 That may have been me. I don't recommend you do both because it is 22nd delay and it'll just loop around. All right I'm closing my camera and I'm listening and I'm going to post the documents that just came in and Representative Stevens if you have any instructions for me along the way I will hear you. Okay we'll ask you to pull those up in just a couple of minutes so welcome everybody as we've been as we've been getting trained on this this is this is a meeting and it's being streamed live on YouTube so it's a public meeting one thing that Ron didn't mention is that the chat function is is available but it is available only to everyone and that's just something to keep in mind keeping in mind with the with the public aspect of the conversation that all communications while we're in session while we're talking during this this meeting should be public it's part of the rules that have been set up over the last week or so as we move forward with this so this morning we're going to be talking about the committee bill that we started working on on March 12th and March 13th and this is our committee COVID response we have with us listening in first of all Emily Long cannot make this meeting she's in another meeting at the same time the the other witnesses that we've had here are including Damian and David Hall as well as folks that I invited were Rick DeAngelis, Chris Donnelly, I see Gene Murray's on the call as well as Wendy Morgan from from our legal aid and Angela Zakowski from the apartment owners this is all in information especially relating to housing that that these folks that have either chimed in on or will chime in on this particular piece of legislation we will be meeting this morning and then again this afternoon we are now allowed to vote on via this this technology we'll check with Ron to see exactly how that would work if and when we're ready to vote at any point today on on this legislation we'll have to deal with that with the clerk with Mary and try to figure out how to how we're going to make that make that work with our paperwork so with that I just wanted to have Damian and David chime in or start this conversation to discuss and I'm not I'm not sure who's the first who's the best person first but just to talk about the what we had perhaps what has already been covered by executive order and where we need to go from here in order to make sure that what we dealt with that we can that we can move forward as as reasonable legislation that'll help for monitors over the next few months so actually Damian I'll start with you that's okay and I am on meeting you are you all set I'm all set thank you thank you and so Ron if you could put up would it be helpful Damian if Ron put up the document I'm posting it right now yeah so probably well there's a couple of things to talk about one is the bill draft we had before we we left the state house and then the other is is what passed in the family's first coronavirus act which added federal sick time and leave legislation because a big portion of our bill had dealt with sick time and leave and then after that I think it probably makes sense to transition to David because all of the changes to the committee's work have come through in the housing area which is is David's focus so just maybe Ron if we could start with the draft that David sent this morning okay so let's see if I can pull this off so I don't I just posted a document I guess it's this one right here as you can see I've got several from the the one under David Hall draft 2.2 dated 326 2020 that's the most current draft of the committee bill now can everyone see that I'll just assume yes yeah it's coming through clear on my screen Ron so I assume everyone down what would you like to do if you scroll down to the break between pages two and three that's where we'll start I mean that's the break what your screen hasn't quite caught up there we go perfect so just to kind of remind people what we've done before so we've made a couple changes in Vermont's parental and family leave act or we're proposing a couple changes the first was to reduce the employer size to employers for purposes of COVID-19 related leave employers who employ five or more employees for an average of 30 hours a week over the course of the year and then we were adding this provision here if you can scroll down just a hair further on to basically allow people to take family leave pursuant to a request from a medical professional local health official or the commissioner of health that the employee be isolated or quarantined as a result of COVID-19 regardless of whether they've been diagnosed and so this was to address both folks who were sick with COVID-19 as well as folks who had been exposed to it and were being asked to quarantine so that this was the first change that we were proposing the second change that the committee was proposing if we could scroll down to the top of page five was to allow employees to take use their earned sick time for isolation or quarantine related to COVID-19 regardless of whether they've been diagnosed with COVID-19 and keep in mind that you're already allowed to use earned sick time to deal with the closure of a school and that Vermont law provides for about five days of earned sick time so to put all of this in perspective I think it it helps to take a look at the run if you could pull up the updated summary of employment specific provisions from HR 6201 okay and I'll just go through the key takeaways for the committee so what what happened while we were away is that the federal government passed the Family First Coronavirus Response Act and I may be getting that name a little wrong but for our purposes it did two things that were very important it expanded FMLA and it also expanded it created a federal paid sick time law for the first time both of these are temporary expansions and they have significant limitations the FMLA expansion allows folks to take leave if their school or child care is closed and the child care provider is unavailable it's really important to note though that it does not imply to any employers over 500 employees which only makes up two tenths of 1% of Vermont's private employers but they employ almost 15% of the private sector employees in Vermont the other piece is it doesn't apply it potentially does not apply to employers with 50 with fewer than 50 employees if they can demonstrate an economic hardship that would affect the viability of their business as a going concern it is not clear how the US Secretary of Labor is going to construe that economic hardship exemption and how liberally those will be granted but that potentially affects over 96% of Vermont's private employers who employ about 52% of the private sector employees in Vermont so there there's potential one that this law may not apply to a great deal of Vermont employers or at least potentially half of Vermont employees could be exempt or not covered by this law the other piece is the leave is unpaid for the first 10 days but then the employers required to pay two thirds of the employees normal wages up to a maximum of $200 per day which basically covers at the full two thirds wage replacement employees earning up to about $75,000 a year and beyond that you'd see diminishing returns and then it also eases job protection requirements to something more similar to what we had in our in the paid sick leave bill that passed the legislature but was vetoed by the governor where the employer is basically tried if the employee's job is eliminated they're not required to hold it open they're just required to if an equivalent job becomes available offer that to the employee so that's the FMLA expansion the other piece here if we can scroll down to the bottom of the page was the sick leave expansion for COVID-19 and this covers there we go again this only applies through the end of the year it would provide up to 80 hours of paid sick leave for full-time employees and then part-time employees receive a proportionate amount of that based on the hours that they work in a two-week period on average the maximum amount per day is $511 and it's basically it's full regular pay up to a max of 511 per day which covers employees earning up to 130,000 a year which is almost all of the employees in Vermont and then but that's only for the employee's own illness if you're caring for a family member including for a child out of school it's two-thirds of the regular rate of pay up to a max of $200 per day and for those employees who earn less than minimum wage they'd be compensated at minimum wage and the sick leave is in addition to any leave that's already provided by the employer so it would actually complement Vermont laws it doesn't preempt Vermont's law and then the sick leave has to be used first and it's for the illness of the employee