 All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm going to kick things off with a few remarks. Then we're going to hear from Samantha Dunn, who is our assistant director for community works within the fanceto. It has really been the builder of this facility in a lot of ways. Then we will hear from Brian Pine, the fanceto director, and then Michael Monty, our key partner here at Champlain Housing Trust Executive Director. And then we'll take some questions. And then Samantha will be able to lead a tour of some of the facility. So with that kind of roadmap, here we go. Thank you for joining us today. And those of you who've been here before on this site, welcome back. We're here to welcome you to the now complete Elmwood Emergency Shelter Community. Before guests arrive to occupy these new 35 beds and the common facilities that we're standing in. As you can see, the community is now done. And we will soon be moving people in, in phases. And we expect to be fully occupied by the end of the month. Elmwood is first conceived and has been built to serve as a temporary, critical resource in our ongoing efforts to bring a functional end of homelessness and to deliver on the promise of housing as a human right here in Brooklyn. While the innovation's here, there's been a lot of discussion about the kind of physical innovation here, the use of these very small structures, pods that some people call them. That's really just a small piece of the innovation that this project represents. The way in which this shelter is going to be operated and the services that are going to be provided here in a centralized way are also important innovations. Residents in this low barrier shelter will have greater independence and ability to manage their lives here than is possible in congregate shelters. In addition, here at Elmwood, homeless community members will have access to numerous services and supports under one roof, from recovery services to basic needs to health care and mental health support and visits from case workers and housing navigators that are focused on helping residents move as quickly as possible into permanent housing. In short, with this shelter, we are taking a new public health approach to homelessness. I also want to speak a little bit to the broader context around the city's work to end homelessness and that this is a piece of. With the opening of Elmwood, combined with the recent expansion to the city supported shelter, notice that a new place is operating, we have nearly doubled the city's capacity for low barrier emergency shelter beds over the last year, from about 50 to just short of 100. While the sun is shining today, our experience over the last week is delivering a rapid response to the extreme cold weather across New England has only sharpened our feelings as a city team that there is great urgency to deliver this critical new resource of supportive emergency shelter to our community. Just last week, as some of you surely know, the city took a really unusual step for the city and with particular leadership from CEDO and support from the State Agency of Human Services and the Red Cross, an emergency shelter, emergency cold weather shelter was set up at the Miller Center in the New North End, which serviced 60 individuals, unique individuals overnight between Thursday and Saturday as the wind chill brought the temperatures outside to more than 30 below zero. In part, those efforts to operate the city's first ever overnight cold weather shelter were successful because of the significant work already underway to prepare for the opening of this facility. The Howard Center outreach staff, our CSLs and the housing navigators and case workers involved in Chittenden County coordinated entry were critical in reaching the unsheltered and vulnerable neighborhoods and to quickly inform them of this new facility that was at the Miller Center to encourage them to take refuge there. That work and the more than year-long effort to realize this new facility illustrates clearly that delivering housing as a human right is a community-wide endeavor and that this is an all-hands-on-deck moment. I'm thankful to the many partners, including the city staff from numerous departments, neighbors, local businesses, countless vendors on the design-build team and the numerous service providers who brought us to this moment and will be critical to the future success of this Elmwood community. Since I announced in late 2022 an action plan of fill housing as a human right in Burlington where we first kind of laid out this concept of a new 35-bed low barrier shelter, two people in particular have worked enormously to make this possible. And I again wanna thank Samantha for her leadership in the physical development efforts and I wanna thank Sarah Russell, our special assistant to End Homelessness for her efforts to bring the program and details into being today. Sarah was also the driving force behind this, these efforts at the Miller Center during the cold weather emergency. So she could not be with us today by her skills, experience, and the commitment to the mission of ending homelessness in Burlington has helped shape the city's public health approach to serving the unsheltered and I'm very grateful for the leadership of both Samantha and Sarah. So with that, I will now turn over the podium to Samantha to share some work details. Good afternoon, everyone. I've been thinking about how to create this new community every day for more than a year since the mayor announced the 10 point housing plan to ensure housing as a human right in the city of Burlington. Creating high quality dignified shelter with access to safety, security, and services as quickly as possible has been a huge challenge and one that is worth losing sleep over just happened. To realize this community on this aggressive timeline we took an innovative approach to use the city on property, prefabricated buildings, and really relied on putting together a team of hundreds of individuals that have contributed to this facility being