 Hello and welcome to the Vermont affordable housing show. This topic today is the coalition says goodbye to long time coordinator air hard manga. I am Cindy read I'm the chair of the steering committee of the Vermont affordable housing coalition. And with me today is Sarah Fleming and tell you goonsberger, who are both AmeriCorps VISTA members of the Vermont affordable housing coalition, and our esteemed colleague, 24 years of coordination time air hard manga, who is soon to be the housing outreach representative at the office of Senator Bernie Sanders. We're really happy to be with you all today, and it's a big change for the affordable housing coalition and we're really keen on interviewing air hard today and highlighting the very successful 24 year career that he's had with the coalition. So first I wanted to welcome you and then I wanted to say that today is this is town meeting week. So the legislature is on break. It's a great time to reach out to your legislator and your lawmakers and emphasize the importance of funding for affordable housing and homelessness, especially supporting increased funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. We're also happy to announce that the just cause eviction ballot measure in Burlington passed with 63% of the vote. The Vermont affordable housing coalition supports this measure which will increase protections for renters and help ensure housing stability in Burlington. And I want to let you know that the affordable housing coalition has hired an interim coordinator, Brian pine, who many of you know, and he's going to help us facilitate our transition. Thank you very much for a new director in the coming months. The next monthly membership meeting of the affordable housing coalition is next Wednesday, March 10 from 930 to 1115. Hope you can join us. And now we're going to begin our interview with air hard, which is bittersweet. It just has a wealth of knowledge about all things housing policy funding. He's really has an amazingly brilliant mind and we've been very, very fortunate to have him building this coalition for 24 years. So you're known as an as the expert on affordable housing in Vermont at the Vermont State House and in other housing circles. And we want to know how you got there. What brought you to Vermont and how did you get involved in housing to begin with. That's, that's a lot and first of all thank you for the kind words and yeah this is a pretty bittersweet bittersweet moment. I think I mentioned that Sarah and tie earlier when we were talking ahead of the show. I first moved to Vermont in 1968 and 17 years old, and I went to go study at Middlebury College, only lasted a year it was the 60s. I don't know anymore about that time, but you know, it was actually pretty challenging time for me and eventually after going to a couple of other colleges, spending number of years in northern New Hampshire and also studying in Germany. I moved to Burlington in the 70s 1976 actually to become a graduate student at the University of Vermont and have been in Burlington really pretty much ever since so that's sort of the quick story of how I came to be in came to be in Vermont. Got a very useful degree at UVM in masters in German literature and philosophy which I haven't really used a whole lot but I will you know I got to put in a plug for liberal arts education. Liberal arts education really prepares you for a lot a lot a lot and it really helped me I think organize my thoughts, learn how to write well, learn how to speak well and be you know generally organized and be a critical thinker. But I spent several years working as a carpenter, worked for a while for a employee on construction co-op called Moose Creek Restoration which the buildings that I worked on back then are all over Chittenden County and actually all over Vermont. But hurt my back, wound up getting a desk job with the city of Winooski and doing housing rehabilitation for the city of Winooski helped rehabilitate probably I don't know 150 150 homes of low income folks and work with landlords that rented to low income tenants and learned a lot learned a lot by doing that. Learned how to underwrite loans, learned how to spec out you know rehabilitation, did a lot of housing inspections and also served on the Burlington Planning Commission and around the same time served for four years as a city council in Burlington and anyone who follows the city council or who's been on a commission knows you learn a lot as a volunteer doing all of that. And, you know, at the time, there was it was really exciting time because Bernie Sanders was mayor, and people were trying to figure out how to do housing in the era of Reaganomics. And it was a time when things really, really changed, you know, the older housing models of public housing, you know, had fallen into disfavor. And, you know, Reagan was cutting the HUD budget and cutting back on the really the responsibility of the federal government to help provide housing for our lowest income most vulnerable people. So, so very exciting time. There was a lot of colleagues. We first got to know each other back back then. And, you know, there's actually a whole bunch of folks that are, you know, have been retiring over the last couple of years and that are going to be retiring in the next year or so that really cut their teeth and housing during the during the 80s. So we're all colleagues trying to figure out how to do affordable housing in this new era, where just the landscape around affordable housing was really dramatically changing. We're going to take turns, asking questions. Sarah, do you want to go next? Sure. And so we on this screen I think are all very familiar and committed to the incredible importance of affordable housing. But I wanted, I wanted to ask you how you started to see housing as as important and why you decided to basically dedicate your entire career to ensuring affordable housing for Vermonters. That, that