 Welcome everybody. We're all here tonight to talk about homelessness, housing, affordable housing. My name is Dan Toll and I'm the head of a consulting firm, Parker Advisors. We specialize in mental health. Substance use, homelessness, and the intersection of law enforcement and mental health. And I was hired by the City of Montpelier through the Montpelier Task Force to do a project to assess homelessness in Washington County and put together recommendations, short, medium, and long term. And the medium and long term issues will involve, of course, housing issues. So it's affordable housing and all the issues that, you know, we as a state are grappling with relating to, you know, elders downsizing and my son was 30 trying to buy a house in Burlington, that sort of thing. So what, you have an agenda, Freddie, where I, we put together this agenda just to establish some structure on the outset, but we're not going to be rigid, particularly since we don't have a big room. You know, the more people we have, the more structures needed. So I think we're going to be a little more, you know, flexible. So in terms of the ground rules, clearly, you know, we're here to talk about it, subjects that could, could be controversial. So, and people may have differing views of, please, let's all operate from a place of caring and respect for each other. If you have, you know, feel free to get up, please. Get food in the bathroom, whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. Please do so. My email is up here. So please, if you have other thoughts or ideas or you want to pass that on to any of your friends, colleagues, your kids, your parents, your whatever, I'm all ears in terms of getting more feedback afterwards. Meeting's being recorded, obviously, by ORCA. This is a public meeting, so everything will be on the public record. So just want everyone to be aware of that. Beyond that, did I miss anything in terms of the upfront logistics? You think of? No. No. Okay. Well, let's, let's dive right in. We're going to do, so for introductions, name and where you're from. I think, yeah, where you're from. And then, you can either, either tell the room, you know, what you do for work or something you're very passionate about, or you can pass and say absolutely nothing. Just name and town. And then once we do the introduction, we'll start with open-ended questions and depending on how that flow goes, we have some, you know, specific questions that we can do at the end and then we'll roll wrap up by 7.30. So can I have one of those? Oh, sure. Do you need something to write with? Yeah, I'll grab a pen over there. I have a spare. I think I do too. So, why don't you start the introductions? Sure. Hello. I know some of you, but not all of you. My name's Laura. I'm just signing on with Dan here to help out with this past couple days, so I'm new to this project. But I've done a lot with the City of Montpelier over the past five, six years in different groups. And I'm from Montpelier. I live on Liberty Street. And something I'm passionate about, I love bicycles. So I'm over at Freeride quite a bit. I live in the bike shop. Hi, everybody. I'm Andrea Standard. I live here in Montpelier. I also live on Liberty Street. We're not quite neighbors, but close. And I am experimenting with being retired after a long career as a nonprofit executive director and community organizer. Nonprofit executive director, community organizer. I ran rural Vermont for quite a few years and have worked with other nonprofits in the city. And I think the thing I'm passionate about is staying in Montpelier, which I'm beginning to think is not going to be possible. Montpelier is the first community I moved a lot in my life, starting from when I was a little kid. And Montpelier is the first community that I've lived in long enough to really develop a community and have relationships and all these contexts and stuff. But now that I'm trying out retirement, I'm really not sure that I'm going to be able to stay here. That's going to be an issue for a lot of us. It is for a lot of people. And so it also has made me think a lot about, I'm also involved in climate work. I have been on the board of 350 Vermont and I'm very concerned about the impacts of the climate crisis as they intersect with housing and homelessness and all of that stuff. So those are all things that I'm thinking about. Bigish gray. And next, next. My name is Gerard Renfrow. I live right here in Montpelier downtown. You said Gerard? Gerard Renfrow. I should have mentioned the outset. I have tinnitus and hearing loss, which makes it tough to be a facilitator. So yeah, just so you know, if I keep saying what. I'll try to remember to speak louder. Gerard Renfrow. I work at the Hunger Mountain Co-op and that's really all I have to say. I'm Deb Glotman. I live in East Montpelier and I run the Mitchell Fund, which is a veterinary non-profit and we service unhoused, local, low-income seniors, veterans, and disabled first responders. So we're all about this population and what it means. Yeah, great. I was just emailing you this morning. Oh, thank you very much. I know. Jessica is one of the most, if not the most awesome dog walker in the world. Awesome to know. Nobody can walk my dog unless they're awesome. Oh, awesome. Well done. Amongst her many talents. Yes, yes. My name is Jessica. I am a renter in Montpelier. I'm a parent. I'm a solo parent of a middle schooler and I'm also a part of the newly housing committee that the city has been putting together. Thank you for stepping up to do that. We're very lucky to have Jessica here. Jessica, your last name is? Oprahowski. It's O-P-A-R-O-W-S-K-I. I should have mentioned that I'm a renter too. Me too, she said that. Renter. Great. 