 All right, welcome. Good morning, everybody. This is Thursday morning, June 4th, and this is a meeting of the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives in Vermont, and we have with us today our full committee as well as several witnesses that are here from different agencies across the state of Vermont to talk to us about. We've been talking about housing the homeless in response to the COVID crisis and trying to develop a plan based on the coronavirus relief funds to not only get the homeless folks out of the motels that they're in, but into stable living situations and working with rules from the Treasury that are wide open to different interpretations, but we're working with JFO and Legislative Council with that. But I invited Tony Grout from Capstone here today as well as Mary Bolton from the Washington County Mental Health and Angus and Angus. I'm sorry, I'm not sure. I don't want to butcher the organization that you're working with, so I'll let you introduce that when you come on. But I wanted to start with Tony Grout because Tony works for Capstone and does the coordinated entry. We've heard the phrase coordinated entry when it comes to dealing with the homeless population that have been put into the motel so far. And the promise of the coordinated entry is that we will have a better set of data on who these folks are, what their needs are, and how best we can help them. And I just really wanted to have Tony come in and explain that to us in her experiences, what it actually means, and her experiences with that for the last three months. So Tony, I'll pass the microphone right to you and get underway. Thank you for showing up today. Thank you. So I am Tony Grout. I work for Capstone Community Action as stated. We are one of five community action agencies in Vermont. Each community action agency provides some form of housing services, some run shelters, some do not. But we all interface with the coordinated entry system around the state. So coordinated entry, that's the big question right now. Coordinated entry is a system that is designed so that people get fair and equal access to housing. What that means is that someone in the housing world in the Capstone community action, well, all of the housing providers in the state provide housing assessments. And that identifies people's needs. So coordinated entry identifies if people have a short, medium, or long term service need. That means that if they're short term, they don't need a lot of support, maybe under six months just to get back on their feet. If they have a medium term service need, that means that they need somebody to really help them work on some basic skills, or they need a short term, a medium term subsidy, so something up to two years. Long term folks are people who need long term vouchers, they need long term services. So somebody who helps them navigate day to day, neighbor conflicts, they might have serious mental health needs, substance abuse needs. And there's also a portion of them that just can't afford rent long term. So if they're on SSI, the average SSI payment is about 805 in the state of Vermont, their market rents in Washington County are 850 for a one bedroom. So there's just no possible way for them to afford housing without a subsidy or without being in a subsidized unit with a housing authority. So those make up our long term folks. That's the basics of the category. So coordinated entry also identifies housing barriers. So different reasons that people might struggle to get into housing or maintain housing. By identifying those barriers, we're able to match individuals with the best services to make sure that they remain housed once we get them housed. Um, successfully housing people and is more than bricks and mortar. It's not just about an affordable place to live. It really does come back to the services and the collaborations in the community to make sure that every household is supported based on their needs. In the plan that Washington County has put together, we actually suggest that perhaps a COSA model for housing is a fantastic long term suggestion. As we know that services, there will never be enough services for everyone who needs them. And COSA is? Oh, circles of support and accountability. It's a volunteer program that is used for people who are leaving incarceration and re-entering the community. So Rick Dangelis from the Good Samaritan Haven had brought forward this idea of, you know, what if we tried to get together a COSA model, so a volunteer model of people who are interested in providing housing support to households who might need a little bit of help. That obviously wouldn't work for those folks who have serious mental health issues, which, you know, we have identified and we know is a need not only in Washington County, but throughout the state. But for all of those people who fall into that medium term category, who may not have life skills, who may not have those basic conflict resolution skills, the COSA model might be a really great plan. And something a bit more sustainable than simply saying, will you give us, you know, 10 new case managers? That's not really a sustainable plan. So any questions about that before I move on with some numbers? Well, yeah, we do have a couple questions and I'll just start. So do you find that this coordinated entry is, I won't say it's relatively new, but do you find it to be effective in determining, you know, at least in Washington County, I mean, the document that was provided last week, show that there's 230 plus households and there's proposed solutions for those numbers of people. Do you find that the way that you manage the coordinated entry is an effective way of identifying the needs of this population in real time? Yeah, so I will say that, you know, we capstone runs coordinated entry both in Washington County and LaMoyle County, and they support in Orange County. So they're not the lead agency in Orange, but they are active in their local groups. And across all of the counties, we have found that it is a good way to identify individuals and what they need. The silver lining to the coronavirus has been that getting everyone into motels, we really identified all of the housing insecure folks in Washington County and in LaMoyle, people who traditionally have kind of fallen through the cracks. And we have been able to identify not only what kind of services they need, we know what size bedroom apartments they need, we know what kind of income they have. The data we have is the best that we've had in the last five years that I've been running the housing program and coordinated entry in Washington County. I have a question from Representative Walz, then Triano. Thank you, Rob. You mentioned identifying barriers and I'm curious, what are the most significant barriers? Yeah, so often it really depends on which group you're talking about. So our long-term folks, the most common barriers to housing are length of homelessness. So it's really hard to get an apartment if you haven't been housed for the last three, four years. You don't have those rental references. Other barriers involve mental health, drug addiction, trying to think of the biggest ones we see. Those are really, for long terms, the biggest income. We have seniors who, unfortunately, maybe they lose a spouse and they only have their social security income. We see them become homeless and then once they hit that long-term category, they're not eligible for some of the vouchers that are designed for medium-term folks unless they have this sustainability plan, which involves filling out lengthy applications and waiting on subsidized housing wait lists that are one to three years long for a unit. And that's not even section eight vouchers. That's just managed properties. But for our medium-term folks, we see a lot of evictions. A lot of people who, once they get into an apartment, they don't necessarily have those skills to manage them or they just fall in that category of they have income, they're working, but not enough to afford defense. Thank you. You're welcome. Representative Trina. Yes. Thanks for being here today. These categories that you bring to us are actually not a surprise. Over the course of the years, we have surmised that these are the folks that these are the divisions of what we see in the homeless population. I guess, but my question is in COSA, now I'm familiar with COSA. I've worked with some of the volunteers here in Hardwick in my district, and I know a number of them. And I had a 35-year career in the public defender's office, so familiar with corrections as well. So how would this COSA model be modified to accommodate families or do you not anticipate that these are just individual people? I actually anticipate that it could be used for families or individual people. We at Capstone, for those of you who may not know, we run several different areas for housing. We take care of prevention. So folks who are currently housed but may be facing addiction, we run a rapid rehousing section where we help people who are literally homeless get into housing. We also have emergency scattered site units that operate in lieu of a family shelter in Washington County. All of those programs, except for the emergency scattered site units, are also operated in the oil and orange. So we see a lot of folks who honestly just are missing some of those skills. They don't know how to mediate. Some of them were not ever really taught about how to keep their apartment. So we work with a lot of people on, you have to take the trash out every second day, even if it's not full. You have to do the dishes, even if you don't need clean dishes. And those are basic life skills that people forget not everyone has grown up with those expectations. So that's where I see the COSA model coming in. It's for the individuals who need those kind of skills or support, not for the people who need permanent supportive housing or mental health supports. The Family Center of Washington County does a fantastic job with their family supportive housing. So those are folks who need even more intensive services. Those services would be extended to the children as well. I mean, at this point, we have to assure that education needs are being met at this point, especially for the folks that are going in or results of medium homelessness category that have been out for a while and have one or two children that is questionable as to whether or not they're receiving their education or not. That's a real issue for me. Yeah, I think that that's a concern for all of us. You know, a concern not just for the kids, but for the parents who are trying to make sure that their kids are getting access to education. You know, we know a lot of families that the access to the education and completing the schoolwork is extremely important, but they've been put into a situation that they're not actually equipped to handle. Yeah. Yeah. And with scattered internet, that makes it even more complicated that they can't rely on virtual learning through their teachers at this point. So that exacerbates the situation. Right. Well, and we know that a large number of families don't have laptops. They don't have cell phones. We run into that doing the assessments to even get folks onto the coordinated entry list is that a lot of individuals don't have cell phones and even some of the motels in Washington County, they don't have phones in the rooms. So just to get in touch with people, we have to try to catch the front desk person who may or may not be there. And then he's got to walk through the phone, the office phone over to the person's room. And then the assessment takes 40 minutes. So we tie up somebody's phone line. So there's all kinds of technology challenges for sure. Yeah. Thank you. Representative Kalaki. Thank you. I am not familiar with the coastal models. So I'm curious, how large of a network of volunteers are you working with to kind of help provide these services? Yeah. So I should be clear that this is not something that is currently happening. This is part of the Washington County plan to address the future needs of our area. You know, one of the issues that has been highlighted through the coordinated entry process, because that's what we're really talking about is does it work, is that 64 percent of the households we have provided assessments to are long term households. The people who need those services and voucher support for more than two years. Yeah. It's a big number, 54 percent of them. And interestingly enough that it's also 64 percent of the people on the list that have SSI. So a