 So, hello everyone and welcome. This web conversation is sponsored by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Burlington Branch, and today we are hopefully including many other folks from the newly founded Vermont Peace Anti-War Coalition. My name is Robin Lloyd, and today we're focused on tax day. It's coming up in one week on April 18th. And before we get going with the two fascinating speakers, I'd like to share this pie chart. Are you able to see the pie chart? Yeah. Yeah, the federal year 2024. It's something that the War Resisters League has put out for years and is really full of a lot of fascinating information, and we will have a whole bunch of them, and Duncan will have a bunch of them in White River Junction. And we'll be at the State House this Saturday with a table, and we need volunteers to help out. Okay. So today we're honored to have Ashit Siddiqui with us, who is a research analyst at the National Priorities Project. And I think I will, for the moment, get rid of the graphic. No, I don't want that either. Okay. I want to get back. Stop share. There we go. Here we are. Everyone. Yes. And so Ashit works with the National Priorities Project, which got started way back in 1983, at the height of the Reagan era, when activists wanted to find out why they're hometown, which is Northampton. And I remember those days, because I was often going down there to the Peace Development Fund meetings in the same town, that Northampton was crumbling because social services were being shut down. And yeah, that was during the dismal Reagan era. So now the organization has gone on to join the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., which is perhaps the largest progressive think tank in Washington at the moment. So let us welcome Ashit to tell us how the NPT, the NPP works and how it can be useful to activists to understand where our money really goes when we send it off to the IRS. And there'll be opportunities for some questions at the end, but not too many, because we also want to hear and welcome our second speaker, Mary Beth Mayer. So take it away, Ashit. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for having me. I am based in North Carolina, so I'm happy to join you all virtually. Before I get started, can I get screen share permissions? Whoever is host, if you make me a co-host, I can- Oh, yes, okay. I'll share some visuals. Definitely. So while I'm away from that, I guess just I'm joining you just a few days before tax day next week. And we-NPP does an annual tax day analysis that we're actually going to publish, hopefully by the end of this week. So what I'll be showing you today is from last year, but the analysis that we'll have in a couple of days, which I'll be happy to pass it on once it's ready. We'll have some updated numbers and graphics. So what we'll be- Okay, I think you can share now. Okay, great. I see it. Thank you. So I just dropped a link in the chat to our website, which is what I'll be showing- Just walking through a couple of the tools that NPP has available that we keep updated based on available federal budget data. So starting at nationalpriorities.org, we have a couple of tools that we use. One is the tax receipt and the other is trade-offs. So first I'll just show an overall graphic that we use that's similar to the one that you were just shown, which is our discretionary budget pie chart that shows a breakdown of how the budget that Congress allocates each year is allocated. So as you can see here, almost a half of it goes to the military budget. Last year is actually a little bit less proportionally than most years because of COVID. There's much more social spending, but this year, we'll have the graphic updated soon. The military is right back up to a half and it's actually higher than it's been in many years, almost as high as at the height of the war on terror in the Obama years and approaching the level of World War II basically, which is the historical high military budget in the United States. So one of the tools that we have that hopefully your organizations can find useful is the trade-offs tool, which you can see from the Explorer, the budget drop-down menu. So this is where we break down a few different categories of spending, militarized spending, and various programs that we think are funded at levels that are much higher than needed if they're needed at all. And there are trade-offs that we show all that could have been funded instead. So in the most recent available year, taxpayers in the US paid $740 billion for the military. That could have gone to any number of other social priorities instead. That could have funded 6 million nurses, almost 90 million public housing units, etc., and it goes on just even a 1% of the military budget. If you choose that, that's still 66,000 nurses, almost a million public housing units, 18 million households with wind power. Like all these things that the government should be funding that are a collective goods for society but are not funded. Instead, we have this massive militarized government apparatus. So there are a few ways you can break it down, so you can choose different programs and see the trade-offs. You can also break it down by location. So if you're based in Vermont, for example, I'm not too familiar with the geography of Vermont, but let's just say Burlington is the town I'm familiar with. You can break it down according to how much federal taxes were paid by residents of Burlington or whichever location you choose by city, county, or congressional district. You can see even that would have paid for over 100 public housing units, almost 3,000 households with wind power, etc., so things that would really make a difference in your community versus this militarized spending, just 1% of the federal budget. So this is a tool that folks often find useful that we keep updated every year. The other tool that we have, so you can feel free to explore this on your own time and hopefully that can be useful in your advocacy. The other tool that we have is the tax receipt, which is what we'll be updating later this week. So this is an analysis that we do every year and we break down categories of spending that are somewhat different than the discretionary budget. This also includes what is more directly coming from taxpayer funds. So the largest category here is in the previous year was Medicare and Health, second was unemployment and labor, military was third, I mean the past military was number one, but because of rising healthcare costs, healthcare has become number one. Last year is the first year that unemployment and labor was number two, but in the analysis we'll publish in a couple of days, military is back up to number two, the only reason unemployment and labor was so high the previous year is because of the COVID stimulus programs. So there are a few different things that this taxpayer, that this tax receipt does. We show something that we call a tax receipt, like imagining that the government, everything that's allocated from taxpayer funds is itemized according to different categories. So we do state by state breakdowns. I'm just going to show you the United States average taxpayer breakdown. So in the previous year, the average taxpayer in the U.S. paid a little bit over $13,000 in taxes. So our tax receipt breaks that down into a few different, 13 different categories and then different specific programs. And you can see how much the average taxpayer paid. You can also enter a number of your specific number or amount of taxes paid. You can also go state by state to see what it looks like, but overall this is what it looks like. So for the Pentagon military, the average taxpayer paid about $2,000 out of their own pocket basically, out of that almost $62 went to nuclear weapons, almost $1,000 went just to military