 Welcome to the 33rd annual VVSR conference. Today we are here at Dialed Studio running some interviews with leaders in our community on the question of how to achieve a healthy economic system by meeting the basic human needs of all people. Today we have Michael Monti who is the executive director of Champlain Housing Trust and my good friend. So Michael you are a busy man you are dealing with so many of the housing issues that are pressing in our community housing is a top concern for people all across the county across the state. Can you tell us why it's important for people at all levels of the economic order to have access for housing and how that benefits the general economic well-being of everyone? Sure. We'll just look over the last few years during COVID where the prescription that was handed down by CDC and others is that you need to you need to be isolated you need to be housed. Housing suddenly became a prescription for success to be safe. Housing was health care at that moment and that's why the state has responded in such a dramatic way over the last few years and continues to try to work through making sure people are housed but it's also just an essential part of the economic system. Nobody's gonna be wealthy nobody's gonna be successful nobody's gonna be able to take care of their children nobody's gonna be able to do the things they need to do unless they are housed. It's really a bottom line you know if we wanted to say the health care system is essential a housing system is essential and right now we have a framework which is sort of just everybody's doing whatever they can and there are some things that could be done to break open the opportunities for more housing but we essentially need more housing of every kind. We definitely need more affordable housing we definitely need programs that support the people who are most in need of being successful in their housing. We need middle-income housing we need housing of all types so you know without that employers can't hire people employees can't be successful in terms of their own getting to work on time and doing all those things you can't have self care in your home. I was at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont meeting yesterday and they want to be able to do more home care. There's no home care if you don't have a house so these things are just it's just a framework it has to be if roads are essential housing is essential it's really a basic need and needs and needs to be thought of in those terms. People talk about housing access as a crisis and I wonder what has has that always been the case or what has changed since the 1980s? Well I think it's been I think there's always been an issue around how to achieve affordability and I think at times historically classes of people like white folks have been able to sort of be able to get access to home ownership and black people black folks people have not have access we could sort of see the difference in those communities as a result right. So I don't know if it's changed a lot I would say over the last few years it became more dramatic with a certain level of health care issues going on relative to addiction and other things so there's a class of people now who are struggling and they're struggling not just because of housing but because of other things right it's a small group it's not like everyone but I would I would say that it shifts and it changes the need is still for basic affordability the need is still for people to pay only a percentage of their income there has been a shift in terms of income distribution you know we could sort of see things up till 1980 being where you know people or at the top of the pyramid are making the same percentage of increases as the people who are working class that shifted dramatically so now there's a there's a larger number of folks who are lower income a larger number of people who can't achieve affordability we haven't built as much housing as we needed to over the last few decades three or four different factors you know supply income of all contributed to a greater level of crisis we that we face here in Vermont but it's all over the United States to be clear we're not special or different necessarily in some places where communities aren't as as vital perhaps not have as much investment they face other issues around housing which are still critical but they're different than Vermont in particular which suffers from a lack of supply and a lack of you know opportunity and what is CHT Champlain Housing Trust doing what's the role that you're playing well we're just it's it's a little like we're constantly at it so you know we do counseling and education for people who are just learning how to be successful financially we do lending of different of different types for farm worker housing for people who want to home owners who are low income we do shared equity home ownership permanent affordability getting people into homes which are less expensive than the rental market right now and they could enjoy all the benefits of home ownership including some wealth building we have a special program called home ownership equity program which does supports people who are people of color who want to get to be who want to be first-time home buyers who traditionally been left out of the system we have a ton of rental housing of different kinds all over the Northwest Vermont and then we do special kinds of programs and services specifically for folks who are homeless either rental housing of different types or you know the Elm Avenue community the pod community and Harbor Place and a few other things where homelessness you know as a is the first step to becoming successful as a renter to becoming successful as a homeowner and so we do really a continuum of housing and different types Michael I want to thank you so much for joining us here at the BBS opportunity always a joy to see you thank you so much appreciate it Kerry's Taylor is the public affairs officer government and public affairs officer at the Vermont food bank Kerry welcome so nice to see you thanks it's so nice to be here you were just on a policy committee policy workshop was that right yes I was