 Welcome. Thank you for joining us at this briefing that is going to really cover the Chittenden County response to the state of Vermont sunset of their pandemic motel program. In this briefing, we're going to discuss what we believe the impact of this closure, this end of the state program is going to have on Chittenden County and what the city of Burlington and many other organizations working in coordination with each other are planning to do in response to this challenge. I want to point out the outset the plans that we're going to discuss today have come together very quickly under very tight timelines that have been driven by state decisions. The state issued a request for letters of intent on May 22nd. The city responded on June 1st last Thursday, which is the first day that responses could be submitted in response to that state request. And we are also going to be speaking in this briefing about a planned letter of interest from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, which is a coalition of 27 agencies in Chittenden County that work on the homelessness challenge one way or another. And that alliance is meeting formally later this week to approve the plan that we're going to talk about today and submit it as an LOI. Here's how this briefing is going to work. I'm going to go through a few slides which will launch momentarily that will give an overview of the challenge and this response. We're then going to have our special assistant to end homelessness, Sarah Russell, the city special assistant to end homelessness, Sarah Russell and also a co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. She's going to fill in some of the details of these proposals. Then we're going to hear from some of our key partners in this effort. We're going to hear from Will Town, who is the other co-chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance as well as a leader at Spectrum. We're going to hear from Paul Dragon of CBOYO, the executive director. We're here from Kim Fitzgerald, who is the CEO of Cathedral Square. Elaine Soto, who is the Howard Center Community Support Program Director and Steve Murray, the Burlington Housing Authority Executive Director. So that's the plan. Then at the end, of course, as we always do on these briefings, we'll open it up for members of the media to ask questions of any of the panelists. Before going through all that, I do want to start with some overarching remarks. As I said in a statement more than a week ago now, I do support an orderly end to the Trouble Pandemic Era Motel Program. I support a sunset of this program as the state is moving towards. Clearly, this was never meant to be a permanent program. It's being paid for with emergency funds and there have certainly been significant management issues and problems in the program throughout its existence. However, for the state to later this summer, as is the current plan and as recently as last week, we saw further official communications from the state indicating for them at the end of July to turn out elderly Vermonters, people living with disabilities and worst of all young children and families to live in tents or in congregate shelters for months would be unacceptable. I think anyone who has raised a child just has to picture what it would be like to spend weeks or months trying to raise a family in a congregate shelter on cots in big open spaces or shared rooms is just an outcome of desperation that we should seek to avoid if at all possible. And what we want to show in this briefing is that with a little bit of planning and time, this outcome is completely avoidable. With our partners, we are going to lay out an alternative path for sunsetting this program for Chittenden County residents that is humane, that is feasible, and that is affordable. So with that, let's get into some of the details and the plan. I want to start by just sort of setting the overall stage of how the city has been approaching homelessness in recent years. At the end of 2021, we released a housing as a human right 10 point action plan, and many of those 10 points were focused squarely on addressing the problem of homelessness. So we indicated that we were going to spend $5 million, at least $5 million of the city's ARPA emergency American Rescue Plan Act funds for initiatives, I think there's a little bit of a typo in that slide, but what we said is $5 million would be spent on housing it with a significant percentage of at least a million, not $1 for initiatives that serve the chronically homeless. We actually already have committed more than $3 million of funds squarely of those funds towards homelessness, short term homelessness interventions, and we are planning, are hoping in the coming months to be able to commit the other $2 million to long term permanent housing for formerly homeless households. We have created the special assistant and homelessness position, and we are so fortunate to have Sarah Russell serving in that position as anyone watching this briefing is going to, I'm sure agree with in a moment when I hand this over to Sarah and she can lay out her perspective on this current crisis. We have made investments in the Chittenden County coordinated entry command center team, and what you'll see is the strategy that we this alternative path that we are laying out today relies very heavily on that coordinated entry system in that team. We have this longer term goal of building 78 new homes for formerly homeless residents. Some of those homes are many of those homes are already in construction. We have opened the 35 bed new low barrier shelter at Elmwood Avenue that was one of that was point number five and that has now been operating since January successfully. And then you can see the balance of the housing action plan items which are a little bit less squarely on point with homelessness, but of course, anything that increases the overall supply of housing should be thought of as an anti homelessness strategy because we know the biggest single driver in homelessness. The reason the biggest single driver is the lack of homes and we're overarching Vermont by some measures has the second worst homelessness problem of all 50 states. From my perspective, it's clear that one of the reasons of that is because our overall state housing supply challenges where we've made it way too hard to build and just haven't had nearly enough homes created in recent decades. Let's keep going with the overview here. Okay, so this this kind of really speaks that housing supply overall housing supply issue and how we are in Burlington very much trying to increase overall housing production to have a medium and long term impact on this challenge and you can see there the both creation of homes in in recent years as well as what's projected in blue in the immediately coming years either projects that are in construction or permitted and all of this information can also be found on the city's housing dashboard. I'll just add let's let's keep advancing. This is an important slide which which I think we'll be coming back to this later as well. What this shows is that the coordinated entry system that we that has been around for about a decade in Chittenden County, it's a joint effort again between dozens of different organizations that work on homeless in one way or another. It's something the city has been very committed to since its creation about seven years ago and it's something the city uses ARPA funds to further invest in at the end. We announced that again at the end of 2021. We can see here that this