is a very broad question very where I can muster up for that. I mean, I would say, you know, really, some of it stems from just my faith in human beings and, you know, the goodness of all essential goodness of all people and that, you know, I've always felt like what I have committed my life to is to try to help folks to live up to be their best selves and to create equity in the best way possible so that folks who may not have, you know, the same, the same privileges that I grew up with. And that, you know, many of us is, you know, is as white white people and as, you know, folks in a white majority in society have benefited from and so, you know, my, I think my inner sense of, you know, of mission is really been to try and help folks to help people and to help create that level playing field so that, you know, people can live, live to be all, you know, all that's in their, their human potential to be. How does that relate to housing? I mean, housing is foundational. Housing is a basic human right. And without, without housing, folks are, they've got five knocks against them. Unless you've got that stable foundation of, of a home, you're going to have challenges having a successful, thriving independent, independent life. And what I guess what drew me to housing initially was working on buildings. I loved working on buildings. I loved working with my hands. I loved being a carpenter, but had an injury sustained an injury and was not able to continue with that. And so doing housing in a different way was kind of the next best thing. And like I said before, it was a really exciting time of ferment and a lot of creative ideas were coming to Burlington. A lot of very creative people were involved in housing in the, in the 80s. I mean, this was, you know, when we formed the Burlington Community Land Trust and another organization that also eventually became the merged with the Burlington Community Land Trust to become Champlain Housing Trust called Lake Champlain Housing Development Corporation. And we were creating nonprofits that basically were mission driven and that we're going to the idea was to have these nonprofits provide stable affordable housing for our lowest income folks, folks who are, you know, who may have disabilities, folks with vulnerabilities that that needed affordable housing because market driven housing was not floating all boats. Market driven housing was has perennially been out of reach here in Burlington and really throughout throughout Vermont and throughout the nation. And a lot of that goes back to Reaganomics in the Reagan era. I often think about how what we know is modern day homelessness really was created in the Reagan era when the federal government stepped back from its responsibility for providing housing, affordable housing for not just folks with disabilities and, but for really for working, working Americans working citizens, people working at lower lower wage service sector jobs, as long as I've been involved have never been able to afford housing without some form of some form of assistance some form of subsidy. And I think, you know, that's, that's the part of that's sort of the shadow side, the dark side of the American dream is that it's so out of reach for so many, so many people but it's so essential for folks to be able to raise families, or, you know, to live successful, you know, independent lives, you know, on their on their own, regardless of what you know family choices they make. Oh, you got a question. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, for one thank you for that. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey from someone working in the physical construction side of housing to really becoming a state house advocate and just a little bit about where the Vermont affordable housing coalition sort of fit into that timeline. I mean, it was a pretty long journey because, you know, I started working. Let's see, I started working in housing in 1984 for the city of whiskey. That's when I started. Oh, we're talking. What is that 35 plus plus years ago. You know, my career as a carpenter was probably relatively short lived and it was, you know, as a result of a back injury, I needed a desk job. You know, like much like much of what happens in life. It's it can be kind of serendipitous, you know, you can have like a whole plan laid out and then it's the opportunities to come along as you as you're living your life that sort of help forge forge your path. So, really, I learned an incredible amount working for the city of when you ski, you know, learned about working directly serving and assisting low income Vermonters, living in when you ski both homeowners, as well as as well as renters, I learned how to underwrite loans, learned how to spec out jobs, you know, working with architects and contractors learn how to project. I knew a lot of this already from carpentry. You know, kind of, you know, it's not that the work was not that unrelated to what I had done out in the field. And at the same time, like I said before, there were just, you know, this incredible time affirm it with a lot of very creative people working in housing in the greater Burlington area and throughout Vermont. And very soon, we actually formed the Vermont affordable housing coalition at that time 1985 I just been working for the city of one of the ski for a year or two. Kirby Dunn, who now works for Home Share Vermont, the longtime director of Home Share Vermont, one of our coalition members, she and a fellow by the name of Jim Libby, who was then working for Vermont legal aid later became the legal legal staff for the Vermont Housing Commission Board. I would basically credit Kirby and Jim with sort of starting the affordable housing coalition and it was a way for people who were kind of trying to figure out this new world of how to do housing in an era when HUD was drawing back, pulling back the federal government was pulling back. When, you