just in the policy workshop that was led by Kristen from VBSR and it had our federal delegation staff there so it was a really it was a really exciting room to be in lots of great ideas flying well the the subject of these interviews is a healthy economic system and how meeting the basic human needs of all people contributes to everyone's well-being you work in the food security business but I imagine when I ask you this question how do we achieve a healthy economic system in food security for food security that maybe it has a bigger answer than just food yeah I will say that we have an interesting vantage point at the food bank the charitable food network was set up to serve two purposes initially like way back it was set up to serve the needs of grocery stores that had excess food in addition to serving the needs of people who didn't have enough food so there has always been this two-fold mission but we have you know much more recently spent a lot of time looking at why there are so many people who need to use the charitable food system and recently during the pandemic really got to watch the system shift and change to meet people's needs in a way that we hadn't seen essentially in the history of the food bank in Vermont which is about 35 years so during the pandemic there were amazing programs that were put in place that truly solved the problem there was a child tax credit there were stimulus checks there were you know rent rebate programs there were housing support programs put in place and so many of the organizations that we work with saw a precipitous drop off in people using their charitable food services at food shelves and food pantries and you know even some of our direct distributions and all of those other indirect programs that were meeting people's financial needs their physical needs their health needs you know Medicaid expansion happened a lot during the pandemic in many many states including Vermont all of those other programs lessened a dependency uncharitable and free food and so for us we are able to look at the past three years and say this is a solvable problem we know how to meet people's needs it's not a question of which policies necessarily or how to roll them out or who really needs them and is going to use them it's a question of finding the will and essentially the tax revenue to create and sustain those programs either at the federal level or at the state level or at both and so I think when we're talking about that and thinking about how to fund those programs and whether and who's responsible for funding those programs right those are the real questions that we need to be talking about not you know as an economy how can people do a better job taking care of themselves there's this real focus on individualism and the classy pull yourself up but bootstrap situation which you know is a nice myth and an interesting tale but is not nearly as effective as public policy that impacts broad ranges of people and people's experiences and how does the food bank work with those other organizations to solve the systemic question that you're posing yeah I think that's something we're really looking deeply into right now traditionally we have been a food distribution organization and we all know and recognize that more food is not going to solve food security it'll temporarily help the people who need that support and we're going to continue to do that work but we're doing some innovative work to try and understand what else we can do that would help that part of my role is to work in coalition with nonprofit and for-profit partners on policy changes like paid family and medical leave like child care like universal school meals programs that will be publicly funded and broadly supported that will address the needs that help people stay employed that help people get work that help people go in and out of you know their jobs in a supported way so that they don't have to fall out of the workforce and can continue to bring in income for their families in addition to that we have what's what we're calling our food security innovation lab and they're doing these four really interesting projects and I'm going to do my best to name them all accurately there is a project where we are looking at actual food delivery so we're looking at how older adults receive food there's a federal program called the commodity supplemental food program that serves people over 60 who make 130% of the federal poverty level or less and if you're wondering what that number is it's not a lot so it's this very limited program that provides shelf-stable food for people one of the biggest requests in that program is like I want more fresh food I want food that works for my special diet that my doctor put me on because I have heart disease or I have diabetes or I have these other health issues so we're doing a pilot project in the Rutland area to deliver fresh food to people that they get to order and choose and then is delivered to their home and really taking notes on how that works for people and you know what they do order and what they don't order and why and how that delivery system works and what's needed to continue and support that because as a rural state a lot of our older adults do not have the transportation options they need to get to the food that they need another one of the pilot projects I might have to like look them up there are four pilot projects and they're really looking at some of those root causes so transportation there's one that's based on the idea of guaranteed basic income there is a system looking at how to connect social services options through a one door style pilot where we're working with a health center in LaMoyle County so the people who need support through that health center system are also able to get access to all of the other available programmatic benefits that are available to the state so that they're matched with things that help support their health and their well-being and then there's one that I can't remember but that's I mean it's an innovative lot innovation lab and these are the kinds of systemic solutions that come out of collaboration with entities that aren't just concerned with yes and I