coordinated entry system is consistently placing a significant number of people on a month-by-month basis in permanent housing and what you can see is for the last more than a quarter now we have been housing at least 25 households per month and if we can continue doing that which we are confident we can and might say we here I want to be clear again that I'm talking about the full coalition then that becomes a very powerful strategy for housing the folks that we are talking about in the Motel program. They're losing their housing at the end of July. Let's keep going. This is a quick summary of the shelter capacity that we have added in Burlington since 2020 before 2020 the city had no low barrier year-round shelter capacity was something we have been talking about and attempting to create for some time but there were that we had no facilities. We now have two. We have the first was the a new place 55 bed facility on Shelburne Road and the second was the emergency shelter on Elmwood Avenue which has an additional 35 beds. We have also working with partners open a community resource center a day station that serves 80 to 160 people daily that is a complimentary to these emergency shelters and it has meant that the effort that we collectively have been able to galvanize it does more than simply offer a bed it offers a range of services for people who are in these challenging circumstances as well. So now this we're going to start to really look at the numbers of what the sunset of the Motel program is going to mean. Last week the latest data that we have from the state is that there were 170 households that either lost their hotel housing Motel housing last week or I have heard some indication that some some of these facilities have granted short extensions that so that there are 170 households with 194 people who were impacted by last week's deadline. What there's another 184 households including 300 318 people that are currently projected to lose their their ability to stay in motels at the end of July July 28th within that universe about 165 of those households include high need individuals and those needs can include what is listed here on the screen so there are 56 families that have 115 children there are 15 people within this group that are over 65 years old 92 people with disabilities 20 people receiving home health or hospice services again something services that would be very challenging to receive in a Congress setting there are two pregnant people and four households fleeing domestic violence. So what we're going to lay out now are strategies that for all of this need and there's really three separate related strategies so first of all Burlington's LOI submitted last week would establish an emergency congregate shelter for up to 50 people in downtown Burlington this is an additional shelter on top of the two that had just discussed co-located at that shelter and I think Sarah Russell will kind of get into some of the details of this co-located at that facility would be a day shelter with access to services that would be available both for those up to 50 people that were living in this congregate facility as well as 25 other people that may need additional services and then finally the third strategy and this one is the strategy that will be part of the later LOI expected later this week the Chittenden County homeless alliance would support the transition of 165 households the 165 households I was just speaking about two permanent housing over a five to eight month period beyond the end beyond that July 28th date there would also be joint advocacy for extent and basically we are advocating for the extension of a motel state for those households until they can be placed we are projecting that five to eight month period based on that track record of this of the coordinated entry system housing 25 households a month for able to focus that capacity which there is consensus within the alliance that we should do if we are able to focus that capacity on these 165 households they will all be housed by the end of that up to eight month period the costs of that will be declining with each week as additional households are placed the projected budget for this strategy is a little over two million dollars for the first two items the co-located shelters want to be clear this is a little bit again this is that those are annualized costs the proposal actually would not have them lasting for a full year the proposal would have these shelters only existing only being needed until the adverse weather condition program begins again in at the beginning of the winter and so the actual cost of that would as an annualized cost the actual cost would be a four or five month cost and then for item number three strategy number three the projection is that it would cost an approximately 1.7 million dollars for extended hotel stays until all 165 households could be housed and sorry that's a range of 1.7 to 2 million depending on whether we are able to house 25 households a month or a little bit less less than that it is possible with the that the things could speed up even and then it could be even less money ultimately that is the basic the outline of the plan and I think at this point we I think Sarah Russell is going to come on and take it from here Sarah you're there I'm here thanks great okay we can hear you and now we can see you as well you can see me great thank you mayor as the mayor mentioned the Chitton County homeless alliance is our local continuum of care and is comprised of stakeholders including social service and housing agencies community members and people with lived experience of homelessness or housing and security from across Chitton County we work in close collaboration with our partners at the balance of state continuum of care as well and in addition to the city's LOI the CCHA as well as other partner agencies have submitted letters of interest in response to the Motel program closure I serve as one of two chairs of the Chitton County Homeless Alliance or CCHA as you all hear us to refer to it as and will town my other co-chair will present CCHA's letter of interest and speak a little more about our community's method to ensure equity and coordination and access to housing resources generally speaking and also as part of as part of our advocacy as a community you'll also hear as the mayor mentioned from some of our community partners who have submitted letters of interest to agency of human services as well and it's all of this work it's important to understand all of this work fits in fits in together so we're all supporting that work so I'm going to talk a little bit more about the emergency shelter proposal on the next slide please thanks so as you heard the city submitted its LOI on June 1st with a focus on expanding emergency overnight and daytime shelter for adults the overnight semi congregate shelter will accommodate to 50 guests in the evening we propose utilizing the largely vacant state office building at one of my cherry street due to its proximity to resources services and transportation while best practice indicates non congregate shelter is ideal in most cases the building would allow offices to be used for shelter accommodations for one to four adults um in addition to planning space for staff and a daytime shelter available to the community for up to 75 people which we'll talk about on the next slide a little bit more while the budget is annualized as the mayor said the shelter is expected to operate until adverse weather conditions go into effect that's usually