or a quarantine requirement or the illness of a family member or family member who's under quarantine or closure of school and it has the same potential exemptions the employers of 500 or more are exempt outright and employers with fewer than 50 employees can apply for an economic hardship exemption so that that's what passed Congress already so what those do is they raise the question of whether the expansion to Vermont's unpaid family leave law and the earned sick time law are necessary at this point and so it's that's a policy question for you to consider moving forward is whether you want to continue to address that another important thing to note is that the bill that passed the U.S. Senate last night and I've provided a preliminary summary of that that bill dramatically expands unemployment compensation for employees who are laid off or whose hours are reduced to zero during this crisis uh so it provides extended benefits uh so typically unemployment benefits run for 26 weeks they'll now run for 39 weeks uh it also provides enhanced benefits so your normal unemployment benefits under state law are 57 of your average weekly wage on top of that amount the federal bill assuming it passes the house on Friday will provide an additional $600 per week to recipients of unemployment compensation it also extends unemployment assistance to self-employed and independent contractors sole proprietors that sort of thing in addition it provides loan assistance to small businesses to help them meet payroll utilities rent mortgage payments that sort of thing during the crisis and provides tax credits against payroll taxes for employers who keep their employees on during the crisis and the tax credit is is a 50 percent refundable tax credit on the first $10,000 of compensation including the cost of health care benefits the other piece here to keep in mind with the the sick leave and family leave expansion is that employers are provided with a refundable tax credit against their their business quarterly business taxes for the amount of sick leave and paid leave paid out there are concerns that have been expressed as i understand it about the delay in receiving that money back from the federal government but i think the thinking at the federal level is that between the additional loan assistance and the payroll tax credit and then the tax credit for any leave that's paid out they're covering a lot of the bases obviously there are a lot of policy questions about that but the the goals i think with the federal legislation have been to enable people to take some time off and also to allow employers to be able to afford those costs to some extent so i'm happy to answer questions but that kind of gives you a status update for where the draft legislation was what the feds have done and it leaves the question open for you about as a policy matter whether you want to continue looking into expanding the unpaid leave and the earned sick time i know the senate before they were instructed to limit their bill to the unemployment insurance provisions that have been agreed on between the house and the vermont senate they had briefly looked at expanding the unpaid leave to also cover school closures although with the the federal law now in place if your employer is keeping you on you're eligible for paid leave as long as your employer is not exempt from the bill so extending unpaid leave to cover that would essentially just potentially protect employees who work for an employer who has an economic hardship exemption as a practical matter it may be better for those employees to seek unemployment insurance benefits and the the bill that passed our vermont house yesterday would enable people to seek unemployment insurance benefits if they have to quit their job to take care of a child who's out of out of school or who doesn't have childcare anymore and it also permits their employers to temporarily lay them off by reducing their hours to zero so that they can either because not because of school closure but because of governmental closure by the for example the governor's executive order where he's closed a number of businesses either partially or completely so to the extent those businesses have to lay people off or reduce their hours to zero they're able to do that and people are able to get unemployment so i'll stop talking at this point and take any questions you have and otherwise i'll let David take over well i've got one question so far from chip try on i'll trip you're unmuted thanks damian my question is i've heard from a lot of folks on self-employed benefits um so um under either vermont or the federal the federal accommodations on this does that cover the carpenter who takes jobs as they come or does it require for a self-employed individual to be a sole proprietorship we know that so uh my understanding um with the federal legislation which it's just past the u.s senate it still has to pass the u.s house um and then uh the president is expected to sign it the house is expected to pass it on friday so uh presumably it will be law by the end of the weekend um that would expand coverage to self-employed including sole proprietors and independent contractors uh so i don't think it's limited to sole proprietors um and uh let me just pull up my summary here um and just see if i can get that okay so in order to be eligible for it it's a program for self-employed independent contractors and workers with insufficient employment history to qualify for regular ui so it's pretty broad group in order to qualify uh you have to be first ineligible for ui which a sole proprietor an independent contractor would be um and then you have to self-certify that you're you would you would be able and available to work but cannot work or are unemployed because you're either stick with covid-19 you have a family member who's sick with covid-19 you're caring for a family member with covid-19 or for a covid-19 related purpose your school child's school or child care is closed your quarantine because of covid-19 you've been advised to self-quarantine which could include a health condition um you had a job but you were unable to start it because of covid-19 so for example someone who is about to start working at a for a business that's been closed down because of the virus um the head of household and or the breadwinner in your household died because of covid-19 um you had to quit your job because of covid-19 your place of employment closed because of covid-19 um or your self-employed or otherwise would not qualify for unemployment insurance so there's there's kind of a variety of reasons here um the things that would prevent you from getting it is if your job allows you to telework and you're able to telework um or you're receiving paid sick leave or paid leave benefits through your employer um so it provides up to 39 weeks of benefits uh and it would be the weekly benefit allowed under state ui law so it basically looks at that self-employed person's income their average weekly income and then takes 57 percent of that and will add $600 additional per week to that as an enhanced um pandemic response there's no waiting period for it um the big key piece here is so this is still in process at the federal level and what i'm not sure about is once we get passage um how quickly our department of labor will be able to start approving applications for benefits under this um but i would expect some small delay before those applications start getting approved uh and i can reach out to the department which is uh absolutely inundated with claims right now um but they're doing their best to respond to our questions um and see see how quickly they expect that but i would want to hold off on that until the federal package uh is finalized all right uh matt you're up next and then john has his hand up as well matt you are unmuted got it you are unmuted thank you um hi dan how are you good how are you doing fine doing fine um so i have a have a couple of questions for you um and i think some of it was answered already but just like clarity um so does the executive order from the governor meet the definition of quarantine under the federal bill i had an employer asking me that question uh the executive order that's a good question i'd have to look back at the specific language in the bill um please understand that it's a 692 page bill i know um and i i blasted through it in about three hours last night so i wasn't reading every word very closely um so about 200 pages of it deal with employment and small business issues which is what i try to focus on um but i know that if you're an employee and your business has been closed due to COVID-19 you're eligible for UI under our the changes we just put through in the state UI law that was my next question so does that does that like