where it is today. Just as a reminder, in February of last year, less than a year ago, the city council actually approved use of ARPA funds to make this community a reality. And then the next month, the Public Works Commission and then the city council again gave us permission to use this site for three years for this emergency shelter. And at the end of July, we received our conditional use zoning permit which allowed us to actually start working. Every step of this project has taken longer than I wanted to. And some of that has been due to the regular construction challenges of unknown underground storage tanks under a parking lot, supply chain, and labor issues. But the real reason that the need for this project to open is so acute. And so that every day the shelter wasn't open was interminable for me. And tomorrow that will end. We will welcome or CHT will welcome the first guests to this community. And I think that's something that we should give a round of applause to CHT for stepping up to do that. And to everyone who has lots of people to thank because I have the deepest gratitude for everyone that has helped us get here today. And I've got to take the time to mention them. Of course the city of Burlington's ARPA funding. We also have special funding from the Burlington Electric Department that allows this facility to be a fossil fuel facility and to invest in high performance buildings with high performance mechanical systems On top of that funding, we got a special funding from the Vermont Low Income Trust for electricity. We've got solar panels on both of these buildings. They will produce more energy than they use. And funding from the Vermont Community Foundation that will contribute to the community building spaces on the site. Our designing construction team with special things to Duncan Bousnessi architecture and Peter Schneider at BEIC who really helped me from day one to imagine how we could create a community on a really rough parking lot. And then a Bob Peters of Second Gen Builders in Sioux Hab of Redford Integrated Consulting who have poured their hearts and souls into this space day after day, weekend after weekend, all night on Friday and Saturday night. But our whole design and construction team also includes able paint, glass and flooring, atlas, environmental, BP, wastewater, bronze and Johnson, seamless gutters, Burlington Electric Department, Burlington CaliCom, Burlington Water Department, Elizabeth Emmett, Goliath Tech, Gordon's Window Decor, Harvest Our Power, Intuitive Engineering, KBS Builders, Lakeside Electric, Liza Phillip, Palette Shelters, Peter's Consulting, Pilmaharam Architects, Redbird Integrated Consulting, Red Rock Mechanical, Round Hill Fence, True Engineering, up in this U.S. Ecology, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, Vermont Security and Youth Bill, as well as all of the volunteers that help paint the pavement and the shelters. Finally, we had donations from Minotaire, so one of our pieces of high quality mechanical system was donated by Minotaire. American floor mats donated a door mat for every shelter. We have donations from Sherman Williams Farmhouse Group, Homeport, Northgate Department residents and staff, and the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington. So again, thank you for allowing me to name all those folks who actually made this possible. I'm gonna pass it to Brian Pine. Thanks, Samantha. I wanna just say that the mayor has provided the leadership and the support, and Samantha has been the primary driver behind the development of this project. So without her, we wouldn't actually be celebrating, or not celebrating, I should say, but at least honoring the opening of a shelter. A shelter is a bit of an odd thing to celebrate, right? Cause it's acknowledging that we have a need, it can need continues that we take care of folks for whom the housing market and the system is not working. So it's, in some ways, a bit of a bittersweet moment in that way. As the mayor said, this shelter is really based on the idea that we can end homelessness with a comprehensive public health approach with a special emphasis on both mental health and physical health needs of folks who are experiencing homelessness. And I just wanna note that this effort, this drive-in homelessness, among some, has sort of taken on a bit of an anti-shelter tone where people say shelter isn't a solution, housing's a solution. And it's actually both and, unfortunately. It's actually, there are people today, 80 of whom wanted to live here. Not 80 folks are gonna get to live here. We're actually gonna be able to house 35 people. So just to give you some sense of scale, the need is intense. But in order for shelter to play the vital role in leading to permanent housing and housing stability, we need to maintain a sort of constant unending focus on what supports people need to move into permanent housing. It's the services, it's the subsidies, and it's the permanent housing itself. And so that three-legged stool is critical, but shelter should not be viewed as an unnecessary part of that equation. The idea here is that at one facility, under one roof that we're all under right now, guests who are staying here at the shelter will have access to services and programs that they previously may have had to schlep all across Burlington or maybe even outside of Burlington to have access to. The goal being that there are those who for whatever reason, trauma, other barriers in their lives make them resistant to accessing services. When it's here, when it's available day in and day out, when people begin to trust and establish relationships with or reminding you and offering you this assistance, the theory here, the theory of change is critical, is that folks will be willing to take that step, they'll be willing to overcome their barriers, their own personal barriers that are keeping them from having stable housing. So we're looking for a really, sort of game-changing approach here for folks. And I just wanna note some of the sources of support