contractors, and you can compare that to any number of social programs that we include here. For example, homeless assistance got only about $8. Disaster got about $120. So if you make those kinds of comparisons, like for renewable energy, it's less than $6. So compared to the military spending, it's a lot less for things that folks might find useful. So we try to pull out talking points based on that about what was funded versus what was not funded. So we have some graphics that I can show you. Okay, I already showed you that one. So yeah, that's in a nutshell the presentation that we do each year that will have updated pretty soon with the latest numbers from the previous year. So happy to take any questions. So are there some simple, almost like slogans that we can take with us for Saturday? I mean, this one that you were looking at, maybe we can print that out. If you paid taxes, you likely paid that much. Okay, and that's based on an average of what did you say, $13,000? Yeah, these are the kinds of, so for the previous year, we had a few top line trade-offs that we thought were interesting to highlight. So compared to the amount that goes to private contractors, only that much was given to Cape through 12 education. For nuclear weapons, it's almost three, like double what we gave to the CDC, which is pretty stark in the time of, you know, after several years of COVID. For deportations and border control, the government paid this much more versus renewable energy. For prisons, it's more than double what we gave to homelessness assistance. Well, that would be a good one for us to use, because we'll be at a rally on federal prisons calling for, there not to be a federal prison for women. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so these are from the previous year from 2021. So in a couple of days, hopefully by the end of the week, we'll have numbers updated for 2022. So if your event is this weekend, then we're hoping to have it up by Thursday or Friday at the latest. Ashit, can you say, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Can you just say how you got to that? I have another laptop here. Oh, you mean how we found the status? Where you are now. Yeah, how you found that. Oh, so we break down. Go to explore the budget. Yeah, so we break down the amounts that are up. Yeah. So we basically take ratios of how much went to particular categories of spending versus the overall budget. Yeah. And then take those ratios against the average taxes paid. So there's a set of state and federal data about how much the average taxpayer paid. And so that's how you as an individual, you can take the amount that you paid in taxes. Let's just say it was 10,000. And the same receipt will break that down. Yeah. And so you're on the explore the budget menu. And that's where you've got that last graphic we were looking at, which was homelessness versus what was the one federal prisons. So how did you get to that? Oh, okay. That one with the dollar. Yeah. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So we just click on that dollar to get the little graphics you made. Is that right? That's right. If you just go to our homepage, National Priorities, and you could click where your taxes went, you'll see that dollar graphic, and then you can click through that to the tool. And the full analysis that will publish later this week will be linked from reports here. So if you scroll down, that's last year's analysis. In a couple of days, you'll see tax. Okay. Well, there's more than the 22, 21 information. Yeah. And the reason you'll update this year is because in every year in usually February or March, this year is an early March. The president's office puts out their budget request for the next year. So the Biden administration put out their budget request for 2024 last month. And that includes all the data for what was spent the previous year. So in 2023, in the president's request for 2024, it also includes everything that was spent in 2022. So that's why you might see different kinds of numbers floating around. Like I saw in the graph, you just shared that was for what is requested for 2024, which that makes sense to message around. For the purposes of our tool, we itemized what was spent the previous year. So that's just a distinction that might be useful to make. Well, are you crunching the statistics for this year already? Because I think Beth Ann is going to be telling us about how, well, yes, last year, lots of money was put into the public system and helping people out in various ways. But now all that's going to be cut. So all the statistics that you deal with will be changed greatly, I think, probably in the coming year. Yes, of course. So the president's request for the following year is subject to all that tagling in Congress. So typically the budget for the next year is not approved until the end of this year. So what was requested for 2024 is still different than what Congress may approve by the end of the year. So that's where advocacy and activism comes in, because that could potentially impact the Congress besides allocate. Are there other questions? I have one. Yes, Ricky. Yes, I think I noticed the nine percent on the dollar bill graphic, the nine percent point something and debt service. I wonder if that is a number that you've seen grow over the last, say, five years or so. That is a good question. I don't recall offhand. If you look through our website, you can see previous years. Oh, you can. Good. Yeah, we have previous year's analyses. I think in previous years, it's possible it was higher or fluctuated. I'm not sure offhand. Like I'm just seeing for 2019, for example, it was 16 cents. And for 2021, it's down to nine cents out of the dollar. So that tells you what share it was of the overall budget. It might not tell you the overall amount, which is a big distinction to make, because the size of the budget can change as well. Right. Okay. I see a question from Jane. Yeah. Did you say about half of the budget goes to the military? And yes, I guess that was one question. And then, but you said there was about an equal amount spent. I mean, I mean, that Medicare was about an equal amount compared with the military budget. I mean, when you broke it down, we paid about the same amount for the military budget. I mean, wait a minute. In that in one graphic, but then you said half that it was, yes, I didn't hear correctly that it was, okay, for us, was a military half, paying for the military half the budget. One question. And I guess the Medicare, what a percentage of the budget is that? Yeah, this is where we make distinctions between the discretionary budget and the mandatory budget. So I'm going to drop a link to our website. That's what we call Federal Budget 101. That breaks down a few different kinds of spending. So there's the discretionary budget that Congress allocates every year of which the military is about half year after year. But then there's the mandatory budget, which includes large pockets of spending like Medicare and Social Security that mostly come out of trust funds, which include things that are funded by payroll taxes, but it's not something that Congress allocates year after year. It's they're considered permanent programs. So that's where you see in the tax dollar we separate federal funds from trust funds. So trust funds can only be used for specific programs like Social Security and Medicare. All the other funds are federal funds, which include revenue from your federal income taxes and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. So that can be a little bit confusing if you want to talk about how big a share military spending is of the federal budget. That's why when we're talking about advocacy that tries to impact what citizens can impact more, which is what Congress allocates every year, we talk more about the discretionary budget because military is a huge share of that. But for the purposes of tax day, for the tax receipt, we're talking specifically about what your taxpayer funds are used for, which does include large shares of health and unemployment or Social Security spending. And that's sort of the Republican and that's where people get messed up on. I mean, that's where people can get deceived about how much the military makes because then the Republicans can point to the mandatory budget and say, see Medicare is draining the budget. We're going to have to cut amounts to Social Security and that kind of stuff. I mean, and other things. But when you look at the discretionary budget, I've added to that, I've been a different picture. It's a different picture. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So we've got to be careful, I mean, in any ways. So that can be... So that's the most basic idea of the website is the distinction between discretionary and non-discretionary funds. But in other words, our income tax, what we pay is for the discretionary amounts. The others are set in concrete, although Congress can play around with those too, but those are not paid by our yearly income tax. Any other questions? I would just like to bring up that we had in our disarm call just Sunday a report about the ICBMs. Now, the ICBMs are those horrible missiles that are scattered around, I think, five Western states that are permanently set on trigger alert to respond to an attack from Russia. And once they're sent, they can't be brought back. Now, the military is actually asked to end this. And it's a huge expense. But what has gotten into this year's budget is to replace them with a whole bunch of new missiles. So the reason we were talking about this is one of the very few opportunities that people have to protest are expenditures on nuclear weapons. Is it Vancouver? Vancouver. It's a base in California where the missiles are tested. And periodically, a missile without a nuclear weapon on it is sent off to the Marshall Islands, which is, of course, ironic because those are the islands that we destroyed with testing nuclear weapons back in the day when there was testing. But one of that will be taking place. One of these tests will be taking place. And there's an effort to get people to respond. And of course, it means going to California to do that, but to get the publicity about this, because as I say, it's the only opportunity to see preparations for nuclear weapons in action. And I guess my question is, is the whole issue of ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, is that broken down in your website? That is a good question. I think we don't have specifically ICBMs. However, in the trade-offs tool, we do include nuclear weapons spending more broadly, which I'll just show. So if you go to the drop-down menu of the trade-offs tool that I just showed, if we choose nuclear weapons in the most recent available year, that was $22 billion. And then we have trade-offs that you can see for how much we've been funded instead and other things. So we don't have specific numbers for ICBMs, but if you do have a number on hand from some other source, you can also customize the tool if you had some other amount. So let's just say it was $5 billion, and you can put some number zeros. That's just $1 billion, that's too many. But let's say it was $5 billion, you could see trade-offs for that. Wow. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, the ICBMs, to remind people, is one of the three tripods of militarism. It's either the submarines or the bombers or these ICBMs that are tucked away in these western states in a big, concrete, sort of, bunkers, how's that area? So anyway, any other questions? And yes, Jean. I remember talking about a lot of western states having ICBMs. Is there a chart or statistics on which state receives the most military money? Well, what we were hearing in our disarm talk a few days ago was that, yes, I mean, it's very hard to get those states or those senators to vote against funding because this is a field jobs project for those states, and they're very committed to them, and it will be hard to dislodge. And that's how we ended up with the F-35s, right? Yes, our jobs. Good. All right. Well, thank you so much, Ashik, and please stay on. And I want to invite Bethanne to join us and to just say that she is an active in community organizing with the Vermont Interfaith Action. She's a retired doctor and is a deacon in the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Barrie. So I met people from that church three years ago when I protested in the state house as part of the Poor People's Campaign. And the minister then, actually he's a rector, Earl Cooper Camp, was active in helping to get us not sent to jail and to take care of us. And he was very active a few days ago at the Poor People's Campaign in Montpelier. He was leading the charts, so the chance. So I think of that church as being really the most progressive church in our state. And so I want to welcome Bethanne to tell us some of the things that happened at that event and what is planned to be down the line in terms of the cuts and how they're going to affect us. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I was just reading the last thing in the chat from Ashik here, which is interesting, on spending for the Ukrainian conflict. Oh, yes. Good. So I'm going to give an overview of what we're seeing in Vermont and what the path has been that's brought us to this point. Right now we have over 3000 people who are without permanent housing. Those are the people we know about. There are many other people that we don't know about that are still doubled up living on Grandma's couch or in some instances sleeping in cars, but just haven't entered the system in any way that we know about. About 80% of the people who are homeless in Vermont are currently sheltered in hotels. And the funding for that came early on in COVID through federal money. It was FEMA money, emergency management money. And Duncan, are you trying to talk? No. Can you say the percentage of people in hotels that are homeless? The figure I've seen is 80% of our current population of people who are without housing. Okay, unhoused. Okay, thank you. And that funding ended at the end of March. So the Budget Adjustment Act, this is all now in Vermont, the Budget Adjustment Act to the Vermont 2023 budget, which we're currently in, we're currently spending the 2023 budget until July. So they found enough money to keep people in the hotels through May. At the end of May, anybody who does not meet their eligibility requirements will need to exit the hotels. And that is roughly 1000 people. So 1000 people will be exiting the hotels at the end of May without any plan for where they will go. The shelters, the congregate shelter spaces that we have are at capacity. They've been full continuously. And there just is no plan for what to, you know, how to continue to shelter 1000 people. To give you an idea of what 1000 people will look like when they end up out in our communities, that's five times the number of unsheltered people that we had pre-COVID. So wherever you live, if you can think of images in your mind of what it's looked like for unsheltered people in your communities prior to COVID, then think about five times that number. So basically what the state is proposing is to just turn this over to the communities to deal with. And so I should say that the fiscal year 24 budget is now in process of being formed. It has been voted out from the House and it's currently under consideration in the Senate. The governor's request was to put $26 million in the fiscal year 24 budget that would allow people who met eligibility, and I'll talk about what that is, eligibility requirements to