in late November early December um and the guests remaining in the shelter at that time have not obtained permanent housing or other options will transition into motels under the adverse weather conditions provision at that time due to over text community agencies and a severe shortage in staffing across not just in Chittenden County but statewide for social service providers this city has considered working with a staffing agency to ensure safe ratios of guests and staff on site at all times we will also be we're curious to hear some of you may know the state of Vermont has issued a request for proposals looking for looking for staffing resources to be utilized by non-profit organizations specifically around shelter um shelter capacity um so we are looking forward to hearing the results of that RFP process um we are in close coordination with the agency of human services uh and have not yet received confirmation of use of this location um at this time but are moving through inspection habitability and safety um processes that need to be in place before a decision can be made around that uh so next I'll talk about the D time the co-located D time shelter um is also part of the city's uh letter of interest proposal um the budget that we submitted along with the LOI includes both overnight and D time shelter staff um so that would be 24 seven staff um is what that budget um is what that budget recognizes um this we would including shelter staff would also in addition to shelter staff would also include case management on site meals on site and resources available on site um Champlain Valley office of economic opportunity is the current operator of the D time shelter or the community resource center located at Feeding Chittenden they routinely report up to 160 visitors to their location daily and that was before the closure of the motel um program on uh January 1st last week um our concern is that people exiting the motels um could cause an overflow of guests at that location um therefore we're proposing a secondary D time location shelter um to open um it will also be open during the weekends um and would serve as an additional cooling center in the summer months within the city uh we hope to coordinate partnerships for medical recovery mental harm reduction supports um and mental health services um as well to be available on site next will as I mentioned will town from Spectrum is also the co-chair of the Chittenden County illness alliance and he will share with you a little bit more about CCH is LOI in response to the motel program for sure great thank you Sarah thank you mayor for the degree introduction to this um and so what I wanted to quickly do before diving in was just provide a brief overview of what our coordinated entry system is so if we can jump to the next slide very quickly that would be helpful and then we can go to this one great um so coordinated entry is a system that streamlines access to housing supports and resources um it was developed to assess and match households experiencing homelessness for eligible services based on vulnerability sustainability and length of homelessness through a standardized scored assessment uh each how each eligible household will be referred to housing case management and added to a master list of homeless households which is reviewed on a weekly basis by coordinated entry partners for appropriate housing opportunities and it really is just a tool for equitable access to housing opportunities um and it also helps us better identify the needs um regarding housing that face our community so back to the proposal that the CCH is looking at um you know when we look at who will be exiting the motels on July 28th as the mayor uh talked about earlier we really do see a large number of extremely vulnerable people including families people with disabilities receiving home health and hospice care uh seniors pregnant households and it's the position of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance that placement of these people in a congregate setting um just it's damaging unsuitable borderline inhumane so what we are proposing is that we're advocating for an extension of the motel stay for vulnerable households and we will closely collaborate with housing and service providers to prioritize resources leading to rapid placements in permanent housing or transitional housing for these households and motels uh the data indicates we are able to house on average 25 households per month through our coordinated entry system in addition to expediting motel exits to housing as part of this county-wide collaboration Howard Center has also agreed to prioritize these households for mental health and substance use services within our LOI we are requesting funding for a staff person to help manage this process coordinate case managers and also work directly with housing providers to match households with appropriate housing resources including available units rental subsidy and retention services when necessary we estimate if AHS agrees to extend the motel stays that we can house these 165 households by February 24 pending that all the resources that we expect to come online do in fact do that so for us our next steps really as alluded to earlier June 8th we're having a meeting and what we will be doing is voting to approve a prioritization policy for the following sub-populations within the motels that would be families with minor children people receiving home health and hospice services and seniors that are 65 years and older and what that will do is allow us to prioritize those populations for housing opportunities and get them moved out of the motels as quickly as possible and I think that sums it up Sarah miss anything on that nothing more to add thanks well this is this is the same coordinate entry slide which just shows in the last quarter that we're averaging over 25 households placed into permanent housing per month and we expect that to continue great thank you very much will um and that's just a little so sorry so next up we have uh Paul Dragon from the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Paul is my understanding is is trying to join us by phone and so hello there you go Paul welcome yeah hi thank you for making this work despite being I believe but on the road right now so we have a slide about the CVO up for you to speak from and why you go for it yeah thank you so much mayor sorry I couldn't be on video I am on the board for the National Community Action Partnerships so we have a conference here in Foxboro so I want to thank everybody I want to thank the mayor I want to thank Sarah the city and all our partners on this call this is what this is what it's going to take to South Homeless it's going to take us all working together as a community at the municipal level the state level and certainly at the organizational level so the CVO we have housing advocates we cover four counties including Chittenden County we also have some statewide programs of housing advocates all through the four counties we have a quite a few housing advocates in Burlington we run as you heard the mayor say the community resource center in Burlington we also have street outreach in a mobile van and we provide some services over at the Elmwood pods as well and then our feeding Chittenden program gets out literally thousands meals every day to the resource center to the Champlain Inn and to many of the hotels in the area for people experiencing homelessness so we think it's really important to have a very thoughtful and methodical kind of