 Okay, we are now live. All right. Welcome everybody. This is Tuesday, May 26th. And we are the House General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. Today's agenda will include further conversations on the housing proposal that was made by the administration and what our response would be or how we would fill that in. But we were also interested in hearing from AHS, DCF, OEO, just basically overall from, we have Sean Daniel with us today, who will take us through, who will take us through, I believe, Ken Schatz's, Commissioner Schatz's memorandum of just sort of lays out the plan. But again, Sean, welcome. We've seen just about everybody else but you. Good morning. In committee since March. And, you know, one of the things that stood out in the governor's proposal was that it at least has it had to do with housing it was talking about homelessness prevention with the rental assistance programs or REARGE programs and and then provision of some funding to try to rehabilitate some apartments that could be used for housing the homeless in the near future. But what was missing was your piece, which was the transition from where we are having housed the upwards of 2000 Vermonters on a temporary basis and what the transition will be. Not only because the weather is turned, but also because of, you know, we're still under a stay at home, real safety oriented circumstance here with COVID-19. And so we just wanted to get an update on what was happening at AHS, what the thoughts were with the plans were funding. Is this still going to be funding that comes from FEMA or ESG or other sources. So just wanted to get an update from you and get an idea of what the state is doing to work on what I would consider the shortest or short term situations which is how to take people from from these motel rooms, which have served their purpose there's no doubt, but we all know is no full time or long term solution to to what we're facing. So with that I will, I will pass the microphone to you welcome. Thank you. Good morning to the committee. Appreciate the opportunity. Commissioner Schatz sends his regrets he's unexpectedly out today. So he won't be able to join in the conversation, but he does send his regrets. We do continue to house a large number of homeless households in motels in response to the pandemic. We're just shy of 1500 households still just over 2000 individuals about 1700 adults and about just over 300 children as well. We are working on a transition plan to move forward and as a recovery plan. We continue to do that work it's complicated by the different revenue streams that might be available and the different limitations that come with those funding streams so that is complicating the work in the conversations we're having on how to move forward. Within the time frames and the funding that we have available we do hope to have a plan available in the coming weeks to share. What we do know is that a large part of that plan will require services from our community partners for navigation and case management. And through the hop program housing opportunity program grants. I'm starting to issue out some supplemental awards to homeless providers across the state over the last couple weeks to start providing additional resources to support the housing work that they're doing right now in the motels but also the work that's going to be needed to transition folks to more permanent housing from motels in the coming months. And you will see us issuing more of those out in the coming weeks as well we want to provide funding to all of our partners that work with us so that we can serve the large number of households that we have in motels right now. Kind of switching from the response phase of the pandemic to the recovery phase as we finalize the details of that longer term plan. You know we are looking at implementing some of the program rules back into place that pre existed the pandemic. As we will continue to house homeless families due to the pandemic but we are going to start easing in some of the program require quite requirements that pre existed as well. That was in those were outlined in the memo that was sent out this morning. Commissioner Schatz is signature. One is you'll see that beginning June 1 we're going to work to increase the you know the resources available to our partners to do this work the navigation the case management we issued some funding out already and we hope to issue more in the coming days. We do require that the household we're serving on cooperate with the quarter coordinated entry in the development of a longer term housing plan. What we do know from looking at the number of households we're serving they're quite different and they have very unique needs. Each plan needs to be individualized. And so that work will need to take into account their unique circumstances and at Ford and how we support that. You know we've been having some challenges in the motels and losing some hotels working with us as due to some of the situations happening in the motels across the state right now and we will be looking to implement a modified period of an eligibility for those who are asked to leave a motel due to their conduct and so we'll be issuing more details on that in the coming days as well. And then also given that the whole system of care shut down when the pandemic started and anyone who's homeless was housed. You know we open the program up pretty significantly. And the things we'll be looking at implementing effective June 15 will be having households once again contribute some of their resources to housing above the if they're above the reach up standard. That's usually a 30% contribution we're housing a large number of folks with some with some ongoing monthly income. And so we want those households to start making contributions and hopefully