so about 90 percent of those families in motels have vouchers right now just to highlight that we have about 200 and 200 folks at the cares housing voucher program to have leased up and moved into new housing and we have about 220 that are looking for housing right now so the 200 that have leased up that's that's good news that that's because of the investments that we made last year right about bringing on new units and new capacity and and the partnerships between homeless assistance providers and using the coordinated entry process to get folks into units that were rehabbed through VHIP into new units that were created with funding DHCB administered and so there's good news in that story but obviously the work is not done and I think that's that's the message over our team that we're bringing to this group today I just want to also name that the house in and house appropriations in the house and naming this housing recovery work group also named as you all are aware the general systems emergency housing working group that DCF and advocates and others have been working on to put together policy recommendations and a budget proposal around emergency housing and state fiscal year 22 and it's really important to say that that working group made its recommendations and did its work with the knowledge of this ARPA housing proposal and and it is a really important to that working group and all of the advocates on that that we make this major investment in housing and in particular permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness and make those units available so I just need on behalf of that working group to name the strong strong advocacy that that group feels for this proposal for the ARPA housing investments to move forward as well and then I just want to name as well I know that there's always a concern around those three legs of the stool right and capital funds or units in rental systems and subsidy and services and I know that often we're looking to the agency of human services and DCF to leverage and to bring the services to the table and so I just want to also identify that we have we are leveraging the emergency rental systems program the ability to use a certain portion of that fund for housing stability services we have issued an RFP specifically for housing stability services and we are in the process of making about $6 million in awards for additional service capacity to help folks both apply for emergency rental assistance funds but we also know that people experiencing homelessness are eligible for e-wrap time so to help them apply but also help them find housing and then help them keep housing and so that is a focal point for us in making those investments of course the e-wrap funds for housing stability services are not long-term I think as Representative Murphy was pointing out that we need to be thoughtful about federal funds ending and and how much is what we're doing based on a surge need in services and how much is needed in long-term in an ongoing way I think we would put forward that not every household needs long-term intensive home-based support services to maintain housing right I think we all recognize that some households do and some households just need a boost they need you know a little bit of help and some support services and get connected to you know all of the services that exist out there and some need a little bit more you know maybe a year or more to get back on their feet get connected with employment services and workforce development get connected with other benefits and programs that might support them in the long-term and help them with long-term economic security so the housing stability services meets a really important gap and I would just say that as AHS committed last year we have been working on the ability to seek approval under our Medicaid waiver to support permanent supported housing in the long-term that work has continued and I expect that later this month if not in June that that will be presenting sort of what what's been what's been proposed under that to CMS for waiver authority for permanent supported housing so that work has been continuing as well so I just wanted to highlight sort of the service side of that we don't we don't we don't we see that actually it's amazing that at this one moment in time we actually feel like we have some really wonderful opportunities around filling the service gap we have an incredible amount of temporary rental assistance and new emergency housing vouchers coming online at permanent public housing authorities I think you see mentioned in the letter the work that we're doing to connect folks with permanent affordable housing not just with their temporary rental assistance but to work with the public housing authorities around the ability to move on to a permanent housing voucher that's work that our working group has engaged in how to more tightly braid our systems together so that so that it's working but we definitely feel continue to feel the pinch around lack of units and so so that's where that's where we're sitting I just wanted to add that into the conversation thank you representative Trina thank you Sarah representative Trina yes thank you sir I haven't inquired recently about electric or power or arrears and how pain overdue electric bills is that money in place yet and if it is how can I direct someone yes I'll make the assumption that you're talking about a residential and not yes utility yes residential utility yeah yeah I'm happy to follow up afterwards just based on the particular situation to make sure that I'm directing you to the right resource maybe that's the most important way to answer that jump in just more columns from Vermont housing finance agency it will be important for legislators to know that depending on if the utility bills are renters or owners there will be different systems set up so we can make sure you're connected with those resources they will be coming online at different times but there will be utility assistance available to both renters and owners okay great thank you both of you thanks well thank you Sarah for that update I'm gonna move right to more Collins and and then to Jen Holler let's I just want to make sure I get the testimony in before and we'll come back for questions after that being mindful of of of the time here Mora welcome back hi thank you for having me again more Collins VHFA Josh covered a lot of it and Sarah covered everything that wasn't said so I will be quick one thing that this working group has also done is talk with public housing authorities not just the state housing authority but the local PHAs across the state and in that survey the berry housing authority I'm