 Good afternoon. This is part two, I think, of Vermont House Human Services Committee on Wednesday, May 5th. And this afternoon, we are hearing from four different individuals who are speaking and members of Rights in Democracy for Vermont. And while some of them are well known to the legislature, none of them have testified in front of our committee this year. And one person is less familiar to the legislature than the rest. And so we look forward to hearing from you. And I'm going to turn it over to you and ask you to introduce yourselves. Fantastic. Hello, everyone. How are you? Thank you so much, Chair Pugh, and the members of this committee for inviting us here today. So my name is Kaya Morris. I use she, her pronouns. And I am the Movement Politics Director for Rights and Democracy, Vermont. Before I begin and dive in, though, I'd like to share a land acknowledgment, if I may, with the committee. Rights and Democracy acknowledges the Mahecan and Southern Vermont and the Ebenneke peoples of the traditional land caretakers of Endakina, which includes parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, New England, and Quebec, and as the guests on the unceded territory of the Mahecan and the Ebenneke peoples, we honor their ancestors, elders, past, present, and emerging. We also acknowledge that our nation has benefited from the uncompensated and exploited labor represented in the legacy of slavery and the present-day reality of migrant farm workers. Thank you. So for those of you who aren't familiar, Rights and Democracy, or which we call RAD for short, and our sibling organization, the Rights and Democracy Institute, were founded in 2015 on the theory of change that it takes people power year after year to make the kind of big, bold, long-term changes that we want to see in this country. Part of this theory of change is that it takes political infrastructure, and in this case, a membership organization, to sustain the momentum necessary to do that work throughout and in between elections. So RAD members and RAD staff work on issues that matter to our communities. We organize for policy change at the state, local, and national level, and we recruit and we train a pipeline of progressive candidates to run for office. Our members are from all walks of life, intergenerational, multicultural, they're activists, they're artists, they're organizers, but most importantly, they're passionate fighters for true social justice and meaningful change in our communities and across the state. And we have chapters both in Vermont and in New Hampshire. So this is what we know. Our current systems are deeply dysfunctional, rooted in historical oppressions and their fragile. When those fragile systems break, it is Vermonters who have been systemically kept out of those places of power who are the most impacted. Abinaki and indigenous persons, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA individuals, individuals with disabilities, senior citizens, new Americans and our migrant or refugee communities, youth and young adults, the poor and the working poor are the ones who carry the weight of policies gone wrong. These individuals are actually 80% of the voting population here in Vermont and yet they're least represented in our state government and are in some cases wholly invisible to some of the different entities that enact policies that can prove deadly to their communities. So our mission is to bring people together, to take action, to build healthy communities and make the values of our communities guide the policies of our government. So we're building a popular movement to advance rights and build a real democracy. And we work in partnership with community organizations, progressive unions, faith communities and more for human and civil rights, environmental and climate action groups. We believe that we can achieve a society where people earn a livable age and have access to affordable healthcare. And we're a progressive and equitable tax system support an economy that protects the environment and human rights. We believe that Vermont and New Hampshire as sister states can lead our country in a new direction towards happy, healthy, just communities for everyone. So it's our pleasure to testify before you today and to share our visions of collective liberation and a more just and vibrant Vermont. So that you were aware, on the federal level we're working hard to promote the thrive agenda which is the next generation of a comprehensive set of reforms birthed from the transformative work of the Green New Deal. It's almost a 2.0 but with a deeper dive. Regionally, Rights and Democracy Institute has joined hundreds of organizations across New England who are joining forces to bring a shared agenda that amplifies power and the will of the people and have formed what's called the Renew New England Alliance to push forth bold structural changes across all six states. And today we are so excited to be able to share that with you that our Vermont renews work. So it's a new and growing coalition here within the state of Vermont that's of grassroots organizations, labor unions, racial justice groups, frontline communities, environmental advocates and more. A group includes groups like Justice for All, 350 Vermont, AFL-CIO, Sunrise, NOFA, Community Action Work, Champlain Valley, DSA, Migrant Justice and so many more. And we've come together to address our overlapping crises, right? Mass unemployment, racial injustice, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. So globally, what we know now is that a haunting truth has to be reckoned with and addressed that people of the global majority or BIPOC individuals and our poor bear the largest negative impacts of both of our environmental crises and our fundamental societal failures. And yet are the least contributors to these crises themselves. So we believe that strongly that any solutions that should be designed to help heal and restore our communities