that'll allow us to move them to more permanent housing situations as we asked them to utilize some of their resources for this work as well. And we'll be providing more information as these details get finalized in the coming days, but we wanted to make sure the committee was aware as we're shifting to the recovery phase one component of that. We want to transition folks and provide those resources to move them and more permanent housing that we are going to start easing in some of the program requirements. That's not to say that we're not going to continue to house families and individuals in response to COVID we have no plans to to change that approach. We have changed how we're granting authorizations we were doing it for 30 day periods of time. We are now doing it for two week periods of time and we will continue to do that for the foreseeable future so we are in the process of reauthorizing everyone's hotel and hotel stays that run out at the end of this week. So they'll be rehoused through the 15th. And then we will then reauthorize for another two week period after that as well as multiple reasons we're doing that one as we're moving to recovery phase. We want to make sure we're staying in touch with our families more often. These reauthorizations do require us to reach out and have contact with whether the households we're serving. And as we're moving forward with wanting them to work on a housing plan that will allow us to stay in touch with them and monitor that progress. Also, some of the hotels we're working with asked that we do these on shorter stays. Some has to do with the way that the billing process works and allows them to bill quicker and get paid quicker than the 30 day authorization. So there's a multitude of reasons, but none of which implicate us winding it down. We saw in preparing for the committee that there was a date of July 15. We're not sure where that came from, but there's been no internal conversation about shutting the program down on July 15. So we can assure the committee that that's not something we're looking to do at this time. I would say the other thing, a piece I would add is that we still are have in place a feeding operation to make sure all of the households in the motels have access to food. And so we're contracting with the food services across the state to make sure that those contracts and work is in place as we continue to use this in response to the pandemic and making sure that people are able to stay safe and have access to nutritious food at the same time. And so we will continue both of those in conjunction as long as needed at this point as we finalize the details and hopefully start moving some of these households to more permanent housing situations as as Vermont starts to reopen. We have access some of those normal resources that are available to do that work. And Sean, do you have several weeks ago we received a list of where folks were the hotels that were participating. Is there an updated list that's available. I can forward that to the committee right after we finish up the testimony. Yeah, that would be great. And so and and we've heard a lot of times and most recently from Sarah Phillips that there's been a real concerted effort to get people into the coordinated entry system. And if you could just give me a couple minutes of just to remind me what that system is how does how does someone get into it and hopefully what the benefits of that are going to be. So coordinated entry is a system of intake where homeless individuals work with the housing partners participating coordinated entry. So everyone coming into the homeless system of Karen Vermont is connected with a coordinated information provider and they do a an assessment of those families circumstances and needs, and then that information is placed into the homeless management information system known as HMIS. And then any homeless provider working with that family. And with the appropriate releases have access to that information so that, as I indicated before, every family has very unique needs and those are kind of detailed in that coordinated entry assessment. And so as housing plans are developed and implemented for that household, you know that information informs that decision making and path forward. But is that. So that would that would kind of take into account what Commissioner Schatz testified to several weeks ago where there's X percentage of people are episodically homeless X percentage of people require the next level up from services and the next level of the next level are perhaps some of the most difficult they have numerous challenges to being finding a place a stable place to live is that that's I mean to me that's the goal of this this entry system is to be aware of what their needs are so that we can funnel them to the right solution is that is that the best case scenario. Yes, that is that is our hope and our goal is that that we would use that information to help find appropriate housing for all the different levels of need that we see of the families and households we're serving. So it's as I indicated each family has very unique needs. And so having the ability to understand the complex needs of some of these families whether they be substance abuse, mental health, maybe on financial managing their finances I mean that across the spectrum of the needs are can be pretty complex and interwoven and so it's important that we understand the needs of those families as we try to develop a plan that that we can support to move them to more permanent housing. Okay, I have several questions here ready to ready to go representative triano then go then once. I could just add on to the to this conversation and response to your question. Given the response and how quickly we moved and opened up the system to make sure all homeless