stay hotel housed. So, and it's not entirely certain how many people were talking about, but roughly we're talking about 60% of the people who are currently hotel housed will stay hotel housed because they meet eligibility requirements. And that those, the eligibility is if you are a household with a child, they will continue to be sheltered. If you are over 60, if you have a disability and they have a very narrow definition of disability that you have to have been classified, disabled by state disability or receiving SSI federal disability insurance. But there is a wide group of people who are truly disabled who have not been able to work through the disability system and they will be on the streets. If you've been fleeing domestic violence and you went through the right paths of clarifying that, then you will continue to be sheltered in the hotels. If you had to recently leave a dwelling because it was, it didn't meet the standards set by the state. So that means that you had to ask for an inspection. But, but they get a certain number of days that they get to stay in the hotels. So the governor asked for 26 million to house those folks in the hotels. The house in their budget proposal went along with the governor's request. To put that in perspective, we've been spending about $72 million in the last year to have all these folks in hotels. So we are going to be, we are going to budget a third of what we've been spending, even though we know that 60% will meet eligibility. It just really, the math doesn't work and the house didn't push it. And so we're really working with the Senate to see if they can add some money and a better plan. That's, that's the other aspect of this is that the administration now has had three years to be smarter about how they use this money. But they've been paying hotel owners, tourist room rates. Yes, that's an important factor. So expensive. So for a single room, for a single person in the hotel that I'm most familiar with, I live in the central Vermont area, I personally wouldn't stay there. I wouldn't have stayed there before COVID. And they haven't spent any of all the money they've been making. They haven't spent that money to update or renovate or take care of this facility. What they did was they bought a much swankier hotel down the street, those hotel owners. But that one room costs $3,400 a month. What? Yeah, $3,400 a month is what the state has been paying for one room for one person. If they, if it's one room for two people, it's closer to $6,000. So that's like $100, a little more than $100. A night. A night. Yeah, I think they have a cap that they won't, the state has a cap that it won't spend over $175 a night for a room. Well, that's nice. And they've been doing this for three years without trying to figure out a smarter way to take care of folks. In those rooms, they have a little, I mean, you've all been in hotel rooms, I would imagine, a little microwave and a little mini fridge. They're not allowed to have electrical appliances. They can't have a hot plate. They, you know, if they bring in an electric tea kettle, they're in danger of getting evicted. So it's, it's been a nightmare. I mean, nobody is saying that we should continue hotel housing, but there's no other plans that have been, there are a couple of plans that are now starting to surface. Teresa Wood, who's the head of House Human Services Committee, says that there are, I forget the exact figures, 250 empty mobile home locks. And that you, that for $40 million, they could put a mobile home on each of these empty locks that would provide 250 units of housing. So that's, that's hopeful for $40 million. It's, I know that the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition is presenting a plan now to the Senate that for $40 million, nonprofits or communities could submit a grant to purchase hotel properties or other properties and, and run some kind of shelter within them. Well, I think in Burlington, we've done that. The Champlain Housing Association has bought Yeah, it's been done in other parts of the state as well. Typically, those have been full scale development projects. And, and they don't happen quickly. You know, the renovation doesn't happen quickly. This would be a plan where, and this is based on a program in Oregon called the Oregon Turnkey Program, where they, they put this plan up and nonprofits would acquire the property and do minimal renovations, get people right into them, and then kind of renovate them as they go along. And then when they no longer need them as shelters, then they would be developable as affordable housing properties. And I just want to point out my very big concern about the trailers is that most of our mobile home parks are in flood plains. Right. And professionally, I've seen that very, very devastating. You know, even a small stream can wipe out a trailer park. You know, if you look at most of the low income housing in the state, it's in flood plains. Yes, you're absolutely right. Or mountain hollows with little access. But so, yes, it's not at all ideal. But much preferable to somebody trying to live on the street or in a tent in the woods. Yeah. And I think that there are a fairly significant number of vacant industrial or business buildings as well that could also be used that are much safer. We're not putting people in harm's way. Yeah. You know, it's going to be, it's going to be a huge problem. And meanwhile, the governor is asking that 100 million, because we've had a pretty good revenue year, the governor is asking that $100 million be put in a as a place marker to match future federal grant monies that might come on projects, on infrastructure projects. And so this would be like a reserve of $100 million in order to do future infrastructure projects. When you're talking about putting a thousand people literally out on the street. So that's that's what we're concerned about. Meanwhile, the other aspect of this from a poverty point of view is that that federal money that federal emergency management money was also giving a lot of rental assistance to people that are living permanently housed, but have low incomes. And as rents, there's been no kind of control of rents, rents, as you know, have just been skyrocketing. So people have been unable to continue to meet their their rents. And they've lost that rental subsidy at the same time that they've lost a lot of food support. So we're really feeling like we're going to see a huge crisis in terms of of the challenges for people who have very little. I see I see these hands, Jane, I believe your hands been up for a while. She's both right, I think. But how about Duncan Duncan? And you can take that. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. No, I'll take I'll take down my hand. I've forgotten about that. But I have another. Yeah, go ahead, Duncan. Yeah, so I'm in White River Junction Vermont area. And our shelter here is the Haven. And the Haven, I don't know, just to sign outside of the Haven, maybe it was on the store in Norwich said that there are 500 people who are unhoused in the upper valley, which is my area. Seems like a lot. And you're and I think now that would include part of New Hampshire, of course, we're right next to New Hampshire, but the upper valley, these four or five towns. So that's a lot of people. But there's a person here that has an organization called digs. And I forget what it's called, but they build tiny houses. They call them emergency shelters. And they're quite radical. They'll bring these little houses that they make and they'll they'll slide them down the railroad tracks. And they'll get them to an area in the woods or in an area where people are staying. And they'll get them a place to live. So or at least it lock be able to be safe. So so I'm wondering a little bit, but my question is, okay, so there's 80% of people in Vermont are in hotels who are unhoused. And so what about the other 20%? I mean, I know there may be on couches and things like that, but I'm wondering how that breaks down. Are they in the woods? Are they intense? Most of them are in other shelters. So like the people that are at the Haven, yeah, are not in that 80%. The people that are at Good Samaritan Haven and Barry are not. Oh, thank you. People that are at Cots in Chittenden County. So and then there's the network, the there's there are there are several shelters for people fleeing domestic violence. There are are a number of scattered site family shelters being run by community action agencies. So so there are a lot of people who are considered homeless who are who meet the qualification of the title homeless, but they are housed in various shelters. Some of them are congregate with four people to a room. We, you know, that went way down during COVID, but it started to inch back up. And could you speak about the role of churches? I mean, you when I was online looking at the Church of the Good Shepherd, you you have some a dozen pots there. Are those filled every night? And do you foresee more and more people coming to stay there? So actually the the the night time shelter is at Christ Episcopal Church in Montpelier. I'm affiliated with both the Church of the Good Shepherd and Barry and Christ Episcopal Church in Montpelier. And all winter during the cold winter with the what do they call it? Anyway, the state has a has a period of time that they consider cold weather, and they had some money available for an over what they call an overflow shelter. So we have been providing nighttime shelter in the parish hall of Christ Episcopal Church for 10 to 12 people depending on the night. They sleep on cots. They're in a room that's about 25 feet by 35 feet. And there's 12 cots in there. And they have to leave in the morning. There are other warm spaces they go to. They go to the library. There is a drop-in center in town. And then at night we've had to open up evening warming shelters. And those have been happening in the churches. And then at eight o'clock at night they come back over to Christ Church and they go to bed from the night. So it's kind of a itinerant shelter experience. It's, you know, they have to carry everything with them. We don't have any showers. So there is the drop-in center. They can take a shower there. But that those are there have always been that kind of number of unsheltered people through the winter. And those people will that shelter will close on April 15th because that's when the state funding is no longer available for that. Really? The shelter in your church? Yeah. Well, that's four days from now. It is. And what does it cost, say, per night for 12 people? What are the costs the church is bearing? So the church is not real is not I have to say honestly church is not bearing a cost other than utilities. The cost is for staffing because you can't just have 12 people who are living homeless be in a room together without a staff. It just isn't going to work. So the staffing is being done by a nonprofit organization. And so that's the cost. So the cost is is what it costs for staff. Wow. Thank you. I mean, when you think about it, every every unhoused person once had a house and is that one of the efforts to help them get back to where they were or are have most people sort of cut their ties? There's no opportunity to go back to where they were. There's been a big effort to have everybody that we know is without housing be enrolled in what's called coordinated entry. This happens in each district of the state and coordinated entry is a list that's kept and as housing becomes as units open up. There are vouchers that are available and try to but people are put on the list with priority points depending on what your situation is. So yes, there's a lot of effort to get everybody into housing, but there is no housing. I'm sure you all read this that we have the lowest rental vacancy rate in the country. We are second highest in our rate of homelessness, but we're also we've been right up there also in the percent of our people who are sheltered who are homeless. So we've done a good job of sheltering them so far, although we're talking about hotel shelters. I think that the the thing that really disturbs me is that this body of people did not they didn't make a decision to get themselves in this kind of difficulty. They basically were not able to make income that allowed them to keep housing stable housing and and that's because we have not provided a minimum wage that meets the very basic needs of people to remain housed and fed and warm, much less any other fills like transportation or childcare. You cannot you cannot keep yourself housed and fed on a minimum wage. That's if you can get a full-time job. That's right at a full-time job. There are you know a lot of jobs right now, but and the wages are going up. We also have made decisions for about 30 years not to build an adequate amount of housing. We have it written into statute that money that comes from half of the money that comes from property tax you know the transfer tax when you buy a property you pay a transfer tax. 50% of that money is supposed to go to the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and most of that money is used to build affordable housing, but we have underfunded that. They have they have decided not to give the required 50% for most of the last 20 to 30 years. Wow. And that's how we got here. Is that worth a lawsuit? Um there is a clause in that statute that says that gives them an out if it's needed for something else or you know something equally fuzzy. I see um that Pamela has her hand up. You want to speak Pamela? Yes well actually that's part of the question that I was interested in knowing about because I know that during COVID it was announced that the state had delayed the initiation of building for affordable housing despite actually having and surplus funds at that time and the other interesting point about the coordinated entry issue in relation to the other programs like Section 8 or yeah Vermont Housing House well but they they actually cross together and what what's interesting is um I actually was asked for a while from CBOEO was looking I mean the scope of this was a little broader than exactly housing um but I actually did some work with the online educational uh program that they run to give tenant information about the path to housing and what was really interesting about it is that there are so many issues for instance this issue of affordability once you have a job well this is an interesting one because the income caps and whatever other assets that you have are actually quite low to actually be maintained even if you get one of these vouchers the other thing is these vouchers are timed some of the ones that come up with coordinated entry and they usually give you 60 dates if you cannot find housing that meets the criteria you know and can pass inspection you lose the voucher and you start all over if you choose to to get on the list and this is a big problem um at least for I mean and the same is true for certain Section 8 vouchers the other thing is the some of the new affordable housing that's been built I know for instance in Winooski they built they have built what is termed affordable housing but it is still far beyond several hundred dollars beyond what is reimbursable by Section 8 so that means that you can use a voucher but you have to pay the difference wow and then what's interesting but see this is the catch 22 then you could end up needing to make more money than the Section 8 voucher actually allows you to make in order to pay the difference between what Section 8 reimburses and what the rental charge is for you to