think the big answer to that that is that we have to collaborate there's no way and the food bank fully recognizes like there's no way we can make these solutions but we can be part of these solutions and we can help convene these conversations and we can help bring partners to the table or we can help elevate these issues so that people who may not have made the connection between housing and food security really understand that how interlinked those problems are. Carrie Stahler thank you so much for joining us I'm very energized by what you're saying and congratulations on the on the progress I know you know the the end of the pandemic kind of sets us back and some of these solutions being funded by the government but I know that we now have a good understanding of how to address food security in a way that we didn't before and I appreciate that you came to speak with us today. I'm so glad to be here to talk to you thank you so much for having me. Megan Humphrey I'm so glad to welcome you here to dialed studio at the 33rd annual VBSR conference. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much thanks for having me. Megan is the executive director of hands which is a wonderful acronym for helping and nurturing diverse seniors. Now tell us why and how working with diverse seniors in our community benefits everyone in the economic system. OK we primarily serve. OK I'm going to start over because we we serve seniors who are low income and so if we can help out a little bit with food and getting them food that helps everybody in a society. It helps the seniors stay healthier longer and it helps all of the other systems that need to be put in place so health care their dependents or non dependents on other family members which can therefore affect the ability of those folks to be able to go to work every day. So as it's been really shown and magnified during the pandemic each of those is interrelated and we really need to work on that at all of these levels. Tell us some of the activities and programs that hands operates during the pandemic. We did a program called Support Buddies and we connected volunteers with seniors who needed everything from from a phone call to groceries and that program has been winding down because of funding issues. And right now we're gearing up a fairly new program. This is our second year and it's called Diverse Pantry and we are trying to get culturally appropriate food to people in different communities so the immigrant and BIPOC communities especially. So that's going to be really fun. We partnered with some African farmers last year and we'll be expanding that and they're growing food in some cases that I've never heard of but we've got some other folks helping out with that and we'll be partnering with especially feeding chitin and to get some of the food delivered to these folks. So that's going to be a great new program. One of the great things about food is that it connects people and I think you are aware but the U.S. Surgeon General just came out with a report and recommendations to address the loneliness crisis. Right. How does hands interact with people on that level. I think that loneliness I think each of us can take ourselves as an example if you're home alone for dinner you might eat a bowl of cereal or open a can of tuna fish or something like that. Whereas if you're gathering with people it's certainly more enjoyable. You're sharing food. There's a commonality about food whether it's in your family or a family that may be Vietnamese. There is the gathering over food that's so important and it does help our well-being in other ways than our body as well. It does really really diminish loneliness and that's hugely important. And how has hands worked in that realm. How do you see you know I know I think back to the Christmas festivities and it isn't just having a Christmas meal but you wrap beautiful presents for people I mean you've really thought about aspects that nourish the whole person. Yes and I think I think it's about connection and connecting each other and so many of these seniors live alone so that makes it really tough so it's nice to just have somebody show up at the door or invite them to a place to gather it makes a huge difference. And during the time you've done this work have you are you hopeful that we are taking a more caring and careful approach with seniors. Are you hopeful for our community. I'm hopeful. I think we I think we learned some lessons or relearned them during the pandemic. I know I keep bringing that up but I think it was such an interesting time to look at the whole planet full of people and how we interact and making sure that people have really basic necessities like a place to live food enough to eat so I think that that hopefully we can take some of those lessons forward that we're not just going to go back to the way things were because it wasn't equal and we need to really work toward that. Megan Humphrey of hands thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much I appreciate it. We're here with Teresa Snow who is the executive director of Salvation Farms at the thirty third annual VBSR conference and we're at dialed studios. I keep wanting to say dialed in studios but we're at dialed studios which is a beautiful space here in Hula in Burlington and we're having a great time. Teresa welcome. All right thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. I've been to several of these and they're always inspiring. What's what's nourishing for you about the VBSR conference and family. That it's a community of people that don't necessarily know each other although you do know some folks but that care about doing business in a way that has positive impact in the world. Yeah well Salvation Farms has been going strong for the last two decades. You are the founder and I know that you are very proud of the work that you've done but also I think you see systemically the place Salvation Farms has in the bigger work of economic security for all people and the question really is how does meeting the basic needs of some people contribute to the economic well-being of all people. Maybe you can shed some light on that question. Yeah well as a