we've gotten that I think deserve to be highlighted as well as our partners are gonna make this possible. The operations funding without the Vermont Agency of Human Services, Office of Economic Opportunity, we would not be able to be able to operate the shelter, basically. The cost to operate the shelter is being largely funded by that state source. Our most significant service providing partner is really CVOEO, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, the mouthful of an organization, but the organization that provides such incredibly critical safety net services that I couldn't even list them all. But when you think of what people need to get by, CVOEO is mostly gonna be there to provide that support. And in this case, for this shelter, the housing case management and navigation services, meals will be brought to the site. Feeding Chittenden is a program at CVOEO, so when you think of folks having all their needs met, obviously the shelter and the food are critical, but beyond that, navigation services are the critical piece to link people to housing. Turning Point Center will be operating recovery groups and peer support, community health centers of Burlington, mobile medical and mental health services, safe recovery, access to medically assisted treatment, inpatient treatment, where folks find that that is what they need to pursue. Vermonters for criminal justice reform, recovery support for those who are involved in the criminal legal system, BPRW. Burlington Parks, Recreation and Waterfront is staffing the shelter with a full-time person who will provide the maintenance and upkeep of the shelter. In addition, the Urban Park Rangers are a critical part of this project, which I'll talk about in a minute. Burlington Police Department's Community Support Liaisons are gonna be onsite and connected directly to guests of the shelter. Chocolate Thunder, our locally grown security organization, is a critical piece of ensuring the safety of both the residents, the guests, the staff and neighbors. The following partners I wanna just highlight were critical in referrals and providing their expertise and really that tough call on who should be admitted out of those people who applied to stay here. The Howard Street and Community Outreach Team, the Quarantine, which is an outreach team of CVOEO, Vermonters for criminal justice reform, the Urban Rangers, I wanna highlight Neil, who's here today as somebody who's been intimately involved in this process and the tough decisions around how to sort of decide and vet people for staying here. The Safe Harbor Clinic and again the CSLs led by Lacey Ann Smith. We could not do this without this incredible coalition of the willing, if you will, because without that the city on its own would not be able to pull this off. So certainly the most critical piece that we struggled with for months and months was really finding an operating partner, a managing partner that would step up, had the expertise, the skills, the organizational culture, the commitment to running a facility which was truly gonna be a trauma-informed sort of therapeutic environment and CHT brings decades of experience, skilled staff and special expertise in serving those who are experiencing homelessness and they took incredible leadership and I wanna thank Michael for that personally for stepping up and signing on to something that's gonna be, we know will have its challenges but, same chance to speak, yeah? Chief and I won't go over the whole list of names of all we wanna be thankful for but certainly we wanna be thankful for the city for all these leadership, the mayor, CEDO and the work they did as well as the state and their support for this new shelter. We're eager to welcome guests and provide them in a place that is safe and secure. That's the key, that's the key motto for this particular community. Our goal as managers is to support helmet guests in transition to permanent housing. That's the key part for us. That's the role we wanna play. We continue to do that. We moved 38 folks into a place in Williston last month. We continue to do that now over the next year so we need to get folks out of shelter and into permanent housing. This, of course, is absolutely necessary in transition and in the support that they're gonna get. Let me go to just while everybody was saying, let me just say that all of my staff are in the kitchen. Next thing to do, they were trained well. So I just wanna be, just to cover a couple of things. I think we put out some information about rules. I just wanna say shelter guests will not be allowed to take visits into the shelter in order to keep the whole community safe and secure, including in the community building. Only shelter guests in direct service providers will be allowed for a period of time. We'll review that over time but there is basically a front door and you'll see a staff person there at the front door if you wanted to come in. But certainly what we're trying to do is keep the folks who are living here and give them a place to live. We don't want people just roaming around for first, in terms of safety and security, but second, in terms of their own individual needs and support. So this is all about ensuring that they are all safe and secure and feel good about where they are. CHC has begun a process of calling people and arranging times for them to enter the shelter. I was there on Friday evening when they were calling everybody. Let me say tears rolling down the faces of CHC staff. As they talked to someone and said, yes, come, we'll meet you here. I'm not gonna give it a date and time, but we'll meet you here and we'll get you all set up and they continue to make call, they have to call. I think that process continued throughout the week and then it's continuing throughout the next a few weeks or so. So that's what it's about, right? It's about meeting people's needs right where they really need to be. They need to be sheltered and they need to be housed. We know people will have individual challenges and they're gonna bring