 Hi everybody, my name is David Martins. I'm the director at the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition and welcome to In the House Live, our ongoing conversation with different members of our community here in Vermont as we talk about the housing crisis that faces our state and solutions and kind of what's going on in that sector. And today I'm very excited to welcome Justin Cersic with us as our guest and well, I'll let you kind of tell everybody Justin is a AmeriCorps VISTA who has been working at VAHC for the last year, almost exactly a year, right? Next week it'll be. Yeah, it's going to be your anniversary. And so we're very happy to have him. We have two VISTAs that work with us, Justin and Grace. Grace can be with us tonight. So I thought that we might talk tonight just a little bit about, first of all, to tell our viewers what AmeriCorps is. Why don't we start with that? Yeah, sure. Thank you so much, David. So like everyone said, like David said rather, my name is Justin Cersic. I'm the resident engagement and outreach coordinator AmeriCorps VISTA with the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition. Now essentially what AmeriCorps does, through this really great program called Volunteers in Service to America or VISTA, takes recent graduates and other folks, young Americans and pairs them up with different nonprofit organizations across the country for what's called indirect service. So essentially this involves building capacity for these organizations, whether it's through new programs, fundraising, communications, et cetera, to make sure that they are more better able to serve the community. So in my case, I helped to outreach and education for the coalition to spread the coalition's message and to make sure that folks are informed about what's going on at the State House in Montpelier in regards to affordable housing, what resources are available to them, and how large the affordable housing crisis is and what the problems are. And you said volunteers in service to America, so we don't pay you. We'll put out that confession right there, right? VAHC does not pay you a salary. The coalition does not pay me salary, though the coalition does pay me a decent housing stipend. AmeriCorps overall, the federal government does provide a living stipend for the VISTAs, which varies from region to region. So for the Shitted in County region of Vermont, it's about $1,500, though there's about to be a pay increase for the next group of VISTAs that come in. And does that stipend go directly to the landlord? The housing stipend does, but the living allowance goes into the VISTA's pocket so they can pay their expenses from rent to insurance to groceries as best as they can. It doesn't leave much, though, for an ice cream cone on a hot day. Not really, no. Luckily, I'm in a good situation where I have a decent rent from a landlord who was a former AmeriCorps VISTA and likes to rent out to AmeriCorps VISTAs, but it's kind of difficult, especially when we look at what the fair market rent is in Vermont and what an affordable rent is supposed to be. About 30% of your monthly income by HUD standards has an urban development agency. So with the rent that I have right now, it is affordable, but for most rentals that are available in this area, I wouldn't be able to afford them. Yeah, yeah. No, of course. Now, so you sort of, you apply for the position, right? It's not just something you sign up for. You have to apply for it. And so now I'll put you on the spot because I've never asked this, but was it only housing that you applied to? Or was that like the only thing you wanted to do? Or did you kind of apply to different kinds of service opportunities? No, it wasn't. So I applied to multiple different VISTA opportunities, though I was very familiar with the coalition after having served in an internship over the summer a few years back with one of our partner organizations, CVOEO, the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, where I worked a lot with the mobile home park community. So definitely affordable housing held a place in my heart after that work, which is why I was ultimately drawn to the coalition. I'm certainly very glad that you and Grace both came to join us. We'll tell everybody at home that the coalition cannot function without the vital role that you all play. So, and you're not from, you are not originally a Vermonter, like me, you came here for VAHC. So, and you're originally from New Jersey. So it's all the same down there when you're from the Northeast. A little bit. From New Jersey. So you also had to do this housing hunt. I called just this week with someone from the media who wanted to talk about whether it was true or not that people are turning down job opportunities here because they can't find somewhere to live. And I said, oh, absolutely, it's true. It's a real, that's not just an anecdotal thing we say because of the labor story. It's a real issue, right? Yeah, it is. In fact, I do know that we had someone in my AmeriCorps VISTA class that had secured a position here in Vermont and they're already to start volunteering and they could not find housing. So ultimately they had to turn it down. Good Lord. And now you had already started. Did you get word about your place where you're living right away or did you have to get in the weeds of that hunt? It was an obsession of the weeds through various apartment rental websites and Facebook groups before I was able to find where I'm at right now. Wow. Well, good for you. I saw a post today about in one of the Facebook groups that deals with housing talking about application fees as like that. That's one of the big scams out there. So many scams, fake