circumnavigate the like FMLA like like so like it yeah basically the the way to think about it is the FMLA provisions cover you if um they cover you if your child's school or child care is closed and you have to be out of work for an extended period of time federal sick leave gives you and that's only if your employer can keep you on remains yeah remains operational yes exactly so if your employer temporarily lays you off then um uh you're you're not um covered by that and you'd have to go for UI okay so any any form of layoff just it's like straight to UI and then so these other sort of provisions that are in place are not relevant it's just like straight straight to UI you go do not pass go do not collect well actually you're going to collect but yes you get what i'm saying yeah exactly so uh yep so and the UI I should note too covers instances where employers have had to reduce hours so basically um the way that works is uh let's say I work 40 hours a week and my employer has cut me down to eight hours a week so just 20 percent of of my normal uh working hours what would happen is I apply for UI uh and they do a income disregard for uh that 20 percent that I'm still working and they they basically deduct that from my UI award and so they take that into account and then they pay you um they basically disregard 50 percent of the income you're bringing in and the rest gets deducted from your award um and we we have the most uh generous income disregard in the country so for folks who are partially unemployed um our system works pretty well here in Vermont and then with the enhanced federal benefits that'll also be really helpful to people um yeah so and so it keeps them whole while they're experiencing reduced hours exactly or whole layoff yeah yeah one thing that um employers some employers are considering doing or have done at this point is reducing people's hours to zero but continuing to pay their health benefits so people keep their insurance um but then or at least continuing to pay the employer portion but then they're eligible for unemployment because their hours have been reduced to zero um so that that's another thing that's out there the the federal bill uh that's working its way through right now provides a tax credit to employers that keep people on their payroll um and uh encourages employers to keep people on their payroll and keep them working or at least paid as if they're working um so I don't um I haven't had a chance yet to fully wrap my head around how all these pieces will work but there are a number of options for employers depending on their situation there are uh short term small business loans that will be available um there are the tax credits uh and the the payroll tax is actually it's a deferral for two years on the payroll tax amounts so you pay um the first round is paid at the end of December 2021 the second round is paid at the end of December 2022 and this is all outlined in the four page preliminary summary I sent to you um so it's something you can kind of look through but there are there are options for employers to try to keep people on and then there are enhanced unemployment benefits for folks who need to be let go to to try to keep things coming and that doesn't address the rebate checks that are also part of this program that are going to be sent to individuals based on their income all right thank you Matt um John is up next John you're unmuted and then Tommy thank you uh Damien I'm trying to keep up with the distinctions and so I want to make sure I understood that the federal bill is exempting employers with 50 or more you're right and for our bill that we had proposed had parental family employee 10 or more and the family leave employing 15 or more so is is there now a discrepancy between what our bill says and what the the federal bill is going to be offering and is that something we need to address in our committee thank you you've zeroed in on the policy question here so just to be clear the federal bill if you employ 500 or more employees you are completely exempt if you employ fewer than 50 employees which is 96 percent of Vermont businesses uh you are eligible to apply for an economic hardship exemption um so if it would jeopardize the viability of your business as a going concern is the uh the federal language and that's in the determination of the secretary of labor and we we don't yet know how that's going to be applied but if that's the case then you can apply for and potentially be granted an exemption from the requirements what our law does is it covers unpaid um uh family leave and so the proposal that you had in front of you would have extended it for COVID-19 related reasons to employers of five or more uh employees working an average of 30 hours a week um which would have increased the percentage of employers covered for purposes of unpaid leave and job protection um the what our bill did not do is provide any sort of requirement that there be pay during that period um and it also only extended it to issues of quarantine it didn't extend it to school closure which is what the federal law applies to so the federal law covers just school closure our bill was aimed at quarantine um so those are I think the questions for the committee are is it still necessary to provide job protection um if so is five or more at an average of 30 hours a week the appropriate number and should it be left at just quarantine or should it be extended to school and child care closures um and then the the final piece of that um is just the consideration of uh do some of the provisions for example in unemployment insurance the unemployment insurance expansion provide comparable or better coverage at this point where instead the employer you could quit your job or the employer can lay you off um depending on the situation so the employer layoff provisions are related to things affecting um there are basically three scenarios one is um the employer is closed down because of uh a specific public health or governmental order or because there's been voluntarily closing because there's been exposure of employees to COVID-19 uh the second is a broad order by the governor or the president closing a whole swath of businesses so this is what the governor's been doing in his executive orders um gradually closing the businesses where um uh that can be open for person-to-person interactions so for affected businesses there say for example you work at a hotel that's not providing uh essential COVID-19 services like housing the homeless um then you could be laid off by your hotel be pursuant to the governor's order and be eligible for UI the other coverage under our UI law is for folks who have to quit for a COVID-19 related reason and that's where you voluntarily quit normally I'm sorry uh is there an echo or was someone trying to ask a question there was someone came on with the uh YouTube delay in the background that's been muted great so um the the other option is normally you're not covered if you quit but our expansion of the state's UI law allows you to quit for a variety of COVID-19 related reasons um including that your child is uh uh has their school or child care closed so assume you have the instance of um you work for an employer that doesn't provide you with the paid leave um you could instead quit your job to take care of your child and receive unemployment insurance so I know that may not make things much more clear but the the real question for you guys on the paid leave is do you expand the basis that you can take it forward do you expand the employers that it applies to and is it necessary if there are other avenues where people might be able to receive pay um if they aren't covered by the federal expansion um so so let's just leave that right there that's that's a good you know that's a good um policy discussion in a bit um John are you all set yes thank you okay Tommy I'm going to unmute you go ahead yeah thank you I'm I'm not totally clear of what might happen uh to those who are underemployed so for example let's have an employee who's whose normal work week is 30 hours and they're cut down to 20 or 15 are they then eligible for the family leave because they're not working their normal amount of hours just just what can we do for them so for for that instance um they would be eligible for partial unemployment so uh they they would essentially be able to go to our unemployment office and apply for partial unemployment or what they do is they take into account what their normal average work hours and wages are and then look at the reduction and they pay them a prorated amount based on that reduction if your hours are not cut down significantly the income the uh income deduction may actually wipe out your um unemployment benefits but if your hours have been cut significantly um then