individuals could stay home and stay safe in a motel. And so we've overwhelmed the system in a way and so that some of this work wasn't able to get done on the front end and so that's what we're trying to implement now is to make sure that we're connecting to all of these households and making sure we're working with them and moving them forward. Great thank you representative triano. Thank you for thank you Sean it's good to see you again here and your information is reliable as always so, but I do have a question there's been a fair amount of discussion or at least information around some of the issues and problems that they there have been that have arisen, particularly, I guess at the mountain view or mountainside motel. I guess my question is simple is has the department been able to deal with these issues in a, in a good way and resolve issues that have come up and, and will support services that we anticipate accompanying some of these permanent housing accommodate some of these issues do you think. Yeah, so in the short term we have worked with community providers, particularly in motels that that are housing large number of GA guest that we are able to provide some on site services to help support. We're doing those motels. You know that's also the work that we're doing right now. We've repurposed the holiday and once again, you know, it was initially used as a mode as a hotel, then it went to recovery center and now starting last Friday we started utilizing that but it's a, it's kind of a hybrid model now, where, while it is a hotel we have the Office of Economic Opportunity providing 24 seven staffing on site, some additional security resources as well. And so we're going to that that's a model that we're going to move forward within the holiday and then hopefully by having those resources on site that we can connect with those households quicker, and then hopefully start working on longer term housing plans with them and provide the supports necessary to move those plans forward. Some of the families, you know, it's stressful in itself, you know, adjusting to the pandemic but it's even incredibly stressful when you're homeless and staying in a motel which comes with its own challenges. Thank you. Sean, will those families be again in that list of folks are they identified beyond just households do we know where I guess do we know where the children are. Yes, we on the list that will provide you. It's by district and it will list all the motels that are serving households from that district. And then the number of households and then the number of adults and the number of children at each hotel so you'll be able to see that in the list will provide you. Great. Thank you. Representative Hanco. Thank you. Good morning. I have a very specific question that's coming from some constituents in my area and it's around feeding. It's the EBT cards that are being automatically given to each family with children in schools. And the schools are the ones, the ones in question, are the families at schools where all of the children qualify for reduced and free lunch, because such a majority of the students in that school. Are they qualified and there are a number of families who would not ordinarily qualify, do not want to qualify, but are still receiving these benefits and don't wish to receive them. I reached out through our legislative portal to get an answer from the administration and we were told to tell the constituents just to cut the cards up. The money will go back to the coffers and my concern was that the, the sentence that came with that explaining it is, please tell these families, don't be afraid the money isn't, if they use the cards the money's not being taken from somebody else, the money really is being taken from a greater pool of money that we all could use for further economic relief, and my concern and they're my constituents concerns were that this money is being given to people in the form of cards that they don't want. And some of them may be using them unnecessarily so you know in in in respect to possible waste in that matter I needed to bring this up with you. I certainly understand the question. Yeah, so the those benefits were created by one of the recent federal stimulus acts that in the US Congress. And we are to as the P pandemic EBT benefit. Yep. And so this money does not come directly to Vermont. It is money that comes through the USDA through the food nutrition service. And we are required to provide that benefit to all children who receive free and reduced lunch irregardless if, if they are participating the three squares Vermont program or not. We, Vermont did not have a choice if we chose to issue this benefit out we had to issue it to all families who have children that receive free and reduced lunch. And because of the community provision that you referenced, there are families who didn't apply for free and reduced lunch but whose children receive it as a result of that that community has such a high level of participation that free and reduced that they're able to provide it to all children. And we were required to provide that benefit to those households as well. It is certainly a choice of those households whether to utilize that benefit or not, and ultimately under the EBT hard rules. And if a benefit is not used in a certain amount of time it is taken back by the federal government on those dollars don't flow through the state of Vermont they are provided. We tell the USDA of the households who receive what benefit, and they provide the funds to our EBT card vendor to put those on into the bank they use, and then it would be taken off those cards that way as well. That just to give you background of why those benefits were provided and it is not taking any stimulus money away from the state of Vermont this is money that didn't flow through the state of Vermont or, or its treasurer's office. Thank you very much for clarifying that I truly appreciate that and I will pass it on to people in my community who are talking about this. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for being with us here this morning, Sean. You mentioned earlier about looking at the income and getting them to put some skin in the game actually. And I think that's appropriate but I do wonder what qualifies as income. I'm especially thinking of maybe those episodic homeless folks who lost their jobs, and were homeless as a result, and maybe receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Do those benefits? Are they the kind of income you're talking about? Yeah, it would be management sources of income. It could be VA, ongoing monthly VA benefits, it could be social security benefits, social security disability benefits, unemployment, or earned income, or any ongoing unearned income like from investments or whatnot. It really is across the board and income is a broad term. Well, thank you. That really clarifies it. Thanks a lot. Sean, I received a note from the folks at Pathways who mentioned that in the last several weeks they have housed 40, upwards of 40 households. And again, households is a fairly broad term, right? It could be an individual, it could be a pair of people, it could be a family. But beyond Pathways, there are other agencies that do have an income, for instance. I mean, as you begin to identify people who have an income and you're going to be asking that they put in 30%. I'm sorry, you cut out for a large portion of your question. I was wondering if you could repeat it. Sure. Sorry, it looks like my internet connection was unstable. So basically, how are you working with the Pathways, or with people who are doing housing first programs, not only Pathways, but an agency like Washington County Mental Health or other agencies across the state that have a program. And Pathways mentioned that they may have, you know, that they've housed upwards of 40 people so far since March. Yes, and they've actually sent us a proposal to expand their work, which we're reviewing and considering right now. Normally, we would work with providers that apply through request for proposals through the housing opportunity grant program and that will be the mechanism that we will continue to issue out a lot of the funding that we will allocate to the services and in the housing plan as it's rolled out. So we would incur when we do that, we will reach out to organizations that have expressed an interest to submit proposals that haven't or for those that have to work directly with those organizations to understand what populations they could work with and how they would do that. We expect we'll be working with all of our housing partners, you know, regarding making sure we access every available federal housing voucher that is available to Vermont right now and make sure that we have, you know, what's been a roadblock and fully utilizing those in the past or having the services in place and that's why it's incredibly important that we support expanding our navigation and case management services as quickly as possible in the coming month or coming months to make sure that we can support not only, you know, implementing our longer term housing plan but also making sure that we can support drawing down all the federal vouchers that we have available to Vermont as well and make sure that families that are eligible for those can take advantage of those as well because as you know many of those are a longer term support and that will be there for longer than some of the funding that we will have available to support the plan that we're working on right now. I think that's going to be very important to get a list of as well because as we develop a recovery or relief fund through, I mean, we've heard that it might cost, you know, upwards of X million dollars to provide the Vermont state vouchers from the, you know, to be managed through the state housing authority, but certainly more effective would be increased vouchers from the federal government whether they are tag along vouchers or project based. Yeah, and we've been working with our partners who administer those and understanding that they did receive some additional ones through some of the increased federal spending through the stimulus bills and so we're working with them to identify that you know the households that those specialize in and making sure that we can support the services to connect the families that we're serving right now and line them up with what they have available. And that will be a part of our work as well moving forward. And that includes, if I did if I heard you correctly that's kind of include what the ideal is right is the, not only, not only a voucher but also the wraparound services that housing first type model needs in order to, in order to succeed. Exactly. And so we have on. You know, we do have, you know, the coven relief fund available to support some of our work. Unfortunately, those are time limited dollars, and those have to be spent by December 30. And one of our work right now is identifying what resources can be repurposed in use to support this work or dollar or new dollars we've received that might have a longer runway to be spent past December to make sure that, you know, we can support the other work that's going to be necessary to, to connect those families to those vouchers but make sure they're successful in whatever situation and maintain those vouchers. Moving forward as well in addition to the other work that we hope to do in our longer term housing plan that we're finalizing. December 30 thing is a real problem when it comes to the provision of services. In committee I think if you've noticed that Wendy Morgan has