25 years ago I bought a house. When you could. Yeah, when you could. Okay, so let's dive in it. But before we do that, those of you who are tend to like to talk, be mindful. Those of you who don't tend to talk as much, we'd love to hear your input and I may call on you at times and feel free to pass, but we like to encourage feedback and ideas from everybody. So, we're basically going to talk about the two issues, the homelessness and housing and start with the homelessness issue. And I guess to kick it off, just to get the conversation going, from your perspective as a resident, maybe as a business owner, whatever hat you want to wear or represent, what do you think is working in terms of how we're dealing with homelessness in Mapeulier as well as broader Washington County thoughts? I mean, I feel a little ashamed to say it, but I don't know enough. So maybe that's something that's not working is that I don't know enough. Nothing to be ashamed about at all. Most people I think are not really plugged in. What's going on? I mean, I know that I see people in town walking a lot of the trail systems and stuff. I see tents, I see people out there. Other than that, I don't know enough about it. So it hasn't been a big issue for you? Personally, no, I guess, no. Anybody else? I was just going to say that I think what has changed in my experience in the time I've lived here is that there's more conversation going on now. More people are talking about it, more organized steps are being taken to try to come up with solutions. I certainly have seen the need increase over the last decade and particularly in the last few years. I volunteer with the Mensa fund, so I've had a little more opportunity recently to get to know a few people who are in that marginalized, marginally housed population. And I think the big revelation for me was when I decided to try out retirement is I started to realize how close I am, how easy it would be for me to become homeless in the current economic climate, real estate climate and all of that. And that's just made me really think about it in a different way. It's just how easy is it that it can happen to people. We've been talking one-on-one to some of the folks here who are living outside and it's kind of amazing some of the backgrounds of these people, the things that they have done in their life. Unfortunately now they're out of space that they're having to deal with not having a roof over their heads. Gerard, what are your thoughts? Well, okay. So the question of what's working, I can't answer that. I'm actually here because I've lived in Montpelier for over 20 years now and I'm more interested in what seems to me as what's not working. Or the fact that this problem has been developing, and I'll just call it an issue of poverty. It's been going on for decades and it's been, I think certain things are financial issues and others are encroaching on the city just as they are in the rest of the country. And when you say financial issues? Poverty, just for one example. Again, this is all very personal experience. I don't have any data. But like when I was volunteering for one of the food kitchens, I asked the people back there, because these kind of questions are always on my mind, like what was it like 10 years before when I was working there? And they said, oh, about half the number of people would show up at the food kitchens. And I said, so in the last 10 years the numbers have doubled. And that was kind of around the 2008 time period. So that's one of those things. And then I look at, and then I see prices going up. And this is before the, I think it was even before COVID, but after COVID, somehow the bailouts seem to have passed a lot of money to certain people's hands and they've used that in ways that I think are really kind of degenerate. And now we have a high apartment rent. And I don't want to go into too much detail now because I do have a kind of list of things that have been bothering me over the years. And I'll talk about that later. But to me, I can't speak to what's going well. I can only speak to what's been going very badly. And it's a lot of things. And I'll hold off on that until we have a more open forum. The issues that you want to talk about, do they relate specifically to homeless or the broader issue of housing, affordable housing? I would say among Pilger's problems that relate to the price of property, which then affects housing, which I can't really speak to about, and apartment rents, prices as well, which I can't speak about. So we'll come to that once we conclude our discussion on the homelessness issue. And my plan is being here is to also listen in and report back to the rest of the committee about the housing issues and concerns. So I ran out of the house, so I might have to steal more paper at some point. I've got plenty of paper. Good, good. So yeah. I'm taking notes so we can share it. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with Gerard. There's a lot not working to the very bare bone basics. And one is there is not a public restroom in this entire city after 10 p.m. And I think we're putting too much on the very few businesses that are still open at that time and they're too far away. So like if for 12 or 15 years this public restroom discussion has been happening and nothing has happened. I'm very worried that, you know, that's the main reason why I'm here is you because I saw what you do and I was like, this guy's got, you know, this, I'm very impressed and happy that they hired you to, it seems like this is different. There isn't just going to be a bunch of talks that hopefully. Well, that's part of the pitch that we made to both the task force and city council is we're not here to do just to do another study and put it in the shelf. Our focus is to do the stakeholder outreach and the research but really focus on what are the immediate, short, midterm and long-term solutions. I would just like to articulate one immediate goal that I personally have. I don't see anybody die this winter in this town. I really want that to be a shared goal. We're not going to let anybody die as a result of being homeless in the weather with nowhere to turn or no options or no support. There ought to be enough information and openness to people's plight that nobody freezes to death on a bench, in a doorway or anything like that because it's already happening in other parts of the country. Right. Yeah, we were just at the homeless vigil last night and we were saying names of... People who have died. Yeah. So on that, in the summer there was, of course, these people that were, I guess, they were mostly around the picnic table on the corner just behind Shaw's. And I also understand that just recently one of the churches or something, this is something in the bridge, has just opened an emergency winter shelter. Do you know who those people are taking care of? Well, they have 10 beds. And it's only 10, which I read that I thought, okay, that's good, and then I heard the number 10 and I thought, is that enough? And I was just wondering... Not when there's 400 people who are unhoused. In town? Not in town, but in Washington County. In Washington County. 450. 450. Yeah. I mean, and that number is... Well, 450 is the unsheltered unhoused but the most of those people are the housing and secure that are in the hotels. They're getting the special subsidies. There's about 80, the last we did account a couple of months ago of the unsheltered people are outside in Barrie, Berlin, and Montpelier, which is where the constant is. There's over 75. Yeah. It was between 75 and 80. 75 and 80. People don't have it in the immediate area. Yeah. Whatever. This American's total capacity is 30? Am I right about that? 30, 35. Yeah, between the old place and the new place. Yeah. Yeah. I have a question. And you might have to just tell me, I might be one of those over talkers, so you might have to just tell me at times to stop. You're closing up, I can kick you. But don't kick my dog because you don't know me. So I've got a question and a comment. One of my questions is that I know that some, maybe some, maybe all, what is in the church, this shelter, does everybody have to be sober? Like are people being turned away that aren't clean, aren't sober? What's that like? That's a great question, but I don't think that they get that personal. Right. So it's just about, so like that's the thing is like, if somebody is drunk, if somebody's under the influence, are they kicked out? Like how does this? There are rules that they have to sign, that they understand, that they get, it is a privilege to stay and it is a privilege to have one of those cops. So, and these people know cold. So they're, unless there's a true mental health disaster, they are behaving. At least that's what Rick Daniels and I discussed, because you know, they have a lot of volunteers, they have a lot of employees that are there by themselves. So we, you know, we discuss this a lot because we're all women at the Mitzvah Fund and we're all older and you know, they want to make sure that we're safe and, but same kind of same thing goes, you know, for the shelter because there's, you know, it's not like they have a bouncer. Right. So there are rules and the same thing goes for the Goods, Maiden, Haven, they have a contract that they all have to, you know, sign and abide by it. And then yes, if they scare anyone, if they, you know, please have to be caught like it, you're done. But those are interpersonal rules, not what you did before you got to the shelter rules. That's correct. So as long as you behave, it doesn't matter what your state of mind is in. That's correct. Which is, it seems the fair thing. It's a behavior rather than a history. There's no judging of what got you there. And that's just some of my comments and I guess like my interactions and kind of how it affects me a little bit more is thinking about the Gertin Park that was removed, that shelter and how everybody's shifted back to the bus terminal right in front of Shaw's and how it's not usable for people that need to get on the bus or want to get on the bus. And then thinking about, as a parent, I've been, I was thinking about letting my son ride the bus up to Wilson this summer for a summer camp. Do I want him to sit at that bus terminal? Like, not really. I don't. I don't know what's going to go on. I don't feel comfortable with it. I'm trying to not judge the people that are there but I also drive by at night in the morning and I see the beer cans in their hands and it's not something that I want my kid to be around. That's where the transit center is better because I do have people there but not from 1130 to 2. And you also can't use the bathroom from 1130 to 2 which is, that's a public restroom. I just saw an article on the bridge tonight that there's some more money going into staffing. Oh, great. But I don't, and some extension of ours, I don't know what it means. We're talking about the bus stop? The transit center. The transit center over on Taylor Street. So you're going towards the state house and down below is the bus terminal. Behind Capital Plaza? It used to be just an empty parking