you may still be a bit uh eligible for some unemployment um and then assuming that the federal law goes through with the enhanced unemployment payments which is a federal an additional amount covered by the federal government of six hundred dollars per week added to those checks um you could potentially be made whole or in some cases and this was one of the issues that uh almost derailed the bill last night in the U.S. Senate um individuals with lower incomes may come out ahead uh if they're unemployed or partially unemployed um so um but in that case if you're either way if your hours are reduced your likely option is to go for partial unemployment um you're likely unless you're reducing your hours to care for a family member um you're likely not taking advantage of a paid sick time or a paid family leave uh type provision thank you okay all right any further questions for damien right now i want to be mindful of the time um i do believe that some of these issues will also be discussed in the senate um our sister committee in the senate on this this afternoon i believe they're up at noon so um damien i don't know if there's anything if you want to shift over and prepare for that meeting um then we can be done with you for right now and and um we'll have a discussion over what the policy choices that you laid out for us are and we'll go from there but i want to get over to the housing section of our of our covid bill as well so thank you for stay on the call here i'll just turn off my camera and and mute this uh mute myself and then just listen in while i work on other things sounds good thank you great so next up is um david ron if you could um put the bill back up um to uh show the second half of our bill and david if you could just start walking through it i know that um david most of the original work on this bill was done i believe with by damien but that we asked you to come on a couple of days ago because of your expertise in the housing issues and um you were given um some you were given our draft and then and then some thoughts from vermont legal aid on some of the issues we haven't had an opportunity to share this until today with uh the apartment owners so this is the first day that they've seen it and um so if you could just take us through what we have in front of us i would appreciate it thank you sure can everybody hear me okay or please tell me if you can't hear me okay um mr chair quick question is it um is it good for ron to continue sharing his screen and using it or should i share my screen and walk through um well ron if you're on the if you're if you're available to answer that question is it easier for david to share his screen can he do that easily uh david do you have the share function i'm sorry uh let me see if i can give you the ability to share the screen i have it on the bottom of my page then go for it okay everybody see that that's that's yours yep that's a different screen great uh the only problem is that i can't seem to enlarge it without pulling up my just one moment it's legible from here just one moment okay i'm going to share again okay good that looks i can see that just fine um and just reminder to folks if you have a question um please don't forget to raise your hand and we will get to you when when we have a place to ask questions thanks david sure so for your record david hall legislative council nice to be with you all um i hope my internet holds up we have five people working at home many of us most of us using video for school or work so uh it's a lot of demand on my system but i think it's holding up um so as to this bill i actually did draft the original provisions in section seven eight and nine um and so if you've seen the previous version or what's it's still in here um those are the original pieces uh seven and eight are the same as before i have preserved the original nine and then there is a new section nine based on a proposal by vermont legal aid so that's new as of last night and this morning so i you know i might have to lean on other people if there are questions that i can't answer but um you know other than that i think we can go through seven eight nine if that's what you'd like me to do okay so right now section seven of this bill has a live appropriation of five million dollars um that was a placeholder section it's a placeholder number i have no idea whether there will be actual money in this bill and how much that is completely up to you and i also leave it to you to coordinate whether the dollars flow in this vehicle or in some sort of budget vehicle but for right now the way is constructed it would be a five million dollar appropriation from the general fund it's actually two dcf to provide emergency related housing assistance pursuant to section eight the reason that it is to dcf is because the way i've constructed section eight is to have dcf work in collaboration with dcd and v eight cb other partners is necessary uh to administer that funding and i've based the administration of that funding completely on the housing opportunity grant programs that are run through dcf as it is so these these subdivisions you're about to see in subsection a are all functions that they serve through those programs right now and this would be additional funding for that approach obviously what you need to consider is how much money to whom it should go and for what purpose whether this is too broad too narrow are these the right people um obviously those are significant questions but section subsection a here again dcf working with dhcd vhcd and other partners shall adopt policies and procedures to administer funding for housing related emergency relief specifically necessitated by the spread of COVID-19 including housing search and placement housing stability case management landlord tenant mediation follow-up and supportive services to maintain housing financial assistance for security deposits and rental payments rental arrears short-term rental assistance and the purchase or lease of existing housing units for purposes of isolation or quarantine related to COVID-19 that's obviously a lot of stuff how far does five million dollars go if you're trying to do all of those things i don't know um subsection b dcf shall develop a process for outreach to community partners landlords and tenants to develop an expedited application process for emergency relief three develop criteria for prioritizing emergency funding based on the income of applicants projected duration and severity of the individual and statewide need for assistance other relevant factors the department identifies in its discretion so on c dcf shall maintain adequate records and data concerning funding it provides pursuant to this section make that information available to the general assembly and under d dcf and dhcd shall provide information technical assistance and necessary guidance to homeless shelters community housing partners and landlord and tenant associations concerning the resources and requirements of this act as well as relevant existing sources so that's seven and eight together that's sort of the uh state appropriated relief side of the bill as drafted thus far and then uh nine will switch to sort of shutoffs and evictions for closures etc so let me stop there and defer to you mr chair on whether you'd like to discuss seven and eight together now or continue with nine um well i'm gonna i'll put that out to i have two questions um in line here and i'll just let those questions get asked i mean my take on the five million dollars is that it is a placeholder that this is um no one knows what this would cost eventually or even initially but we will you know unless this there's a discussion on this um i'd like to keep it as a placeholder and let the conversation continue because this is going to get tied into whether or not we receive the adequate funding for for this through the federal government as well i know that there is some money available for these kinds of um perhaps for these kinds of programs available but i'm not sure how we would get to that um so i'm gonna open up um john clacky no lisa hango first and then john and then chip but let me mute let me find you lisa and lisa you are unmuted on my end thank you can you hear me i can so my question is very basic and it goes back to our discussion of um probably the week of march 10th when we were last together in committee um this allocation and this um program that we're proposing is strictly for people who are homeless and if they are homeless does this also cover people who would be homeless because they're displaced due to covet 19 considerations and whatever shelter they're in or um is it anyone who is homeless regardless of covet 19 considerations and my second part to the question is does dcf currently administer i know they