joined us and we'll get to her in a little while to talk about the proposal of $42 million of rental assistance, and the rearages and what that means but also, you know that it is money that would be have to be spent at the end of the year. It's a tough balance. And I think you kind of put it into. I appreciate you coming at it from the services perspective, but because we have housing proposals that we have to consider that will only be successful if there are service provisions as well. And whether that's, you know, how do we guarantee that the state will follow through on the, I mean that's been, I mean that's the age old problem is, is making sure that there's enough capacity to provide the services for them for the other for the needs for that we might have or for departments that we may create. We have a question from representative channel. Thank you, I'm just wondering Sean we're seeing, or we hearing about funding for rehabbing for to landlords to for grants or loans to rehab the vacant apartments. They won't accommodate the 2000 homeless or monsters at this time but I'm wondering if there's a consideration in your department as to how that transition might work I mean would the plan be to keep folks in a motel until some of these units are are ready for habitation or is there anything else that we're looking at. Well those are the conversations we're having right now with Josh through a CCD to understand their timeframe and how they're going to administer those funds and, and, and certainly would be our preference to any new community that come online quickly would be hopefully be that we would be able to get in line first for the families that we're serving in motels and move them out as quickly as possible. But those are the conversations are happening right. Great. That would be our preference I think as a committee as well that priorities go to folks that are presently. The proposals will help our work incredibly. The rental assistance you know the, you know, prevention of homelessness is key, make sure we prevent new families and in households from becoming homeless but then also, as you know, you know we have a tight housing market and particularly for affordable units and so that $8 million will go a long ways to bring some new units on that make them affordable, you know, accessible to the families we're serving. Great. Thank you. On, on the rental assistance. There's been a just a certain amount in the hot program. In the hot funding for rental rearages and we heard we've taken testimony from legal aid on on the success of the program at least in Franklin County, in particular in Franklin County. I think $8 or $900,000 in a, in a rental or rearage fund is far different than having $42 million in a, in a rental assistance fund and I know that that would be split up between a rearage is, you know, and potential state based vouchers and I think that that's kind of the work that we have to do is to make some estimates on, on what's the difference between rental or rearage and rental assistance and how it's going to work with the, with the nuttiness of this crisis but if the money were parked, I mean would it be parked in the hop program or would we need to create a new cubicle that would handle, you know, the disbursement and the, and the rulemaking and they, you know, I mean, I'm interested in trying to find a solution that includes as many programs and many as many processes that already exist that may have to be grown but as we've seen with the UI issue. I think and, and the homelessness issue that you described, it can quickly get overwhelmed what we have right now. Yeah, it's certainly complicated for sure. There's no doubt about that. My understanding in in our conversations is that the program that they're setting up will be a distinct program, and that it wouldn't be funneled through the hop program but administered through a CCD and, and their departments there. So, you know, we will continue with our hop funding. But as you indicated, it's it'll be a small fraction of in my senses is that that 42 million and you know I would, I don't have a lot of the details is going to work directly with many of the landlords who have not been paid, you know, and that will be the one of the rules that they'll identify is working directly with landlords and understanding who's who's in arrears and not on their rent because we are seeing some unprecedented economic conditions in the state right now. Right now it's designing the rules will be incredibly important because again it's again that's not for AHS I think that'll be an ACCD, you know, conversation but I think it's really important to get that right because it's you know the contract is between the tenant and the landlord and and how we figure how we figure that out is going to be really important. Yeah, I can tell you that we are in regular contact as they develop their plan to utilize those funds and to implement it and so we're in weekly contact with with their staff and so we're helping inform some of those decisions that are being made to make sure that it will work for some of the folks that we may see the need for but also just so that it complements the work we do as well so that that we're we're a lot just that make sure we're aligned. Right, so, so to go back to the beginning. We've always viewed this situation is having a short and a medium and a long term solution. And I think AHS is on the front lines of the short term solution obviously, getting people into the motels but also now get and getting food to them, taking over programs that have been set up by other organizations and taking on the state taking responsibility for providing in feeding this population. So, but to recap from what I heard is that starting on June 4 you're going to renew whoever has received above a voucher under extremely