founder of an organization I'm cautious sometimes that my opinion sometimes bleeds into the organization's voice and vice versa but personally what I believe is that you know meeting basic human needs whatever that is for the individual that doesn't quite have all of their needs met contributes to an overall wellness and when I think about you know wellness at the community level everyone needs to have security whatever that security is for the individual you know whether that is food whether it's transportation whether it's housing or child care employment it's it contributes to an individual wellness which leads to a collective wellness and I think because of the inequities we have in Vermont and across this country and the globe it leads to unwellness in our communities which you know I think hmm how does that show up for you when you say on wellness in the communities hmm so caught I'm so cautious with my words because I don't want to have it appear as judgment sure I think circumstances force people to make hard choices and those hard choices aren't always what are thought of as morally right and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures and they aren't always what is socially acceptable at the time so I think that unwellness is when people just don't have security they're bound to make choices that aren't good for themselves aren't good for their families or in their greater community and I think that ripples out and what role does Salvation Farms play in working with Vermonters to achieve these levels of security necessary for our collective well-being yeah so Salvation Farms is a food system organization and we look at building more resilience and security within the food system by using available but unused food items that are grown close to where it's consumed or should be could be consumed so for us we look at a symptom level approach and impact while also having short term symptomatic impact so we collect surplus food items mostly produce and distribute that locally to individuals who rely on others for to meet their nutritional needs so food shelves and senior meal sites and preschools etc after school programs affordable housing and what we're inspired to do is not just move this food in a short term way but engage people in the process so that they become more familiar with what is locally available seasonly acclimated so that we're building an educated eater base will also helping rebuild a short food supply chain that can actually handle more of the food that is produced locally we have a challenging time moving food locally and we don't have a lot of processing locally we don't we have barriers to moving food into institutions so what Salvation Farms is looking at is really how can we reduce the import of something is essential as food to reduce population vulnerability by helping build a more local food supply chain with food that currently isn't being used so we're taking this approach of both supply chain short term needs as well as research resource management so and how do you work in collaboration with other organizations that are trying to address symptoms of the same issue is that a key part of your systemic approach it's a good question you know as a non-profit resource financial resources always limit the potential but and alignment with other organizations is incredibly important and particularly for us when thinking about leveraging assets there's a lot that other entities can do to help meet each other's missions and advance them so for us we don't just look at moving food we also look at let's say workforce development but workforce development is reliant on transportation and then also things like the the benefits cliff well if we are bringing people into a workforce development initiative but the compensation they receive receives makes them lose their other benefits which means their families in jeopardy of meeting some of their other needs these are really important conversations to not be having an isolation that's that's again because well some of the issue with focusing just on symptoms it just perpetuates the problem versus getting diverse people at the table looking collectively at kind of that community wellness that if if we want to help people get increased employment so that they can have childcare we need to figure out the transportation and you know then address access to food it means all part of the the puzzle and I think the challenge for us to actually engage whether it's our organization or another is that we philanthropy reinforces this very short-term thinking and investment so you can't have those collective community-wide impact conversations but we try and I think we you know we work with a lot of different organizations from government agencies to to for-profit businesses to a lot of nonprofits we can't do our work alone and we don't claim to you know we rely on these partners to make our impact real I imagine that's one of the benefits of being here at the VBSR conference because you can talk to people and start to develop relationships with people you've never met and organizations that could help yeah and one thing I love it these events is that again that connecting of resources and assets it's not always about advancing what I'm doing or my organization but it's learning about someone else's work and saying oh you know who you should talk to because I think that what you're doing really aligns with some of their interests and again it's that like ability to advance priorities together even if the the connection isn't immediately clear well I think Teresa that you understand that in order for salvation farms to be successful it needs to be part of a systemic response and that's the hallmark of a wise leader so thank you for seeing that and thank you for your work and thanks for joining us here today at the conference that's a very kind compliment thank you thank you for having me we return to the 33rd annual VBSR conference we're in partnership with dialed studio running a series of interviews with leaders from across the nonprofit and public benefit system and we are here today with Jake Ide who is the director of investment and philanthropy for the Vermont