from those harms should be done as an intentional priority rather than a hopeful aspiration of a trickle-down approach. Rights and Democracy Institute is addressing this head-on through the formation of a BIPOC-centered advisory group of experts to guide this process and the policy proposals that will help us reach our climate goals. Now, the council recently submitted a letter to the state of Vermont to raise the hopes, the dreams and the demands of those most impacted as guidance for the work ahead. That letter has been shared with this committee and I encourage you to review it and to hold those words in that letter to heart as you make your policy recommendations and decisions. Currently, our coalition is working diligently on some really innovative policy proposals in the areas of housing justice, food justice and green justice zones, an emerging initiative that uses data mapping, community design and a participatory budgeting process to support community revitalization. And of course, we're always here for conversations about social justice issues. So it is important for us to lift the voices of the people and today I'm pleased to be joined by some amazing members. Today, over two dozen individuals spoke their truth to committees all across the legislature in both chambers. This is a very exciting moment. I will add and take this little point of privilege to say I want to thank you for the great work that you did on H-225. Looking forward to the work that will come from the joint resolution number seven where this is going to help lay the groundwork for some really, really powerful work that we will be able to do here in Vermont and set the model for the rest of the nation. If we are able to clearly declare racism as a public health initiative, thinking about it as an emergency and enables us to take some really powerful steps towards thinking about recruiting more in the mental health fields to be able to find more practitioners to support our BIPOC communities, getting those within the medical professions to be able to come through, thinking slightly differently about how we look at wraparound services within schools as it addresses those that are most impacted. So as we go forth today, I ask that you hear the stories, honor their courage to come to testify to you today and sharing their stories and supporting the time that is shared with you today. So joining me today are some amazing folks. We have Amy Town, we have Brenda Siegel, we have Jubilee McGill and I believe those are testifiers at this moment. So I would love to be able to pass that back to Chair or if we can, I can call on anyone if they'd like to step forward. Brenda, why don't you go forward? Sure, happy to. And I probably have too much here, so I'm gonna, you'll see me shift around. So I just wanna say I was given free reign so you should all be scared. Just kidding. But thank you so much for having me for the record. I'm Brenda Siegel from New Fane, Vermont. I'm a member leader at Rights and Democracy and I am the Vermont member of the National Cohort to heal the overdose crisis with people's action as well. And I do that work through Rights and Democracy, Vermont. And I actually wanna start by thanking you truly for all of your hard work on H-225 and for those of you that were there then on H-162. Most of you do know my story but interestingly I've never testified on this bill. So for those who do not, the majority at this table first got to know me when I ran for office in 2018. What you may not know is that I made that decision on March 7th of 2018 and then on March 8th of 2018. So the very next day, my nephew, Kaya Siegel, who's upbringing I had been a huge part of, died of an overdose after a year in recovery and ultimately derailed by the criminal justice system. He was the son of my brother who died about 20 years before also while using heroin, Jonathan Siegel. One of the most persistent threads throughout Kaya's life was that we could not consistently access buprenorphine. The passage of H-225 does not change our story. Our story has already been told. But it will help people who are at risk of dying right now have another tool for survival so that maybe someone else's Kaya will be able to survive. I want to share with you something that I was not expecting. I was not expecting the grief that I would be overcome upon passage on the house floor. I have worked so hard in this legislation that I thought I would feel celebration. Instead, and I did, but the overwhelming feeling was an irrational realization, irrational because I of course already knew it was true that no matter how hard I fight, I will never see Kaya again. And that was a heavy dose of grief that day. But through that, to hear legislators stand up and say with passionate heart why they support this bill, a process I had watched in this committee, why they voted yes. To hear stories of elected leaders who had lost loved ones, to hear people pour onto the virtual floor, what this meant to them and to our communities was incredibly powerful. I want you to know that when you work on drug policy and opioid legislation, you are helping to save people's lives. Of course, however, I don't want you to underestimate the healing power that those of us that have been screaming from the rooftops experience when you acknowledge our pain. It really matters. So I want to say with all of my heart, thank you. And I want to give a special thanks to Representative Pugh because this was not all roses as many of you know. It was hard work and I watched every minute of it and those of you that changed your position were not here in the beginning. I know that was hard to come to and I want you to know that this might have been a tough bill for me seven years ago, even five years ago before I truly understood the problem. So I really thank you. And I want to also give that same shout out to Topper and Carl because they spend quite a lot of time on me with me on this issue and