big number of folks who are on this fixed income with really not a lot of options of getting it increasing their income enough to afford apartments. So the coordinated entry process, that's telling us it's painting a really clear picture of how many households need those long term services, how many of them need long term vouchers. And I will say that Vermont State Housing Authority, we work really closely with them. They're fantastic about trying to get vouchers out, prioritizing people for managed properties. But there are limitations. So many of the vouchers are designed for people who are in that medium term category. People who have some kind of prospect for moving off of these temporary vouchers in two years. And now what we know is that 64 percent of people, unless they can get into a managed property, will not move on within two years. And the other piece, I should say that collaboration is cute. And one of the things that has come from the coronavirus and trying to understand who's homeless and how do we move them on, it has really strengthened our relationships with everyone in the community. I mean, it's truly an all hands on deck feeling for us housing providers, Washington County Mental Health, Down Street, the Housing Authority, the Family Center, Pathways, another way, like these are all folks who are working to create plans and to understand the full scope of things. And through that, we have, we've been able to say only it's like a quarter of the people have submitted housing applications. And that's why I brought that up as a real challenge. Because those applications haven't got bigger. So I think what I had heard is that, you know, after the recession, the SNAP application got even longer. These are the standard applications. So we're asking people to fill out 122 pages of housing applications to be put on wait lists that are one to three years long. That's like asking somebody who's dieting to eat crackers to lose 10 pounds in two years. It's just, it feels hopeless to them and they can't get it done. And that's why I bring up that universal application that has already been designed that Down Street is using. That's 15 pages. So if we want people to move into these managed properties so that we don't have to try to find more vouchers, we have to make it attainable for them. We can't ask people who are living on the street to fill out the same information. Okay. Thank you so much. If it's only that, I think that that's a lead into you. You said that was a lead into this kind of what the services are that these that all of you provide, which is sitting next to somebody for hours filling out these applications. But I think you had some numbers that you wanted to share from Washington County. Yeah, I just, you know, the long term piece was a big part of it that there are 64% of the folks are long term. 29% of the households are medium term, which means they don't have a lot of huge housing, negative housing history, but they can't afford an apartment. And, and that being said, you know, that brings up another part that we have kind of talked about, which is to allow folks to roommate, to have single room occupancies. Those are all things that historically have been kind of shunned and we put our values of people's own space. But what we've learned through the coronavirus is that that kind of isolation is really bad for people. You know, some people, yeah, roommates aren't perfect for everyone. But for a lot of people being completely isolated, being in a place of your own when you don't have a natural support system, actually isn't great for their mental health. It isn't great for sobriety. So really identifying how do we, how do we formalize that? You know, how do we take like home shares that matches people? How do we do that in an apartment kind of model? Right? We know that housing is not affordable. So if we can start to split those costs a little bit more, that might help things along. And one of the reasons that came up is that when we looked at the list, there were 92 households that are homeless that have income. So these are not all people with no income and no prospect to pay anything for rent. These are folks, some of them are working. We have at least a dozen that have income of $2,000 or more a month that are still homeless, living in the shelter or on the street. Well, right now, thankfully in the most health. But there are people who can't move along into permanent housing. And so I want to give you, so where can you, do you have more for us? I don't want to like, I don't want to say, oh, let's go to Mary now, because this is all tied in together. And so I'd represent a try and erase this hand here with a question for you, Tony. Hold on a second. So we know that a number of these media, especially the folks that you were just speaking of that actually have an income. I guess more often than not, what we're experiencing or what they're experiencing actually is that when they maybe have come on hard times and become evicted, that first-last and security is an insurmountable amount of money for them to come up with, even though they have income that can pay a rent. So we have heard that first and last, maybe through Legal Aid's hot program would be a solution to some of that. Is that, would that be accurate to say? Sometimes. And we, you know, at Capstone, we do provide security deposits. We can provide first month's rent. We work with folks on that all the time. If they fall behind and they need some support with back rent, we help with that as well. In addition, we provide that housing counseling piece that's necessary to help people. We've got some fantastic financial counselors at Capstone that work on budgets with people. And we try to get them connected to any other services in the community that they might need to be successful. So sometimes it's about back rent. Oftentimes, I think landlords will work with us with back rent if there's a plan. More often, it's that there's another reason. So again, it might come back to those services. They might be behind and rent, but they also maybe might not be the best neighbor or they might not keep their place as tidy as they need to be, need to have it. So oftentimes, there are other reasons. But certainly first, last and security is a barrier. I talked with the Berry City Council about that when they were looking to and successfully allowed first, last and security now. And really just said, if you have a two-parent household that both of them work full-time at minimum wage, they still can't afford it. You're talking about $3,600 to move into a two-bedroom apartment in Berry. So I definitely think that's a challenge. I think before we move on, the last couple of things I'd like to touch on would be that through the coordinated entry process and the collaboration of all of our community partners, we've completed 170 assessments. So we have talked to 170 households and asked them all of the questions, all of the assessment questions, and 82% of those households require studios or one-bedrooms. It's a huge number. And we also know that those happen to be the hardest units to get into and the hardest units to afford if you're a single person. And in our plan, our Washington County plan, which I can share with you guys, we did talk about the need for more permanent supportive housing. We talked about a direct response or a step down from the motel system is important as we move forward, making sure that we keep folks who are medically vulnerable and families housed through this. And the possibility of expanding the Vermont Rental Subsidy Program to include temporary vouchers for that population so that we can move them out of expensive hotels and into apartments and connect them with those case management services. And I think that it's possible. I mean, what we saw after the COVID-19 when it first started, we formed a regional response team. And in Washington County, our numbers were huge. We had 2,403 volunteer hours in Washington County in 52 days. So there are people in Washington County who are willing to step up to provide that support. You know, we kind of, we pulled together between interfaith groups, restaurants and capstone, and we provided 18,199 meals. So big numbers. I think with some creativity, the communities are ready. At least I know Lamoille County is, they have a history of partnering with other people and actually were advisors and helped set up the Lamoille community house, which was, I think Lamoille County's first homeless shelter. That's pretty big news. And the collaboration is here now. The community partners are all engaged, we're all working together every single day. So if there's ever been a time for creativity and really making something happen, it's now. Any other questions? One last one for Tony Chipp. Yes. So all these great things that are in place right now, as you just described and presented to us, my question is, how do we get the number of homeless people, Vermonters, that exist now through your system? What does it take? How much money? How much personnel? What will it take to really take Washington County, and I think you said part of Orange County, that and take these homeless Vermonters and get them placed and get this done. What will it take? Well, I think that's a huge question. And if I had the answer, I probably wouldn't be on this call. I'd be doing something different, right? None of us would be on this call. I do think that there are some amazing strategies. If we were forward thinking and had the resources, I think that seeing the number of folks on SSI, if as a state we said no one who is disabled is going to be homeless, and we said you're a single individual on SSI, here is your managed property, or here is your Section 8 voucher. I think we would see a lot less people in the shelters. I think a lot of people end up in the shelters and in this chronic homelessness because they can't afford an apartment because they are on SSI and they don't have a second income in the household. As far as Washington County, it's connecting people. It's connecting people to resources, it's having smaller, more affordable units. We've been talking a lot with Down Street about the possibility of micro apartments, of implementing those single room occupancies in a thoughtful, beautiful way that says we care about you, and this is going to be the space that you can afford. The real issue is that if you only get 805 for income, you've got to be able to afford a smaller space. How do we do that in a thoughtful way? There are models in Boston that are successful. Caritas communities is in Boston and they have been doing this model of single room occupancies of micro apartments and making affordable living spaces in a typically unaffordable city. It's bricks and mortar, changing what's actually available. It's how do people access services. Again, in the Washington County plan, we have a proposal for a hub, which would have the shelter on the bottom. It would have room for services so that cake management can be handled right there. On the second floor, it would have micro apartments and permanent supportive housing for folks. It would have people's health and wellness clinics because that's really the problem. It's taking folks who are not connected, who feel hopeless, who don't know how to navigate this confusing world of homelessness and housing, and connecting them with all of the people that they need to be successful, and then hopefully moving on. So it's services. We can't just build it and say, it's going to be great if it was all of the private landlords would rent to every homeless person. But what we hear is they don't want to do that because they come with challenges and sometimes significant risks. So we know that services have to be there. We know that collaboration with all of our community partners has to be there. Nope, there's not a single organization that can say, yep, we can take it and we can end homelessness. It's a community response. It really is. So I know that was a little long-winded and maybe not exactly answering your question. It's okay. I think that was a simple yes or no question from Jeff. Absolutely. Thank you, Tony. You're welcome. All right. Thank you, Tony. Please hang out because we'll have a conversation after we hear from Angus and Mary. But thank you for the information. Thank you for sharing the Washington County plan that gives at least and to know for the clarification that it's actually Washington County, La Boyle County and a little bit of a sort of Orange County. Right. So Orange County, we're just not the lead agency, but our