community loan fund Jake welcome thank you Lauren Glenn it's lovely to be here with you we were just saying it's been actually a long time since we've all been together in a space like this what's it feel like it feels incredible I mean I was telling you before we went on the air that I was actually this was going to be the first conference that I was going to do post COVID coming back to seeing the Vermont community loan fund song at a conference for the first time and I got COVID right before this conference last year and so I missed it it was it was really actually very disappointing devastating I was really excited about it both for the subject matter and because I feel so passionately about VBSR and VBSR's mission but yeah like you said just because what I'm really missing is being together with people seeing people's whole faces not just half the face and you know we all know we lost so much of that connection and felt so much lesser maybe during COVID then we feel when we're able to be out doing this and be out with everyone in incredible space and seeing all the incredible work that everyone else is doing in the VBSR community it's really wonderful to experience it in person as opposed to looking at it in a box on a screen or reading about it and saying like oh that'll be great I'll get there someday I'll be able to go there someday and see that business well you must look at well you you're part of an organization that's looking at a lot of businesses that are trying to contribute to the economic prosperity of the state just remind us with what kinds of projects the Vermont Community Loan Fund is involved with yeah sure so the Vermont Community Loan Fund is a revolving loan fund a community development financial institution so we're a financial institution like a bank in the sense that we lend money like a bank but where we differ from a bank is that instead of just the financial return or predominantly the financial return the loan fund is looking for a lot more from the folks that we lend to and really we're looking for community development economic development in Vermont and social and economic justice in Vermont so the things that we care about of course getting repaid but what we really care about we care about creating quality jobs we create we care about creating opportunities for early care and education child care slots for children and families in Vermont at quality child cares we finance nonprofits and other community facilities the loan fund is a nonprofit ourselves and so we have a lot of experience with a nonprofit and we can finance nonprofits and other community facilities and affordable housing as well we started out as a lender for affordable housing in the 80s and then kind of grew as we saw other needs emerging in the community and saw our ability to be able to lend to local businesses with some expertise and to help build their capacity and to be able to lend to child care which was you know involved a lot of learning on our part to get up to speed on that child care business model and how we can help them beyond just providing them the capital because that's what really is a special sauce of the loan fund is the non-financial assistance it sounds crazy we're a lender we make we make loans but really I think what helps the folks that we lend to succeed is all of the wraparound services that we provide that help them around business development and program development and things like that that kind of put them in the best possible position to be able to to put the money that we can lend them to work but as far as what we lend for it's really everything the Vermont business community you know I could name folks you would recognize like Malva or American Flatbread or folks that we were part of their salad days back before they could get conventional lending from a bank after a gear exchange and then eventually businesses get up to scale hopefully get up to scale and are able to move beyond us and that's a great moment as well when they can go get a bank loan that's a wonderful thing for us so really we're lending to Vermont businesses all shapes and sizes industries we have programs directly related to working lands couple of different working lands pots of money outdoor recreation we have a trails program which is a new program for working lands or for outdoor recreation businesses and then most recently we launched this year the Justice Forward Fund which is a loan fund that's dedicated just to BIPOC for monitors and and their business needs and business film in that space as well so pretty diverse so when you think about meeting these organizations some of them are meeting economic needs you know for goods and services and some of them are actually meeting needs for social requirements the basic human needs yeah how does how does how do these organizations that deal with a niche subject like food or childcare contribute to the overall economic health of Vermont well I think Vermont's economy is pretty diverse and I mean I forget what the statistic is these days but I think it's two out of three business two out of three people working in Vermont work for small businesses it might be more than that now but in any event small businesses make up business in Vermont there is no large industry beyond the state perhaps the hospital or UVM obviously that's pretty regional UVM doesn't have a big presence in St. John's where I grew up or Brattleboro so our employers are small businesses and it really does you know a healthy small business economy requires all of those small businesses to be strong and to contribute and certainly that's been a big part of the loan funds mission is recognizing the single providers the small businesses just as important in our racial justice work the most recent work that we've really been focused on the majority of those businesses are are much smaller than even our typical businesses we're talking almost predominantly about sole providers those businesses need those businesses need just as much as any other business and really that's that's what I think it gets down to for us is I mean you ask like I'm sorry can you reframe the question now I'm just yeah no I mean I think