it to this community and we're gonna work with them on that, but that's what's key. So we'll continue to sort of have conversations. We're gonna continue to bring people into the community in a stage manner, no more than five guests every 48 hours to allow orientation and transition for both staff and the guests. So we hope that all 35 beds will be filled in the next couple of weeks. And with that, I think Mayor, this is yours. So thank you and your team for the incredible compassion you bring to this work and the huge impact you have on this community in so many ways and are gonna have here with this new facility. Thanks. So with that, if there are some questions we may have to change. So it's 35 people, are there any, is it all single pods, are there some that are two people, what does that make up? Yeah. Five of them. There's 25 single pods and five shelters that can accommodate two people upon their request. I was just curious how the selection process went and how people were chosen out of the PDs that applied. Who's best feet to that? So I just had it with staff a little bit about this. So there was a group of folks. It was CSC staff, a few folks from CSC staff, folks from CBO, from Howard, from a few other, I would say street work programs. They went through the list of all the people that you were on the house who were also applying and people who had been encouraging people to apply. So the process starts with people working on the street encouraging folks to apply to us. You have to do that first, right? And going through the applications and sort of making sure that in fact you're on shelter. That's the first principle. And that's how people basically got in. On occasion where if we felt that someone was in danger to the community potentially because of some recent violent behavior and we just double-checked that, we sort of said, well, maybe not. But for the most part, it was a little barrier to come in. And that process, people went on that process over a series of a few weeks. And it was pretty intense, pretty engaging to get to that list. And they do have another list of still people who are awaiting to come in. And hopefully we can house people fast, you know? And was it first come first or? I don't know, I can't say what's necessarily first concert. I don't know that. Anybody first come first, sir? Yes. Yes. There's the kitchen speaking. What about women and children? No children. No children. No children. 18 months over. But I would add that COX is developing new housing for homeless families. And we're supporting in a significant way the funding for that project. It'll take some time to build, but it's underway right now. 16 new permanent, supportive, affordable apartments, not shelter beds. We mentioned CSLs and chocolate thunder being here for safety for the guests. What role will chocolate thunder be fulfilling in that? Overnight security. So instead of, you know, this is not a community where you step, I'm sorry, this is not a community where you step up and go to the door and knock on the door and say, can I come in? So the point would be is to make sure that at some point there's security for folks and making sure that that doesn't happen. People are starting to move in tomorrow. Is that what I am, my understanding from what you're saying? Over the next couple of weeks. Okay. Have you hired all staff and how many staff members are there total? We have five on staff here, right? Thank you, Taylor. And then we have a couple of staff who spent a lot of time and support above this group because we also run hardware places and we have a person who shares between that and then a whole group of folks. So I think that the value of CHT comes is that this is not our only rodeo. So we say it's not our first time also. So we have some people to draw upon as folks need to go away or sort of get sick or something else happens. So there is a little more depth in terms of support. And then there's two full-time that are providing case management, housing navigation from CBOEO and a Parks and Rec employee who does the facility maintenance, really. And he's a great guy. We're the CBOE staff, right? Roy's here. He's working. Yeah, he's out there so much. But. Are we gonna be checking on folks in their shelters? I mean, we're potentially dealing with folks with substance use issues. And I know overdoses at the hotels. Was a concerning thing. And just wondering sort of how you're hoping to mitigate that potential risk. I don't know if we have a safety check every day. I think that if we don't see somebody in a day, we'll go and knock on their door. Certainly, ma'am, I think there's some big distinction between what has been, the level of services that are gonna be provided here and the resources here are very different than what. The first day that someone arrives here, they're gonna start working with a housing navigator, which is work towards a permanent placement and be offered as a personal wellness. The partners here are a range of services that, I think it's new that we are gonna be able to provide this level of service in a focused way at a shelter. So. Not that this is weird to me, everybody, yes. But I would say at Harbor Place and a few others, where which act like shelters, there's a little bit of that richness here. In terms of that. I was talking about the work general. So some other cities have done something similar. Have they also offered these kind of services along with the pods? So some, you know, this, these small shelters have kind of, have really, a lot of cities are looking at the strategy. I was just at a mayor's meeting several weeks ago, talked to a pilot shelter, and then I think they said they have provided shelter from this point to more than 100 different installations. So yet physically there's many cities that are taking on this approach. I do know that some other cities are talking about this approach to homelessness and trying to, as a public health approach, certainly Mayor Wu and Boston has been using that language and taking in part a similar