gonna read this quote respond we were asking about some real technical things we said at the end of the survey is there anything else you want to add we weren't even looking for this kind of information but berry housing authority said our current voucher holders that are searching for housing are having a hard time start over hold on okay thank you okay our current voucher holders that are searching for housing are having a hard time securing housing with the limited stock of rentals available in our area we are currently offering an incentive to pay full security deposit and first month's rent to landlord for new admissions we heard similar comments from the brow borough housing authority you have the letter from the state housing authority I believe Sarah could speak to some special agency human services vouchers where I've heard that that was the problem was fine the reason that money took a while to deploy was the lack of units to speak to representative walls this question about understanding the numbers by my math the governor's request of using these ARPA funds is about 249 million dollars as Josh had said and H4 39 right now has 59 million for these types of uses if we set aside the rental assistance so that is a difference of 190 more than 190 million dollars all that money can't move in year one that's why the plan has been to spread this out over several years but these developments are complex and to speak to representative Murphy's point about not wanting to lose ground in terms of affordability and covenants and all that to make sure the housing that's being developed remains as high quality as you all support year after year through VHCB funding and the rest we need to signal to the market that this money will be available so that they take the time to find the right infill development downtown preserve the historic structures and things like that while also providing this important housing and so signaling that this money will be available now actually helps to have higher quality projects in the future as opposed to having a raw holding the money back and then having a rush for this we are all concerned about the workforce it's very limited the way to fix that though is not to wait for the construction workforce to magically correct itself after it's been so anemic for so many years but it's to send a message now to contractors that there is substantial funding available to support rental sorry residential construction so that they can staff up this is similar to the discussions we've had with the state's ratings with the rating agencies the state has been downgraded because of its demographics and instead of waiting for the demographics to magically change we need to make smart investments to ensure that we are a welcoming state and similar for those of you really focused on equity and what the legislature can do to support racial equity as well as other ways of making sure we're welcoming state making Vermont more affordable makes it more welcoming to newer residents and to existing residents we have been watching our pipeline grow since discussion of investment dollars have been happening publicly Josh mentioned that his phones going off the hook in terms of hearing from developers I know VHCB Jen's smiling and nodding VHCB has a long pipeline VHFAs pipeline looks very similar to VHCBs we fund a lot of the same projects at the average these I don't want this in statute but I'm going to say if you assumed about all the phone calls we're getting from developers so that you know what this looks like if you assumed that their unit estimates are correct which they won't be because by the time they get through permitting you know they'll be cut and if you assume that all the average cost of construction is just a stagnant nice round number which it won't be because it never works out that way we're talking about well over a billion dollars of economic activity it actually gets closer to two billion but I'm trying to be conservative so this would have a huge boost to the state's economy and the last thing I want to say is that our state has been chasing this mythical unicorn some of you are aware of it of four percent tax credits this is a program that VHFA administers and it is an underutilized resource but for good reason and that's because it doesn't work unless we have the kind of money that we're talking about today to pair with it it's not it's a federal resource that doesn't cost the state money but it is not easy for us to tap it because it needs so much other money to leverage with it and support it and that's why we are limited into how much we can use that resource but what we have an opportunity for today is that we have we can actually catch this unicorn because this ARPA money could be the kind of match that allows us to unlock more of these federal resources and so that's just another opportunity that we have in front of us if we can embrace this full proposal thank you so more are you saying our expectation over time thank you for bringing that up because it is and maybe we'll hear more about it as time goes on but it is kind of a unicorn the bigger unicorn is the 9% that that I'm always that I'm used to from working at down street and through this committee which is even less plentiful the 9% that we've always attached to the trust fund money you know just so but are we saying that when we look when we're looking at the amount of money traditionally we say oh this amount of money will then grow this much money in a project that you know whether it's four to one or seven to one or 10 to one but are you saying our expectations should be that that the money that we're spending on housing is a little bit more retail and that and that the the matches will be slightly less the governor's proposal includes home ownership and includes many kinds of rental housing that kind of deeply subsidized what Sarah was talking about units that need services and more investment because the residents may not be able to pay as much for their rent and contribute as much and therefore those projects may not be able to have debt and mortgages on those buildings then there's going to be other kinds of projects which are the sorts of projects that we hear about with towns that have inclusionary zoning or in Act 250 there's priority housing projects where there are incentives to have below market rate rentals but that doesn't mean that those rental rates are all the way down to be are all the way down to a low enough point that let's say a person living on supplemental security income disability income can afford so there is going to be a broad range I do not have numbers of how I wouldn't want to say what that overall leverage can be