know, she mentioned Northgate was starting to people were starting to get worried about Northgate and saving Northgate which folks who are not familiar as to still the single largest affordable housing development in the state of Vermont with 336 units here in the north end of Burlington, which actually provides us our office when when when we need an office and aren't all working at aren't all working at home. But yeah, the specter of Northgate potentially flipping was was in the air and one of the rallying factors was people getting closer to save Northgate and really understand what some of the failures were of old HUD policies where, for instance, the developer of Northgate received 40 year 1% loan, and then a monthly operating subsidy to make up the difference in how income residents in Northgate could afford and what were reasonable operating costs. After 20 years that that owner would have been able to prepay the mortgage and get out from under all the affordability restrictions that came with the federal funding. And it was, you know, stones throw from the bike path the stones throw from the lake and was a time in the 80s when rapidly escalating rents were placing a lot of people out of the market and a time when condo conversions were happening. So, there was, I learned an awful awful lot in a hurry around housing policy, as we all analyzed and figured out what was wrong with the federal housing policies of the past. And as we came up with ways of doing it better and doing it in this new era. And what we basically came up with, including for Northgate was that we created mission driven nonprofits, basically an NGO non governmental sector that was going to do the work of that used to be done by, in essence, government owned housing in the form of public housing. I mean, that was sort of one of the main models was that housing for low income Americans was provided through public housing, through entities like the Brogan Housing Authority or the Winooski Housing Authority or, you know, our other local housing authorities around the state. So that model had fallen into disfavor. So we basically created a number of nonprofits like what ultimately became the Champlain Housing Trust and actually Cathedral Square or Cindy Works had already been created at that point. We also created organizations that served the homeless like the Committee on Temporary Shelter. It was another product of the early 80s and of burgeoning homelessness in the state of Vermont. A lot of this stuff happened first in Burlington and then it kind of spread around the state and it proliferated. It was actually part of a national movement where folks were figuring out how to do housing in this new era. And there were nonprofits created all over the country, many other areas in the country, they're known as CDCs or Community Development Corporations. And in Vermont, we basically put a lot of our eggs in the land trust basket and created a policy within state government so that we wouldn't keep repeating the mistakes of providing, you know, sweetheart deals to private sector developers that could then flip properties. We created the bedrock principle of Vermont Affordable Housing which is permanent affordability and that you when you put public dollars be they federal or state into affordable housing that they that housing had to be affordable for the one term permanently essentially so that you didn't have to keep buying it back from from the private sector with you know new tranches of public dollars. So it was really it was a very exciting time and we invested heavily in the land trust model for single family ownership and then the permanent affordability which is a model for permanent affordability we now call it shared equity and it's not as based in some parts of the state on on the land trust model it's now the shared equity model where homeowners get get a subsidy through state state funds from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and in turn for that subsidy to be you know the 40 40 some cases $50,000 in turn for that they don't get market rate appreciation and it's been shown over over 30 years that the housing increases its affordability over time and that people people move on they're able to either think some folks today and shared equity housing for forever and will it to to their heirs and other folks move on to market rate housing because they've been able to afford to save to save money and likewise with affordable rental housing had a lot of that because of the stabilization of rents due to the mission driven nature of Northgate's ownership structure and it's true for all the other nonprofits that only operate over 13,000 units of rental housing in the state of Vermont these days you know if you can stabilize rents and make them affordable people are often able to save they have that stable foundation and here at Northgate we've seen a lot of folks move into home ownership because we've been able to keep the rent slow and folks are able to save so yeah you know the journey to the working for the coalition just to maybe complete that that question you know I worked for probably like eight years from the city of Winooski and then for about four or five years I worked for a small nonprofit that eventually got folded into the Burlington Community Land Trust we called it the Champlain Valley Mutual Housing Federation co-op federation for short the housing the co-op federation basically provided technical assistance to residents low income residents in the greater Burlington area that were looking to own and operate cooperative housing so we helped we worked with Burlington Community Land Trust like Champlain Housing Development Corporation and what was then also housing Vermont to create co-ops like the Thelma Maple co-op on Archibald Street, Queensborough co-op on Patch Road in South Burlington and the Flint Avenue co-op down on Flint Avenue and eventually Road Street artist co-op on Road