Orange County office is very connected with the lead agency there and super active in the continuum of care. So those of you who don't know, you're always welcome to the continuum of care. Every county has one. I'm the co-chair in Washington County, and that's where close to 20 different organizations come together monthly to talk about the situation in each county and to we're basically charged with creating our plan for the community. And every county's got one. So you can be involved in yours. I'm sure that people would love to see you guys there. So thank you, Tony. Mary Moulton, welcome back. Hi. Hi. I'd ask you to come on to really give us some nuts and bolts here. It sounds like, you know, Tony covered a lot of the administrative issues that have that we're facing that everyone faces all the time, but that now is we're moving forward to really put a bit of a spotlight on it to get an understanding. And I just wanted you to come on to share from your agency's perspective the difficulties of people with moderate to severe mental health issues who are trying to find a place and what kind of services have to be provided. I think we've heard a little bit from Tony about why it's hard to get people into private landlord apartments. There's many risks. There's many services that are needed. Most landlords, most private landlords, aren't in the business of social services. So I was just wondering if you could just give us a rundown of what an individual household might face or might need moving forward in tandem, I guess, with this administrative, you know, these 15 to 40 page applications of for housing applications or for food stamps or for SNAP benefits or what have you. Right. So thank you. So for the record, Mary Moulton, Executive Director at Washington County Mental Health Services. And I just want to start by saying I wasn't always an administrative person for those that don't know me. I work as an emergency services clinician in the field for most of my career. And so really did work out doing direct service and learn most of what I know from those that we serve. Tony really spoke really clearly to the problem. It's ominous. And these numbers around long term are more in line with what Washington County Mental Health Services provides on a high end for a certain population, but we also work across different systems and with different providers on an outpatient basis for people falling between the cracks. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the buckets so that you can kind of understand the buckets and some of the shared challenges that we're all having. I also want you to know we're so dedicated to this process that we meet every Saturday morning as a group. And so we are really working to try to figure out how to crack this nut. And one of our greatest two of our greatest challenges, of course, are portable housing and vouchers. So beyond that supports, we know our essential and we do have supports provided those forms that Tony was talking about are filled out by capstone case managers as well. And also by the family center by Washington County. And we have people receiving those case management supports for housing through things through organizations like SAASH supports and services at home as well. So the first group I want to talk about it's the mental health budget really, and it doesn't concern the money that you're talking about. But just so you have a sense, we have people with high needs in our community support programs and they we receive a bundled payment for that and their case management includes housing supports that we have a housing one housing support specialist for 347 people. And just to give you an idea of how hard that person has to work around with case managers not doing it alone but with case managers with the entire community along with landlords. But we also provide employment supports, psychiatry, transportation and community supports for people. So these are folks that have serious mental illness long term needs that third category that Tony mentioned. And you know we have right now in that group of 347 we have 13 people who 13 to 15 who are homeless. I'll tell you about those in a little bit or a couple of them but we two years three years ago we only we actually had eradicated hotel use for that population completely that isn't the case today and I think that speaks really to the housing market and how difficult it is to get into with people who present some real challenges along the lines of having been evicted perhaps having done some property destruction not paying their rent even with the supports we give sometimes this small group and it's as we figure it about three to four percent has real struggle. So the you know the cost of a person that average cost of a person we serve in that program even though we have outliers and we have wraparounds is about 24 to 28 thousand dollars a year and we're really working to keep people out of hospitalization and higher needs of care and helping them live in their communities. So you know hospitalization these days psychiatric hospitalization for years about eight hundred thousand dollars so you know it's a deal when we think about this comparatively that's per person that's right that's right if you go to the Vermont psychiatric care hospital it's seven hundred fifty thousand to eight hundred thousand dollars a year and so you know we're we're of course we have a broader package but that's that's you know that's an average cost and I do want to mention those with developmental disabilities and intellectual disabilities because that's a group of people who before COVID we were really talking about wanting to increase their ability to have vouchers for housing vouchers a lot of those folks live with home providers and so they don't access housing vouchers but they're becoming more independent they're becoming more integrated in the community and so you know I was thinking about that the other day just wanted to share that's another group who really don't access housing vouchers but had within their own advocacy groups are working for that. The next bucket that I talk about are the outpatient and what I call an intensive clinical case management and and maybe mini-wrap capstone does it we do it family center does it but these folks are outpatient service folks and Washington County wasn't involved with housing for those folks several years ago we did therapy an outpatient but people's needs are so great and we now have more of an adult division rather than just a community support program position division and an outpatient division because people may not meet the criteria for that higher wrap I just talked about but their needs are very great they've lost their employment perhaps you know having real struggles with perhaps some symptoms of depression and anxiety in the hotels right now we have a lot of people who are serving throughout patient services and we actually are seeing higher levels of course of depression and anxiety and we have one now two case managers who work with folks in the hotels and one connected closely to the shelter so what what we had put into the proposal that Tony was talking about is some service provision and one clinician through Washington County mental health to to increase our ability to help those folks the numbers are ominous and it's not going to appear in the mental health budget so we we want to work across systems we want to we connect all the time with housing entities landlords and shelters and churches and if we had a position we would be doing that as long as as well as doing some outreach to probably encampments so that's an outreach position that we are seeking so Mary Mary Mary just a quick question though when when one of your providers goes to the Econolodge in particular and says and is making the rounds if you will what is it exactly there how are they interfacing with with the the households there so we so the Econolodge is currently the shelter shelter moved there and there are some people at the hilltop so the person that goes there currently is available to people who want to receive some services receive some supports the there there are case managers helping with housing there so we create a bridge to services perhaps to psychiatry we we had someone recently you know if we find someone in crisis we get them into what we call urgent care and we created an urgent care division several years ago so that position actually will assist people who we determine with them need some mental health supports some substance use supports perhaps and will knit the services together so that they can give them transportation to where they need to go and our clinician even through COVID was on site at the Econolodge and just placed himself in a common area and there was a lot of space so social distancing could be had and people accessed him through that we also had three people die during this period of time at the hotels I don't know if you're aware of that not I believe COVID related but we found a number of people and Tony could tell us the percentage that are over 60 years old or homeless and so anyway we had three deaths and we were able to do a grief group with folks there with Ricky Angelis and we we work very closely with the shelter through that clinician so that's that's what we currently do supports and bridging and services and then that continues we do have we are connected with some vouchers if you get a voucher you also have services within the voucher and those could be you know a low touch not in you know an easier touch to a more extensive touch so we follow through with that outpatient case manager to people when they're housed to help them to maintain that housing along with all of our partners the I mentioned the family supportive housing model and that's through family center Tony mentioned that as well and I know representative Triana you asked about what services that they are providing so I reached out to them and just to ask what they're doing currently so it's a weekly meeting with families they provide life skill management include budgeting savings account matching with Norfield Savings Bank they do parenting support and we've got a number of people a number of families and hotels so they're reaching out they attend DCF meetings they do safety planning nutrition support and they are supporting parents and accessing substance use services and food diapers right now big diaper drives phone card minutes and help with back bills auto repairs so that there's transportation these are all things that this village of case managers are doing together and that's the families the highest need group I want to point out are the wraparounds and wraparounds are those in our definition at washington county mental health of wraparounds are 24 seven supports and there's a price range so these people say at the hotel if we find you know they they are needing psychiatric hospitalization they are they have are evicted from their housing if we have a space where we could do 24 seven supports for them when they come out so that they can get back on their feet and transition back either independent housing or as Tony said a shared housing arrangement whatever will work for them that's what we want to support so wraparounds come with that that support from psychiatry from 24 seven staff these people perhaps have had histories of psychosis violent behaviors property destruction and so we might be spending as a state $125,000 to $250,000 a year on people if they need a one on one in order to get back on their feet but again think of that annual psychiatric hospitalization cost and we're still under that cost and that also comes from the mental health budget we have as I mentioned these 13 people and just to give you an example of folks that we might find in any of these settings we had one person who was recently at the hotel she was discharged from Rutland hospital really needed level two care a nursing home care but they needed to move her from the hospital I don't think if we didn't have COVID in she wouldn't have been moved she would have stayed there but it's kind of like a push to have people moving through the system but in three days she had fallen four times she was not able to navigate within the hotel she screamed for four to five hours before someone finally called for an ambulance she is now on her 24th day being in the emergency room and she is in line for a nursing home bed so that's someone who went to a hotel and again we have this this element of elders she is one of those I will tell you that it'll take a year for us to