no barrier circumstances unlike the unlike the way it's been for cold weather. GA assistance. That's going to continue. What I heard you say is that you're going to change the process from 30 day voucher to a 14 day voucher. Yes. Internally that should help pay the motels a little bit faster, allow us to be in touch with our families a little more regularly as well that they have to come to you every two weeks to get to tell you whether they still need the voucher or not. And just to see where they're at with their work it'll be a phone contact it would certainly won't be an in person contact, but that's also our workers transition online or telephone. And are you. I mean, and it sounds like that the program in the motels will go on as long that while there will be some active work on trying to house people in a position out of motels that there's no set deadline to that that the motels have said or the state has said that people have to be out of the motels. Yeah, there's been no deadline set. Our hope is is that as we finalize the details of a longer term housing plan that that will be the roadmap forward and help help kind of map that out. There could be no deadline set where we're saying that this all comes to an end on on X date that that's not a conversation we're having right now. So there could be people in motels there could be people in motels on August 1st. There could be yes, yes. It's really a lot less if we're successful in rolling out our longer term housing plan that's our goal is to transition people out as quickly as possible to more permanent housing solutions. And that will look different for depending on the household how that rolls out. And what I heard from. And what I heard from you on the holiday in in South Burlington was. It's kind of like you were describing almost a harbor place circumstance where that you were embedding a service organization CBO we owe. Into the hotel to provide some of the services and outside or maybe I mean I guess it's closer to what's going on. Perhaps it will, it'll top, but, but isn't isn't that kind of a harbor place. I would say it's like harbor place on steroids harbor place. There are services provided on site. Regularly these will be on site 24 seven at the holiday and on site staffing resources on site 24 hours a day seven days a week at the holiday and which isn't the case. We're still paying that harbor place. Those are all right, but also we're still paying the motel rate, whatever we negotiate for the motel rooms. And we've entered into a master lease with the holiday and so we're getting very favorable rates compared to the market motel rates in Chittenden County at the holiday and right now. Okay, good reasons we've reverted back there is it allowed us to do that. And how long has that been. We started moving households in on Friday we're doing it over a period of four or five days because the service CBO is meeting and doing an intake and assessment with each household as they move in, and they're only able to do so many a day. And so we're we started on Friday and another group will be moving in today a max of like 20 to 30 households a day will be moving into the holiday. And how many rooms is that. It's 170. We're going to stop at around 100 110 to just see how that works with the resources we have on site, and then, and then move forward and filling more of the rooms if it's working. What we have on site for security and services at this point. Great representative Hango. And then by run. And I'm sorry if I repeat myself. Every time we have someone from AHS or DCF in but the program that was outlined for us by Sarah Phillips for OEO. So we're going to be moving forward. We're going to be moving forward. We're going to be moving forward. We're going to be moving. April of 2021. Where. Housing. Funding is going to be. Allocated to regional. OEO offices. And the regional partners will get together to determine who best in their community to give the. Or have you withdrawn that? Or is that part of working with the local coordinated entry partners that you described in that can. Described in his memo. Yeah, I would say we are still interested in various moving forward with that proposal. I would say that the pandemic has certainly. Changed the dynamic around that given we were hoping to move away from motels. As a model and move to other. You know, congregate setting type shelters and other service delivery models. Pandemic has certainly changed. You know, some of the approaches to that, but I think. We're still committed to still moving forward with that proposal. I think that's what some of the conversations happening with our longer term housing plan is what. Is what does the new normal look like. For some of our shelter providers. You know, and how do they move forward as a model. Given this new environment we're working with. And so those are the conversations we're having internally in the conversations we need to have with our partners. We're certainly want to move forward with it, but whether it's in April or. Year from July 1st, we just don't know at this point what that proposal will look like, but we certainly have not taken it off the table and very much want to move forward with it still. Thank you. Representative Byron. Yeah, a quick question circling back to the master lease you signed with the holiday and you said there was a rate differential with that. What is the rate difference for night that we have with the new agreement. Like, like the, some of the motel, one of the motels we've moved some folks out of on Friday has a rate of $129 a night. My memory is this I don't have it up in front of me and I was just looking at it on Friday but I believe for the first hundred rooms at the holiday and it's $65 a night. And then any above that number go to $50 a night. Okay. All right, thank