Street and many many more and also at that time the idea of creating mobile home co-ops was in the air I started getting involved in policy back then you know as kind of volunteer for the affordable housing coalition still working for the city of Winooski worked on you know helping to create the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board bringing helping to bring that through State House we created the first co-op enabling legislation for housing cooperatives Vermont didn't have that New Hampshire did so you know worked on that in the late 80s so it really did a lot of a lot of policy work started doing a lot of policy work in the 80s and throughout the nine through much in the 90s to co-op housing work after we created that co-op co-op like just co-op enabling legislation and once we merged that that that organization was a small nonprofit it was actually turned out to be kind of unsustainable there's just not enough room for enough you know Vermont so relatively under resource state you know we're not a big state so it wasn't enough public funding to sustain that organization hold it into the broken community trust which again eventually became Champlain Housing Trust and soon thereafter I got hired on a part-time basis to start working for the affordable housing coalition and so that kind of brings us up to you know 24 years ago and you know at first it was a part-time job I did do a you know trying to do state house advocacy for a couple days a week but it soon became really clear that to be effective at the state house you really have to be there 24-7 you have to be there every day and so yeah within a couple years I was I was working full-time during the legislative session at the state house and you know throughout the 24 years I mean one of the things that our network has really worked on and I think we really started the early aughts like around 2000, 2001, 2002 to really try to build awareness around the need for affordable housing and so you know the strong network of housing funding agencies and housing nonprofits that you know grew up throughout the 80s and 90s really came together and created a housing awareness campaign in the early aughts that I think really was foundational and seminal for the success that you know that I think is a network of enjoyed with housing in the state house. So Ehrd you have an amazing career of service, amazing commitment to service to make the world a better place especially for those who have less resources and less access to resources and I'm just wondering what and I assume that some of the your accomplishments are your contributions towards saving Northgate as permanent affordable housing and really the creation of permanent affordability as a bedrock housing policy in Vermont to protect public investment to benefit long term affordability but I'm wondering what you know what other accomplishments just come to the top for you over your life of service in housing. I mean Northgate is definitely up there and it's it's not just Northgate because we had three other gates in the state so you know Northgate went first and there's Westgate and Brattleboro, I didn't have a direct hand in that. But you know, Highgate and Barry and Applegate and in Bennington, but I think Northgate really charted the way the other the other thing that made Northgate so pivotal and why I always feel it's a center point of you know one of the things that I am proudest of having worked on is because that lesson of affordability of permanent affordability was one that we learned from Northgate and from the other gates and at the time that we were looking to save Northgate. You know, back in the 80s the state of Vermont did not put any Vermont taxpayer dollars into housing at all it was all federal pass through money. It was all HUD it was from what was then called Farmers Home now USDA Rural Development. So it's all federal dollars passed through the state of Vermont through the city of Burlington. And so, at that same time, coincidentally, the Ron Housing and Conservation Board was created. Former former Governor Madeleine Cunin backed it strongly her administration backed it because people understood that we had to save the affordable housing that we already had. We could not allow it to to revert to market rate market rate housing. And so there was a symbiosis there between saving Northgate and and convincing the Vermont General Assembly that we needed to create a state funding mechanism. To put money into organism into housing development like Northgate to save them. And that was the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. And I think, you know, we had the obviously the unique idea of merging housing and conservation because when there is land speculation and land prices and housing prices go up that to major casualties are affordable housing. Rents and property values, as well as conservation of, you know, farms and important natural areas and important recreational land. So, you know, we were the first state to do that back in the 80s 1987. And I would say, you know, having a small part in helping to get VHCB through the state house, I would say is, you know, another one of, you know, my, my, my proudest accomplishments, you know, working with our conservation colleagues, helping to create the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition, which before housing coalition has been, you know, was key in helping to create back in the 80s. And then, you know, just the long road of every year getting the funding for VHCB, VHC is still unique as a funding mechanism as a Vermont grown funding mechanism that is, you know, able to be nimble and to react to development opportunities, whether they're housing or conservation, when they, when they come up without all the federal rigmarole that you get with odd project or, you know, with a USDA Rural Development Project. We've really created an amazingly nimble funding mechanism that