what I wanted to point out was that in the very complicated program of tax credits which is our nation's largest program of supporting rental housing development is through federal tax credits that there are two types of tax credits and they make it easy because they use numbers so nine percent and four percent and we all can tell that nine is twice four so it's much more valuable to get the nine percent credits and there is less of that gap that needs to be filled and those are very mission driven projects that are serving the homeless and can be more costly but also are producing a lot more for communities in terms of affordability but that doesn't mean that we don't have a resource with these four percent credits it just means that the nine percent credits can often pay for maybe 70 percent of what it of the pie chart of what it takes to build a development and the four percent tax credits the money doesn't go as far it's not as valuable and that can only pay for 30 35 percent of the pie chart of the total development cost for a project and so there's more of a gap on four percent credits and this ARPA investment can help fill that gap and it will take other resources as well but this is why we're so I'm so passionate we're also passionate about this investment being made because we would love to turn to all those people who are calling us with their pipelines to say yes the state has committed that the money will be available it's not all going to be available in year one we're going to you know smartly still only fund what can be absorbed by markets but sending that signal to builders and developers and planners is really important now thank you I'm going to pop right thank you more again this is this seems a little bit higher elevation conversation but also it reflects the fact that so much is still the gears are still moving on all of this and will be through the end of the session Jen Holler from VHCB welcome back if you can share your thoughts on this letter and you know to kind of help us shape our expectations of what we're talking about here yes thank you for the opportunity to do that Jen Holler I'm the policy director for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board it's always a privilege to be appearing with Josh and Maura and Sarah we work so often together that I can pretty much anticipate what everybody's going to say and once in a while they surprise me but we have been in regular contact over the last few months and as Josh explained the house appropriations creation of the housing recovery working group kind of formalized and focused our discussions really around how are we going to make the best use of the ARPA funds in the American Rescue Plan Act there are a number of categorical grant programs that flow through federal agencies including the emergency rental assistance that you've heard there will be more housing vouchers that were reflected in Richard Williams letter to you there will be some home funds that come to the state a smaller amount but those will be arriving oh boy sometime this fall as well but primarily what we're focused on in the working group right now is how do we use the $1 billion in fiscal relief funds that are coming to the state that are more flexible to sort of put the letter in context a little bit just a quick review of kind of the timeline of these discussions and that is that the house recognized the tremendous need for housing they increased what the governor had recommended to VHCB and in other sources by quite a bit it then sent the and for which we are very grateful thank you and also that thanks extends to this committee because it's been your advocacy over many years I think that backed that up then the budget went over to the senate they are you know they worked on their version and during that time period Governor Scott put forward his plan for the billion dollars that's really focused on capital investment and it was part of that plan that he said let's dedicate $249 million of this specifically to housing for capital so on the senate side they took a look at that the committees of jurisdiction didn't have a ton of time to sort it through the senate said okay we're going to do a little bit more they did allocate 12 million of ARPA one piece that the governor had recommended to expand shelter capacity and permanent housing for people who are experiencing homelessness increase the amount that would come to VHCB for all types of housing including that targeted towards homelessness but then said we need a little more time to think about how we want to allocate the rest of the ARPA money and we'll do that when we come back next year so it seems to me that that's kind of the big question on the table I think that there's general agreement it and no real debate I think around the desire to use this amount of money from ARPA for housing it seems to be that that's pretty much a consensus opinion it seems to me that the disagreement or the questions before everyone now are the pace at which it gets allocated we know we can use it we know it's needed we know it can be done well ARPA allows it to be used over a few years so how much gets targeted now and how much is later so it was in that context that the recovery working group which had been assigned with submitting an interim report by April 30th thought that it was more appropriate since we didn't have any ARPA rules yet or specific guidance we thought a letter was more appropriate and in that letter we all agreed and asked the legislature with great thanks and appreciation for all the resources that already have been included in the House and Senate versions of the budget for it to take another look at the governor's plan and to see if there weren't ways in which it could feel comfortable allocating more towards ARPA so that's just to get back to the letter and the and kind of the purpose of that and why it's come to you this way the other thing that BHCB can offer right now is that with the $10 million that the legislature and the governor agreed to from age 315 the fast track bill for rapid response homelessness projects we have now received 38 million dollars in applications for that the applications came in on Monday so we're still vetting and scrubbing them but it's about 220 of new apartments in beds about 137, 140 would be specifically dedicated to the homeless so again we're going to be reviewing those applications taking them to our board for the it's consideration in June but that gives you a sense of if you just early on say 10 million dollars is available we got 38 in requests so it gives you a sense of the scope and the need and what's what's possible out there in response to questions from legislators and