do work with dhcd and vhcb but do they currently administer a program such as this trying to find shelter for individuals so this the way this is written right now it is not limited to homeless persons there are specific uh components to it that do address the homeless population and providers namely the last subsection which talks about technical assistance and other resources specifically for the homeless population but you'll see in subsection a here it is it is housing related relief necessitated by is my internet okay yeah i'm still getting you i am not all right lisa's not hearing david everybody have me okay yes okay so uh let me continue so the subsection a and the money broadly uh applicable to housing related assistance and it sort of ties into the second part of your question this is all based on uh current programs that the dcf operates again into the hot programs and they do already provide the types of assistance um that are specifically articulated here and those are not limited to to the homeless does that answer your question it does but it brings up another question so i know that we're always trying to find resources for folks what does establishing extra funding during the time of this crisis do for crisis relief in and by crisis relief i'm talking about covid-19 what are we trying to do here because we've pretty much been directed to work on at least as far as i know emergency relief due to the covid-19 crisis so to establish a program to help people find housing that is unrelated to the covid-19 crisis i'm not sure that that's what our mission is supposed to be now and um i know we're exploring various avenues but i i'm just not sure what road we're going down here it sounds like we're going down a road that's a lot broader than just covid-19 relief um well so in section seven on the bottom of page seven you'll see in line 20 the money is appropriated to provide emergency housing related assistance pursuant to section eight so um that's one tie-in to the emergency nature of this assistance and then on the next page um on line seven the directive is to adopt policies and procedures to administer funding for housing related emergency relief that is specifically necessitated by the spread of covid-19 okay so that's all well and good i'm just i guess i'm unclear what housing relief is needed due to the spread of covid-19 if it's not particularly pertaining to homeless people i can certainly understand the homeless situation where being in shelters with each other would necessitate more space needed i'm not sure what people who are currently have are experiencing for housing situation housing emergency situations um that would necessitate extra funds being allocated for that because i know we're we're talking we're also talking about um moratoriums on evictions and arrearages help with arrearages so not quite certain where the rest of that is going to go to the general population who are already housed and i'm going to work for a little hour from um from advocates who have been working on this and and to address those exact issues i mean i think the question is when people don't have income or when people are going to miss payments uh are they going to get evicted or in legal land ejected um so i think we'll we'll hear that in a little bit um let me see if you can just hold on and and um after we do these next two questions and then dav will go through the rest of the bill and then we'll see where that that sugars off if that's okay thank you okay next i have john i'm john i got to scroll down and find you um john colacchi is unmuted yes thank you very much david thank you for this um the question i have with all this is i think like all of us we've been listening into um daily meetings with commissioners and everybody is so full out trying to respond to this i i hope that we're not making this more complicated by the put aside a five billion and then we ask these departments to create all these new processes but i think they're all working so hard to be responsive so i would just say that like in the department of children family shall develop a process for the community partners develop an expedited application process i think the departments are already trying to do that and i wonder if in this situation if we just um if it's five million or whatever that we allow this and we have the parameters and let the departments decide how best to put that those that those dollars in play those additional dollars in play because it is a crisis and i think we should make it simpler and not give more work to the different departments because i think this could slow things down instead of expediting things that's all i have to say okay thank you john um there is a phone call that just came on someone whose phone number ends 4477 are you on the line yes it's mary howard my um i've had for some reason um died so um okay but it is charging so i am listening okay great thanks mary i'm gonna meet you then um um john chip triano has his hand up and chip you are unmuted but thanks uh tom i i i think i wanted to address some of what lisa and john both said it was my understanding that um related to cobit 19 and the um degree of contagiousness that exists within this that it was determined that homeless shelters were dangerous to continue to continue to operate as a result of numerous homeless people having compromised immune systems and in health that's not up to 100 standard so it was my understanding that the connection with uh dcf was that they administer um the voucher program and that this five million dollars would supplement the voucher program um and allow people homeless people in shelters to be placed in motel rooms now my understanding is that that is already happening in some locations um when i spoke with the iconolog where i stay generally um that's weak to make sure they understood that i wasn't coming back um he they related to me that a number of homeless people had been placed there in rooms now there are um in numerous um uh hotel or motel rooms available within the state the other piece on the news last night was the use of of trailers uh in north beach park to house people so it was my understanding that dcf uh as it pertains to placement of people out of shelters in in in uh in housing or uh situations that they would not be um violating the recommendations and the gathering recommendations that have been set forth by both the federal and the state government that was my understanding of the way this should read i do question um the section where it does meant that meant your home like mentioned homeless shelters because it's my understanding that those are no longer viable um in this current situation okay thank you so david do can you continue onward yes thank you i hope you can hear me okay so far so good good um so i i i've on line 14 here you'll see i designate the next piece is the original draft placeholder language um so in a here notwithstanding any provision of the law of the contrary provision supply to the duration of any state of emergency declared by the governor until 60 days after the governor terminates state of emergency and applies to any individual who is unable to work due to his or her own illness illness of a member of his or her household isolation required by his or her employer isolation required by state or local government authorities or isolation required by his or her primary care provider or other health official i'm going through this uh a because we haven't seen it to before together but b because uh the way i originally wrote this um it definitely was targeted uh two populations directly affected by the virus um and the in the aftermath and in the next piece in section nine at least right now applying to evictions and foreclosures that that is across the board so um there is a there is definitely a fundamental question for you to consider when you're uh hearing me out on these two versions of section nine and and that fundamental question is do you want to try to limit whatever you're doing somehow just the people who are affected uh by the virus and if so how are you going to demonstrate that how's that going to play out versus do you want to go across the board okay so keep that in mind you'll see and be here if a tenant of a residential dwelling unit notifies the landlord that the tenant is unable to continue making timely payments under a residential rental agreement the landlord shall not issue a notice of termination of tenancy for non-payment of rent or commence an action of ejectment pursuant to 12 bsh after 169 for non-payment of rent until 60 days after the government state of emergency okay so that's just um that is just for ejectment actions for tenants um and then see if a tenant or homeowner notifies a water sewer or electric utility that the tenant