learning both our story and where the barriers were. And it really matters when you're a legislator to learn, to be able to learn. And I saw that here in this committee. Really everyone at this table made a huge difference, not just the people who will survive as a result, but to the families who have had their hearts shattered. This work is important to us too. If you don't know, Senate Health and Welfare discussed it this morning and the vote in judiciary is Friday. They made a few small tweaks, nothing that should slow this down when it comes back to you. And we made a difference together. They're gonna take a vote on the house floor next week and I keep saying that this is not everything but is the exact right course correction that we needed right now. It is harm reduction. And as my good friend in recovery says, harm reduction is the truth. It is the science. We do have more work to do, of course. And I wanna make sure to highlight much of that work that actually I discovered today most of those bills are in your committee already. And I'm just gonna briefly go over them. We have, but actually starting with the Senate, there's a bill that will be introduced that's a pilot program to introduce mobile units for MAT into rural communities. There is a resolution that passed yesterday on overdose awareness day. And I did not write the bill number but it will be coming to you. And I'm hoping it will make August 31st an overdose awareness day. And just for reference, the governor has been asked to fly the SAG flag at half staff several times on August 31st and will not. And so it's a really important bill for families and overdose to just have that recognition. I also want to say that the next on my list was 225 and obviously you guys already did that. So I'm really, again, I can't be grateful enough really, I don't think. Then we have an act that is related to addressing the barriers of substance use disorder treatment. That's age 395. And that does three things. It eliminates the pre-authorizations for MAT which you all did except for Medicaid already previously. So this is specifically Medicaid. It eliminates caps and pre-authorization for the 14 to 21 day inpatient treatment programs. So people can stay in inpatient as long as they need to. And it also fixes the chapter language to use substance use disorder and people who suffer from substance use disorder instead of misuse abuse addiction and all the other words that are used that actually the impacted communities and the DSM-5 say are not the correct language. There's another bill that deals with the rest warrants I don't think will come to you but just so you know that it is coming and it's for people who are in treatment. Then we have an act that's relating to recovery support. And what that will do is both expand syringe services programs and it will also do a do a study which studies how we respond to relapse in our state and how we respond to this disease. In other words punitive versus supportive and how we can improve the supportive side. And then we have three bills on decriminalization. I think each of those bills will address a different piece and they don't say you just shouldn't do anything. They say we should be sending people to treatment and therefore we should give them an initial treatment assessment or a fine instead. I'm gonna send you this so that I don't go on and on about every single bill because that'll be too much information today. And I don't wanna do that to you. So, but we did introduce this whole slate of bills because there are systemic barriers in across the board in surviving substance use disorder and especially opioid use disorder. So for this portion, I just wanna wrap up the substance use disorder to say that I'm unbelievably confident in this committee after watching your work over the last three years because I saw it with H225. I saw you all learn and take it seriously. It's been three years since I lost Kaya three years since I fell to the pavement screaming in a snowstorm on Elliott Street because I was the one that got the phone call. Three years since I told his mama that her baby had died. It's also been three years that I have spent working closely with many of you. I have so much respect for the people in this committee in regards to this work and I know that there's still so much to do but I don't think that we should miss this moment to celebrate the work that we have done. And before I'm done here, I just wanna briefly say the other than opioids, many of you may know that I've worked on economic justice and equity quite a lot in my life before Kaya's death and some unintentional consequences occurred during the pandemic to folks who were on unemployment and receiving social services of some sort. And both from the Housing Authority and Economic Services. Some of it isn't fixable because it's federal rules that you are all stuck with and I believe me I'm working there too but I think it's important that we note that this highlighted actual problems in our system. It wasn't new during the pandemic. It's just that it became, it just kind of blew up. I know that people are penalized for crossing the benefits cliff unknowingly and then had to pay back services when they really are not people that have the resources to pay back services. And I think that there's work they can do to streamline paperwork so that the paperwork itself to have these supports is not a full-time job because they're asking the same questions over and over again too many times a year in too many different places. There's a general distrust of people in poverty that they don't know how to manage money and that's not accurate. In fact, we have budget superheroes in poverty because we don't have enough and so we can work on fixing that stigma as well. I want you to know that though there are federal barriers I am willing to work with anyone on this committee to try to figure out how we better empower people within that structure to