you're going there which is how does supporting single organizations companies that meet basic human needs like the childcare work that you talk about how does that contribute to everyone benefiting like how does the end and even these small businesses yeah how does supporting sole proprietorships contribute to the overall vitality of the state of Vermont well yeah I mean small businesses I think make up the economy in Vermont and so if we're not supporting small businesses we're not really supporting business in Vermont and it and businesses of court made up of people and you ultimately have to get back to the people in the household and make sure those basic needs are met we have basic human needs housing food work the ability to sustain ourselves and to support our families support our family unit and how well do you think Vermont is doing economically I mean you're in the thick of it and there's a lot of complaints about the state and how you know there's usually it has a lot of problems right right housing crisis we've got a child care crisis but where's the good news is there any well the good news is here the good news is at VBSR and it's in it's the people I mean you're right identifying the VBSR the businesses for social responsibility membership some of them are organizations actually doing that work in the community some of them are businesses selling products those that isn't necessarily doing that work in the community but one thing that everything everyone here cares about is doing that work in the community the businesses that are here may not day to day produce a thing that furthers that strengthens the community or strengthens economic development in Vermont aside from creating jobs and livelihoods for people in Vermont but they're here because they care about and understand that it is the entire state that as the state functions well yeah I'm sorry I'm just struggling with it how does VBSR contribute to the well-being of Vermont I think that VBSR does an incredible job calling out the needs in Vermont and providing both a forum for businesses to gather and learn about them and business people to gather and learn about them but I think VBSR goes beyond that and takes the extra step through various working groups and really getting folks involved in public policy I think that VBSR has a vision for a stronger healthier more sustainable Vermont and and has the ears of the business people doing business in Vermont and really driving business in Vermont if you look at the businesses that are here they're thinking progressively they're working at the edges of their business they're creating things they're inventing they're very entrepreneurial and I think you have to be in Vermont because of all the challenges that are related to doing business in Vermont VBSR does a great job collecting all of those people getting all of us together telling us sharing with us what the information is giving us the best possible day of the land and then engaging folks to make sure that then you can translate that into practice because that's the challenge right we're seeing lots of challenges whether they're in Vermont or in the world and feeling overwhelmed by all of the challenges and not sure where to go how to move forward how how can I feel like I've done something that I've made some kind of change and maybe I'm a business person here and my business isn't making that change but I want to use my business but I want to use my business to make that change this is the place to come to be able to figure that out and to be able to learn the community learn the tools that are going to help you move your business whether that's towards being a b-corp or developing some kind of climate standard for your business and wanting to to understand your climate impact your carbon impact there are a number of great I mean every session today any business here could get something out of and figure out a way to bring that back to their business and incorporate it to make their business stronger and more effective both in their business and in their community you nailed it Jake thank you so much thank you Jake Eyed from our community loan fund thanks for joining us here at the VBSR conference at dialed studio thank you more we're back with Maria McClellan who is the senior outreach and engagement officer at UVM medical center Maria thanks for joining us today so nice to see you lauren glenn really it's just it's a lot of fun we don't see each other much but when we do you just light up my day well ditto right back at you thanks how are you finding the conference to be I'm amazed at the you know the activity outside this door and how many small businesses are out there and the space is like amazing and it has a I think a different energy than I've ever experienced at one of these conferences before and we feel privileged to to sponsor it just because we are the largest employer in the state so we don't really fit you know the exact description of a small business but we like to be near the small businesses and it's wonderful so recently the medical center came out with a strategic plan of strategic direction document to talk about and maybe you have many of them and this may not ring a bell but the point the broader point is that my recollection from reading it is that you don't think about health care and isolation you think of health care as some part of a broader system yeah and I wonder if you could talk about how addressing the health care needs of individuals in our community supports the broader economic prosperity of our state yes well absolutely it's all intertwined and we every three years we do a community health needs assessment and we do have a document that we publish every three years which leads to a plan for addressing the health care needs that are identified in that and this is a very collaborative process where we surveyed I mean we had like 3700 I think responses to our you know quantitative survey and then we also met with like more than 140 people individually or in small groups translated that into like you know more than 12 languages such to be more equitable and get response and we've been doing this for years and years every