conclusion to the Motel program and to take this step by step as Will said as Sarah said and as the mayor said because we have an opportunity here to keep people safe and that's really really important so what CVOEO has is we are now operating the home program and it is a it is a housing a rapid rehousing program for families with children who are experiencing homelessness we currently have 100 vouchers and with the passage of the state budget we will have another 150 that gives us 250 vouchers for families with children experiencing homelessness and we estimate it's hard to get the exact data but we estimate there's 500 to 600 families statewide who are experiencing homelessness so we can get close to solving family homelessness if we can commit these 250 vouchers and then if we can keep up this effort with what I think is a minimal amount of money annually to invest in solving child homelessness and the reason why we want to solve child homelessness is because of course children and families are super vulnerable but it's also a preventative measure because we know if a child even has one brief experience of this experience of homelessness as a child they're more likely to not succeed in school to have adverse health effects and to be homeless themselves as adults so this is a real upstream prevention we also said that we would um in our LOI our letter of interest we are calling for more outreach we think if we can extend the motel stay we'll have opportunity for our current street outreach team to expand and not only work with people who are outside on the streets but also who are in hotels so we can engage them with services and help them find links to either a new emergency shelter existing emergency shelter transitional housing or permanent housing so that's going to be another strong effort and then the other thing that we're thinking of doing not in our letter of interest but we're planning on increasing our food capacity and outreach through our feeding chutney program so we can get more people fed both in the out street outreach program but also at the hotels but as food insecurity as you know kind of co-occurs with homelessness so cvoio is really happy to work with our partners on the call with the mayor's office and when we all work together we're going to have a lot better outcomes and hopefully we'll help to end all homelessness and child homelessness so thank you thank you paul we really appreciate you uh zooming in um from uh from poxboro thank you for your partnership with this um we have two more speakers um next we have kim fitzgerald from cathedral square co cathedral square uh welcome kim thank you for being part of this briefing thank you maren thank you for having me be part of it uh yeah currently cathedral square houses over 200 people who were formerly homeless that's before those exiting the motel program we have found that the key to making the transition into long-term housing successful is through trusted relationships that begin as soon as possible and last beyond the person being housed and continual support services throughout that entire process everyone has a unique set of circumstances and there's no one size that fits all each person needs a plan with support to help them be successful although living in motels is not the preferred or long-term solution we cannot have vulnerable remoders out in the street with no place to start getting the support and services they need to find long-term safe and sustainable housing we need to work with each person develop a plan and help them execute it we owe it to these remoders to align our work and improve and expedite the processes to find long-term solutions this will only happen if we work together and with intention so we are very proud to work alongside the city of burlington and our partner housing and service providers in the burlington area to focus on this really essential work thank you for having me here today great thank you kim thank you for your context again for being here and then finally um uh sorry we have two more speakers um from the Howard Senator Elaine Soto is joining us um Howard Center works with she's proud to partner with Howard Center on so many areas we're grateful to be doing it again on this issue Elaine thank you for being here welcome thank you mayor uh again my name is Elaine Soto I'm the director of community support programs at Howard Center and also member of the chinden county homeless alliance Howard Center is happy to support this effort along with our community partners to prioritize these populations it's consistent with our mission to help people and communities thrive by providing supports and services to address mental health substance use and developmental needs we know that without secure housing ones mental health suffers greatly it's quite enough to struggle with the mental health disability we don't need to add homelessness homelessness to the equation we are committed to supporting our homeless clients and are thankful to our housing partners in this effort thanks for including us thank you again Elaine finally um I believe we have Steven Murray the executive director of the Burlington Housing Authority Steve are you are you with us hi Steven thank you thank you mayor um although Burlington Housing Authority is not the uh is not focused on emergency housing or transitional housing uh we are the past pathway to permanent housing through our housing choice voucher uh locally known as section eight uh we've met with the city uh Sarah in particular uh about what vouchers we currently have available we did discuss some of our family unification vouchers we discussed um the uh net vouchers or the mainstream vouchers that we we currently have available and we also discussed the fact that we do have three buildings that are focused on uh elderly our elderly rad buildings um and that of the 14 elderly that are currently homeless we do feel by the end of summer we could put a large uh we could house a significant portion of them permanently um we we also have something called a local preference and a homeless preference local preferences for section eight homeless preference would be for our multifamily properties uh and we have agreed to be much more aggressive on the local preferences for those coming out of the hotels they still have to uh abide by all the section eight requirements but uh we we feel that um if we can find someone who perhaps has already uh has a household setup form that we could make that voucher appear much quicker than uh how it would normally um also just on the good news is uh we are looking at by the end of the summer uh brave burn apartments uh which is uh uh template and housing trust we have assigned them 20 home all homeless uh uh project based vouchers uh o'ryan farms which is summit uh we also have 12 project based vouchers we're expecting that in the fall or late summer and then um we have another uh eight units for o'ryan farm which is summit um also all homeless uh coming on in december and we are looking at cox which is the main street family housing uh with 16 units of February so we are we are actively looking for landlords and we are actively um tying some of the project based vouchers to uh the coordinated entry system much like with zypher place where 36 of those apartments uh were vouchers tied to uh coordinated an entry so we are we are not working directly on the emergency or transitional housing but we are definitely trying to put as many vouchers out there as possible uh for those people who are um suffering being unhoused