physical strategy and services strategy to try to address the situation there. So yes, this is part of a national discussion and an evolving approach to homelessness. And can you, what's the total cost of the project? Was it all covered by COVID funding or that was? The development, the total cost of the development project is 1.6 million, that's kind of like the all-in with the solar panels and some of that other funding. Yeah, ARPA was the bulk of that funding. There were some additional incentives that should be, that's where the capital funding was large in the city's federal allocation. The ongoing operating funding, we have some city contribution similarly from our emergency funds, but we are very appreciative, as was mentioned, the Agency of Human Services is a major partner in this effort and it's given us a two-year commitment. I forget the total figure exactly, it's about... It comes to about a million a year of operating, yeah. Which in part their support comes from the fact that it is very comparable, actually lower cost per night here on an operating basis than in other facilities and again for a very different quality of experience we believe in that case, so I think there's, we're writing good value per kind of government dollar here and H.S. Rapper recognizes that and has really been working with us closely for months to get to this day. As you mentioned, there were 80 people that applied 35 beds, so like half the people that wanted us, less than half the people got us by space, so I'm just wondering if there's a, for CHT, do you have a plan of how quickly you want to try to move people from here to more permanent housing, like what your pipeline is looking like? I can't really comment in detail and I really can't say how fast we can move people through. So there's a lot of work to get folks ready to housing there's a huge demand, we have 300 people applying to us every month, we have that many openings a year, so the demand on affordable housing is dramatic. We want to be able to get people out of homelessness into affordable housing, but we also have to make sure that we're not sort of creating this pipeline where I'll go home, get homeless for a week so I can get in real fast. We have to work with folks. So I can't tell you how quickly we'll turn it over. I think we want to be able to go as fast as we can and different people, depending on who they are might be able to get different resources and be able to move to different locations, but I just don't want to jump ahead and make too much of a commitment. Nobody should be here for a long period of time. That's the goal, the demand, the need is still there. I think I'm wondering too, but more specifically about your actual capacity for the next sort of Rom and the... We have 100 or so plus more homeless shelter units coming online, so that gives you a sense dedicated over the next year or two. So people will have a chance to get housed, but we also have people in shelters, also people in hotel rooms, and we have this location so there's a range of folks. Everything goes through the coordinated entry system. Thank you very much for reminding me as I look into it. Everybody goes through the coordinated entry system, so these folks will be a part of that system and will also get online to get new housing as part of that whole system. And that is a group of organizations and champions who are doing this work, CEO, some kinds of co-chair of that group as well as CBOEO is critical to making that work and a range of other agencies who are working together to get people through into permanent housing. So just to be clear, there isn't a great list with these remaining people who have been trying to... We have the names and we know who they are, and so as we go through the process, I know for instance, we couldn't contact everybody and if we can't get them over the next week or so, we're gonna call the next person on that list. That makes sense. When you said you don't want people here for a long time, what would you quantify that as, like months or... You're saying six to eight months, so I think that that's probably not unreasonable, I think. But again, I think we have the whole system of folks out there. I don't think people should be here for too long. In terms of the shelters that are two beds, will that kind of be like a roommate situation where you're very close to the next person or they separated and then how, I guess, now getting those interpersonal relationships I think that will be... The shelters with two beds are dedicated to two people who would want to be in the same shelter. So there's two individual bunks that I can show you, but it's no one is gonna be forced to go into a unit with someone that they didn't request to be in. There, okay. Are there opportunities for the guests to volunteer to do activities that will help make the community work? I assume that there will be, but I don't know if we have anything planned. So again, I think we know what we're gonna do here over the next week or two or three bringing people in, but we'll see how it goes. And if we find ourselves with a group of folks who are saying they have the capacity to do something else, yeah. Certainly we're gonna be asking them to help clean up. Time to go, you know, time to move out, dinner time, help us out, do all those kinds of things. So absolutely, the idea is not that people are gonna want to be catered to. They will participate as well. They have to participate in getting themselves well. Chances are from many of them. They'll have to participate instead of getting this still life in order so that they can move into permanent housing. To me, that's the biggest participation each individual brings to the community. And as each one does that, they'll become, we want this to become a role model for others to move up and move out, so. Okay. So Samantha, Brian, Michael, again, thank you. Thank you all for being here. There is now gonna, I think Samantha's gonna lead a tour of some of the facility for members, for anyone who's interested.