lot. Oh, yeah, where the farmers work in that area. Yes, the multi-story building. Yeah, anyway. The bottom of it is a, well it's a bus station. Yeah. All the buses go through there. Right. And it has a big waiting area. And that's where you guys are parked now, right? We park there on Fridays. And at no charge, and they're very, very kind to us. And they are providing a service because there's a lot of people staying warm in there. And they are a warming shelter from six to nine. So it's inside? Now they are. It's inside the place where you would, whatever that. So there is a bathroom there? There is. It's key. You know, it's two bathrooms. It's electronically controlled. Yeah. So it has to be in the office to let people in and out. The restrict use during parts of the day. Yeah. So yeah. This bathroom, public bathroom issue continues to be something that we need to address. Well, and that's the other part of my comments and stuff too is that I think we do need a public bathroom downtown. At least one. At least one. So again, as a parent and having a kid and his friends around town, is that what's going to go on in that bathroom? Are there going to be people that are kind of just sheltering in there? Is there going to be drug use in there? Is it going to be kept clean? Yeah. Those are all the hurdles. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is would I rather my son go to somebody's store and say, hey, can I please use the bathroom instead of going to a public space? That's the kind of thing that can be volunteered out. You can have someone there doing it by going off. That seems like one of the easier fixes. Not that I know what I'm talking about. It just seems like a bathroom versus an entire apartment building of emergency shelters ought to be one of the easier things to fix. It's funny you should talk about that because I have two apartment meets and sometimes, and again, I'm going to break downtown, sometimes there's just someone in the bathroom and I have at times had to go outside to another store that was still open late at night and ask them. So I totally get that even though, of course, the need for the people who are homeless is much more important. But it's just, I don't know, I guess maybe it's to me it's just humorous if we're talking about this because it's like, that's just like a no-brainer. But again, we haven't had anything in decades. The management of public space, even in a small city where people care about each other, is still complicated and difficult. And when you say management of public space, say a little more. By management, I mean, like, my family runs shopping centers and nobody recognizes that, hey, did anybody notice that at nine o'clock the lights didn't go on? You know, like, who do you call at nine o'clock at night when the lights don't go on? So now it's a public space. But people are going into it and it's pitch black. Is that safe? So there's, you know, there has to be, like, is there anything, if there's anything wrong with this, call dispatch, call, you know, whatever. But all of those things are management. What happens if the toilet gets plugged? You know, and now, oh, we have a bathroom. But, you know, if you use it, it's going to make the problem worse. So somebody has to be on call for something like that. And can it be public works? Great. One more thing on their docking. So all those things cost money. All those things cause issues. And then if you put cameras in the space, which honestly, that's the way of the world, it lets somebody like the city manager or somebody, you know, check on stuff or have record of stuff. But it costs money to manage those. It costs money to, you know. Everything, it's not for naught that we're still discussing the bathrooms. It's just a perfect, it's like the perfect metaphor and example of why we are where we are. Cause nothing is easy. Yeah. There's so many intersecting factors and issues. I feel like that's a perfect point to just say, it's seven o'clock. So just to keep us on track if you want to move it forward in any way. Well, first of all, we have a new participant or guest. You want to introduce yourself? I'm Carolyn Griffith. I'm on both the bathroom committee. So do you want to talk about the, provide a little information about the bathroom issue? You don't have to now. You don't have to put a target on your back. Never met. So it's a new committee? No, it's an old committee. Two people and it was chaired by a council member and it never had a meeting. And so it got reconstituted. And so at the last council meeting, they put on a number of extra people. So with a little bit of nagging, I think they'll move forward. Yeah. One of the women is a former director of the senior center. One of the women, people know Mary Alice Bisbee. Zach is an outreach worker for Washington County Mental Health and Disabled. So he brings up perspective. And then the others I don't know. And Zach is also in the homelessness task force. Is there a cost for these bathrooms? Like, has somebody come up with that number? No. Well, yeah, one thing that was occurring to me was we were talking about it as if it exists and how we would manage it. Right. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. And creating it, you know, even if it was a freestanding structure of some sort, you know, in a good place location, which I can't even imagine what the siting issues around that might be. But yeah, I mean, building anything like that, water, sewer, you know, lights, you know, heat, all those things would have to be figured out. Yeah. I think there's more potential in the short term to solve that problem, to do some serious outreach to the people who have control of the existing bathrooms downtown and figure out a way to make them more available. Right. Well, the city center was available. Yes. It was the last, I forget, it was a few years ago that those became locked. Right. And the police station used to be a... An option. A space that people really used. Is that a 9-11 thing? What? Is that a 9-11 thing or a post? Oh, it's that. The locking up of these places used to be open. The city center? No, I think it's because when Village Pizza moved out of there, it just, it lacked enough people in there so that it became unsafe because there weren't businesses open. Oh, okay. It's amazing. Well, and also COVID, I think, had an impact too. A lot of things got closed because of COVID and never got open again. I think the point about the bathroom being a microcosm is a good one. It's a representative of all the complexity. And the thing is that's really going to be unfortunate is that there's so many... Are you going to kick me? There's so many people that are going to push back on all of this. They're going to push back on it all. We couldn't... Look at the park. Look at the structure there. That was an eyesore. So there's enough people that complained or maybe just enough few people, the right people that complained, so it was moved. So to get a bathroom, the second that there's an overdose in there, like everybody's going to... There's going to be too many people that are just going to be like, no way, not going to happen. If it comes to something that's going to be a vote to put on a budget, whatever, it's unfortunate, but I feel like that's what's going to be shut down. And so that's the thing is, and this is what we talk about a little bit in the housing committee sometimes too, is how do we reach out to people to either... We get so many people in town that are like, oh, I never heard about this. I never heard that that was going to happen. I never heard that this. So how do we get more people informed? How do we get more people involved in decision-making or ideas or whatever? I mean, there's only how many of us here? How many people were earlier today? A total of nine, including all of us, yeah. And me. Yeah, you're there. So it's definitely a thing. So Carolyn, now you have some good feedback you can take once the bathroom committee gets going. So now let's shift gears from homeless to the housing issue. And I want to start by taking a little poll. First of all, just informally, how many folks in this room feel that the country called property should at least in part be used for affordable and other housing? Handstand. What is country club property? The Elks Club property that the city bought. By Agway. You go out to the radio and it turns over the radio. The golf course up there? Up on that hill there. Yeah. Okay. The golf course up on the hill. It's actually terrible that geography around here. I live a very sheltered life. People say Taylor Street or whatever. I'm the wrong person. But I think I know the area. It's where the WSES repeater. Right. And it's where the golf club used to be. Step a giant little hill there. I know the general area. Okay. And you're welcome to abstain. I will vote yes, except with the caveat that there would have to be an accompanying public transit. Because it's too far out of town to be feasible for school kids, for elderly, for people without cars. We don't need to create another satellite for the concentration of traffic. Again, complexities. Yeah. But I wouldn't say it's not a good place for housing unless it is accompanied by a public transit program. Absolutely. So the second question is... I was going to tell them a little bit about the project because we're going to be getting more into that in the next couple of months as well. So it's 140 acres or so. And there is a consulting firm that has been working on gathering information from the community, from the site itself, the physical, everything, the stone, whatever's going on there. They're going to come back with multiple proposals of this is just a visual thing. This is what we could do. And they're kind of trying to gather information right now of what do we want to see there? Do we want to see affordable housing? Do we want to see more efficient, like single family homes? Do we want to see more multi-unit kind of things? Do we want to see a restaurant? Do we want to see a rec department? Those kind of things. They're trying to get that information. And go from there. There's been a few sessions where the public input could happen there. And it was a good turnout, but it's still just information gathering right now. And I think that the plan is that in March maybe they're going to have the next phase of their project of kind of the proposals. So thank you for that. So are those sessions still going on, or is the input sessions done? They did, I think they did three of them, right? Yes. And those are completed, but I'm not sure what they're planning for fall. There will be more information sessions and everything to come. But at this point, yeah, that's kind of stopped. And then we'll get more information. The next housing committee meeting too, I think that we'll have a little bit more information on like what's going to go and what our involvement is and how we can support that firm as well. So a related topic is, again, a little straw poll here. How many folks feel the same housing, portable housing for Vermont College of Fine Arts? That's even better. That has more potential. Yeah, but try to sell that for both the trolley street. That's exactly... I mean, I'm not going to mince words