uh this is good opportunity for me to shout out to landlords i we have a significant portion of uh vouchers that uh we currently have 89 families looking for apartments right now so if any landlords out there are interested in being part of the solution for this i reach out to us when we can discuss um how the housing choice voucher section eight voucher works it it's uh it's absolutely a backbone for us getting people into permanent housing we are also uh looking to put in a uh a letter of intent um half the battle is getting everyone housed after that is keeping everyone housed we we have a retention department and a huge shout out to them um if you are section eight landlord or section eight participant or you live in one of our properties uh you are entitled to have some help with uh staying house whether it be uh working with your landlord or working to pay back uh pass through rents etc but we are definitely struggling with um that right now we we are expecting to have about 850 referrals year to date to our housing retention team to help people to keep people housed but then a perspective that was about 250 prior to uh covid so we will also be looking for some funding so that once we do get the vouchers out there and we do get people permanently housed that we can give them some support services uh in order to keep them housed and i do want to thank uh sarah for all the work he did on uh on getting us all together and uh hopefully um burlington housing authority can uh get a whole group of people permanently housed within the next eight months thank you very much steven yes sir okay with that um i believe we that is the end of the presentations and i see we have a large number of uh members of the media with us and the way we um have run this in the past if you could use the raise hand function we will recognize you and let you ask your question directly great i see leo miller connor sir go ahead um yeah i'm wondering have you gotten any indication from the administration that they'd be willing to extend uh the motel program for these households that you're hoping that they'll extend them for so leo ma i want to reiterate that the way that this program the way that this um proposal has come together has has happened quickly with the uh the really the deadlines driven by state decisions so um we uh were kind of invited to propose ideas and solutions on may 22nd the city responded on june 1st we did in the interim have one um uh very high level uh meeting between city staff that i attended um and that had hs the agency of human service staff there there have been numerous other conversations i would say up until now the uh the state has been quite clear that um their goal is to end the hotel program on july 28th and that was reiterated after the meeting that we had with them in a formal communication from the department of children and families um our hope is that by galvanizing uh by so many partners coming together to make such a clear statement uh to have a detailed plan a detailed alternative that um hs uh and the Montpellier leaders will rethink that plan it's certainly clear to me that there remain a lot of conversations going on in Montpellier about the best way forward and while we have not heard an approval for this plan yet we think it's a again it's it's an affordable plan it's a feasible plan it's a humane plan it we have a track record as a as a coalition of housing hundreds of family homeless individual households families and individuals in recent months and uh we think this is the best path forward and we hope others will see that as well but we do not have an agreement on this yet okay so it sounds like they i mean it sounds like they kind of said no which is that how you'd characterize that this has been moving so quickly lamb that i would not say there has yet been a moment where we've been able to lay out all this detail that we just came together you know these letters of interest are still coming together we haven't really had the opportunity to fully lay it out and get and make sure that the state is fully understanding what they're saying no to um and we now uh we thought there was urgency to lay this out publicly and lay this out for all the state decision makers who um are are meeting actively now and will be meeting in the weeks ahead there will be a as everyone knows a veto session where this there's been a lot of discussion around this uh this issue and so yeah we haven't heard yes yet i would not say this detailed plan in this form with these estimates has been explicitly rejected by the state either at this point and then with the the shelter proposal um at cherry street the state hasn't signed off on that either it also sounds like there's some inspections can you just give us a little bit more information on what actually needs to be done to make that a reality i mean i also can't imagine office spaces all is all that hospitable as a living environment there has been more detailed conversation around that maybe sarah could you speak to the status of those conversations sure yeah um i can definitely speak to that and um one of the things i also wanted to mention to um liam is that um according to the state this morning we have a call they're hosting um calls with community providers fairly routinely at this point um they i did inquire about the status of the LOIs that have been submitted so far again the deadline was June 30th um they are continuing they notified us that they are continuing to receive LOIs um so that was um what started as a hard deadline has turned into a bit of a rolling deadline um at this point um but as of June 1st they had received 44 letters of interest across the state um from representing all of the different communities i did inquire about sort of what the substance was of those LOIs if they were purely for emergency shelter if they were involving other services and um the state had not yet um reviewed all of those um and they did not have data to share around the nature of those LOIs so just to that's the most recent update that we have from uh the state at this point um with regard to your question around the emergency shelter uh we are in uh communication um with agency of human services uh to have them uh conduct the various required um health and safety inspections that need to happen on site we do anticipate that um there there may be um some capital investment required upfront at first to um convert uh some of the office space into appropriate shelter space and those would be conversations that we would engage ahs with as we progress um so we don't have notification from them on the location uh confirmation of the location but they are um actively working to assess that location uh for an emergency shelter site thanks i'll let uh some others ask some questions i think it's worth pointing out as Sarah mentioned capital items the the the budget estimate did include um some capital investment as as well so i see uh Lily St. Enzlo uh has a hand up as well Lily hi yeah thank you um i was wondering um just to clarify it was it DCF who who who asked for these LOIs yes that's right it was um it was uh Chris Winners and DCF as she'd be the request for LOIs the state has assembled a team of um leaders from across um all of the state agencies including housing um transportation um yeah agency of human services department of health to etc to review all of the LOIs as they come in and pull in resources from different departments as necessary okay and that was in response that was just in response to this program ending