find a bed for her and a nursing home in Vermont and maybe we won't find one here we'll probably have to send her to New Hampshire so she's moved out of the emergency room today and she's going to be going into a hospital bed we have three or four people in our crisis beds right now we have four crisis beds every person's homeless so we are challenged with finding them housing in our crisis bed they're 24 seven we have another person in the emergency department who just got evicted from a community care home and that was for smoking and fire hazard so that person is is in the emergency room and then we have six people actually currently in hotels receiving some services from economic services as well as us so that's a lot for us on this high needs and we do not have any more dollars for these high needs wraps that really probably every one of these people could use in order to get the support just to get back on their feet and into a living space that's healthier we had another woman who was at the hilltop and just her anxiety was off the chart because she was so frightened there there's a lot of noise and hollering and she couldn't maintain so we were able to move her to one of our crisis beds and she remains homeless so another example of some of the challenge and what the numbers of people that we have who will be stuck or are stuck in the system so you know those are buckets intensive case management to wrap around service and as tony said there's a lot of folks on that side also you know 50 someone percent in that medium flow who we could really you know we're probably doing some outpatient service or capstone is or family center and we can we got a really good shot at helping them the hub idea is is an area where we think we have a lot of hope for being able to have a dignified place for people to come where we can bridge our services together where we can work better together so that we're not being redundant in any of our services and I actually don't think we do that as much as we work on coordination it it really takes quite a lot of us to wrap these folks in a way into what they need and so you know everyone needs a different touch and I think what we recognize if is that we need to respect those different and different levels of needs that might come up and and we know as a system and I just want to say this because tony mentioned the sharing we have a program called the nest and people live together and do quite well there actually for people in an apartment and they they learn life skills and they go on sometimes to live together and it's not it's not the states certainly hasn't been forte to believe that we should have shared housing units it's really an aspiration we have for people and I've done this for a very long time and getting old and we have aspired for people to live independently it's a we it's a wonderful thing think of you know we some of us live alone but not not always and sometimes not usually and so I'd like us to examine that aspiration and tony and I've talked about this in our group and allow for people to do some shared arrangements and that would help us to get people housed better so I kind of leave on that note as we talk about our buckets and needs for people and um take questions as you might have them great thank you so much Mary um I have two lined up here representative try uh representative triano and then waltz thank you Mary it's good to see you again and um you know I heartbeat is in my district and I I'm a friend of theirs and when I see what they do with these with developmentally disabled adults um I'm inspired it's just wild how those folks live and when I sit with them at lunch and they tell me how great it is to collect eggs in the morning and you know so it's just a really a fantastic model and I'm just inspired by it but the questions I have uh just a few um in the grant services that you refer to those come from your CRT budget is that uh safe to say yes yes with the exception of the outpatient piece okay and um our is that budget sufficient to see what you're dealing with right now or to deal with what you're seeing now I should say no no no my my point um thank you uh representative triano my point and those that are homeless is that um we have one housing specialist and we don't have um we have a struggle with getting affordable housing units to open up we're really working hard at relationship with landlords and we're trying to be innovative as much as we can so I think we have a couple of ideas that are hopeful around supporting them and we have what's called a housing contingency fund housing contingency fund that we receive for our CRT population or in our bundle now that we receive from Department of Mental Health allows us to pay back rents or help with property destruction or whatever might be and we eat that up really quickly I think one thing we might think about is that not all agencies eat that whole bundle up and it would be great to see what's left on the table and perhaps share around for those that aren't using it all just the other question that was just curious if you have any knowledge of you talked about mental health services and we all we all at least I've heard that of the increased depression anxiety as a result of this COVID shutdown and people as as we heard that mental health and substance abuse issues are often exacerbated by isolation and that's really been an issue have you have you been well can you tell me that whether some of these crises that are happening are existing mental health conditions that are exacerbated by COVID or are they episodic as a result of being hunkered down for three months do you have a handle on those numbers Mary well I we're beginning to see an increase and we don't have numbers yet except an outpatient where we've seen an increase in services of about 20% of those that I would say are wanting some supports around how to live in isolation but we saw increases in psychosis within the third week of those with serious mental illness and we are now seeing more of a surge we had hardly anyone in the er's for the first you know several weeks we had nine people waiting for beds last weekend at Central Vermont Medical Center and I would say that's directly related to people really trying to do the very best they could even with many touches that we provided to stay in isolation is extremely difficult and exacerbates those conditions that's what I thought thank you senator walls yeah thank you Mary I have a question dealing with long term and and housing vouchers and it strikes me some of the population you're talking about the really the developmentally delayed for example in the really seriously mental mentally ill folks might have issues that are going to go on for decades potentially and just how does that work with housing vouchers do they have to constantly reapply no they they so there's a department of mental health provides a housing voucher for many of our folks and Tony I always get these mixed up but it's shelter plus care help me out of yeah shelter plus care oh yeah so yeah they're so close in the way that they're named and then there's housing subsidies so yeah so shelter plus care is what our folks get and they they have case managers that assist them with reviews on that but they hold on to those vouchers and we're very fortunate with the department of mental health to be able to access that level of voucher it what I'll say about the vouchers is and this is this is not for the long term because they they get vouchers it's for those that fall between the cracks the flexibility within the vouchers I just wish there was more flexibility and not everybody wants to engage with services and we really recognize that and I'd love to bust the stigma and we really work on that and say hey just you know we'll give you a little bit of help but the voucher requires that there is a certain level of assistance and the vouchers off and in the outpatient world can be directly related to the level of assistance the amount of the voucher to the level of assistance that's provided so that value can shift based on the person's engagement and really do wish there was more flexibility involved there and do you have a specific proposal for that or I do Angus or Tony might you know Angus work in this all right field thank you Mary I could jump in with that we have discussed as a community the idea of having a non categorical case manager so somebody a housing case manager housed at capstone who is not a specific mental health provider but who has access to clinical supervision from Washington County mental health so that people who either don't recognize that they have a mental health disorder or who for whatever reason are just not willing or able to engage in that level of services right now could come to capstone where it's you know normal folks who do housing support and they can get the long-term needs met at capstone so that is our our hope our proposal yeah our hope in our proposal for the folks who who just can't engage on that level with Washington County thank you Tony I'm going to pop right over to Angus Angus welcome back thank you very much I think I can you hear me now yes great so good to see you all again for the for the zoom record my name is Angus Janie I'm the executive director of homeless prevention center and just for some context we're a community-based nonprofit and we've served 500 Vermonters last year who are homeless or risk of homelessness and we celebrated 20 years of service to our community we're understandably busy as both Tony and Mary have alluded to at the moment as we try to not only assess a very large number of people who are in motels as a result of COVID-19 but then ultimately work to help them get rehoused I'll provide some data on that in a little in a little bit I would say fortunately we have to to keep doing this work we have to really focus on what is working and not be demoralized by the scale of the challenge so I would say fortunately we have a number of case management programs at HPC we're we're a specialty agency so we've got a supportive housing program for families that's been mentioned family supportive housing housing first program for individuals with more complex needs also got lighter touch prevention and rehousing programs for people whose crisis can be resolved with for instance financial assistance in short-term technical assistance also the landlord liaison and a small housing navigation program that's new for us that's targeted to serve young adults 18 to 24 as well as a transitional housing program for offenders and a few emergency apartments that we use for short-term shelter so when a client needs services beyond what I just mentioned we have partnerships and systems in place to make those connections and we were encouraged to see we we undertook a fairly large push recently to outreach everybody we contact at the motels and I would say encouraged to see that many of the people we met there won't need longer-term case management but it's certainly technical assistance it's the move-in cost it's maybe a subsidy and then certainly access to a unit one of the frustrations which perhaps you have seen or the administration sees is it really is about bringing these things up in parallel you can dump endless amounts of case management on a community but if there aren't the units then it's not well-spent you could do the same thing with just the units or just the subsidy right and I know you're all familiar with that idea of getting the the balance right on your services your financial assistance and your access to units I did I am going to send these notes on after we finish up the the hearing I'll send these notes on if people are trying to keep up with notes I want to summarize I was sort of clarifying what we were talking about today with Ron yesterday and it sounds like it would be good to sort of get into this idea this this broad term of homeless services and I think both Tony and Mary have explained it really well so I didn't disagree with anything they said I'm also just going to share you know Rutland County perspective and HPC perspective how we make sense of this big array of services and I'll focus on the ones we're able to provide here and then certainly can try to field questions on those services provided by partner organizations I think where you want to start and this will this will go right back to Tony's great introduction around accordion entry start by taking the assessment and breaking that off separately from case management so we'll sort of do this sequentially as if you were a client coming