here, but they're moving the whole... One at a time. Go ahead. I can't mince words. No, no, he just asked me a question. Yeah, sorry. It's very... Well, a couple things. One is I brought this up with our veterinarian. I said, you know, it would just be perfect. It has dormitory kind of things. There's bathrooms in place. The septic is there. Everything is there. It's not in the floodplain. It's not in the floodplain. There's... You know, it's not isolating, you know, because a lot of these low-income and affordable housing spaces, like Andrea said, are in the middle of nowhere. And yes, they might have limited transportation back and forth, you know, especially during work hours, but at the end of the day, a lot of these people are still trying to figure out how to get home after the movie theater or, you know, if they get to do that. But it's just getting the farmer's market folk to understand that the folks that don't go to the farmer's market because they can't afford to go to the farmer's market need a place to live. And are they going to be okay with them living next door? And I don't think so as much as I would like it to be. You're saying you think that the neighborhood pressure against it... That neighborhood is going to... I mean, they bring in some serious tax dollars, and a lot of them are on committees. You know, I just don't see that happening. I've been living in that neighborhood for five years now, and yeah, there's a lot of strong feelings. Yeah. But yeah, but that's not a reason not to... Yeah, I heard somebody say, well, then why not just put a jail there? So is that college selling its property? Is it moving out? It has moved out. It's only part of it is. They're selling off some of the buildings, the dormitory areas. They're keeping some of it. They are kind of shifting some of the schooling to Colorado. So there's a number of buildings that are going to be potentially empty there. One thing is that from what I remember reading is that there was an interview with Rick and they talked about the $20,000 or so that was spent to assess that building, which seems like a significant amount of money to go towards an assessment to be like, this is not actually suitable. There's a lot of people... There's a lot of work that needs to go into that building. Like millions of dollars to make that handicap accessible up to probably somewhat of codes. So that space... Who knows what's going to go on with that space? It has to be underwritten by a national light. It has to be underwritten by somebody with a lot of money. And my kind of thought with it is because I want to see more younger families be able to live in town, to be able to move into town, to purchase houses. There's a lot of older people that are living in large houses that need to not be living in those large houses. So if we could turn that area, that campus area into an affordable, elderly kind of community because it's flat, because it's got the green space and because it's got dorm areas, there could also be that gym area could be a great community space but make it affordable so that there's people that can either rent, there's people that could buy a condo, whatnot, but they need to be getting out of these large houses so that families can come here. Because we're not going to... That's the thing is that none of this... We're not going to have solutions if there's just these massive houses with one person living in it. And we want to move out. Right. I mean, I know three people. One of them is waiting to get into a house because the owner is on a wait list to get into another space. And this has been going on for three years now. I think she's probably pretty far up on the wait list. Another friend of mine warned me the other day that summer she wouldn't be coming back for a partner. She's been doing this every year. Years. She wants to get out. Just a second. I don't want to run out of time. I know you came with some issues and I'd like to give you some space. I understand we only have 15 minutes but we're very interested in whatever you want to present. I'm going to say straight off. I did come here with a chip on my shoulder. There's a lot of things that have been pissing me off for a long time. And I didn't know anything about the people in this community or what you're working on. I don't have the chip on my shoulder anymore. I did come here like, these people are really going to try and help. This is all negative. This is the stuff that I've been thinking about and I wanted to raise. This is very encapsulated. I'm not going to go into detail. Long time ago, I might understand when Neckie moved in, brought a lot of wealthy students with them. Landlord started raising the rent because they knew that they could get prices from the Neckie students but that cranked up rent everywhere. Again, I'm talking about rent, not necessarily home ownership. There's the upper class, the government non-profit sector that's buying up property has been here for a long time. They don't pay taxes on that property but their purchase of those properties is causing the cost of housing to go up. I know in the past, there's been a landlord who was known to demand part of the business profits from a business that moved into downtown after they've been here for a year or two so they get settled in and he would say, well, now that you've settled in, you owe me a piece of the action, not just rent but a piece of their business and of course the business could then move and it would be vacated. I also understand that they were landlords that were purposely overcharging for their space and then when it's empty, they take it as a tax