create a better system because I can tell you that it's pretty unempowering to feel like you spend half of your life filling out paperwork and being doubted and getting less than enough support in the times of the day that you could be working to get out of poverty. This system is by no fault for Mont alone and it's very much designed this way and you all have worked really hard to address some of it. So I'd love to work with any of you to build a stronger system because I think if we want better it is possible to build better intersectional systems and I have some ideas. Thank you all so much for the work that you do to make this state better. This is a very important committee and I'm honored to have really gotten to know so many of you and to finally be in front of you in testimony. Thank you so much. Thank you Brenda and thank you very much for being so vulnerable and sharing your story as well as recognizing the work in particular that people did who changed their mind or who learned things for new. So thank you very much. Amy, I think you are next. Hi everyone. Good afternoon for the record. My name is Amy Stone. Oh my goodness. She, her pronouns. I am a proud single mom of four. Would you like to introduce her? Oh my gosh. We are the people committee. I'd like to know. For the record, this is my 80 year old Sophia town. Oh my goodness. Okay, you got to go. Sorry about that. I'm not apologized. Okay, so I am a 21 year state employee of which I've spent the last 16 years in DCF economic services determining benefits for Vermont's most vulnerable. I am also a full-time college student online. I'm finally graduating next week from Loyola University in New Orleans with my bachelors alongside my oldest son who is an on-campus student there. Lastly, I am the president of the Vermont State Employees Association. Welcome to my kitchen, which for the past year has doubled as my workspace and children's classroom. I apologize in advance for any chaos in the background during my testimony. It is a remote learning day for my first and second graders, which you just met my second grader. I will keep my testimony brief. I wanted to quickly raise today the issue of safety and security for my members and DCF family services and the unsafe situations that continue to find themselves in. August 7th will mark the sixth anniversary of the murder of DCF social worker, Lara Sobel. And while there has been some improvements to safety, there is still much more work that needs to be done. As the Committee of Jurisdiction for Family Services, we ask that you please take testimony from our FST workers and work to resolve these issues. In order to protect Vermont's children, we need to ensure the safety of those charged to do that work. They need our help and we need yours. Also, there continues to be issues with capacity and a lack of quality care placements for our children in crisis as a result of the decision to close one side. There is a need now more than ever for a state-owned state staff facility that can provide the care that is desperately needed for our children with the most severe mental health issues. Lastly, I wanted to thank this Committee for the work that you do each day for Vermonters. I recognize the challenges that you are tasked with and really wanted to express gratitude for your dedication and commitment to this difficult work. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today. Amy, thank you. And I loved meeting your daughter. I hope that this gives her an opportunity to go, she can do this too. And congratulations on getting your bachelor's. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to hold questions until we hear from Jubilee as well and then do that. But thank you very much. And never excuse, never make excuses for taking care of your family. Good afternoon. I would like to thank you, the chair, I represented with you and all of the members for giving me some of your very precious time. I know you are very busy people in general, but especially in these final weeks of the session. I am forever grateful that our legislators are so accessible to us in this state. And I really appreciate you making yourselves available to us today. I would like to share my screen. I do have a slideshow for you. Hold on. I am going to, oh, and you're already a co-host. So you can, it is loading. Yes. Can you see it now? Yes, we can, or I can. So for the record, my name is Jubilee McGill and I am the co-chair of the Board of Rights and Democracy. I'm joining you today for my home in Bridport where I live with my husband and three children. I work for John Graham Housing and Services as a service coordinator. And I'm also the County Housing Support Worker for the CARES vouchers in our areas. I am presenting to you today on behalf of the Housing Coalition, often referred to as the Continuum of Care. We are social service agencies based in Addison County who collaborate daily to provide the necessary housing and social support services for our most vulnerable neighbors. I do want to take a moment to highlight each one of these organizations. In our work, in order to protect the privacy of our clients and to shield them from stigma, we often wind up shielding our communities from the depths of pain and suffering experience by our most vulnerable neighbors. And this year has been especially full of pain and suffering and trauma. We can't go home and unpack our secondary trauma with our friends and our family. We have collaborated to respond to each new crisis, sometimes saving lives, always aiming to prevent harm, and we have been taken care of and supporting each other so that we can come back and continue this work each day. I am so proud to be part of this coalition and my heart is warm knowing that there are groups across the state doing this same work. The member organizations of our coalition are the Charter House Coalition, HOPE, the Addison County Branch of CVOEO, often referred to as Addison County