or homeowner is unable to continue making timely payments under a utility service agreement utility shall not disconnect service to the residents until 60 days after the government state of emergency um um does not have right now a piece on foreclosures um it could it would mirror subsection b and just say you can't initiate a foreclosure action against a person affected by the virus until 60 days after um as far as the utilities i don't know if that's something you want to address uh the public utility commission has issued by rule uh an emergency order to not to halt disconnections um so i don't know that that's necessary right now i'm not sure if it's within your jurisdiction something you're looking at in this bill um but those are sort of the placeholder pieces from the original version i'm gonna keep moving now if i can through the vermont legal aid proposal in this alternative section nine as i said this is based on language the vla submitted um i've tried my best to convert it to statutory language it is more comprehensive and specific to the actions that are you know possible or in process in court so it's a little bit a little bit heavy on the court jargon but at its biggest picture at the highest level it essentially says to the courts you need to pause any existing proceedings that relate to ejectments or foreclosures and although new proceedings could start they will be stayed immediately pending this emergency period so that's the biggest picture view of what's going on here but i'm going to move through the language and ask you to bear with me so starting on page 11 there are definitions emergency period means the period beginning for the governor's declaration of a state of emergency on march 13th 2020 arising from covid 13 whole different whole different virus and ending 60 days after the governor terminates the state of emergency by declaration so that's going to be a defined term used throughout this section nine and again starts march 13th it ends uh whenever the governor terminates the state of emergency and he would have to do so by declaration in order for the emergency period is defined to end a foreclosure here means a foreclosure action brought on 12 vsa chapter 172 against a dwelling house as defined in 12 vsa 49 312 um i'll go to b duties this section does not relieve a tenant of the obligation to pay rent pursuant to 9 vsa 44 55 or relieve a borrower under a residential loan agreement of the obligation to make timely payments pursuant to the terms of the loan agreement so i want to flag something here between a and b and that is the issue of commercial leases so as you probably know we have a chapter that specifically deals with landlord tenant law residential rental agreements 9 vsa chapter 137 um and this definitely addresses that issue we do not have a comparable chapter that sets up essentially minimum protections or standards for commercial leases in the same way obviously for somebody's housing the legislature the state has made policy choices that there are going to be certain minimum provisions to protect tenants um and landlords but again we don't have a comparable chapter that addresses business leases for property commercial leases so there's a question whether this should apply to that and it's a little bit complicated by the fact that ejectment actions under 12 vsa chapter 169 govern both and so i think um you're going to want to make a decision about whether you want this to apply to commercial leases and then you'll want to be explicit somewhere here maybe under b to say either this does or does not apply to commercial leases and for ejectment actions um there are other issues for commercial leases that i'm not going to go into but those might include things like personal guarantees those are largely governed by private contracts um so something to have on your mind i know some of your constituents are concerned about that from a business perspective i am going to move forward the reason that c here is highlighted is that um it's a change from this morning relative to the version that went out last night so if you've already seen this uh vla proposal yesterday evening this is different as of this morning um and i'll it's a slight change i'll tell you how so the way these subsections are going to move is how do we address things that are already pending in the court and how do we address new things that might come up the subsection c relates to pending foreclosure and ejectment actions so under one upon the effective date of this act all pending actions for ejectment under 12 vsa chapter 169 actions for foreclosures under 12 vsa chapter 172 and outstanding orders in those actions are stayed until the end of the emergency period so that if this takes effect if this becomes law it immediately pauses all ejectments and foreclosures and under c2 a court of this state before which is pending any matter stayed to subdivision one shall issue any necessary orders and provide notice to the parties of the state not later than five days after the effective date of this act under d this relates to new foreclosure and ejectment actions so during the emergency period a landlord and this is a residential landlord may commence an ejectment action pursuant to 9 vsa chapter 137 and 12 vsa chapter 169 so that means you'd have to follow the normal law for ejectment whatever basis it is um whether it's non-payment of rent or other reason you'd still have to comply with underlying law um and a residential mortgage lender may commence a foreclosure action pursuant to 12 vsa chapter 172 only by filing an action for the civil division of the superior court and not by service pursuant to vermont rule civil procedure three and then under two the court shall stay the action as of the date of filing until the end of the emergency period so in plain english what that means is you can still start a case if you follow the laws it stands you can only start the case by filing it with the court you can't just send the paperwork to the tenant or to the borrower and as soon as you file it the court will stay the action immediately so it will be suspended before the court it's not going to move forward that's what's going on here mr. chair i'm just going to keep going unless you want to pause at these subsections i think what's left i just want to if you only have a little bit left then um let's just finish the the walkthrough before we get to specific questions okay i'm going to keep going then thank you so in subsection this relates to rits of possession that are not yet issued so during the emergency period a court shall not issue a writ of possession one in an ejection action either pursuant to 12 vsa 48 53 8 h because a tenant failed to pay rent into court or pursuant to 12 vsa 48 54 the court has entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff but did not issue a writ of possession with the judgment so that's ejectments and then for two in a strict foreclosure action pursuant to 12 vsa 49 41 e because the property is not redeemed or three in an action for foreclosure by judicial sale pursuant to 12 vsa 49 46 d upon expiration of the period of redemption that is a lot of hardcore legalese i understand let me say it back to you in plain english so remember that the writ of possession is uh what happens when a court has decided that the owner or landlord of the property has the legal right to possess the property again while you're a tenant while you're a borrower you have the legal right to the exclusion of all others to enjoy the property right the landlord can't just come in and come out the right to quiet enjoyment plus underlying statutory law says if you're the tenant under a lease agreement or if you're the borrower uh under a loan agreement you own the property you have the exclusive right to use that when you breach your agreement whether it's your lease or your mortgage agreement the landlord or the lender are going to sue you and part of what they want is to have the right to possess the property again so that is what the writ of possession is it's when the court has judged that the landlord is has the right to come back onto the property and take possession and they issue this writ and that's a old archaic term to just basically say a piece of paper that goes to a sheriff or constable and they bring it to you and they say a court has decided that the landlord gets this property back and has the right to possess it and you have to leave so subsection e here says whether it's an ejectment and it's a foreclosure for whatever reason and the reasons are here the court is not going to issue one of those rits of possession during the emergency period um in e1a the reference uh because a tenant failed to pay rent into court that's one of the bases that you might get rid of possession we have