you. All right, Sean. Changing gears a little bit. I appreciate all of the efforts again to that's that we're doing in real time, you know that they were faced with the pandemic state of emergency getting people into the into the motel rooms, dealing with the transition. Do you have anybody who is in a planning mode for the potential of a snapback where we have to re Institute, some of the harsher conditions of of quarantining and isolation that we that we've kind of gone through. We feel like we're growing out of now but this is their planning within the department. So I think the area planning I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah, I would say that those conversations and that work is half is happening, particularly with this with the shelter system of care. I think that, you know, we can't go. We're making decisions that they may not open next winter, some of the low barrier shelters because they would not be able to enforce some of the social distancing that's required if there was another, another way, or somewhere are going to open but with a reduced footprint so that they can implement that social distancing and some of the practices you need if there is a resurgence of the virus. And so those conversations are trying to understand what our capacity is going to be moving forward because some of it. Decisions are already being made and that we would need to be able to respond to that depending on the circumstances. And certainly we've learned some lessons as as we've had to implement this emergency response and certainly trying to learn from those and what what could we do better and what did we do well and how could we replicate that and the future. So that's all the work that's happening behind the scenes right now and understanding some of those questions. Yeah, I just, you know, I'm speaking for myself I'm just so. I mean that's one of the things that keeps me up is what happens when which I think we're, you know, constantly and trying to balance out that all our good work might change again. Representative Hango. I'm local partners in Franklin County very much want to open a new low barrier shelter and they were poised to do so right as the crisis struck. What kind of advice for them. Is this really something that they should be going forward with. It's it's it's worth considering and moving forward if that's if that's what they want to do I think we, you know, we're willing to provide technical expertise on how on how to move that project forward if that's what they want to do and then work on the financial model. We are always interested in expanding community investments and that's what we would refer that to. You know, I'll be the first to tell you that we are straining the motel capacity in many areas of the state and St. Albans is in particular is one of those areas where we are having to move households out into the Chittenden County and even the Addison County area and provide transportation because of capacity issues. And so anytime you can expand the services to serve homeless families or individuals. That's a good thing from our eyes and we certainly would want to work with whatever partners willing to step up and take on that challenge and that work. Thank you. Any further questions for for Sean right now. And Sean you're more than welcome to stick around. I mean there's always. I think in concert with what representative Hango was asking about in terms of what the program as presented this this past winter about changing up the winter GA program and you know we assessing what is how do we recreate things how do we take an opportunity to recreate things and, you know, one hand it feels like you, your division in your agency is constantly, you know, trying to work on what the new normal is. And I think I just want to make sure we appreciate let you know that we appreciate that and, you know, given that it is some of the hardest. It's some of the hardest population to keep safe and some of the hardest funding to find to make sure it's sustainable and, you know, appreciate your efforts and hope that you'll stay you or Ken or Sarah or Jeffrey or whoever you're on your team will keep us informed because the next two weeks I know we are going to be working, you know, on on what a recovery package in the meet in the long short term to medium term to long term situations going to be and we're going to be trying to tease that out but this was important to hear that that that this next level of transition is somewhat focused, I guess is a good way to think about it. And I'm sure we'll let you know, we'll have you back in in a little bit to make sure that that focus stays. I have representative because I was raising your hand question. Thank you so much just wanting to have my refrain that I've been having during this time in terms of asking about translation services and outreach to folks, and so wondering if there's been any any more to report around translation services and thinking of that that you all have been looking at. We have a system in place that predated coven in terms of making sure that folks who who you don't have different ways of communicating have the ability to access our services as as anyone would. And those continue to be available, whether it's language or our cognitive interpreter services we. It's very important that we maintain and make sure everyone's aware of those and has access to those to make sure that everyone has the ability to avail themselves of all of the services that we provide, whether it's reach up. We have high heat fuel systems, GA program and or three squares Vermont those are vitally important services to all of our monitors, and it's important that everyone be able to access them. We have the language that they use and so we continue to make sure that we provide those services to their monitors.