Community Action Group, the Counseling Services of Addison County, United Way of Addison County, Turning Point Center of Addison County, Women's Safe, Addison County Community Trust, and John Graham Housing Services. I'm gonna be sharing some data with you. This is representative of our county as of yesterday, but I do want you to know that this picture is pretty similar across the state. It may vary based on density of a particular area, but we're all struggling with the same barriers and issues. So today in Addison County, John Graham and Charter House, our two shelters are both at full capacity. We have 41 guests, which include eight children, and we have 10 households on a wait list. There are approximately 90 people currently living in hotels or motels where they receive meals and services, and that includes 20 children. Some of these children have been living in a hotel or motel for the entire pandemic. We are facing declining motel capacity. This says three participating motels. One of those motels has gone down to just one room, and that they'll soon be no longer renewing that household. So we'll be down to two hotels and 59 rooms, which are all full. I heard you mentioned that you are gonna be talking about the new emergency housing plan tomorrow. You'll find that stricter eligibility will be starting in June and will really go full tilt as of July 1st. But, and this will affect a lot of people's overall eligibility, but we're finding that the motels in our area are already limiting or eliminating new registrations and renewals with the restart of tourism. So we're very worried that many of the people who are still technically eligible for a GIA motel voucher aren't gonna have any place to actually stay. The eviction moratorium is due to end in June and even with stimulus programs like VRAP to help some whose landlords are willing to work with them and who income qualify. We are still facing potentially over a hundred new households in Addison County that will become newly homeless or unsheltered. Now for kind of the layout of subsidized and affordable housing in our area, there are currently 487 subsidized and affordable apartments in Addison County. 198 of those are particular, are set aside for those with disabilities and for seniors. 334 of those are operated by our local housing trust, Addison County Community Trust. And their normal turnover in a normal year is about 10 to 15% annually. So that's about 35 new households. But really their availability this year has been next to nothing. And their waitlist currently has 186 individual households looking for housing. For vouchers, we currently have 16 families approved or pending approval for CARES vouchers. And they must secure housing by June 1st or they lose that opportunity. The CARES vouchers have been great and we have been able to successfully house several families in our community. But as you can see, there's still 20 adults and 23 children who have that voucher and now have less than a month to find housing. We also have roughly a dozen other households with a variety of other vouchers, things like housing choice vouchers, VRS, the youth, Vermont youth vouchers, but they too are unable to find housing. And the private market is very difficult to access for people with barriers such as criminal history, prior poor landlord references or poor credit. Rents in our area, these are for a one bedroom for the average Addison County Community Trust unit, which is tend to be subsidized by the low income housing tax credit. Rent is around $850 a month, sorry, that would be exceptional. And the income necessary to afford that is $34,000 a year. When you go to the private market, the average rent for a one bedroom is around $1,200 a month. And that is, you would need about $48,000 a year to make that affordable. The current maximum rent a voucher can be used for is capped at about $900 total housing costs. So that includes rent plus utility allowance. So if your rent is $900 a month and it doesn't include electricity, you're not gonna be able to use your voucher because you're gonna be over the payment standard. A full-time minimum wage job in Vermont currently pays to $24,440 a year, which means that they really need an apartment that costs $600 a month total for rent and utilities to make it affordable. So you can see that even with subsidized units, it's still not affordable to someone making minimum wage full-time employment. And a lot of the population we work with, there are barriers that make it really hard for them to find and maintain full-time employment. I'd like to talk a little bit about what we're hearing, especially in the face of these new emergency housing rules. There is a lot of desperation and exhaustion. Exhaustion, people are asking about safe places they can sleep in cars or camp. Our response since we don't know where we're gonna put these more than 100 people is we've had to start gathering tents, looking for donations of tents and seeing if we can find campgrounds that might be willing to rent us space so that they can have toilets, they can have access to running water. And that's really our best plan. People are panicking because even if they are still eligible for a minimum, they're likely going to have to travel to someplace like Barrie or potentially even farther. Which will pull them from their support systems, their families, and that can really have a catastrophic effect on their stability. We did a survey this summer with our homeless and at-risk populations because we wanted to know what they were looking for in housing. And so some of the things we were hearing is they really want and need smaller housing complexes, are what gets funded currently as larger projects with 20 or 30 units. And they really, for their own well-being and success, really preferred smaller housing complexes. They really want wraparound services and they need those services at their doorstep. When you are suffering, when you are