okay and then um i was wondering is there any initiatives um happening to help with storage of belongings as people are exiting the motels do you want to speak to that go ahead sarah thanks um one of the observations that we received from the outreach teams um last week on friday as folks were exiting was that there was a need for storage um for some people so um that is something that we um have been in communication with um CVOEL um around trying to identify safe storage for folks as they um exit motel both now they're immediately in the short term and um again in um in the long term after the July 28th motel exits okay and one more question about um camping enforcement i know there's going to be a several talks with city council around that this summer um but do you have any idea of of how you will enforce camping this summer so lily yes the city has um city has policies about this i i i think this briefing should be seen in the in the context uh of that policy and the city's goals we believe strongly that um camping sanction camping is not a safe reliable solution or or uh response to increase numbers of unsheltered folks and that that is you know fundamentally why we are stepping forward and saying the city will operate a third a low barrier uh day state day station and um congregate overnight shelter we think that kind of option within a building is a much preferable option to more people sleeping outside in intense and um we i think it should be noted i'm not sure we've said it yet on the briefing that there probably is going to be a need in chittenden county um given this increased number of people given the ending of this program there's a concern everyone has a concern including the state has a concern that the unsheltered population will go up more than 50 people and so there it should be pointed out that there are other sites in chittenden county that are being considered and other municipalities that are considering uh stepping up here as well and i think if if there is going to be uh an additional congregate shelter open beyond the the one that we're talking about here um it is a significant goal of the city is that that additional shelter be in another municipality so um that's the thrust of our strategy for if there are if there is increased pressure on the the existing resources if there are more people who are unsheltered as is expected is a large high possibility given this closure uh it is it is through these congress shelters that we'll seek to house folks what will we be doing about about camping you know we have we have policies that are on the on the books that have been on the books for a long time and we um we have a team here within the city that um that will be enforcing those rules or attempting to force those rules and we will as your as you mentioned there will be a further discussion about that in a work session at the city council today um and you know again i think uh the the camping discussion should be seen in in this context of trying to keep these high need vulnerable households in in the hotels until they can be permanently housed and in the context of setting up another congregate shelter thank you okay go ahead uh pat pat Bradley pat you should be able to unmute yourself and speak i believe at it yeah well what we're seeing if we can get pat on um there's a question a clarifying question from kevin and seven days kind of a column about the the budget numbers so are we asking the state to fund the entire 206 million in the 1.7 to 2 million dollars extension uh we are we are proposing that the state fund the 1.7 the 2 million dollar extension for the high need households beyond the july 28th date um we the 2.06 million again is an annualized cost not all that should be necessary if the um if the shelters ended when the advert for weather conditions program restarts it would could be you know a little less than six months uh from now um it since some capital costs i'm not sure if you're able to say how much of that 2.2 million sarah is capital cost you know it'll be more than um the prorated monthly share because there are some uh capital costs that are kind of some some costs but can you speak to that sure um from my recollection i think that we budgeted it around or a request around a hundred thousand dollars um at max for capital improvements um prior to being able to open this space again that's without seeing building plans or having a tour of the building so that was uh that was an estimate and you know we should say um you know when you're talking about millions of dollars that's significant funds they're um in the budget that was vetoed my understanding is there was $12 million for transition costs so this would be proposals that could address that we believe there's a potential funding source um in in that budget if um that budget is uh ultimately passed and um so it's in that context that we're proposing these solutions and we believe there is potential funding for them pat are you still trying to get on yeah i am can you hear me you can oh good thank you um yeah i have a portable webcam that is always weird um my question goes back to the budget the projected budget that you mentioned 2.06 million for the shelters and the 1.7 to 2 million dollars for the extended motel stays um where will that money come from so pat i don't know if you caught the end of my my last answer one potential source and it should be noted it's certainly not the only potential source the state has for uh emergency shelter for housing costs but there um the the the budget that the governor vetoed that is under consideration for a veto override uh would um have a 12 million dollars directly in it for transitioning out of the end of the motel program so that would be a a clear potential source that has been identified and um but certainly not the only place the state could could do this emergency kind of investment from are you confident though that you know the state you know this is kind of reliant on the veto session approving that that scenario um are you confident that that money could be available so um pat we are um i think there's a there's clarity that there is capacity from emergency funds if that if that budget is approved and so i think it's important to point out that the plan that we are laying out here uh is in in many ways consistent with uh with a veto override if the legislature chooses to go in a different direction working with uh with the state government there's certainly um other ways that this could be addressed as well uh so um again if given given the discussions about how the pro this motel program needs to be transitioned and sunsetted we think the figures that were being laid out here um for addressing chitinon counties these are at least most of the costs that would be needed in in chitinon county for this transition it um it's just that this is a feasible and affordable budget within the context of the dollars that have been discussed so far and mayor a non-money question along um the the situation here in the governor's weekly briefings he's noted several times that he and his administration have been working with the people in the hotels and motels for months for the transition and he has used the phrase months and yet everybody seems to be scrambling right now at this very quick transition so where's the dichotomy here why does it seem to be catching people off-guard when the governor is saying that they've been working with these uh individuals for months so again pat um just go back to the timeline we talked about here the