three years we did it in 2022 and that identified the top three needs nothing surprising here you know housing providing culturally sensitive care and also mental health and these are very broad and you can go down beyond those three and you're going to get to substance use and many other things child care and all of those that are just equally important really in the overall scheme of things but we look at this UVM medical center also the whole network that we need to be addressing those needs beyond the four walls where we provide the care because if you don't have a roof over your head if you don't have enough food on the table if you don't have if you can't find childcare for your kids so you can work you know it all ties together it's like dominoes it's interconnected so when we join with the community in addressing those needs and it really comes down to collaboration and talk I mean vbsr and sponsoring this conference and being here with others is part of that collaboration I think and also talk about other entities that become important to the hospital as you try to address not just particular problems but the systemic change that needs to happen for the well-being of the state well there's so many ways that we collaborate and yes there's like always everything being you know putting systems in place and all of that is so important I can you know I might start with one example housing which we all know there's a housing crisis and it's been it's more acute now than ever and we just haven't kept pace with the need in in Vermont Chittenden County and obviously in many other parts of the country this is not just endemic to our area but what that means in terms of the economics of the state is that it's hard for employers whether you're big or small we all know this there's restaurants on church street and then you have the hospital that's using traveling nurses by the dozens and it's very costly because we don't have enough work enough workforce we don't have enough nurses we don't have enough of a lot of things and so there's some economics here because we pay so much for that temporary work and what really breaks our heart is when we have someone who wants to come work for us and this happens all the time but they can't find housing that they can afford or child care or but so one of the things we never thought we'd be doing that we're doing and you've probably read about this is just that we have started to create our own housing and we have two buildings now in South Burlington and the new city center area one with i think 120 units and one with 60 or some odd like that and the second one that's going to go up is going to have child care in it like 70 i think 75 spots and so this is us kind of saying like we need to help address the issue for our own workforce on top of that we feel very strongly about helping people in the community who are homeless or don't have our under housed or help them get supportive housing and we work with Champlain Housing Trust and Champt Community Health Centers of Burlington and other organizations to create supports for those folks and we've invested heavily in that whether it's Harbor Place on Shelburne Road or Beacon Apartments or other places to provide places for people to live otherwise if they're on the streets they can't really address their health care needs if you can't take care of your health you're going to be coming in our ER all the time right and so that's very costly if we can get people housed it's like a housing first model that Champlain Housing Trust embraces then it's less money on the system the entire healthcare system which we all know is too costly right so we all we do have to address that that's just one example housing that's a great example it's very concrete and I think it touches on a lot of the concerns that people have and it explains why when we make when we solve problems closer to people's basic needs we save money in the whole system overall and that you know so when the policy discussions come about where to put the dollars these examples give some concrete evidence of why those investments are important and prevention you know an ounce of prevention it's the old adage but if we can get people if we can prevent the terrible you know outcomes by starting upstream and helping people in the primary care setting and helping them in the community because the social determinants that we all talk about these are what affect people's health and well-being so it's not we have a like we have almost a moral imperative to think about the people who come through our doors before they come through our doors and participate in this community which is so easy to do because there's so many willing participants another example is opioids like you know at one point when the opioid epidemic reared its head I think the mayor you know called us down to City Hall and said let's talk about how you're going to prescribe less you know and we worked with him and our president Steve Leffler is a ER doctor was very happy to do that and our we changed our prescribing practices and we you know helped bring down those opioid overdose deaths working collaboratively many other people around a table called Comstat that the mayor kind of stood up and we credit him for you know his willingness to jump in and so whenever there's a table and someone asks us to sit at it we do and we hope that we're a good community you know partner Maria I want to thank you so much for being with us Maria McClellan from the UVM Medical Center thanks for joining us today thanks Lauren Glenn have a great day you too okay so glad to be here with Meg Smith Meg is the executive director of the Vermont Women's Fund welcome to the VBSR 33rd annual conference here at Dialed Studios we're so glad to have you here hooray for 33 that's amazing yeah yeah it's great you're here too doing this thanks Meg the the bigger question is how does meeting the basic human needs in all areas benefit the economic system as a whole and I know your focus is on women but that is just a pretty big basket so perhaps you could talk about how meeting the requirements of creating equity for women in our society makes Vermont a better place