posts. And then when you get to the real things, they're so expensive. I think that's generally how you can tell if it's real or not. That's for sure. So you came on to do resident organizing work. And so why don't you start by kind of telling us a bit about what does that even mean, resident organizing? Yeah, sure. So essentially, as far as the coalition is involved, resident organizing involves making sure that folks know their rights, know what's going on in Vermont and are educated so that they can get involved, take action, contact their legislators, and ultimately try and affect and shape the landscape of affordable housing in this state. So initially, my project began with a series of in-person community meetings in Washington County with the idea that we would expand from county to county afterwards. However, that was a little stymied in the winter thanks to the Delta and Omicron variant of COVID-19. So eventually we shifted online to Zoom and because of that online landscape, we did a statewide approach. And we really focused on educating folks about different policies and pieces of legislation that the Affordable Housing Coalition was advocating for in Montpelier at the state house and how those bills might affect them if passed or if they don't pass. Just because sometimes that can be rather complicated and sometimes when it comes to tax credits and things like that and finance in, it can be difficult to understand how that is going to immediately affect me. So that's what we did throughout the entire legislative session until May when the ended. And right now, as you know, we moved on to a town hall format, which is actually fairly unique as compared to the community meetings. Yeah, it is. It's spoiler alert everybody. I already knew how that story ends, obviously, because I'm his boss. I was really struck by, in the course of us doing this work together as a coalition and with you, because from our perspective, and as people who are kind of doing this work regularly, we think, well, this is a wonderful opportunity. Oh, we just put this opportunity out there for people to gather and they can be heard. And to me, that's such a powerful, I would jump at any opportunity for my voice to be heard in the arena of lawmakers. Because it's really very true that legislators, my experience has been that legislators really want to hear from constituents. They want to hear, especially here it seems, they really do want to hear from Vermonters of every walk of life. And I think that even now, like talking to the candidates and people who are running for office, it seems that they're very much aware of the weight. The weight of the office, the responsibility, and the fact that the discussions they have in those rooms and in those chambers affect the daily life of Vermonters. And so they want to hear from all Vermonters. And so I was really struck by that that connection is not so obvious to everyone. That sometimes we get, it's probably true for all of us that we get so kind of stuck in our situations that it's hard to see how what happens in Montpelier impacts our everyday lives. Yeah, definitely. And I think I can share too that generally there is a lot of apathy among folks in the community when it comes to getting involved and getting engaged with what happens at the State House and what happens in local government just because of the pandemic, because of recent events. But your voice does matter, especially here in Vermont with our citizen legislature that is built around being in touch, in step with the community, being involved and making sure that constituents are heard and that their voices are brought to the State House in the end, ultimately. Yeah, I had some folks with the omnibus housing bill this past session, you know, this big housing bill, S226 that dealt with, and they heard so much about it in the media and they, you know, and folks I think when I talked to some folks about the bill, they seemed sort of disappointed. Like, it wasn't as exciting as they thought it was going to be. There's things like, you know, permitting and Act 250 and I think that we sort of, for the average person just kind of going through life, like, well, I need an apartment and I'm paying way more than I can afford. How do we fix this? And the behind the scenes stuff, which so often is what is worked out in legislation, seems so disconnected from the tangible solution. I think that's why people turn out for things like, you know, the Roe v. Wade stuff that just happened. People turn out for that. People turned out for things like marriage equality. People turn out for those big things, but those that, but things like, you know, a bill that deals with water and wastewater connection. It's harder to get excited about. Yeah, I think definitely a lot of those larger issues are clear cut. They're still incredibly important. Housing is kind of a big mess as you and I both know. There's a lot of history behind it going back to the Reagan era, moving forward with how the government funded or didn't fund and then funded again. Housing, affordable housing. So there's a lot of mechanisms to build more housing in lower prices and make sure that folks can be housed at a decent reasonable price and have that dignity too. Now you also, I know during your time with us got involved with the VHC's Manufactured Home subcommittee. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the work that they do? Yeah, I did. So initially I actually got involved with that before I joined the coalition about two years ago during my internship with CVOEO as I mentioned. I was a community liaison intern with their mobile homes program. And one of the goals of that internship was to work with community members and stakeholders to see how we could develop some type of advisory committee made up of nonprofit partners, residents of affordable housing communities to work together to advocate for manufactured housing which is one of the largest sources of unsubsidized affordable housing in Vermont and the United States. So our subcommittee of the coalition is made up of various organizations, various leadership from different organizations as well as some leadership from different cooperative mobile home parks. We have manufactured home communities that are all entirely owned by the residents. So the residents control the prices and the rents to guarantee that folks don't get unduly evicted, which can be a real problem in mobile home parks because the mobile part is a real misnomer. It costs a lot of money to lift those homes off of the land that you rent and move them. So oftentimes these homes are so old that the foundation and the structure would just fall apart if you tried to move it to begin with. So that can be a real issue. Do we kind of lead the way in Vermont in a sense when it comes to the co-ops or is that kind of the cooperative model or is that kind of the going thing? So I know across New England that's a very big thing, but Vermont is one of the leaders in it too in the cooperative model. So when it comes to everything from supermarkets to apartments to mobile home parks. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. I think that it builds community I think in a lot of important ways and such great important work. Yeah. You mentioned that we've switched to the town hall model for our for our community meetings and this for to well backstory for those of you who are watching. We had we have a big turnover in the state house this year and there's a real and you know Justin you hear me say all the time that if someone's running for office this year and they do not include housing as one of the items on their platform. Then they are not intelligent enough to run for office because it's just such an issue if you're if you're running for office and you're not talking about it like you're out of luck. But so everybody's talking about it. And as we've already said it's such a complicated issue that and you know our legend the wonderful part of our legislator legislature is that these policymakers are everyday Vermonters who stand up and say I want to represent I want to represent my community. And the and just just like any other Vermonter may not know all the ins and outs of housing. We're just becoming a lawmaker doesn't magically inform you right. So so we've put together these town halls by region to invite candidates to talk to their potential constituents our membership that kind of a thing so that they can learn about housing. How do you think they're going so far. As I said before it's been a really unique program and special program. So a lot of these town hall events that you hear about as the elections are ongoing are all about meet the candidates meet the candidates meet the candidates. But this event is really the candidates meet in you. So it's really a great opportunity for candidates to come instead of giving a stump speech or saying why you show it for them for them to hear directly from our our members our nonprofit housing organizations. And service providers and regular everyday Vermonters who will be their constituents about the issues they face the questions they have. And it's a great place for candidates themselves to ask questions because again like you said not everyone knows everything about housing. It's very complex especially me when I first started really was a boot camp to get caught up to speed. Oh yeah. Oh I know I'm still in it I think in the boot camp. Yeah no I agree. I think what's really struck me about the town halls is how how eager and really humble the candidates are that are running for office. I think a lot of times when you think of you know well Joe is running for whatever dog catch town dog catcher. You know we assume that there's this stereotype about politicians right and that there is sort of some arrogance and some not at all the case here. It hasn't been my experience at all that people here who are running for office have been really very proactive about reaching out about asking questions and saying I want to be educated and about this issue I want I want to learn more and I just think that that's I think that's fantastic and speaks to yeah speaks to the values of Vermont I think definitely and it's been the same across every region and political party in Vermont to that everyone really wants they just want to know so. Yeah absolutely. And I think the it's been interesting seeing some of the you know folks can register on the website and they register as a constituent or a member or a candidate. And that's www.vteaffordablehausen.org slash outreach. So sign up and right there on the website you can see what day your region is is meeting on but I'm you know a lot of times folks will shoot me an email particularly the candidates and they'll say oh well you know I went to the website to register for my region but I can't make it that night because I have this or I have that but I want to know more and so you know they'll schedule a time to talk to me or they'll send in their questions directly and I'm just really impressed by how seriously you know how serious they are about learning about it you know that's really I think very very telling. So I think if I learned one thing in the legislature last year it's that there's no magic bullet. There's no one solution. You know I was talking to a representative yesterday we're having coffee and we're saying you know this housing crisis took it took 