municipalities were invited into this discussion by the state in a formal way to be part of the problem solving um uh on may 22nd um the we have we of course the the alliance the organizations that are working on homelessness certainly have been working on this challenge um throughout throughout this period and it's one of those slides showed has you know has housed a couple hundred um more than 200 homeless individuals and households over the last year so of course all the part of you heard from today the city everyone has been working on one aspect of this challenge in terms of helping the state deal with the ending of what has been you know they have been the agency that has been managing funding creating thinking through this program they just brought municipalities and other local actors into this problem in a formal way and just began sharing data with us in the last couple weeks and we were responding very quickly um with we think a path through here that is an alternative to what's being considered that would be effective affordable and feasible probably a little harsh but it almost sounds like you were locked out of the process you know again i just say we were only brought into the problem solving in a formal way in the last couple weeks well if i speak to that from the chitlin county the perspective of the chitlin county homeless alliance um i think that some you know comments have been you know made that i've heard around you know folks being isolated in the motels um and then i've also heard comments that there's been active engagement you know with people in the motels and what i can say from our county's perspective at least is that there have is that we have created a you know new outreach teams to work extensively with these um with these households and motels however we continue to see a lack of capacity within our system and being able to connect households in a timely manner to housing navigation services so i think i think that's one of the challenges around um you know connecting households i think the last thing that i would say too is that there's there needs to be increased coordination between decisions made in the administration level and this and you know planning that's involved in the local community level for example in chitlin county we anticipate seeing 112 new homeless dedicated units come online within the calendar year as you heard steve moray mentioned you know just a few minutes ago with several projects that are just dedicated to um households exiting homelessness and so we're actively working with the resources that we have and our we need to make sure that the timeline for these motel exits aligns with the resources that we have so that there's not a lapse in stability for these wonderful households thank you and thanks for being patient with my lack of technical prowess with the webcam so um thank you pat um i see kevin um has a follow-up question in the chat about the state building being used the question is what has the state building been used for in the past and what is it being used for now that this is the state office building that in this most recent legislative session the uh gubernatorial administration proposed and i believe the legislature approved um basically transitioning this building away from being a state office building and being as they no longer have the same office needs that they have had in the past and so it is you know that that's the history of this building is it has been for um i think it's about a 20 year old building i might be off on that but has been a state office building but they've been moving away from that um and so this would be essentially an interim use in that transition plan that the there there still would be some ongoing um from the department of health use of the building during this period sarah i believe is the way we've it's been considered but a lot of a lot of the building currently is quite underutilized you want to add anything to that yeah not much to add i i know that they're you know hoping to you know have been in conversation around relocating stuff for some time separate from uh this proposal and then kevin and sort of the second part of the question was have you considered doing something similar to city facility in a sense we already have with the uh the umwood avenue facility that was a city-owned property that um we worked with uh partners in the state to transition that into uh an emergency facility so um this is certainly something that the city has been actively engaged in this this challenge in a number of ways um from the start we think this is the best uh the best opportunity um for the need right now um go to you garrick brower from seven days yeah uh did i did i miss did you say how quickly you envisioned being able to open the shelter cherry street i know you mentioned the elmwood example i mean that that took quite a bit of time to to get that set up yeah fair question it's definitely um a there's a lot less complication and what would be needed here but it won't happen overnight sarah can you speak to your thinking on the on the likely timeline sure i mean i think that um the challenges that we ran into around the um elmwood shelter were related to um supply chain and construction um you know delays that that i think everyone was seeing during the pandemic um and with the existing building in place um we again without seeing the building or seek the plans for the building um we our hope would be that we could really expedite the opening of that shelter and i'm not i will make the distinction certainly we don't have approval on this yet the yellow i only went in last thursday on the other hand there has been um a non-trivial amount of back and forth communications with senior officials of the state and their their um it seems to be uh openness to consider considering this um i would say we have had more favorable response to this part of the proposal so far than um the extended the extension on the high need population which um there's been less discussion of and we have had less of a response so far but we do we have reason to be hopeful that the state will be able to approve the use of the office building i mean is there any is there any kind of time horizon that you have in mind here i mean could it be as soon as later the summer or is it for the run you want to answer that sir sure i mean i think that with again without seeing the building or the plans for the building for understanding the scope of you know need that would you know capacity that would need to be um infused there to open as an emergency shelter it's difficult to say um i do our our goal would be to stand it up as rapidly as possible and yes i would i would hope by the end of the summer um again we're also you know reliant on workforce um challenges and staffing um capacity as well so um those things pending as soon as reasonably possible is our time frame okay and i see patrick crawley from vt digger hi there thanks this is sort of a follow-up to the other questions about cherry street but i know buildings and general services at the state had talked about a potential desire to actually sell that building once they had moved employees out i just apologies if you address this but i just wanted to be clear the this scenario does it it doesn't involve a purchase does this involve just sort of a lease from the state before they would sell it yeah that's that's the way we're thinking of it patrick is that um this might you know have what we're talking about this is a short-term use trying to get it