remain so and and when we get into the poverty aspect of creating the means for somebody to gain self-sufficiency this is a significant factor in that wow well thank you it's very complex and uh and with lots of ins and outs we've had Vermont has had to turn a significant number of vouchers back to the government we've lost those the use of those vouchers because there wasn't anything to rent for the amount that the voucher was for wow and the state can't like say okay we're gonna give you a little boost we're gonna give you a little bit of extra money state money so that you can use your federal voucher and your state money and rent but that doesn't work either because that then gets counted as your income and that makes you ineligible for the voucher it's very mixed up and awful yeah except that the v-hap that what you're talking about that is no longer going away that actually closed some of those gaps because people could request I mean and you could get it up to 18 months if you went through coordinated entry went to a program that cap was different you probably could remember there was a wider range of quote unquote affordable housing that you could get the problem is again at the 18 month point then the idea is hopefully you have received the voucher but then that funding is no longer available now there is still a portal that says the state could look for other means to actually fund that program but it is another thing that is a good thing but you know it it is time limited and like I say I think part of the problem is it for a while dis incentivizes working well I shouldn't say it this way you need to be working because the other thing is also the transportation piece for people to get other jobs and then there's kind of a timing you have to know your evaluation point then you have to make sure your income goes back down we have some other questions here yeah so I I was just wondering if there is any reality to the state to actually reinvesting in what used to be that temporary we have 18 month supplemental rental assistance just quick a quick answer is I do think that they do have some money in the budget that is earmarked for continuing some degree of rental subsidy support but how that would be how that would work and who it's targeted for I can't answer well Ricky would you like to I wanted to ask a couple of clarifying questions but in the meantime because of what Pamela has been sharing and what Beth Ann has been talking about I I'm thinking of a book that I'm reading that I really want to recommend it's called can you see that oh it's backwards isn't it it's good it's good poverty comma by America in which the writer Matthew Desmond who is rather brilliant it is is saying that we need to begin to ask not questions about the poor well how did they how did they get here where are they trying to get back to what what is causing this poverty but instead be asking the question who benefits because we're looking at a whole lot of bucks that benefited somebody to to house people in in in motels instead of making a plan to do something more community oriented that would actually help people get back into and the same thing is true for the federal and state rules that you can see it's a lot of work to be poor you really have to study up to be poor and find your way through the maze and and the maze is really I mean I'm talking because I I worked at community action for years and years and years and so I've been thinking about these problems a long time but there is a correlation between policies that benefit a few and the problems that we're looking at in our community but anyway that's that's my comment but I wanted to ask a question about this coordinated re-entry Beth and you said something about with certain kinds of points and I missed the word in front of points what kind of points are they their priority they move you up higher to the top of the line and and they're the same kind of things they are if you have a child in the family if you are disabled if you're elderly there are some things that move bump you up in the in the queue I see I see good and then you mentioned the housing conservation trust fund and the statute that wanted 50 to go to the housing council and we haven't done that for 15 or 20 years what what was the statute saying exactly I missed out on that too so the this is the property transfer tax and it was it was designated that half of this tax half of the revenue from this tax would go to the Vermont housing and conservation board and they are tasked with moving this money out for either housing or conservation efforts and they've been a wonderful organization they've actually been a I mean I've read that they've been very effective in helping to build affordable housing and at the same time conserving conserving conserving lands as well I mean conserving lands against against against too much development I agree they're a wonderful organization I wasn't I just wanted to make sure I had the right names for things but I have to say that a lot of money was designated through the ARPA funding and various you know a lot of the revenue that came to the state from the federal government through COVID has been channeled to build affordable housing and there is a lot of money designated in this budget that's being proposed to build affordable housing and we are all for that you know it's it's a lot of money it's a lot more than we spent and it will hopefully make up for all those years we didn't spend enough but we're two or three years away from moving people into those new units and what we need is a bridge from where people are now to when they can be housed I'll just add one little other thing that's a bit of good news and that is our new treasurer Mike Highcheck has just been talking about we invigorating the 10% plan of investing some of Vermont's cash flow into local investments which people who are interested in Vermont public banking are probably excited about I know I am but but again it's going to take a while until that money actually builds houses that that will be and and we have to determine what sort of housing are we going to build where are we going to build it I imagine it'll be a hustle making those decisions well my question is where is the outrage I mean that's why being at the poor people's campaign was was really moving for me because there were a few people especially Earl Earl Cooper Cooper camp is able to sort of articulate the the painfulness that is going to be happening and so I'm wondering Beth Ann about the churches and other churches are they stepping forward you're in Vermont interfaith action what are they doing and who who are they mainly is that Vermont interfaith action is an affiliation of I think it's over 80 congregate 80 communities of faith in Vermont and it is interfaith and we have have had an organizing committee on affordable housing and homelessness now for eight years and so we are fairly well known at the legislature because we badger people there we're known by the governor because we badger him we're known by people at the agency of human services because we badger them and we write op-eds we recently had an op-ed in Vermont digger and in various newspapers we hold press conferences we hold actions so that's what we do and there are other organizing committees within Vermont interfaith action that are looking at prison conditions especially for women you mentioned they're looking at racial justice they've been working with new American families on navigating the educational system so there's there's other organizing groups within Vermont interfaith action but the one I've been focused on has been affordable housing and homelessness well several several members here several people here are members of the friends meeting and Jean you're very active on housing what what group