struggling to feed your family, when you are struggling with mental health challenges, medical challenges, traveling to seek out services can be a major barrier. And so oftentimes people go without. So they really want those services at their doorstep. They've really, in the pandemic, we've got FEMA, through FEMA grants, we have embedded social workers where they are and the bonds and just the stability of folks has been amazing and they recognize that. They also want to have supportive shared community. Some of the popular ideas were things like a tiny home village where they have those places to gather. But they also have their own space, their own front door. SROs, which is something that used to be really, really widespread and popular and we moved away from is something we're finding that a lot in our community are actively seeking. They like the idea of sharing a kitchen, having a living room, having that opportunity to hang out with their community, but then also being able to retreat to their own space. They're also really affordable if they don't have access to a voucher. Our traditional voucher programs screen out a lot of people for prior mistakes. And another interest was affinity groups, especially sober housing for people who are in recovery. They really were seeking out living spaces where they can thrive and still have that community feel. So to sum up all of that information, if we do nothing, we are about to have hundreds of people, adults and children, members of our community, friends of our children, friends of our grandchildren who have lived, worked and go to school in Addison County. These are our central workers who help things running throughout this pandemic and they are at risk of becoming homeless and unsheltered in the next few months. There is nowhere for them to go. We simply do not have anywhere to put them and the private market is too expensive. Not that there's really much available there either. And it's especially prohibitive to voucher holders who have those rental caps. So they will camp. They will be in the woods. They will be in the pavilions on our town greens, under bridges and cars. They will double up in overcrowded and unsafe situations, especially for those who are fleeing domestic violence and they will have to leave their support networks in Addison County, their stability and go elsewhere. So what we need, you may be familiar with the three-legged stool of supportive housing. And what it really stands for is that Brooks and mortar are not enough. We can't rely on just building more housing. Fixing this problem requires a three-pronged approach. We need the capital to build it and to have those physical spaces. We need to wrap around elective supportive services to support them. And we need rental assistance to afford it. Please recall that even a subsidized $850 tax credit rent is not affordable to someone making minimum wage and working a full-time job. As someone who is formerly homeless myself as a young adult and almost a second time as a young mother, I at the perfect time was able to get a subsidized apartment and had access and wrap around services. And I know so personally and deeply the major shift in the trajectory of someone's life having this three-legged stool can really, really provide. This to friends and people in my community, they're, I often hear, oh, there's all this money coming. There's hundreds of millions of dollars of money coming and there is and this is an amazing opportunity. But I want to talk a bit about some of the barriers that we are seeing. One category is timing. New construction takes three years to develop and affordable housing developers are at a disadvantage in a hot market. There's red tape and certain requirements like the NEPA requirement for HUD that slows things down. The NEPA environmental protection reviews take at least six months and we can't take any action until it's passed that we can't put money down, we can't get started, we can't secure contracts. And so we lose out even if we're able to identify land or houses or things that might work with the current state of funding. And funders want high quality housing but those projects take time. Some restrictive policies that present barriers are density often prohibits us from rehabbing existing buildings into net new units and or putting up zero energy modular homes. One project we have been successful with in our county is John Graham Housing and Services, my organization, using CARES money, we were able to purchase three zero energy modular homes and have a master lease with Addison County Community Trust and have actually placed them in a mobile home park. This is a cheap, quick, really flexible opportunity but often times current density policies prevent that from being able to happen. Zoning often further prohibits social services actually taking place on potential housing sites and the available subsidy per unit is too low for most renovation conversion projects. Projects outside the designated downtown where most land is currently available are not competitive for our traditional funding sources like through VHCB, through the tax credit program. And state money prioritizes families and so it often leaves the single adults' needs unaddressed. We also have disjointed programs. We can't invest in permanent supportive housing without service commitments but the housing and the service funding streams are siloed. It's up into kind of three areas and I know you guys are really only able to address the state policy areas but we really wanted to mention all of them and hope that in your communities you will help us advocate for some of this. Local policy and zoning, these are some of the changes that we could see to make it easier to solve the problem. So you can eliminate the cap on density for affordable houses anywhere you want to see housing built. Basically anywhere there is town, water and sewer. Eliminate restrictions on co-allocating housing with