write-off which seems like fraud. I once checked into that a long time ago and I got nowhere with it because no one knew how to check and do business people's taxes, like confidential information and all that but I do remember looking into that. Currently, this is again, this is like the post-COVID thing where a bunch of people could end up with a lot of spare cash but there's been rent management groups that have been taking control of apartments. They don't own the apartments but they take control over it and then they charge really large fees for first-timers to come in when those first-timers don't have any references which is making things very difficult. Pilot taxes, this has been going on. What kind of taxes? Pilot, P-I-L-O-T, payment. Payment in lieu of tax. Exactly. And this goes back to the nonprofits and all that. All these businesses that are nonprofits, government, et cetera, they do not pay taxes on there for their business so basically their lack of taxes are being covered by everyone else's tax base so someone with a home or an apartment has to cover that extra cost that is being lost by that occupied nonprofit. And I understand there's the question are B&Bs and wealthy... I do not mean this as a slander but are B&Bs and wealthy immigrants coming in to the state and to areas partially because of global warming and all that and they are supposedly buying up property and causing the values to come up and I realize that that has been in the bridge already but this is something that is part of the picture and very lastly, let me see... Oh yeah, this is something that kind of bugs me on our state level. We spend money on private prisons to keep people in prison who have probably had very minor offenses such as drug use for marijuana and all that. Marijuana is becoming legal and we still are wasting tax dollars on the cost of private prisons which to me seems like we're basically stealing money from this... or the state is stealing money from us to pay for something that we don't even need anymore because who cares about drug use about marijuana use these days and I just think that whole thing is like this unaddressed elephant in the room that is like this is a huge waste for the state which then comes down to what we have available at state funds. Okay, so that's my spiel. Thank you for that. Those were some great insights, Gerard. I really appreciate it. Andrea? This is a thought that's been going through my head for a while and I also know people who have big houses who are done with them think they want to get out of them. I wonder if it would be worth considering a really organized, carefully... it would need to involve people who really know how to do this of grassroots outreach to property owners in the town. People who own buildings whether they be apartment buildings or private homes. To find out how many people first of all are thinking about this and like this is too much for me I don't want to deal with this anymore whatever, that's the first thing but then also what options would they consider? Just like you said dealing with this what do you mean by this? The responsibility of maintaining a big piece of property. I think there's a lot of different categories there are older people who their kids are all gone and the kids don't want the house and they've got this big house. I have friends that are in exactly that situation but there's also people who I think for reasons of change of life or circumstances or whatever what they have been maintaining is just not what they want to be doing anymore but I think it would only work if there was kind of a menu of possibilities that people could be asked about like if there was adequate grant funding or something to help someone who owns a big house to run into a duplex or a triplex or whatever or if they have property around the house that would accommodate an accessory dwelling unit if there was incentives subsidy whatever but I don't think everybody knows about that but also it's the one-on-one conversation that's specific to their situation that I think might yield more information about just how many possible more immediate things could be done because money is always the issue and I think the challenge right now is we have to figure out how to do things in the short term that are effective with the resources that are available because if we keep studying things and keep doing all this stuff and we try to come up with the big number this is what it would take to build housing at the country club or this is what it would take to do the college over it's going to take too long it's going to take too long well that's why we the consultants are looking at but I would encourage you to think about some kind of a very one-on-one kind of canvas reaching out to people making appointments putting some word out and saying are you interested in talking about this we'd like to send someone to talk with you and they could ask questions and they could tell their story and you could get a lot of details about these different properties and what their circumstances are great thought and I'd like to I just thought you're not like you need to kick him I just want to reassure you that some of the things that you are talking about are things that we are talking about in the committee and we're trying to work on we're trying to figure out how we can work on some of these things the landlords the property managers the last few minutes of our last meeting the beginning of December so we meet the first Tuesday of every month there's always public is always welcome to come we're here we might not be in this space next in January because