30 years to get to where we are. You know we didn't keep up with housing we didn't keep up with this we can keep up with that there's a different attempts for the government at different levels to then a pandemic. We would be fools to think we can just stroll into Montpelier and in one biennium fix it just fix this problem that we've been working that we've been causing for decades that we can just fix it overnight and so it's a slow and steady work. Definitely I mean the coalition has been around since the mid 80s. So it's been constant work with constant progress to get to where we are so sometimes there's a few steps forward and a few steps back. But ultimately especially after this historic year that we had at the State House with tremendous investments into housing it's very exciting to see what Vermont is going to do. I always think of Gus from VHCB who said we were talking when I first first took this role we were talking about all the investments from the year before that the legislature had put into housing and he said you know my concern is that this year the senators are going to say well we already invested you know hundreds of millions of you know into this why is this still an issue why isn't it just fixed you know. And he said and the answer to that is that the problem is so big that hundreds of millions is an investment it's a it's the down payment. Yeah. On resolving this problem and that's really mind blowing to really think about you know and that even if we had all the money in the world we there's all these other dynamics too that have to it's not even a problem that can be solved with with money money helps but it's not going to be entirely solved with money. Yeah. Very kind of poignant. We had I wonder what your thoughts are about there was the point not point in time point in time. The report we just that just out of reach out of reach point in time is a couple months ago. Anyway the outreach point looking at the housing issue across the country and I don't know about you when you read about when I read it I thought well that really puts quite a quite a sharp light on. It does. Yeah. So as you know that report is conducted every year by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. And it looks state by state community by community to look strictly at the numbers on what the affordable housing crisis looks like in every state in every community. And overall for Vermont so what they do is they look at the fair the fair market rent. So essentially kind of an average of what rents are going for for one bedroom two bedroom apartments and what they should look like which oftentimes if you look at that and compare it to like Zillow at rent.com. It doesn't really match up. Those prices are a little bit more expensive. They tend to be but it also does something which is really cool which it looks at wages to see what an affordable housing wage would be for an average Vermonter for a two bedroom apartment. For instance. So it essentially assumes that you're working 40 hours a week. Right. And then it takes the fair market rent. It takes your salary and it looks to see what you can afford pay if you pay 30% of your monthly wages which is what is considered affordable by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. So in Vermont that's about $23 an hour is the affordable housing wage. Meanwhile the minimum wage in Vermont we've taken a lot of steps compared to some other states and the federal government but it's only $12 and 55 cents. So you have to work essentially one and a half full time jobs one to two jobs to be able to afford rent and then be able to adequately pay for other things like gas a car insurance health care education food. And gas prices can you know are crazy and I know I know I can't get out of the grocery store under $100. I mean there's just no way to do it. It's and we you know I think that we often talk about you know like I'll go visit when I'm visiting with my parents sometimes we'll talk about the cost of something you know and my dad will say I remember when you know such and such only costs such and such or you know. And you know and we hear that all the time from the generations ahead of us. I've got in at least two phone calls from my grandma over the past year asking me how much it paid for groceries. That's a back in her day. And I'm sure that like the generation before them paid even less for all these things you know and like we and I think that we it's it's easy to kind of like brush that off as like well every generation says that. But I think that what the out of reach report which is appropriately named highlights is that this is a tangible real this is not just anecdotal that this is absurd. I remember when I'm in my bartending days of a lifetime ago I I was in my very early twenties and wanted to had applied for this job that was advertised as a marketing manager and I applied for the job I got it will turn out to be door to door sales and you walk around sell these coupon books and they had this whole kind of algorithm of how to make you know all this money and so I when I remember the first couple of weeks I like the first week I finally went out on my own like and after the whole week of hoofing around all these neighborhoods the middle of nowhere Massachusetts in the snow and you know I had 100 bucks was what I made and I remember I went to the manager and I said you know I can't I can't keep this this role I need to make I need to make more money and he said well what are you paying in rent. And at the time I was paying four hundred dollars a month I. I think my total rent was eight hundred and I had one roommate. I saw four hundred dollars a month and he said well they say if you