into the system of care and I want to talk about what that assessment is about the the reason for it is really to establish and to establish eligibility and prioritize people for the various housing programs that are out there so that's okay it can be financial assistance subsidy and services provide a more complete understanding of the whole family short and long-term needs and help us learn from their history what about our collective approach may need to be modified to improve results we're going to elicit a lot of information during that assessment I think when it's done well it's a conversation but I can also understand if I put myself in the shoes of somebody being assessed and I'm a you know upper monitor and I kind of keep to myself and I I can really question why we'd be at we'd be asking all the questions that we do with people the goal is not to pry into people's lives and make them uncomfortable the goal is to sort of break a cycle of homelessness perhaps and say this will be more work at the front end this might even feel like a delay but ideally you're not back here a year from now or two years from now because we're the goal is to match you with the program that's going to serve you best so that's in a nutshell assessments and that and we can certainly so one of our challenges is just as a homeless services agency keeping up with the volume of people who have been in motels I was talking to our program supervisor this morning and I would estimate you know as of today we've assessed roughly half of all the households who are homeless in Rutland County which means that that could mean lots of things about how why we can't contact the other half or what they're either their challenges are our challenges are to completing that but the data that I share around who is homeless and what their needs are just remember that's maybe only half the story and until we get through that assessment we wouldn't know answers to questions like what size apartment will they need what type of services will they need for how long etc to give you some scale of that assessment work we haven't gone at the case management yet two we've completed 262 of those assessments in Rutland this year since since the start of the state fiscal year and 85 households moved off the master list that's the county level list of everybody who's homeless moved off the master list into permanent destinations so hang on to that because you're going to need some good news as we talk through the reality of where of where we are in Vermont right now and I I don't want to leave out I don't want people to come away thinking that this is this is hopeless and let's just go solve another problem because we don't know where to begin with this one but I will say just to give you some sense of the scale before we were able to get information about this group that's in motels and I think you all know why why everybody was in motels and not other shelters and not on the streets so I won't go into that our understanding prior to COVID-19 was that there were roughly 37 households who were homeless in Rutland County on the master list and it's jumped to let's see I think it's 109 households today and we know that isn't everybody we know that we haven't been able to connect with 100 of the people who are in motels so I want to shift to case management now the assessment is really the first step now in this HUD required state developed approach of coordinated entry so let's talk about case management and the other thing I want to add is that not everybody who's homeless needs case management if we can help somebody stabilize without um enrolling them in a long-term program let's be honest who wants to be in a program we'd much other have housing than another program so if we can do that we do and and we're we've developed a lot of uh agility in the last two years to say no let's not do a full enrollment let's let's move move let's get some moving costs out the door let's do some technical assistance with uh housing search and brokering with landlords and so we have a number of staff here who are really good at that housing navigation so really quick through case management and then I'm going to split that into three areas if you'll bear with me so case management what I see um and that that's a big part of what our organization is doing we are identifying a client's goals and barriers getting their goals early is is so key to getting them engaged with it the successes that I brag about are very much the successes of our clients as much as anything else so identifying goals and barriers developing strategies that are customized to those goals and barriers providing technical assistance as I alluded to and support to help uh client achieve those goals and then other goals so um all still under the broad category of case management um housing case management let's talk about you know assisting with applications finding housing that's big right accessing subsidy and securing moving costs another piece of this is that as we develop rapport with clients that we're working with we get to know them better we get to know some of the other areas outside housing in which they want assistance so some of those other other domains which are also going to be critical to their stability either critical to convincing a landlord to take a chance or keeping them attendant and good standing once they're leased up so that's going to include accessing benefits which is a job in itself right completing education securing employment increasing income or savings and improving credit accessing mental health or substance abuse treatment so those are really broadly and probably leaving a lot out that's how we we view case management here just to really get geeky with it for a minute when we talk about housing case management this is what i'm talking about it's three areas of homelessness prevention housing navigation and rehousing and housing retention i know that this committee is really well versed in a lot of this approach but i'm just going to quickly run through again if for anybody's new or wants a refresher so homelessness prevention is really just what it sounds like it's financial assistance in case management with the goal of preventing homelessness for a household at imminent risk right in our world you've really got to demonstrate that imminent risk it's not broadly speaking upstream work number two housing navigation and rehousing identifying new housing for people who cannot stay where they are or already homeless and this can include accessing subsidy getting moving costs together and getting a client through the lease up process think of that lease up process as a demarcation point because the work we're going to do after that is housing retention this has been the big shift I would say nationwide in the last decade is to invest in housing retention and not stop all the work when someone signs a lease but to realize we can break cycles of instability by providing the right amount of services post lease up not smothering people with it but not but being available with the supports they need and this is again where housing focused case management morphs into other areas so this is where you're going to learn that oh someone had an untreated chronic condition that that they hadn't had a chance to deal with it hadn't risen to their level of urgency and so we're we might be connecting people with people who can provide those services and working on parenting and assisting with getting people counseling and I'll just just to give you sort of a rough sense of scale of the last two I mentioned the navigation rehousing and the housing retention this is currently a snapshot we're providing that housing navigation rehousing to 59 households that's over 110 people and that housing retention is a different 64 households that's over 130 people I know there was interest in sort of where do we draw the lines especially as we think about federal uh allowability with with special funds and what we so I want to be clear about what we do and what we can't do um or at least aren't currently trained to do so we're definitely as I mentioned a specialist organization we assist about housing I would say most of our staff if not almost all of our staff are able to provide housing case management but what we're looking is we're developing programs based on the need that we see in Rutland and then we're recruiting based on people who might have a special skill set train your interest in that population so we've got people who come to work for us who have not only an interest in helping people are homeless but a real knack for working with families and kids and so they're going to naturally be in our family support of housing program same would be true for a corrections program or a housing first program that we run in partnership with a the local designated agency to provide supports of people with mental illness or substance abuse I know there's interest in sort of how how intense these services are and I've got to say there's no one answer the intensity and duration of services varies widely both within program and then even down at the individual level so we have people when we go back and read our case notes we can see we were working with them every day on something and the truest statement would be to say they were in crisis prior to being housed and then they had some crisis even after they were housed and then that same person or family we may jump ahead a year and they're doing great you know they're stable and all the domains that we're measuring and we're checking in with them just once a month and who knows after time we can even transition to full you don't need us anymore and that's sometimes interesting as you would guess if you've got a background in human services that can be tough for both the client and the case manager sometimes when you're sort of ending that long that relationship that's developed over time and we always try to say we're going to be here if things change and don't be shy about getting back in touch with us the lastly here I'm winding down we don't provide we don't directly provide health services and we don't assist with activities of daily living and such as bathing that sort of thing we don't provide clinical treatment we're not licensed to do that so we're working with our partners to make sure our clients have all the services that they need so coordinate entry helps us do that but but it's no substitute for just knowing who your who your local players are and developing good working relationships with them so that you can make those referrals and I think we've been really lucky in Rutland County as much as we struggle like every county for the grand solution that is that will end homelessness I think people are doing a fantastic job here of bringing what they can to the table of approaching this in with a solution in mind as opposed to judging people and I'm I'm excited to work in in Rutland County and get the buy-in from all the different partners here and so that for instance there was a question around sash and so we would it just makes it that much better when we have someone who we know is homeless and would also benefit from sash type services I'm in touch with Kevin Loso with the Housing Authority and we're sort of talking that through and making sure that that would be a seamless transition or somebody who might be able to get services from an area agency on aging and we're maybe have some special options about where we can apply for housing we've made great use of these mainstream vouchers in Rutland these are a great tool if your community isn't pursuing them they should so that's a federally backed subsidy for people who were non-elderly disabled it happens that a lot of our clients are in that position but for whatever reason they're slightly easier to access than a federal shelter plus care or a department of mental health subsidy and care so they've been a real they've helped us so much recently that we're running out of one bedroom apartments now because it was typically one bedroom households who qualified for those so now we have a lot of vouchers on hand we've got great partnerships in place and all of us are beating the thickets for one bedroom units particularly ground floor accessible last piece here administrative work there was a question on are the services we provide administrative I wasn't exactly sure what what what the committee's question was on that but I'll as we sort of thought about what we do we thought of maybe five areas that that would qualify so administration of short and medium term