something else is going on but we'll be either somewhere here it's always posted publicly with the city website there's always a chunk of time that is for public people the public can come in and speak you can sit and listen to our whole committee the whole time and there is Zoom in person I don't want to do the other stuff we're always like I think there was one woman that came one time Dan came one time there hasn't been too many other people from the public that are coming in so you're always welcome to come to those meetings and please say whatever it is you need to say we might not have answers for you I wouldn't expect it it's an ongoing thing it is, but I just want to let you know that we are trying to work on things they're on the radar screen and there are good people just actively working on it and then I had something we're running out of time first Tuesday after the meeting so to wrap up what I'd like to do is just go around the room and just in a sense or two forget about the obstacles and barriers what's the one thing that you would love to see happen to address the housing issue in Montpelier, Washington Greg, why don't you start just one thing off the top of your head I guess the immediate thing is a plan about the golf course space which now has a new name Country Club Good Laura I always have a hard time with the one thing I'm holding you to one though Laura we're running out of time I'm just looking for You can always pass I'm looking forward to more collaboration even on the individual level like that I think is really powerful and the more stories that can be shared about the successes of that would be really great I'm going to go back to my first thing I don't want to see anybody die this winter I want things done so that people are not out in the cold save lives nobody freeze this winter that's what got me started keep people alive I just want to see the community work as a community so collaboration communication and coordination let's all pull together rather than operate in our little silos that's a great one I want low barrier housing do you say low barrier housing do you want to explain that to people what your perception is of right now you have to go through a lot of hoops to get into different kinds of shelter and so low barrier means that by and large most people could access it and so pallet shelters does some that are very economical and now Burling has finally taken that step to do that so I'd like to see those vulnerable, protected and have access to supporting services and bathroom facilities and food I really want to see some tasteful, sustainable efficient development of houses going on I want to see the habitat for humanity build a number of houses in here especially the north field street area I'd love to see things go on at the country club and I'd love to see things go on in the neighborhood from Isabelle circle as well I think that those are the things that make smaller housing all that and I just wanted to share that when we need to encourage people with these larger houses to think about ADUs or home share program I think it's something that needs to be talked about a lot more and that's a question that I have for you is how much can the home share program be connected with the homeless and just start that conversation how many people, not enough people in big crafts know about home share I guess or are confused by it I went through the process I went through the interview when I was looking for housing in Montpelier nothing matched up but how can we get people to open their homes to that right now they have way more people looking to share a home than they have people willing to share a home there's an imbalance and then there's the whole issue of infill the spaces that we have in downtown using them more efficiently rather than the dispersion issue great well thanks to our to the end of our session do you have any closing comments that's great yeah that's a good crew thank you so much everybody for coming and your input it's been really helpful and informative getting all your perspective again oh here's business cards if you want to take my business card feel free I would add here the virtual session at noon time today the what the virtual session at noon time today we're two people participating from Barry and one of the things that they emphasize and one of the things that is really important is looking at this as a region and collaboratively working on it I had a question because I wasn't clear on this have you had the opportunity to actually have this kind of conversation with any of the folks who are currently on house my partner Paul Capcaro and I have been going out doing one on one we've gone to the overnight shelter we've been out in the woods there was a big we sponsored three different we call it homeless days of action I wondered if that was the people in the hotels had service providers and while they were there we were talking and interviewing so yeah one of our biggest priorities is making sure that we seek out and listen to the voices of the people who are on house the people who are housing insecure and the frontline workers so great well thank you everybody there will be other opportunities for feedback down the road you all have my information the one other thing if you would like you can put your email down there too there's a paper pad paper over there so we can follow up directly but if you have Dan's email that works as well right can you email him so if I put my email in there we'll be announcing through the emails when you're going to have future meetings okay that's good okay great well thank you everybody