do you work through mainly yeah well I'm with the League of Women Voters and if you vote in order to vote you have to have an address so I'm always saying you know we've got to make sure everybody has a place to live with an address so they can vote um but actually working with uh Wilf he's combining his wonderful Marguerita's bringing Wilf and the League together and I think we'll work something there and we're starting to talk at um Burlington Friends meeting too about housing of course they do have rental places there so yeah what I don't understand is why this is not an emergency yeah um we have I vote I mean I'm assuming the Vermont budget for 22 23 which is still I believe in effect help me out on this but Beth but um that probably has some emergency line items in there why and we're putting together a budget for 23 24 um and these need to be recognized as not homelessness as emergencies this is these are real people um living beings dying yeah well housing is healthcare how can you keep people healthy if they don't have house yes and I just think that I would certainly wish we had a governor who would say okay we're going to totally focus on this here's a real action plan whether it be some of those units such as they have in Burlington those pods or whatever they call them or tiny houses and then we're going to look at our vacant existing vacant buildings and we're going to just see where we can pour some money in real quick to get these things done and you know so it should be an emergency and I really think that um a much larger portion of our budget um should be taken away from more discretionary funding and put immediately into instructing long-term low-income housing or long-term housing period why are we always labeling it low income but it is housing for people I mean just our whole language language eat around this is is it's very very discriminatory I think the governor likes to use the term workforce housing uh because he is focused on growing slaves coming into work you know growing Vermont's workforce and housing has definitely been a barrier to growing Vermont's force uh but he is not at all interested in growing government uh or taking on a project of the scale as as government that just is not in his Republican mojo so uh do we need to put pressure on the legislature and then let the yeah actually the senate has with s100 yeah that's been passed by the senate and it's now in the house so I think we could encourage that to go through so s100 is about building affordable housing and it's about changing um zoning regulations and environmental restrictions so right it didn't happen it is not about addressing the emergency that's true yeah now we and whatever dollars we invest in an emergency program from my perspective ought to be well enough thought out by so that it's going to last a long time in other words yeah we just don't and it has multiple reuse if it's not needed any longer for housing right so I think with something we really need to be very very wise but we need to do it now we need to do it quickly I can't believe I live in a state that um is going to literally allow turn its back and allow so many people to suffer right I I think Duncan Duncan is here with it with his hand raised you want to go on my hand that's the yellow uh icon yeah just kidding um let me try it um so I don't want to change the subject but this might change it a little bit but it doesn't have to so you're talking about legislation and you're talking about funds uh government funding well as a social worker now in private practice so I don't work with a lot of poor people but I have a lot of people are not getting services anywhere they're living with families their own families or crashing somewhere or living in a trail or someone no one knows are there so I imagine a lot of the the numbers that we're talking about doesn't include them or they're in and out trying to be eligible sometimes but I guess my question is very specifically so I'm with uh this new group that Robin and I started with a couple of the people called the Vermont Peace and Anti-War Coalition and we started a couple months ago and we we we uh have an association with the Vermont Libertarian Party who doesn't believe in government and so you know at least on some level and I imagine there they would also like to help people in need and I'm wondering if you see you know any non-governmental non-progressive Democrat Republican you know any groups in Vermont as you said there are 80 interfaith churches or groups in Vermont that you work with or there are that I don't know what that statistic was but I think it's very interesting to look at the whole picture you know maybe in 10 years there won't be any government or services and in other words will be in a complete collapse so we're gonna have to take care of each other now I know that sounds like I'm changing the subject but I'm really not I'm just I'm just trying to fill it out fill out the picture what do you see Beth in terms of you know the non I mean we're talking about how to solve problems with money what do you see just about the big picture well the big picture is that the this large number of people need a lot of support they need a lot of support navigating all of life's challenges and you know if we have room in our houses to open our houses up and invite some people in we should do that but on the other hand people come with their their problems and that might not be that acceptable to have a number of people with all of their life's problems living in our spaces you know it's it's hard I've you know I've spent living time with some people who are living without housing and it's it takes its toll as the social worker you know that definitely there are nonprofits to do this work we need to have funding to support the support people yeah it's a deep problem it's a deep deep problem right because we used to say it's just at Clara Martin Center which is the Orange County mental health we used to say well we if we're not the last people to help we'll give as many services we can but the family has to help so people who have problems go to the family but sometimes the family has problems and so it's really a deep problem here so I totally agree with who is it Catherine that you know it's an emergency but it's going to be more of an emergency anyway one of the ways that this has been addressed through governmental programs is a lot of people are living in more living space than they need you know we have an older population they don't need all the big living space that they needed when they were raising their families and so there is money available for people to make accessory dwelling units a smaller part of their house can be made into a living unit for somebody who doesn't have any place to live and it doesn't have to communicate with your own living space you know but it's part of your house and you rent it you can get some income although it it's if you take the government help to renovate that space into a single unit you have to agree that it will be affordable for a certain number of years you know I I think talking up this program to everybody you know and and getting people to to consider this as a possibility of increasing living spaces would be wonderful isn't it home share or is that just part of the home share is different home share is wonderful this is called it's Vermont home improvement v-hip v-hip and you can get $50,000 to make this accessory dwelling unit in part of your living space now quite honestly it's going to cost more than $50,000 if you really want a full living space with plumbing connections and an outside entrance and everything but it's but then you you actually make some income from the space so that's a way to move it out into the communities and away from the government the government