legislative staff to BHCB about how quickly can this money really move and how much do you really need and when do you need it how much do you need now versus next year or the year after Gus and our housing director are in the process of reaching out to people around the state to get more details around the actual timing of those 30 projects that are mentioned in the letter around that are in the pipeline now as well as any other opportunities that they're seeing so I just want to acknowledge that's what we're working on right now and we'll be responding to those questions I guess another couple things I'd like to mention is that the governor's proposal also included money for VHIP which we think has been a really valuable and successful program it's a different model it meets a different kind of need and it goes to Josh's point of a whole continuum of types of housing and the need to kind of tackle issue from a variety of different with a variety of different approaches the governor's proposal also included a pilot project a home builder pilot project and we think that that's a valuable thing to explore as well and would ask the legislature to take another look at that to see if that might be possible to do I'm going to look at my notes here and see if there's anything I guess the one other thing to highlight as we review not even to highlight but to mention as we review the applications that have come in we now have a little bit more information than and the cost per unit range quite a bit and we can have more information about that soon but I guess I guess what I am trying to say is that the housing recovery working group and the governor's plan we're all providing the best information we have at the time that it's submitted to you and like any plan it can continue to be refined and we'll have better and more information as we go but there's absolutely no question that this full amount of funding can and needs to be used and we hope the legislature will think about how it can be committed when it's comfortable committing it and if there's a reservation about committing it all right now in this budget is there a mechanism that might be able to be established that sets it aside and it can be for housing and then it could be further released at a different time so that was very in eloquently said but I think you get my I think you get where I'm going and so without it be happy to take any any questions before I get to representative blooming I just want to point out that we're we're going to be voting on s 79 this afternoon and so v hip as a rule doesn't quite exist yet the pilot program was there last year but we've been talking about it for so long that it feels like it does and anxious to get that going if we can get it out of committee today so and I don't I want to get to the I'll go to representative blooming go ahead maybe I should have said the beta version of the hip there you go representative blooming yeah thank you thank you all so much I still like Tommy I'm sorry representative walls I need the I need I need something that will help me connect the dots between different pots of funding and you know what's already been allocated versus what what you all have been talking about that said I mean I we were in a really interesting place right I mean there when you say moonshot it feels like it given what I know about what's been allocated for funding in the past and I I guess then I was my question really went to the point that you raised which was you know is there a mechanism given the fact that the guidelines aren't out and that's been an issue on the floor you know reluctance to release money for something that you know when the guidelines aren't aren't yet hammered out but but is the is there such a mechanism and I'm I'm just raising that with the committee because I I'm hopeful that we can discuss that and or maybe you already know the answers that Mr. Chair so but I I do think I really hear you and hadn't thought a lot about the need to signal okay this is all in the pipe look you know we're going to we're going to be ready to go this money is going to be available so you need to get ready to so thanks very much um Gus I saw that you joined late I don't know if you had any further comments if you wanted to add to to Jen's and we're certainly going to get you in the next chunk of time too but on on this letter I guess I just want to I think Jen was extraordinarily eloquent despite her saying otherwise but to representative Bloomley's question I guess I would just add that last year when the administration was very unsure about what the rules would be for CRF you the legislature went ahead and allocated significant funds to us 33 million dollars to get things moving because you said this is the right thing to do I actually had us and as we sat with the technical assistance advisors to the administration last year they told the administration this was the highest of risk to spend monies in the way you had directed us to spend them but we figured out how to get to yes we have a much friendlier administration in Washington so I would just say I think the risks are lower today than they were a year ago and the reality of having as I'm sure Sarah talked about before I joined the call so many Vermonters still living in motels prompts the need for swift action so there's a there's a moment to take risk and I think this is this crisis this pandemic is one of them Representative Murphy Thank you Chair Stevens I may have missed this earlier and I apologize if I'm requesting repeated information I have heard mentioned the 30 projects a couple times and I just wondered if there was a ballpark figure of of an allocation that would give indication to any contractors that those 30 projects were on a roll and were going to be funded et cetera if there was a dollar figure that went along with the number of projects I'm certainly not ready to share that number I but more that you may have more detail than I do well just that the 30 projects that we're talking about are just the rental housing projects but we know that there's a crunch on a need for home ownership projects as well and that doesn't include that so I'm hesitant to quantify the number of rental projects without similarly sending a signal to our home developers who may be convinced we hope will be convinced to set aside some affordable units in where they wouldn't otherwise and so in and then on top of that we have shelter investments as has been discussed and the VHIP program and things like that so that 30 was just the rental housing pipeline I believe that the pipeline is far greater and so and that discussion of pipeline I mean it's it's I think there's a question of is