rental subsidy this year we've directly provided over 180,000 from our budget to provide client financial assistance and that's not including what we leverage and access for clients outside like state and federal subsidy client case noting is administrative at least it feels it it's it's important work and something people have to try to do with the end of their day recertifications attending team meetings and then lots and lots of data entry and so that's the world we live in that's probably the toughest part of the work is make keeping the computers happy after the end of the work day but it's stuff that has to happen so that we can continue to do the work we're doing and act continue to access the other assistance outside our organization so that's most of what I had I was basically not in my head to what the other two witnesses were saying it's consistent in terms of the the percentages of what Tony was presenting around the scale of the challenge the the general percentages of where people are falling in terms of meeting short medium or long term I really empathize with the challenge that Mary talks about that's really poignant and I once again I think I'll leave you with a positive we in one week with this mad push with everybody trying to do assessments as well as provide case management during COVID we housed rehoused six families that were homeless within 30 days we've also rehoused within the last couple weeks we've rehoused two men who were chronically homeless and a lot of I think a lot of the community assumed that would always be the case and next week we're going to house another one of those men so three chronically homeless individuals who have keys to their own apartments within 30 days really feels good and I just wanted to share that with you so thank you very much for for asking me to sort of present on this and take any questions at the committee or chairs pleasure I have one I've represented a triangle but before that just do you know offhand Angus um what the vacancy rate is in Rutland these days so you said you were running out of one bedroom apartments and I'm just curious not only in terms of what you would need but also when we start thinking about the enhanced VHIP program that the government that the administration has proposed in terms of bringing offline apartments online what's what's the vacancy rate right now that in Rutland I'm not as current on the local vacancy rate as I'd like to be but I think what's even more important is how many units are are available that are both under HUD's FMR and will meet housing quality standards that's the only pool we're interested in so a vacancy rate of a high-end um condo that's or or something so substandard that we can't with good conscience put somebody in there I sort of take those out of the mix and I'm we're looking at that intersection of there's enough quality but the cost is reasonable and I I it had it does change over time what's interesting is that I'm here I've been here just long enough to see that flip when I started here there were a lot of one bedrooms had a really hard time finding twos and threes for families and people told me that would flip and I didn't believe them and sure enough they were they were correct it's now it's the ones we can't find so we're potentially people who are looking at over being over housed a couple that would be looking at a two-bedroom beach just because they can't find a one that that makes me feel queasy because I know that we could get more people in that apartment if you will but I don't have a great answer Rep Stevens on the on the true vacancy rate for the county. No that's fair thank you Representative Trana. Hi thanks for coming today Angus I feel like I should use the Scottish accent when I said your name but so where do you get your referrals from? So when we analyze this we analyze this a couple times a year the majority of our referrals are our self-referrals so we're well known enough in the community that people are calling 775-9287 and then you know when we look at when we break out among everybody else a lot historically a lot from economic services that's been fewer recently and then we're still figuring out why but and then probably evenly split you get down into the single digits you get you're looking at the Rutland Regional Medical Center you're looking at other providers like us who know that we're the specialist agency United Way uh-huh that's good to know um the other question is you mentioned housing three homeless, practically homeless men in the past week or so do you rely on your local mental health agency for services for those folks? How does that work? We've got it we've got two um two options for for serving that population and actually more than that I would say um if you have a mental illness and are homeless it in Rutland County it's not that you're guaranteed to end up in a program for people who are homeless with mental illness we're probably serving people in that group across every program which I think is important in terms of mainstreaming um we have learned over time that um we can when we really focus and reduce caseloads and build up training that it makes sense to have some specialist programs as well in our uh in Rutland we have at least of the ones we're involved in involved with we have the PATH program and we have the welcome home partnership that we do with Rutland mental health and so sometimes it's just um the vagary of which subsidy landed in which which opened up which door or it's where we have capacity but uh together I'm thinking roughly 30 people that are served between those two programs and it looks a lot like a housing first um program but it relies more on partnerships as opposed to a unilateral agency approach yeah good that's very good thank you representative Howard thank you very much first of all I would like to say thank you to Mary Tony and Angus for the work that you do it is just it's heart wrenching for me to think about homeless people especially children being housed in a motel um so thank you thank you all for the work you do um I also wanted to mention um Angus that I've had recently a couple conversations with the director of the united way and she has informed me of the collaboration between the agencies you know with yourself and Kevin Loso and um and I think that's great I really do um thank you again for for for what you do I appreciate it there wasn't a question there was her Mary all right well thank you um thank you Angus and Tony and Mary and again you um this has been very informative this is kind of what I wanted to hear um I wanted our committee to hear um again the hardest part moving forward between now and starting to utilize the corona relief funds for housing purposes or for housing the homeless purposes is going to be this service component and I mean these one and a half of the legs of the stool really um and making sure that it gets out to agencies like yours in a way or first of all to find out to try to convince people that we can use it this way or get permission to use it this way and then um because it's it's clear that we at the ground level certainly know how to get it done and it sounds like you know the arguments have always been about capacity whether it's been real estate or whether it's been services and so that's this is what we're trying to do Tony thank you for filling us in on what the coordinated entry is I mean gives me confidence to know that if we you know as we start to build these programs that we'll be able to look at the coordinated entry program and say well we you know yes we have 2000 individuals or 1500 households but maybe we only need 600 new units or whatever the number is that you know to go across or or Angus as you said if it's um if it's first last you know if it's a rental situation and then Mary I think you mentioned medium supports medium time or Tony you know the ability to be trained on how to be a tenant um those I'm confident that we can find that information by calling the right people to really hone it down which sort of makes it and Angus I appreciate your positive outlook and what we can do and what we have done it really takes the pressure off of the the size of the issue that's in front of us but again with knowing that this is the information that we have and it's the best information we've had about this population ever I'm hoping we take advantage of that and really develop the programs that we need I think in my experience it's been very difficult to convince other people that the problem exists um to a bigger size than what we knew but also on all echo Mary's comments it's just been um thank you for the work that you do and for them and for the Michigas you have to put up with the legislature in order to get your work done please feel free to stay um during this part of the conversation we're going to talk about what is in front of us as a committee as we um based on the information that I was I received yesterday so um switching gears committee I'm gonna read most of the email that I received from the speaker yesterday um so the speaker and and the senate portem had been working um and in consultation with the administration over time of course but that um about what the general assembly's response should be using the using the 1.25 billion dollars that we received from the federal government to address the COVID crisis and we've had a lot of conversation in this committee about how we know that there's an element of the service component of our work that is going to be hard to get approval for but that said um this is this is what the the speaker shared with me yesterday um so there are two targets um it's critical to get crf money into the hands of hermonters as quickly as possible the process is an attempt to give this process is an attempt to give you some guidance on approximately how much money your committee has to consider there are two targets given the first block of money is for your top priority items that are the most critical and the most time sensitive across all committees this adds up to a total of five hundred and seventy five million dollars this will become effective upon passage and will be available for hermonters as soon as possible the second block of money is a total of four hundred million million for the committee's purposes this is for second tier priorities or if you choose additional money for first priority projects this will have to wait for available funds right now this 400 million dollars is being held back to be able to fill the holes in august in the ed fund which is 150 million dollars the general fund which is 200 million and transportation funds which is 48 million in case the federal rules change to allow that if the u.s senate agrees to some version of the heroes act which was passed by the house and more money becomes available for states while we're adjourned in july and august the emergency board will be authorized to allocate these funds according to legislation the door quickly is key to making sure it can help for mantra board expires on december 31st be aware that as of the speaker's last conversation with the administration they are recommending that all funds spending all funds now while gambling with larger holes in the budgets in august so for the big picture 275 million dollars has already been allocated joint through the joint fiscal process through budget adjustment of transitional budget and the municipal lending bill 400 million dollars is being held to fill budget holes or for the second tier committee priorities leaving 575 million dollars for first tier committee priorities for the committee on general housing and military affairs your targets are for your first tier priority appropriations 75 million dollars and for the second tier priority appropriations 50 million dollars this amount is for any crf proposals recommended by your committee including any or all of the governor's proposals that you support these amounts allow you to get to work but there are no promises we may have to rebalance the committee target numbers as we move through the process the goals we established at the outset of the shutdown were to protect the health of her monsters to meet the help meet the basic needs of her monsters and establish a path to a strong economic recovery all with an eye towards how we could apply some of this money to put us in a better position in 2021 and beyond this speaker repeats that these numbers are iterative they are targets so that you have a sense of what magnitude you're working with if your committee comes up with something very impactful