can also take some risks and put in early money, which is often the most critical money. Cindy, as you know, as a long time housing developer, it's always critical to get that first, that first commitment before you start assembling the seven or eight other funding sources. Very true. So that, you know, I look upon that the creation of the co-op housing enabling law, which really has enabled a lot of low income folks who might otherwise have just been renters for the rest of their lives, you know, to live in housing that they control through the mechanism of a co-op corporation. And I would say over the last, you know, that a lot of that does go back to the 80s and 90s. What I think I'm most proud of, you know, having worked for the last 24 years for the affordable housing coalition is just that incredible, I think sense of good will that housing now has at the state house. And, you know, the policymakers at the state house know that when they put money in the housing, it's well invested. There is a network of organizations that are ready to deliver that are highly professional, highly creative, that know how to make the maximum use of hard-earned taxpayer dollars and, you know, that really are able to take rare, valuable taxpayer dollars and make sure that they're not in some way wasted, that they're put to good use and they're put to good use by creating thriving communities all across the state of Vermont, whether it's creating new housing developments, whether it's providing housing for folks who are homeless, providing housing for folks who are seniors or folks with disabilities, folks who are just simply the working poor and, you know, single moms working, patching together a life, you know, with a couple kids through, you know, two jobs. These, you know, these are the folks that are not aided by market-driven housing and what our members do is provide that gap in the market that the market is just never going to serve. I think, you know, building this network and helping to advocate for the funding of this network is probably, you know, what I'm proudest of. And having that network really internalized the mission of housing some of Vermont's most vulnerable citizens, folks who have experienced homelessness, folks, you know, who have that lived experience, whether it's, you know, being on the streets for, you know, some folks have been on the streets for 10 years and they're now getting housing in Vermont. Other folks have had, you know, more shorter term, shorter term episodes of homelessness sometimes, you know, more boring episodes and, you know, a lot of folks are finding housing in our non-profit housing. You know, the proverbial three legs of the three-legged stool, capital dollars through VHCB, rental assistance through HUD or through state rental assistance programs and supported services through a combination of state and state and federal dollars. But yeah, there's any number of individual accomplishments, but I'd say just nurturing this network and growing this network to the point where, you know, VHCB is recognized at the statehouse, you know, by policymakers at all levels as, you know, just an incredible Vermont institution. And where our non-profit housing and homelessness network is recognized as, especially now in pandemic times. I mean, this has been an amazing year where, you know, everybody's worked their asses off and it's been a haul, all hands on deck situation and people have really, really worked hard. But, you know, we basically suspended homelessness for 25, up to 25, 26 hundred people. And now, you know, the task is to get those folks into housing and to Marshall to make sure they don't go back to home. Yeah, that kind of leads into my next question. So we've kind of, your journey is pretty like easily traceable to this like, this change in housing where in the 80s and when you started, public housing was being defunded and you were trying to figure out, you know, what to do to build a network that could provide housing for low income people. And your work has been obviously instrumental in kind of strengthening that network in Vermont of non-profit, affordable housing providers. And so I'm wondering now, like looking at the current situation where housing, you know, is kind of in the public eye more so than perhaps in years past, because of the pandemic, because it's so clearly tied to our ability to stay safe during the pandemic, having a home to stay safe in. What do you think needs to be done in this current situation? What are the biggest changes that need to happen in the housing world now? You know, that's a really tough question. I mean, you know, housing is, it's resource driven. And, you know, we can develop as much housing as we have resources, public resources through, you know, those proverbial three, you know, major areas of investment, capital dollars, rental assistance and support of services. And what we can do is limited by how much we have in resources that are available to us. And I think, and I think this has been true for a long, long time. You know, we're the richest nation in the history of the world ever. And to have things like homelessness, because, you know, somebody for someone not to be able to have housing is something that really should not be tolerated in this society that is this rich. It's a matter of political will of creating those resources. And really, what we need is deep tax reform at the federal level, as well as we need significant tax reform at the state level, so that those with the greatest resources and the ability to pay provide that level of equity for other folks to be able to, you know, to level the playing field so that other folks who may not have those same resources that they get a share of that in order to, you know, getting back to that they have that stable foundation and are able to build a life off of that stable housing foundation and, you know, create a life for themselves and for, you