this section of law 4853 a that would require in some cases a tenant to pay rent into court if they fail to do so then um basically the court will issue the writ of possession and say you didn't pay rent into court i'm issuing the i'm putting the landlord back into possession under e1b um this is written because sometimes the writ of possession is issued at the same time that the judgment is entered um so if there's already been a judgment there may have already been a writ so this would not be a writ not yet issued because that would already have been issued with a judgment so in those cases where the writ of possession is not issued at the same time as the judgment if there's a delay for some reason that's where this would come in and say even though you did your judgment if you didn't issue the writ at that same time you're not going to issue it now okay in two and three these are the foreclosure provisions uh but they work the same way for purposes of this after the court has ruled in the foreclosure action um then uh there is a period of redemption for property and once that period runs and if the tenant or the borrower failed to redeem the property so to pay back all of the owed amounts and costs and fees and interest and all kinds of stuff at that point they have lost the chance to redeem the property the court will issue a writ of possession that's what's going on in e i hope that helps so f similar situation here what happens if that writ has already been issued so we've already gone to that point but now this bill is going to pass and there are might be some rids floating out there in the world so under f during the emergency period following a judgment in an ejection action or a foreclosure action here and one if the defendant was served a writ of possession not more than 60 days prior to the effective date of the act then under a the defendant is not required to surrender possession until the end of the emergency period and the sheriff or constable who served the writ shall provide written notice of the delay to the defendant under two if a writ of possession was issued by the court but not yet served the sheriff or constable shall not serve the writ and shall return it to the plaintiff and three the directive here that the courts and legal aid shall coordinate to ensure the defendants and ejection actions receive notice of the delay to have a judgment against you and even though it may be a writ already issued those are going to be suspended and we're going to try to inform everybody of the delay all right so the last piece here is g resumption of rent escrow hearing so for a period of 45 days after the emergency period ends I made that up I don't know if that's the right period or not I just put that in here as a placeholder notwithstanding 4853 ad and that is the piece this is the piece about paying rent into court under one if a court finds that a tenant is obligated to pay rent and has failed to do so a court shall order full or partial payment into court of not more than one month's rent and in setting the amount to be paid into court the court may consider a tenant's inability to pay due to circumstances arising in the emergency period so this is a change to existing law for some period after the emergency ends right now the law says if you're going to pay rent in the court the court is going to require you to pay all of it that's a lot right that's everything that's accruing over time and that could have been six months or nine months who knows how long this is going to last so this is saying when the emergency period ends for some time after that the court the court is only going to require you to pay one month's rent or less into court under that section of law and under two here the court has some discretion to weigh your circumstances to decide how much you have to pay in and that could be zero but it could be it could be less than one month's rent one month would be the max the last piece h outreach and recommendations so not later than one week after the emergency period ends representatives of the Vermont judiciary landlords legal aid and other stakeholders shall report to the general assembly and governor concerning recommendations for how Ritz previously issued and existing orders to pay rent into court should be addressed balancing the interests of all parties and to a plan for orderly adjudication of all state ejection and foreclosure actions that's it for this version of section nine so let me let me recap in 30 seconds what's going on and what you need to consider I guess in section nine the biggest question is should you hit pause on court actions should you include ejection actions and foreclosure actions or both should that include commercial property or just residential what do you do about actions that are already filed do you let them continue and play out or do you hit pause on them and what do you do about new actions do you allow them to be filed but just pause them immediately and they'll continue after the emergency or do you stay we're not going to commence any new actions until this is over that's all I have thank you David we have three hands up I'm going to go with Matt then chip then John so Matt I've got to scroll down and find you and unmute you yep can you all right um so this is an idea that I I've loaded by congressman well so like at the federal level around uh commercial and residential leases and mortgages and spoke to a couple of other people about so what is and this is a little out of the box but what if we suspended all residential and commercial mortgage payments do for 90 days like just pushed out the due date 90 days extend the life of the commercial and residential mortgages 90 days nobody has to pay anything like hard stop are you asking what are the potential legal consequences of that action yeah just an idea I'm just floating it like could we just could we do that I know that's probably a little bit more of a question for the commerce committee but um if we just said nothing do 90 days move out then everybody's got room to breathe just floating it out there sure well so I mean on the one side are the policy and economic choices that are in your discretion to make you know is that a good idea what are the ramifications for who has to bear the burden of that those are policy choices you would have to make on the legal side um you know frankly doing that would uh abrogate underlying contracts across the board um a bank a landlord could challenge that action say it's a violation of the commerce clause uh contracts clause I have no idea whether that challenge would be successful it is uh an emergency period and there are strong public interests that might weigh in favor of the law upholding it but I don't know I have no idea I mean there's definitely illegal grounds for uh you know somebody to challenge that statute say it's unconstitutional whether they win I have no idea no no no and I understand that I just didn't know if we were capable of if the legislature or governing bodies were capable of executing something like that because we are in a federal and state of emergency at that the federal and state level if we would be able to navigate that sort of cumbersome legality through the private contracts as a result of being in a state of emergency and it only being a temporary period of time yeah so I mean the analysis might seem more complicated than it is but it's not it's pretty straightforward so as a state you know you have the constitutional authority to exercise the police power which is extremely broad um any power is not bested in the federal governed by the U.S. constitutional elected state call those the police powers anything promote the health safety welfare of the populace and uh it is the basis of everything that you do and as a legislature you can pass whatever law you want it can say whatever you want and it will be the law in this state until a court of competent jurisdiction determines that what you did was unconstitutional because it exceeded your authority and the limit on your authority is the U.S. constitution and one provision of that is the contracts clause and that says that a law a law cannot basically uh aggregate the rights duties and responsibilities of an existing contract retrospectively you can always do it prospectively but retrospectively you may have a problem if somebody brings the challenge on that basis then the court will essentially balance the equities of the social benefits to be gained versus the private costs imposed and um in the last hundred years people have only lost uh states have only lost two contracts clause cases the question of whether this is an emergency um those fact is what it's one of the factors that a court would weigh and whether or not you've exceeded your authority the fact that it's emergency