services. Some districts don't allow on-site services currently and fast track the neighborhood development association designations and provide technical assistance so towns can actually jump through the necessary hoops. NDAs are only helpful if the towns can actually do it. Some state policy changes are, there are projects out there that haven't been done because they are too expensive. We're looking at 500,000 per unit costs and so we would need to increase the per unit subsidy available. Program rules should allow for development farther outside designated downtowns. Not a lot, we're asking like one to three miles where it's still technically walkable, it's close but the land we're finding available is outside those designated downtowns by a couple of miles. And if you can't streamline Act 250, invest in it. Provide technical assistance and grants to help nonprofit developers through the process quickly. Investing in permanent supportive housing means matching service dollars with the housing dollars. AHS programs like OEO need to align with the housing programs like VHCB and VCDP. Wave significantly sell back need for requirement for HUD funding so we can act fast and jump on those opportunities that when they become available. Increase availability of project-based rental assistance. Review HUD fair market rent and create a process for bringing it in line with real-world conditions on the ground. So I would like to thank you all for sitting through that. I did brief, I have pages and pages of notes but I mostly just read from the slides to be respectful of your time. But thank you again for having me and we don't have the solutions but we know the barriers and we would love to continue to be engaged with you to find those solutions. And we'll do believe, thank you. Thank you very much for that very rich and informative presentation which is timely because in fact there is a group of legislators from four different committees who are trying to break down the silos in looking at the governor's proposal. So while you have outlined it as this is what's going to happen, some of it needs legislative approval. So we need to work on that. But thank you, thank you very much. And the four of you have really provided some very thoughtful and wonderful information and stories and put your voice in there. And what you've talked about reflects the diversity of issues that come before our committee from those, that leg of the three-legged stool which is the supportive housing concept to substance use, to child welfare, to economic services and overall to social and economic justice. We've got about 10 minutes. So I wanna open it up to other committee members to see. And I do see two questions right now. I see one from Representative Redmond followed by Representative Wood. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think my question is more of a house related to housing and Jubilee, what you spoke about. We hear about this, I love the three-legged stool metaphor. Absolutely, it's essential that we get that right, that balance. And yet you hear about this siloed services and housing. And I know that community to community, there are different organizations on the ground and what in your view is a way to get at that, bringing down that silo so that those organizations are working hand in glove. I mean, what needs to happen for that? Like I feel like this is a conversation we have over and over again and it's better in some regions of the state than others. But what in your view will help us get at that? I am just a good president. So I'm not as well-versed on the development side and the kind of barriers in integrating the two. But I mean, I think like it said in the slide is making sure that OEO and the AHS side of things are working in conjunction with VHCB when these projects are funded, making sure that there are services, funded services included in the proposal and making that a requirement until we kind of start making it a requirement to happen, it's not going to happen. And so that's going to be adjusting the cost per unit and some of the guidelines. We've got a really good model here where we are, my organization works with Addison County Community Trust and they're kind of the developer providing the unit and the physical structure and then we're the ones who are providing the services. And so just making that when we're funding these projects, kind of just making that part of it is really and figuring out we are, we don't have it yet. We are working on kind of quantifying the data of what it costs to fund those services kind of per unit. So that is something I will send these slides to you. I've had to fill in at the shelter last night and did the overnight there. So I am not as prepared as I had hoped to be. So I will be sending this and I will send my testimony and I can absolutely pass on that data to you once we've kind of got those numbers on what it actually costs per unit. So we can start putting housing and services together in our state when we fund them. Do you really represent what I want to jump in? You keep talking about services. What do you mean by services? And you talked about that you were homeless as a young, you were a person without a roof over your head as a young person and almost as a young mother. What did you need to become housed? And when you talk about services for those of us who are concrete, what do services mean? Yeah, yeah, actually we presented to some of our local Addison County legislators last night and that came up and we were gonna come up with a more concrete list. I can talk about what services I provide as a housing support worker and service coordinator. Some of that is connecting them with other service agencies like CSAC for mental health. It is working with Turning Point for recovery support or peer recovery. I also, I work on budgeting. I help make sure people have all of the resources that they qualify for. So I'm often just helping them meet