open as uh sarah and darryl were just discussing as soon as possible but certainly the the hope and belief belief that might be possible is that it could be opened uh this summer to deal with the extra pressures this summer and that it would be in place until the adverse weather conditions program begins again and um so we're talking about a matter of months and that could have some impact on the state's timeline for uh their their longer term plans for the building but it would not we don't think that what we're proposing here would fundamentally change um uh how the state is thinking about moving forward with the building that's all i have thank you okay thank you very good i am not seeing any other hands um from the media so uh i spoke too soon uh liam has his hand up again go ahead name wanted to clarify uh the financing so all of these all the financing for both the extending the motel and this cherry street project that would come from the state um is and is there any money that the city has that they'd be willing to chip in if the state seems unwilling to move forward with these um these plans you have so liam the state has as you know um emergency housing dollars a variety of emergency housing sources that go beyond well beyond anything the the city has access to and we think that that should be the the funding source and it's not just us who's thought that you know it was in the the legislature's budget to uh to fund fund the transition and we think that's the first place to to go for for resources we we certainly the city is already as you're seeing on this call putting significant staff resources towards trying to manage a response trying to be a good partner uh at the local level in um helping to coordinate and implement these plans and we and you know so that's that's a cost that is being worn on the municipal side and um that's that's what we're proposing at this point and the um the shelter is slightly off but the shelter on shelter and road I know um the operators that has been running that is no longer going to be running that um have you been able to find someone to take over that where do you have any updates I mean that seems like having that operating is sort of important in this overall plan that you're you're presenting right here as well yeah I agree with that statement I think it is critical that that the that new shelter that we just put public funds towards purchasing um in 2020 that from for the foreseeable future I think that is going to be needed as a low barrier year-round shelter would be a big setback to our efforts if that were to cease operating we uh at this point have a commitment from a new place to operate that facility through the end of September which gives us time for conversations with other agencies about taking over the program taking over the the management and services at that time and we are in detailed conversations with chinning county organizations about doing that we don't have anything permanent to announce yet but I would say um our goal is that the we come out of this transition with that facility operating um even better than it has up until now really what has been available at that site up until now has just been the overnight uh housing services um and we would like to see something much more like the Elmwood Avenue kind of public health approach to homelessness where the housing services are combined with a concerted ongoing effort to get people to help they need to get into treatment to get into permanent housing to get into get back to work and we are seeing some success with that effort at Elmwood Avenue and we'd like to have more of those services available at the Shelton Road facility going forward and so that that is part of the goal that the transition uh be not just us someone taking over what a new place has done until now but actually to be expanding um what is happening there and really have a stronger program going forward that's a major goal of the city's thank you and I would say it's there it's a major goal of the states for that to continue as well um I see Derek has a hand up again as well yeah thanks um one more question you know I hear often from folks who say that uh they maybe have some kind of housing voucher maybe section eight or something similar and can't find a place to use it a landlord who will will rent at a rate that's eligible I mean is this a moment where this is a question for you mayor is this a moment where private landlords need to be stepping up to um to consider offering more units at rates that uh that where vouchers can be used I think that that is uh an on point question right now with exactly what we're proposing here many of the households and I think this was mentioned earlier in the briefing I don't know say if you have that stat again but Paul made a point about available vouchers as well it's a sort of a further tragedy with what is being proposed here and and what we're trying to avoid is yeah many many of these high need households do you have vouchers do basically have a um have the resources for permanent housing they just haven't been matched up with a unit yet through this focus of the coordinated entry system uh what our plan relies on is not some sort of dramatic change in trajectory but the uh the sort of existing system using largely non-profit owned uh homes that have had government funding as those homes become available and as new homes come online we would match the individuals in this these 165 individuals with these households and they would become permanently housed and that what's really missing there is just time and what this plan uh does is expand the time um you are right that if uh some that if the uh you that if there was more private property owners that participated in the voucher system that could expand the universe of of homes it could accelerate the plan that we're talking about here and it uh would uh would it would further address the sort of product situation that we have um with with these vouchers existing but not enough not homes it is definitely explicitly one of the goals of CEDO and our our effort to address homelessness it is one of the kind of medium and long-term strategies that i know sarah is um uh we're actively working on and and and that we it is something we'd like to see um we um it is uh almost since the day she started we also have been dealing with with crises and dealing with the setting up of new congress shelters and so it's i would say it's it's a medium-term goal and one that we um think has the possibility of um of having a further impact thank you okay um now i spoke to you soon before but now i'm not seeing any for further hands we've been um we've been at this for for over an hour so if i think we're at a point where we can wrap up this briefing again some of this discussion is going to be repeated at the city council work session that uh i believe starts at six o'clock tonight sarah the work session or is it later six six we believe it's six thirty and um thank you everyone for for joining and participating in this i want to thank our our partners uh who've been on the line throughout as well thank you for really being on the front lines of this challenge and working very hard day in and day out to do right by some of the most vulnerable romaners and chittenden county residents that there are none of none of the discussion we've been talking about today would be possible with without the outstanding housing nonprofits that we're fortunate to have here and work with so thank you everyone more soon talk to you soon