outside your budget we can reevaluate on the other end of the spectrum if your committee is struggling to find one-time COVID related investments that can be completed by December 31st that fit the ever-narrowing federal parameters it's totally fine to say that we have three projects spending just as much money and the rest should go to something more in line with current needs thank you for your continued dedication to the people in state we serve so that's that's where we are the money that is listed is I think very generally in line with what we've been talking about if we were to do nothing more than what we heard from the administration and what we've heard from the hcb in particular others we'd be at close to 90 million dollars which include actually just over 90 million dollars which included services that we which still include services that we may not be able to use the money for so we're actually in theory without any further review which I think is not what we're going to do we're going to review top to bottom what we're able to do with the money but we're very close to that first target and then the second tier is and to me is an interesting concept of it's it's where we have to balance off for instance to use as an example if we were to just push forward the administration's proposal for rental assistance and eviction protection at 40 to use that number 42 million dollars and we know that that money would be available to you be used for evictions or backgrounds starting from May 1 until December 30th if that's what we decided that that's the range the question is do you an example of the questions that are in front of us is do we say in tier one 30 million dollars goes to rental eviction protection and then plan on an extra 12 million dollars or whatever might be needed in when we when we find out in August you know and if if if we have the money to spend on tier two so those are the converse those are the kinds of conversations that we're going to have I think over the next several over our next several meetings we have three scheduled we have tomorrow from one to three we have Tuesday our normal 11 to one and then on Wednesday we have we were the schedule on Wednesday was changed to accommodate the fact that the deadline for us to get this information to appropriations is noon next Wednesday we'll be meeting at 8 30 on Wednesday morning from 8 30 to 10 30 on the 10th and that's when we'll wrap up our our work on this on this essentially portion of the bill so with that I'm gonna unmute everybody if everybody wants to um have a conversation about what you just heard uh let's we can we can be freeform or you can raise your hand and we'll just um go around the circle here are we dumbfounded yes yeah we stunned I guess my plan isn't necessarily around what we heard today but um just going through the details in the draft with David Hall what's the timeline for that um I suspect we're going to be able to finally get him on Friday he has been he has been hard to get but he he will have had by the time we see him on Friday he will be able to follow up on conversations with the conversations he's had with commerce and he will be able to guide us more I mean so much of this is um when I was able to talk to him briefly this week he reminded just like s333 what we're working on is session law so it's law that is specifically that that's in effect specifically from now from the time it passes and gets signed into law until the time we say it ends so it's not it's not deep-seated statute um like we this again this is approaching it just like we did and with s333 this is basically saying here is here is this program here is this money this is how it has to be spent and this is how we you know so we'll we'll get him on we'll get him on Friday okay because that's I mean we've been taking all this testimony but I really and I understand why all of these stakeholders and individual parties are coming in to discuss this with us but I just haven't seen any real structure or walk through the structure with any any depth to understand how this stuff's going to apply to it um you and me both but you know it's not alone no um what we have heard from from um the administration and from the uh advocates are requests to be considered and um and so that's that's where we are now I mean there are going to be elements of this that the for me the difficult part is to say well how do you administer the 42 million dollars for for rental assistance do you yeah I think under under a different circumstance we might say well capstone needs 150 000 and and NECA needs 150 000 and and you know OEO and Champlain might need 500 000 I mean that those are individual things but I think that we're thinking broader than that like like what one agency can handle those requests rather than us making that decision in in our time you know where where there's processes that say you know capstone may know how to deal with a different organization in terms of and hopefully it wouldn't be a 15 or 30 page application for the amount of money that they needed to do it so so we're all you know we have we we have a breakdown from from VHCB is 21 million dollars enough for the capital purchases that they've been talking about is 25 I mean we heard from we heard from Jonathan Bond this week we heard we did not hear from Angus but I know that in Rutland there's a project that may be one or two different motels that might be turned into almost hub type situations as as was discussed earlier I I don't think we're in a place where we're doing those line items but we're trying to give VHCB the amount you know so that they're the agency that deals with it and I and I understand that be given the time constraints that we're under with this I mean trust me I with the the people that I'm speaking to in housing and also just the financial components on the economic relief side for the impacted businesses like trust me I'm like let's let's put the pedal down and get this moving I'm just trying to understand right now like you just said it's like is are we doing a bigger construct for the larger organizations to carry more responsibility with how to attic allocate it I just you know we're at Wednesday right or Thursday right now and I'm just trying to figure out which way the like sort of scheduling ship is being steered to get this done on time it is going to be fast thinking and the only the only thing that you know is that this does still have to go to the Senate so if we made egregious errors in our calculations then then there's another place where it may go it'll be on the floor and so you know we will discuss this on the floor so it is um no it is it's it's um it's interesting I think and and the I think the biggest issue that is the the biggest possible wrench in the works is the federal government and the treasury suggestions I mean they're not even rules they're not even regulations they're just suggestions that the treasury is doing so it's not like it's law they're just saying you know Matt you can take the car but you can't go to bury you know and you're doing the same thing with like the cares act stuff with the with the idol and the pvp stuff it's like every couple of weeks you get new interim rules yeah you know a kind of our point counterpoint with what the previous rules were as soon as you're done interpreting them they change them no I hear you right and so we may be in a position where we put together a package of of protections and I and I would you know and one of the things that I say when I talk about things in draft forms I say put a bracket around something right so there's something that you can identify as it could be deleted or the decision hasn't been made on it would be you know I mean I want to keep any requests we make for services out in the open but at noon on Wednesday if we don't have a ruling on it that we can use it in this way then it comes right out it has to come right out we can't force you know the the there's not a lot of momentum to just do what we want and then sort it out later we have to be responsible with it so representative walls yeah well a couple of things Tom first of all I'm kind of I'm kind of follow along with what Matt was just saying I just wonder if the easiest way forward for us now is just to go with our provision traditional providers and split up the money but I want to be clear on the tier one tier two it sounds like a certain amount of money is being set aside for tier two in order to get clarification from the feds is that what I urge you say yes yes so there's we have holes in our budget due to the COVID crisis right and that's what was listed out 48 million in the transportation fund which maybe because maybe partially because we're just not driving so there's not a lot of taxes being collected or it may just changes in what the federal government can give clearly 150 million dollar hole in I think that was 150 million dollar hole in the property in the education fund and then there was a 200 million dollar hole in what was the third piece the 200 million dollar hole in the general fund right now the rules are the treasury rules are that we cannot spend the money for these projects right okay yes and I understand that so so this is just a set aside and if it turns out to the feds saying no no no absolutely you can't do any of those things and potentially that money could become available to us to do more of what we're trying to do yes and so our job in the tier two portion again is to decide you know maybe is to decide whether or not we have secondary priorities or it's second considered a secondary funding um in ways that again maybe by august services will be allowed uh the the ones that we're seeking maybe they'll say yes these are capital services and these are necessary for the financial viability of any new purchases that you make in order to house the homeless and it's very specific it's not about creating capacity for any other group of people that we do this work for you know it really is specifically to increase you know the health and public safety of the homeless population now that's a double-edged sword right because you're you're increasing capacity in order to do that um but it is this specific and david will be able to break it down a little bit for for us but you'll get as frustrated as as I think as leadership is as as we all are in terms of um what the definitions of the words mean and also again um again how the money can be used and what's necessary so august silly can come in and say well we do projects this way and so and it's allowed with with with federal money but this bill this cares act is not allowing it that way so that is a big that is a big um and I've said this a month ago where I'm anxious about going down into the rabbit hole of solving some really long-standing problems then to be told later that we can't do it that way and yet here we are on the precipice of the rabbit hole still without guidance that we can really really trust so um you know one pill makes it larger and all that so um representative zot I think actually you kind of you kind of covered what my apprehension is around this because it without knowing the services side of things it does seem a little sketchy to be allocating money for housing that will ultimately fail if it doesn't have the services associated with it and so is there some way that we're going to setting aside the cares are the crf money all together is there a way that we can work in concert with human services or do we know what appropriations is going to be doing with the general fund money to in terms of supporting these services and has there been any discussion of deficit deficit spending here and here in the economic situation in the state and then maybe there needs to be some serious discussion about doing some deficit spending in this arena so I'm not aware of any ideas about deficit spending that we we are we pride ourselves I guess on being the only state that allows ourselves to deficit spend if necessary but we don't so I don't I have not been privy to that conversation at all in terms of human services and others there are some people that we need to check out in terms of in terms of where service money might be available in conversations with the that I've had with leadership there's been nothing you know nothing promised nothing written in stone because of course we can't bind a future legislature and and you know we can't promise that we're going to bake in service money and it's one of the biggest problems it's been the capacity issues for service money has been has been an issue