does not do anything uh really relative to what authority you have as a legislature to pass a law you can always pass the law the question is will it be challenged if it's challenged will it be overturned how that helps chip you're up um okay so um i like that idea actually um it might be worth um some more conversation on it but i'm looking at uh page 10 um in the uh eligibility requirement or the eligibility sites due to uh illness or the rest are all isolation and i guess my question is that from what i've been hearing in communities and around the state is that um one of the major um concerns regarding payment of rent is being employed and not having any income so i guess my question is should we be including uh you just went by it david it's it's go the other way a little bit page 10 yeah right here so um is there her own illness or illness of a family member and then isolation isolation isolation um so i'm wondering if we should not add a lack of ability to pay rent as a result of loss of loss of wages or being unemployed or something that nature i guess that's for conversation um the other piece i do think it's important to codify some of these eviction and foreclosure issues from what i had heard have heard and read um that um the governor is somewhat reluctant to do this um but i've also heard that um from judge greersen that courts have sort of put this on hold um but the bottom line is it would be up to a judge and and so there's no um continuity in in jurisdictions around the state apparently as to what a judge might do um even with a proposed uh unofficial hold on evictions and foreclosures but in the same light i think it's important to consider evictions and foreclosures in the same um in the same uh act or the same bill um because we want to protect renters and landlords because if renters can't pay their rent and landlords can't pay their mortgages then um they need his protection as well so some sort of moratorium uh that is codified in law i think is important um in this piece those are my observations and i guess one was the question about eligibility so to your first point i i want to caution you all not to conflate the two different versions of section nine here these requirements that are showing on my screen are part of the original proposal those are not included in the subsequent proposal um as i said the original proposal was limited to these factors that you're noting um as far as uh illness or isolations that was the original draft the subsequent draft the second draft does not include those limitations that's certainly a question um that you've a good one that you've raised is you know should it be narrowed to this population or some other population or should it be across the board on your second point i can tell you a few things about what the state of affairs is right now um so uh HUD at the federal level last week um announced that it was going to initiate a 60 day moratorium on foreclosure proceedings and eviction related foreclosure proceedings essentially for all federally uh issued guaranteed or insured mortgages across the country and across the country that's about 65 percent of the mortgages that are outstanding right now so that's a 60 day moratorium during which the federal government is not going to initiate or continue uh pursuing a foreclosure or an eviction related for foreclosure related eviction for any federally insured guaranteed mortgage so of that 65 percent in the country to how many mortgages does that apply in vermont i don't know um i assume it's a substantial number in vermont it's not everybody um similarly HUD announced that it was going to allow lenders and borrowers through tready and fanny for those guaranteed loans to renegotiate their terms or seek forbearance for up to 12 months so it is possible that people who are having trouble in the residential mortgage loans could go to their lender and try to renegotiate terms for up to 12 months again that's that same population of federally attached loans and that's for residential mortgages that's not for commercial loans like landlords or businesses as to the vermont courts um they have promulgated emergency rules that uh have suspended most actions in the courts however as you indicate every center of toronto um landlord tenant proceedings are not necessarily suspended um some of them are carved out from what's considered to be an emergency and it is as you said in the discretion of the judge what constitutes an emergency whether a landlord tenant eviction action or other action needs to be taken up or not um there it is not an across-the-board pause on landlord tenant actions in the vermont courts at this time okay i i want to be mindful of the time here um first i have a question before john before i get to you um i see that your hand is still that your hand is raised uh ron are you still on the line i'm here so what is our schedule for for the next half of the day in terms of this in terms of and using zoom for a meeting we are scheduled from uh 12 30 to 230 this meeting was scheduled to end at 11 30 and then resume again at 12 30 okay i don't but i don't know that we're infringing on anyone else's zoom time i mean all right so um so john if i could ask you to hold off on your question till we start up again at 12 30 um the one uh and angela if you are still on the line i just want to know if you have anything i gotta i've gotta find you um on the list and i just wanted to know whether or not you had anything to um share with us right now or if you want to wait until later on this afternoon um but you're on you're um unmuted right thank you representative stevens this is the land assistant can everybody hear me all right it's it's fuzzy but keep trying okay is the plan to take this up again this afternoon i think we'll continue this conversation we're also gonna share the time in this afternoon to um talk about alcohol stuff there's no we're not going to be able to vote on this this today there's way too much in it um so i think that the idea is to um you know is to be able to hear from folks like you or um uh and then also to get a feedback from people who have been out in the world in terms of the homeless stuff to be able to share some of their thoughts but um but yeah we'll be taking this up at 12 30 if you wanted to if you wanted to come back later i think i'm like some of the other folks on this call are uh have uh some time already booked in senate uh for some of the same issues um having had a chance to review uh at least the the legal aid proposal um it actually provides a pretty comprehensive um approach to the situation um i would have some requested which is or perhaps some clarifications and i'm happy to provide those to the committee in writing if that's easier at this point um but in terms of you know global proposal for dealing with this that is sort of as comprehensive as i've seen and as long as the proposal is coming with some sort of money for rental assistance for tenants and landlords to take take advantage of or to uh utilize that or sense okay that that please do please share what you can and um and then if you can join us after the senate stuff you're more than welcome to okay but yeah if you have stuff that you want to send in there in this little lunch break that would be that would be great thank you um and i know that i know that chris donnelly from shimplin housing trust wants to speak a little bit later um in the afternoon and um and i'm sure airheart or gene murray is here from has been on all morning from from from out legal aid and if there's if there's stuff that you want to share i think we'll just pick that up this afternoon um john do you want to um be on you're on you're unmuted john no you're not you're sure thank you you're all set for now yeah thanks okay so everybody i think let's just take a break now and come back at 12 30 um same process same process if you if you can if you can remember it uh who was that it was david hi david so senate economic development is scheduled to take up landlord tenant issues evictions for closures uh from 12 till 115 today okay i thought they were working on um paid family leave issues okay if you could just inform them that we're working on the same things and you're more than welcome to share the language that uh that we are that that you prepared for us that's that's fine i mean that's that's where we are and then um then you know come back later and we'll we'll have a conversation about it about what we worked on what we heard this morning and then we'll um and then we'll wait to hear back from you at some point either this afternoon or the next time we meet about what the senate was working on and um we certainly have more stuff to work on this afternoon as well all right thank you everybody we'll see you in a little bit