know, if they so choose to have a family for their family. Our priorities are completely backwards in this country, and they have been for decades. We, our tax code is structured to benefit, continue to benefit the wealthiest in the nation. And it really, it really needs to be, we need to, in some ways, we need to go back to the Eisenhower era, back to the 50s, when we had a very different tax code. And, you know, the wealthiest folks were paying their fair share and we were able to send white GIs to college and give them down payments on housing. Unfortunately, you know, some of the inequities that have been built into our system forever were built by housing subsidies. And I think that's one of the other things that we need to focus on as we advocate for, you know, some restructuring of the tax code. We also need to make sure that the harm, the deep, deep harm that has been done by governmental housing policies to basically create the segregation of neighborhoods by color, by race. That, you know, we all know still exists and the disparities in wealth building that have come as a result of governmental housing policies that, you know, that systemically discriminate against people of color and black people. I think that's another, you know, that and tax restructuring, I think, are the two major things that really lie ahead that need to be done in order to create a more equitable society for everybody. If we do that tax restructuring so that, you know, folks both in the middle class and in, you know, folks who are low income and folks with nothing get a share of the wealth of this country. I think then we can build the housing that is needed and renovate the housing that is dilapidated and actually, you know, we obviously have problems with infrastructure all over the country where our infrastructure is, you know, is severely dilapidated. Our research and development is not what it used to be. We used to be able to send someone to the moon. We can't really do that anymore because we haven't invested in the right things in this country. We've invested in creating a hyper wealth among a small plutocracy that basically controls. It controls the tax code and it controls most of our politicians through Citizens United and, you know, with the campaign finance reform also the national level. It gets pretty global, you know, it's all of the above, but I think for housing the challenges, we need more resources and we need to write the long standing systemic wrongs that have been created through housing policy. So in that vein of looking ahead. I believe Cindy mentioned that you're going next week to start working for Senator Bernie Sanders. Yeah, I'd love to hear more about what that work you'll be doing will look like and how it will complement and maybe even expand on some of the work you've been doing in your career and with the mon affordable housing coalition. Well, sure. Thanks for that question, Talia. You know, obviously, Bernie's been fighting for many of these things for decades. Since, you know, since he was mayor of Burlington. And, you know, he's been, I would say probably, you know, one of my greatest political heroes ever is someone that got me back involved in politics back in the early 80s, because I spent a fair amount of the 70s pre dissolution with politics. I'm just incredibly honored and privileged to go to work for Bernie. And, you know, it remains to be seen exactly what I'll be doing, but I'll be part of the outreach team so you'll probably continue to see me at housing events, much like my predecessor shout out to Sheila read who did this for a number of years. I'm also former colleague at Voices for Vermont's Children and State House Advocate. You'll see me at ground breakings and ribbon cuttings. But largely, I will be kind of eyes and ears for Senator Sanders to hear, you know, what folks, what people's needs are, and to help, you know, percolate that up to, you know, to help Bernie forge policies, policy initiatives, you know, that help over modders with their needs. I'm also going to be doing veterans issues veterans affairs. So that's going to be kind of a new learning curve for me. But a lot of it is just, you know, being out in the community. Of course, you know, right now during the pandemic, it's going to be on a lot of zooms meeting with different groups and finding out what the needs are and, you know, working with the DC staff and the other folks on the on the team. You know, to make suggestions around policy policy initiatives. It's also going to be collecting, you know, what what problems individuals are seeing, you know, you know, you might veteran may be having difficulty accessing their veterans benefits. So, you know, they're again, I'd be eyes and ears and then referring that individual, that individual situation to one of the constituency staff to work with the Bureau, the federal bureaucracy to make sure that that tomorrow gets, you know, gets their due. So I have a two part question. One is, if you were to write a book, what would you title it about your years of service and commitment to equity and affordable housing. This is a trick question that would mention to me earlier. I just thought of it because I love to hear the answer. And then secondly, you can get back to us on that. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm gonna have a quick I'm not real good off the cuff. What was that title of the book of my life. I'm not sure I'm going to have equity and affordable housing and, you know, change. And then the other question is, this sort of a wrap up question. What advice or guidance would you give to someone who wants to start advocating for housing justice, because we're, we love having new people join this field. Lots of work to do. Lots of challenges ahead, lots of great work behind us. I mean, I would say, you know, I'll tie this back to like one of the things that I'm kind of proudest of is that we have created a network of younger folks that are getting involved in housing and it seemed to be kind of bitten by the same bug. You know, the mission, the mission driven bug of how important housing, how important housing is. So I feel, you know, as I kind of look back and, you know, leave leave this work, I feel like there's a really strong bench there of folks who are coming up. And, you know, I think some of it is some of it is sort of just an, you know, an inborn passion that may come from, you know, experiences that people have had in their in their lives. You know, some of the younger folks I've worked with, you know, have come from, you know, have come from poverty and have, you know, had experiences with with homelessness. Many are just, you know, already have the bug of, you know, being driven with a passion for creating equity and helping to create equity in our in our society. And say, you know, the first, the first thing is, I think you need to have a little bit of just kind of that inborn passion to, you know, want to make a difference and to want to help other people. And at that point, you know, it's really, you know, whether you get involved in food insecurity issues, or, you know, helping to help direct direct service to direct helping service. Direct services, helping folks, or if you get into advocacy, I think the kernel that's there is the desire to help other other folks and to have a passion for creating equity. But for advocacy, I mean, for me, it's been like learned by doing a lot of it is learned by doing and not to be afraid to take the plunge and make mistakes. You know, housing is a combination of real estate. It's a combination of social services. It's economics. It's so many different things and it touches so many different sectors from healthcare, from physical health to mental health to substance use to economics of, you know, of low wage jobs, service sector jobs, education, special education. I mean, there's no sector that it doesn't touch. So your entree into housing can be through any one of those sectors. And the first thing you need to do is kind of learn, you know, learn a little bit, you know, get that sort of housing 101. How does the, you know, how does the system work? But then in terms of advocacy, it's really learned by learned by doing and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Get familiar with, you know, with policy issues and get familiar with how the state house works and how the federal government works. A lot of it civics 101 going going back to like your middle school civics class and really making it, you know, making it come alive. A lot of us had those middle school civics classes and, you know, we all slept through them right or passing notes or torturing the teacher. I actually went back to when my son was growing up and did that, you know, a couple of times. Important to make that come alive. I think for for young kids, it's important to do that. I think it's important to go back to high school and do those kinds of guest, you know, kind of guest spots with with, you know, with young kids coming up through educational system. Ultimately, but yeah, it's learned by doing. Don't be afraid to make a mistake and make sure make sure that, you know, you do your homework and that you're as prepared as possible and that you always that you're always straight up. And and that you be careful to pick your battles and that you got to be a junkyard dog because it takes years to move some things forward. And be patient. You've been a phenomenal and forever junkyard dog for housing. What I miss most is working with you guys and working with this incredible network of colleagues all over the state, folks at the State House, you know, during the pandemic, I just miss the collegiality of working with lawmakers. And I believe that Senator Stevens calls you. I mean, Representative Stevens calls you the housing boy. Yeah, he does. He let you know about that, huh. Yeah, now you did. Yes, I know I know that you're, you're many are very fond of you at the State House and will miss your presence there. Is there any question, is there a question that you wanted us to ask you that we that we didn't have recovered. I mean, we've gone on for like 45 minutes. You have me. Come on. Do you want to, do you want to announce your book cover or do you want to get back? I'm gonna have to get back to you on that. There's there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to try that right now. I'm not going to add living secrets from a junkyard dog. Hey, there you go, Cindy. More to follow housing, housing secrets from a junkyard dog. I like that. Please join us at the coalition to find out more about the plot. Well, it's hard to find the words to, you know, state our appreciation for your incredible good, good work and all the goodwill that you've nurtured and built over the decades and more than countless lives have been changed for your good work and we will really miss you and look forward to working with you in your new capacity. And really glad to have this time today to hear more about the highlights as you saw them and the work that you've been able to do and your vision. Thanks for your kind words and thanks for your incredible support and collaboration and, you know, huge shout out to Talia and to Sarah who, you know, can over the last, what's it been seven, eight months now for your VISTA service. If, you know, move, move the coalition forward and another, you know, another large, another great step and thanks for, you know, supporting the coalition and for your year of service that you're spending. Great. And for the listeners interested in learning more about the coalition, we have contact information for you here. We have monthly membership meetings. We love you to join us at the membership meetings. We have a very informative website. Please get involved. Please help us move the needle on affordable housing. Thanks so much. We're 501c3 so you can always donate.