helps you get it started I see there's more questions here um and uh Jane and then Jean Jane yeah yeah okay yeah thanks um I guess it's troubling that people were put in shelters without without supportive services to help to help them get jobs and to get training is that correct that they're that they shelter that that these shelters um have don't have um I mean they're just being held that they're the onions are in the hotel in the mot in the hotels they're they're just being housed but there's not other but there's not case workers that is true that in many of the hotels there has been no support in some of the hotels there has been a package of supports it's been quite effective and I don't know why some of the hotels were able to do it and other hotels didn't but uh but most of the hotels that I'm familiar with in central Vermont they have not had support in the hotels uh they they often have housing case managers through the community action agency uh that tend to be very hard to get a hold of and aren't very responsive but uh but no they haven't gotten support for a lot of their other life challenges vocation substance use disability uh it it isn't happening wow okay so Jean uh go ahead yeah I keep thinking about a Champlain housing trust which finally um was determined to be the assistant with the pods down in Burlington and I guess they're helping the people there with at those pods um but you know it's finally thought you know let's move our military budget over to Champlain housing trust or something so can we do that well one thing you can do this week is uh email or call your senators your state senators and tell them that this is an emergency that you're a constituent you think this is an emergency and it has to be attended to that it has to go way up on the priority list of whatever else they're thinking about because they you know I am all for increasing the support of child care but you know if you're talking about people not having shelter uh that puts it way up so what would we say to them in terms of a of a bill that they should support would that be s100 well s100 doesn't doesn't speak to emergency housing uh it speaks to building more affordable housing um tell them to do then tell them that they need to find a path to put money in the budget to uh to give people emergency shelter all are all are homeless in other words not just a few right uh to to ensure that that everybody has shelter yes and so in terms of us as we're sort of wrapping up here in terms of groups working on this Vermont interfaith action which um quaker meeting has been part of do you know whether quaker meeting ever attends those sessions I think our meeting is not had anybody in our affordable housing and homelessness organizing committee who's been affiliated with quaker meeting I know from time to time there have been people active and in via who identify as being part of a quake uh quaker meeting I mean I think we just all have to get more radical and and and be supporting and if you could keep us aware of pressure points um I mean this is important like nuclear weapons that's abolition is important I mean we have to work both angles here are there any other other comment mary ellen what have you been thinking oops I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm playing devil's uh devil's advocate uh mainly because my daughter and my son-in-law are in the hotel business oh my hiring some hotel business so I'm just curious that these hotels that actually provide shelter how much damage is done to the places why the homeless are living there uh I can answer that to some extent a lot and that is because these hotels are not made durably in the first place okay yeah no there's a lot of damage and um yeah there is which is going to discourage hotels from stepping forward to to provide rooms right it also means while the residents the homeless people have been residing in the hotel and motel rooms there's been very little maintenance or care of those rooms um so and I think you know if our kids act that way I'm sure you know we might feel you know whatever but I get the whole picture I'm listening to the whole picture I just wanted to play devil's advocate for a minute yeah yeah and the folks those folks need help and need friendship and support and food and yeah you know for thirty five hundred dollars a month uh you can repair a lot of doors yeah you know but the hotel I'm most familiar with they've had an old boiler system that they have not replaced or or repaired for three years now and every now and then there's no hot water in the hotel for for day for several days um that just for thirty five hundred dollars a month that's not acceptable yeah right that's that's the management that's the management looking after themselves and just wanting the income that they can get per day and and the state has no the state has no contract with them okay oh really they have no contract with them so they can they have no basis for making them accountable other than uh state standards of state living standards uh no they they made it they made the decision to have tenancy contracts between the resident and the hotel owner and the state just pays and it doesn't have any contract with the hotel maybe that needs to be changed yeah wow um yeah this has been incredibly informative and disturbing um I mean I think if Mary Beth if you can put me on your mailing list or tell me and I can spread whatever insights you gain or steps that we should take or let's all go and bring our pitchforks to the state house someday or other let us know I mean I think we'll start by making a phone call yeah you know your legislators want you to vote for them again they will listen to you uh you know call your whoever is your area um and just tell them that this is a crisis that they're not addressing yes okay and Jean one final word here you know yeah I forgot to mention Green Mountain Hotel for Humanity um if they could I would think anybody would be happier where they live if they know they own it and they're secure and they can't be kicked out of it so just to encourage home ownership yeah well it's a longtime land use planner and that increases by um pretty much 90 percent if you own your house then you're a person who owns a house is 90 percent more likely to take care of things and keep it neat and clean right for renting yeah wow I see a picture of Charlotte Dennett there are good heavens oh I mean I've been here the whole time but I have this problem it's bobble head or whatever so that's why I have to turn off my uh video I haven't figured out what's wrong okay yeah I was just gonna say let's remember what just happened in Tennessee I mean you're right you got you gotta agitate the people have to start with the phone calls for sure should put out a whole message based on some of this information that's been conveyed today and then people have to go they have to go sit in on a hearing they have to demand the hearing and I mean we could be part of it but uh that's the only way they're gonna they're gonna respond I think Tennessee was a perfect example wow well I I've committed myself to going to the city council next Monday but it's to I'm going with a whistle and I'm going to blow my whistle and this is homage to all the whistle blowers and the fact that something is that Daniel Ellsberg weak because he's very ill and people want to pay attention to him and of course he um his uh revelations of the Pentagon papers led to the defeat of the the end of the Vietnam War and that can be connected to these issues it's all about spending so I will try to figure out how to in my two words before the city council make some connection here so um very good I think you've set the fire under us Beth Ann so thank you so much and thank you for everyone who turned up and um let's keep going