can make if that in that you should make. Oh I don't remember what his math was but the bottom line was was that that your rent should be a quarter of your of your income. That was his argument which is less than the HUD standards. Yeah and I thought OK and like now but I look back now and think first of all I think wow I was only paying eight hundred dollars a month for rent like. That's phenomenal and just I think part of what's frightening about all of it is how fast all these things have increased because in my own lifetime and I mean I'm not I'm older than you but I'm not that old. You know it's shocking how fast the numbers have gone up you know and it's really disproportionate and really kind of really very alarming. Yeah so as you come to the end of your VISTA service year what would what would you say is probably the most valuable thing you've learned about housing or or the most valuable thing you're taking with you. That's a very good question. I think I can touch into some of the things we were talking about as we're talking about the town hall meetings of candidates. It's that really when it comes down to the state and local level some of the party lines that you see in the divides at the federal level the national level don't really exist and people are more willing. Especially when it's not all about what's on cable news or Twitter to work together on issues to improve the life of average everyday Vermonters. Now granted there are going to be some disagreements but for the most part there's been a lot of collaboration at the state house and it's been really nice to see that as you do your work there. And also to see that through the town hall meetings of folks from either side, progressives, Democrats, Republicans, independents really come together to acknowledge that housing is an issue that needs to be solved. And now as your year comes to an end what's the plan? Are you going to flee Vermont for cheaper rent somewhere else or are you stepping out into the rental world? No for some reason. I thought that the snow was going to drive me away and the negative 20 degree temperatures but actually I'm kind of getting drawn in. So I'm definitely still on the lookout but I'm very eagerly awaited in interviews that are going to take place and I'm hoping to stay in Vermont if not go elsewhere for other opportunities. And now that you're stepping out into, I'm guessing you're starting to look at apartments and what's out there. I was just doing that today, yeah. Has it gotten any better since a year ago? So definitely some of the salaries that I've been looking at a lot better than the AmeriCorps stipends so that's been helpful. However the rents are also pretty high too to the point where it might be 40% of my monthly salary so 10% above the HUD standard. Has they come down at all? It's been pretty stagnant I have to tell you so I think hopefully by looking at roommates and other opportunities that come up that I'll be able to find something. Yeah. I looked, I'll tell you, every once in a while I'll go on and look. Not because I'm really looking to live anywhere different. I very much like where I am but I'll look sometimes just see what's out there and my lease was about to be renewed. So I said well let me see what's out there and I thought to be honest with you I thought it was a little bit worse than it was a year ago. I mean there was more, maybe it's just because I have a better eye now for the scams but I just thought like this is unbelievable. I'm still struck by how many they'll show a living room with this beautiful view of a city out the window and then it'll be out of city view. What city? What skyline is that? That's not real. Yeah. It's amazing just how many scams and fake posts there are and it's really very alarming. And are you hoping to continue to stay in the housing world? I would love to because affordable housing has definitely held a place in my heart. I'm looking to expand and go wherever opportunities take me but especially since affordable housing will continue to affect me for most of my young adult career, for most of my professional career. It's a concern so I would love to stay involved. And I think especially if you're going to live in Vermont unless you end up rich it's always going to be a concern. And do you have any thoughts about the long term? With the trajectory of kind of where you're heading beyond that? Gosh that's hard to think about right now. I think I definitely want to stay with community engagement and outreach to make sure that folks know the resources that are available to them, that they receive the education that's out there and that they're able to get involved with local government, state government and bills and legislation and policies that really affect them. Super. Well thank you Justin. Thank you for joining us in the house today. Thank you for your service to VHC and I know I speak and you and Grace, Grace if you're watching at home from your sick bed, that wherever I know I speak for all of our members when I say how grateful we are for both of you and your work and your service and really just invaluable. And for those of you who are watching at home wherever you live in the state please visit our website, register for the town hall for your region if you're welcome to register for any of them but it's a great opportunity to inform the folks that will be representing you in Montpelier about the struggles that Montes are facing right in your neighborhood so by all means register, check it out and follow our website to keep up with all the happenings at VHC. And with that we'll see you or you'll see us I should say in two months so thank you for joining us and Justin thank you. Thank you David.