there a list and I think the reality is that there's a there's a a desktop of filing you know where it's like well in central Vermont that housing organization may have two projects going in Bennington there might be a project in St. Jay so it's all and as Mara said it's all right now that pipeline sounds like it's all rental housing projects so I just I just I think as we move forward we've heard and I and as we move forward you know we've heard that the moonshot includes X number of units you know I think Josh you've used the number of 5000 as as the reach here and so you know we just want to balance the dream of that along with the you know keeping to check in to make sure we're either going to achieve that or get to you know of what well how does that how does that goal change over time and that's not for that's not for this year but I appreciate the vision you know yeah and I do as well and I I totally appreciate not seeing it as well this would be enough to satisfy people I'm just looking for a dollar figure and I would offer that the if if we could get um know that we had allocated sufficient to get that rental housing truly up and running that's our immediate crisis and getting folks out of the hotel not to downplay the crisis of buying a home because I totally understand that as well but we're looking at a very near deadline of getting people out of hotel rooms and so I know that telling someone they can start building isn't going to even meet that need but I was looking to see if you had a dollar figure for this portion since the 30 projects keeps being mentioned as being ready I mean I guess if I could just add you know $249 million seems like a ton of money in a moonshot you know but the reality is there's more project you know we could spend double that and if you look at the broadband you know $250 million well if you listen to commissioner tyranny she says actually the cost is a billion but you know we know we can't get a full billion we're in the same situation with housing I mean that list of 30 potential projects that are you know in a pipeline you know some of the challenges there of sharing all the details is just not feasible lot of those you know those projects have to spend money to get to a point that they can submit an application and they are there's often deals in the works and information that can't be shared publicly or those deals could be jeopardized so that's the situation we're in I know you know one particular project that has been working for years and they've said if we don't get a yes in the next year we've already lost $200,000 in the project's debt you know and so that's the reality out there and you know so I have no absolutely no doubt that we can spend $249 million on housing the 5,000 unit goal is a goal you know we're going to stretch every dollar as far as we can to meet every demand you know that's the number of units that in many reports that have said we need we need more than that and the strategies to get there will be different subsidy amounts for all different types you know on the V-Hip side you know we're going to average $22,000, $23,000 $24,000 per investment on the rapid emergency permanent housing you know the numbers are baked in at $150,000 per unit of just ARPA you know there could be other leverage so it's really hard to say give us an average cost per subsidy per unit because the strategies vary the subsidies vary and we're always going to leverage what we can quickly and we're going to try to get the best deal and the goal is as many units as possible but um you know we we will revise and report our plan and we will report as we go and I think that everyone on this team wants to get as many units as possible and stretch these dollars and we have there's a brought there's a big goal out there for that number of units you know but we also work in reality and and sort of deal with what comes at us and what we can affect and those don't always match up on day one when you guys have to decide if it's a a good plan and those are dollars worth investing um but there's no doubt in my mind we can spend every penny of that and we'll get as many units as we possibly can through various strategies yeah if I may just a couple things that um I would like to add and one is backing up what mora had said around the four percent long-come housing tax credits it's a mythical unicorn in the fact that we're all sort of chasing it but we do know how to use them we've used them quite a bit here in the state for preservation projects and others so it's we're chasing it but it's not a mystery I mean we the developers in Vermont know how to use those and it's really only been limited by what other grant funding has been available to go with them because they take more of that so I guess I just would like to be able to project confidence that if the dollars if more capital dollars are available we're going to be able to use those more for four percent there's um there's not a mystery about about how to do that and then the other thing I would add is that we or v I can speak for vhcb in this instance appreciate that the house dedicated general funds for this purpose and then the senate decided to do more and we feel that that's really important because it allows us the flexibility to do things like farm worker housing or home access or perhaps more middle income type projects that may or may not be and likely aren't going to be eligible for ARPA funds I mean I think there'll be restrictions around the ARPA funds around you know immigration status and that kind of thing as as well the general funds just allow us we know how to leverage those better sometimes there are restrictions on federal funds and how you can match those up with other federal programs so I'll just I'll turn it I'll make it a thank you thank you for doing that we hope it sticks all right I'm going to end us here because we're going to we're going to again move over over to a it's more like a housing 201 I think saying 101 is such a January thing but Sarah, Gus, Jen, Mora, Josh thank you so much for for this speed through on this it's again I have to appreciate the the work that you're doing to face this on in such a change such a changed world and appreciate your work in the hours that you're putting in on our behalf to try to make this so and we will continue to do our part as well and part of that is gathering this information so we know better how we can help shape that policy so policies because to your point commissioner there's a wide range of things that we're talking about here including the services and including what Sarah's Sarah's shop needs to do so with that committee let's take let's take five or six minutes just offline