oh boy I only have seven minutes yes okay I would put that from our perspective the perspective of the Vermont Women's Fund we're a component funded the Vermont Community Foundation we work in the funding space which takes two forms one is our grant making so we raise money to distribute it and grants to women and girls sorry nonprofits that support women and girls around the state but that's not really enough because as time went on we started almost 30 years ago doing this it was clear that the social issues the cultural discrimination historical discrimination against women was what really needs to be tackled first so when you talk about meeting women's basic needs what we have focused on in the last several years is trying to help women's business owners and entrepreneurs to help them in a rural economy start their own businesses they've started them they just need help growing them so that's been our area of focus and it's thanks to some fantastic people we were able to create a digital website and survey and we're counting and identifying women own businesses for the first time ever in the state nobody knows how many there are because the secretary of state's office doesn't keep that data never asked for it so a we need to identify our women business owners and b then find out what they need and we're kind of in the we're still identifying them but we also are learning already after a year what they need and there it's a variety of things I mean there are tons of solopreneurs but what is coming to the surface is they need just easy access to low funding small capital and that's an area that banks don't give small loans it's hard to find grants even through all the business organizations and technical assistance providers so it's an interesting landscape and we're still in progress and in process of learning really what's out there and just you know broadly speaking what is just quickly what is the state of women in Vermont if you were to characterize you know are we doing well are we doing poorly does it depend on our economic background what's the why does the Vermont women's fund even need to exist that's such a big question it needs to exist because women have never had economic power up until recent history and I mean there are always a few single examples but it took to 1973 before women could get a credit card on their own and not have a tab at co-signed there's a long history of discrimination against women trying to get loans collateral all the things banks want that women don't have and they don't fit into that box so economic power is a really critical underpinning of all of this um so sorry tell me what you asked me again no that I think you answered the question I think you did that's so great so thanks a million yeah so glad you're here thank you I'm glad to see you're like sunshine oh I can't wait to hear the compilation of everything they've put together there's some good interviews yeah Gray Soudel welcome to VBSR's 33rd conference 33rd annual conference here at dialed studios and we're doing a series of interviews we're so glad you could join us you're the executive director at NOFA Vermont yep congratulations such a storied organization I've heard a lot about you so I feel honored to meet you it's so great to be here thanks for having me so do you focus at NOFA Vermont on food security is that safe to say or is it sort of a broader mission that you have we have a broader mission so we are really interested in using food and farming as this lever where social and environmental justice meet so we think if we can get food and farming right how we take care of this place and how we feed each other we really just solve so many more intersectional issues facing our community so we work in a variety of ways we have folks working all over the state from a lot of angles on making change in agriculture and so on this question that we've been asked to discuss how does meeting the basic needs of individuals benefit the entire economic system how would you respond I think that I would step back and look at the word economy which is built of two parts there's Oikos and Nomos put together to make economy and with Oikos you have the household and Nomos is about management so how are we managing our home and economy is how are we doing that together and when I think about an economic system that actually is managing our shared home in a way that is caring and enduring that's pretty far from what I see in our economic system today and I think that what we need to do now is everything we can to build bridges from the economic system and the economic system of today to the one that will really be durable and thriving and resilient so a lot of the programs we build and run and a lot of the people we help network and support in what they're doing is really about imagining those bridges to an economic system that's really about valuing our place valuing the earth and our relationship to a planet and also valuing everyone in the community and ensuring that everyone has access to good food that's grown here and that we're all safer when we're really managing our shared home together in a really healthy way and are you hopeful about building that bridge from today to the kind of economy we want? I don't think we have a choice but to be hopeful and I feel hopeful because I know on the people side there are so many good people thinking and working and organizing for a just transition to an economy that really values care over profit care of earth and of people over just a bottom line and I'm also hopeful because I know how the earth works and as someone who has farmed for years I know that if you take if you do one small active care the earth will respond tenfold to meet what you're doing and there's so much abundant regenerative possibility in the earth and in remembering our place as part of nature and those combined people are trying and the earth is willing to meet us when we try does make me feel hopeful Well Grace O'Dell that's just a profound ending to a series of interviews here at the 33rd annual VBSR conference thanks for joining us at Dialed Studios and thanks for all the work that you do Thanks for having me it's an honor