all of their needs. It's really comprehensive and it's hard because each person's needs are very different. So it's helping, I'm working with one family. His wallet was stolen, so he has no ID and he is on unemployment, but he can't get a job until, so it's sometimes just working through these processes. And so when we say services, that's what support and services kind of go hand in hand. It's really as much or as little as each person needs to be successful in their housing and stay in their housing. But I will present a much more in-depth list for you later on. And think about what you needed. Yes, yeah, oh, yeah, no, I was very lucky. I was involved with the parent child center. So some of the things I needed, I needed childcare. I needed an advocate, someone who knew these systems and said, no, you can, you qualify for this. You can, I had someone who helped me fill out my CCV and my FAFSA, it's really, so it's hard to quantify because it really is different for each person, but sometimes it's just having that person to navigate your life with you and help you along the way. Hold your hands, give you kind words because that's something you don't experience a lot when you are poor or marginalized. Thank you, thank you Jubilee and thank you Representative Wood for letting me jump in. Sure, Madam Chair, my question is for Amy. Amy, I've been contacted this session by a family services worker and you referenced the murder of Lara and I know that after that period of time that DCF put in place some measures to support family services workers in terms of mental health support and some sort of peer support kinds of things and the information that I had was that those are sort of like disintegrating and I just wanted to know if that's your experience and what you might suggest for us to do to try to help push those back into place. Thank you for the question. So I am not a family services worker. I do work for DCF economic services but in my role or capacity as the SCA president I often hear from our family services workers and the common theme is they love their job, they want to do their job, they believe in the process. However, they're feeling unsafe in the work that they're being asked or tasked to do. They're going into unsafe conditions alone. Oftentimes the unknown is far more scary than the reality but sometimes reality is really difficult as well. The systems that were put in place after Lara's murder have dwindled over the last couple of years instead of strengthening which is a little concerning. So as far as specifics, I really think that it's going to be important to have that conversation directly with family services and hearing their testimony, speaking to their very specific issues and the very specific needs that they have in order to do their work in a thoughtful and safe way. Again, they want to do their work. They want to feel empowered to do the work but the systems are feeling not just the children at this point but the workers as well. Thank you, that was the sense that I had as well. The person who contacted me was so emotional tied to what he was doing as a family services worker yet felt like he is almost going to be compelled to leave for his own mental health and emotional support reasons but it's really not something that he wants to do. He wants to be able to continue the work with family. So thank you. I have heard the same in terms of those and that family services workers are being asked to do things that are not what they were educated to do, not what is within their job description. And that is one of the things that happened recently in St. Albans. People were asked to and felt that they could not say no because there was not a safe place for youth to go and one of our fellow committees, the healthcare committee took a whole morning about youth who were in mental health crises and so you intersect youth who are in mental health crises, they're rising with young adults issues with issues with drugs and alcohol and with, yeah. There's just lots that and lack of, there is a standard, the Child Welfare League of America has a standard for how many families a child welfare worker should carry. We're not close to that and people are being asked to do their job without what I would say supervision that helps them do their job. They have supervision that is, did you cross the T? Did you get the paperwork done? But not the others. And if I may interject, this is such important work. This is protecting our children. They want to protect our children. Amy, what you probably know is the bill that where is the representative noise and representative Redmond brought to the House floor that we hope that the Senate will take up next year in terms of the Office of the Child Youth and Family Advocate which is really focused on systemic change but systemic change based on the experiences in Vermont and what is happening right there. And we do know that the planning for a smaller locked facility is at present four months in delay in terms of what they are saying. Important work, sorry. I teach, I'm a social worker. This touches a few buttons for me. Really, I wanna see if anyone else has any questions or wants to say anything to our guests. Kaya. Madam Chair, I would just like to thank them all for the work they do every day. It's, it makes such a difference in our state and for Vermonters. So thank you for the incredible work, you compassionate work you do. And Kaya, thank you, representative Redmond. And Kaya, I wanna thank you for bringing this diverse group of wonderful women to our committee to share and tell their story and also educate us about different aspects of Vermont and things that we've done that have worked and things that we need to keep doing to make the state work better. So thank you, thank you very much. Thank you, Chair, thank you, committee. And with that, it is 4.30 and we are going to close our committee meeting today. And I will see you all tomorrow at 9 a.m.