in this legislature for for many many years but there the conversations that I have had in leadership have been have centered around the fact that well if you do get the capital money out the door and capital was able to be spent for these for these units for these facilities while those services will be much less expensive and so it should be easier to fit into the budget now that's not the same thing as guaranteeing that those service that service money will be there in testimony we've taken from from vhcb in particular but others as well is is that is that a lot of the partners won't we'll have a hard time agreeing to do a project if the capital services are not part of the package you know for to address exactly what you're talking about uh representative hanko after we walk through this bill with david and we make any um recommendations which I assume are going to be in bill form not memo form because at one point you said we might just be writing a memo um then the bill will go to appropriations yeah there's a lot of different committees that were that are being um their agriculture committees working on the the 50 million dollar appropriation suggestion but yes we're this is like a um I guess it's like a lego project um we're going to work on our piece and then plug it into what will then be an appropriations bill okay thank you representative kulaki then triano thank you chair um you know um I'm having a hard time understanding sort of um the architecture of this because we've we've heard of a lot of very compelling um regionally specific testimony and some of the emails you shared with us last week we had great examples of it uh legal aid gave us a proposal they proposed vsha when vsha spoke to us they said that wouldn't be their proposal and so I'm um I I I wonder if it's that we really need to come up with sort of what the values are in in this a list of things that uh do we want the money regionally specific and do we want flexibility with the different regions in our state to do in a responsive way and have it be that whatever agency is handling this money so I just need help with all the all the disparate pieces that that you've given us and we've been talking about uh to figure out how to respond sort of with equity around our state with some of these issues and so I don't know if on Friday if if there's a way you could almost have a you know if we were in a in a even in our committee room you could have a white board and you could say okay here are these buckets and here's where I think it's really compelling for us to talk about in terms of policy because I can't get my arms around all the different policy ramifications for us to look at this in a holistic way I'm sure I would I would suggest that and and I know that by the end of this morning or this afternoon if you have specific if the committee has specific questions specific requests for try to get people in I mean I was thinking that we would get I mean one of the one of the issues is having enough time to hear from a lot of different people we have heard from a lot of different people but you know I think look at the materials that we've received over the last several weeks I think I shared a group of those in an email that are that have a have a that kind of create the world that we're talking about okay that you know in essence you know is because the question is do you do you know that do you do something that's based on you know you simply say oh yes all the money should be going to the to the counties that have the most need well again that's that's a value question you know if a county a rural especially rural county doesn't have a large number of people doesn't that mean does that that doesn't mean that they have less of a need going forward but there's also if it's a statewide organization and a statewide organization if you look at the projects that the HCP has funded through the most recently through the the bond through the hundred plus million dollars that was raised through the bond that you know they they they do things geographically even when the projects are there so as an example I'm not saying we need to put all our eggs in that basket but that but I know I hear you and so so again in the next few minutes or even in the hours after this meeting if you have if you have suggestions of people you want to hear from and we can fit them in tomorrow because that is tomorrow um we will get those witnesses in um and uh but a lot of this is going to be a review of what we've heard and um I I the human services has a big chunk of money too I don't know what they're going to we need to find out what they're I don't want to do repetitious work you know if if if I know that another agency another committee is is focusing on something else so it might be that if if um you're thinking the VHCB is the is the right agency for this uh and I don't I agree but I'd love to sort of hear from the agency about how how they would parse this out like what would change which agency VHCB it would it be business as usual which is exemplary you know or in this opportunity with these CARES funds would they do something slightly different and what would that look like well they've testified that they would be helping organizations it would be different um they don't VHCB does not individually does not fund individual projects to the nth degree which is what they're talking which is what they're talking about here which is which is having the funds to be dispersed to a to a housing organization to purchase a facility that might be used for homeless or DV or wherever else the needs are so in the conventional way of doing business is planning grants and other supports and this is this is different but if we need to hear from them again then um then we can request them to come in sir oh I don't know if anyone else feels that I I'm just trying to get my arms around it yeah and it's a lot to get your arms around there's no question um representative triano then tango so I guess it seems clear to me that um rental arrears um rental subsidies uh is the focus of spending this money at this point challenging piece I think will be how can we direct money towards services that we heard about today that are essential in keeping people in their homes and you know we heard Mary talk about uh wrap around services to the tune of you know 125 150 000 a year now I've dealt with numerous people that are were in those services and you know this is someone with them 24 7 and you know and you know it's a very expensive thing but it's it's the only way by the time that those services are come to be the only way that we can keep those people in homes and safe um so that seems to be the challenge and trying to apply money that is so needed to these services um and with the risk of it not being able to us not being able to do it or applying it and having to pay it back is daunting for me I just you know it really the need is so great and the risk is so great and it really makes me a little bit nervous um about trying to deal with this piece that we all know is necessary yeah well on one hand I'd say good you know good I'm glad it makes us all nervous because it's it's important stuff it's not you know it's it's it's important stuff um I think the eye-opening number from Mary the was the reminder that it cost $800 000 a year to house someone in a psychiatric hospital that's true that is true um and if you go I'm sorry was that 800 000 yes I missed that all right well we look at look we look at choices for care and you know and the way that had impact that has impacted um nursing home populations with a program that is genuinely well used and and well received and well needed in our communities uh but you know it upset the balance of of uh occupancy in our nursing home so you actually have to look at that aspect as well I think well and go back and look at the chart that was presented by pathways for the um the services you know compared to psychiatric hospital or emergency room services you know and that's what you know the numbers go back to the roadmap to end homelessness but you know a pathway situation services cost you know so much less sure I wouldn't even say what they are but you know they just but it just gives you the idea of those that can receive these services save so much money sure from the from the you know what I would call the retail spending 800 000 I mean we have to have people in that facility um but that's just a lot of money um well I mean we we recognize that the savings every every um uh all the remonder that is served by um uh choices for care saves approximately 30 000 a year in nursing home costs yeah so you know the cost effectiveness I think to me has always been the focus um but you know sometimes you have to be aware of you know what goes down the line how that goes down the line and yeah it's things like that but you know I just I just feel really strongly that um you know we've got to get some money for services because that is so important for us to be able to keep people in these homes I mean that's the key yeah yep and that's where we keep arguing so representative Hango I have a couple of questions and a couple of thoughts um um chair Stevens you said um we need to find out what human services can do with their portion of the money I really need to know that before I can make any any recommendations of what I think should happen to representative clacky's point about regional um funding I really I feel like AHS was going in that direction with OEO being um the ones to disseminate the the money in the future to regional local organizations community partners who know best the population in their communities so my suggestion is that we don't specifically allocate money to various regions but let the people who know what the need is um work that out at some point um wrap around services that represent what I was talking about that really in my mind that the answer to that is going to have to come from what human services is using their money on and can we work together collaboratively with them to come up with a solution for the services portion um I see us really as housing in this committee although I know that services and housing go hand in hand um but I see human services as being the primary driver of the services portion of housing so for our our responsibilities in terms of housing I'm seeing a few suggestions for the money you know just as I've taken notes on the various people who have come in and advocated to us rental arrearages rental subsidies um building new units rehabbing old units mobile homes and repurposing motels I'm probably missing a bunch of things in there that have been suggested to us but I really think that we need to focus the the majority of our money on housing if we can get an assurance that human services is going to help us out with the the wrap around services part so those are just random thoughts brainstorming um so I'm just throwing that out there yep thank you know you you knocked off quite a bunch of the lists of of things that have been discussed um emergency shelters you know rehabbing some of the emergency shelters you know the housing first services I know we heard from um every agency has a bit of housing first things not just pathways um but again it's finding out what human services can concentrate on and again we may have we may just move forward with the capital side of it uh because and and try to try to see where this 40 and and again the 42 million dollars we could we could we have the freedom right now to say that well that could be 28 million that could be 52 million that could be you know the the enhanced v-hip program we might decide that that should be a 12 million dollar program instead of an eight or six million dollar program or will it even work at all um given the way it's structured I think we we're going to hear some stuff from David that um you know some recent or some recent verbiage from the Treasury you know cast doubt on on some of the precepts of the v-hip money and how it can be used so uh no I I say yes to everything here you know it is going to be hard it is going to be where we need to keep getting as much information as we possibly can I will send an email to the chair of the human services committee and find out from if I can find out from her what they're considering for their portion of the um because they may be dealing with child care you know they may be dealing with um whatever what their portfolio is um which does overlap a little bit with us um representative Zahn just uh in terms of the witnesses or the you know representative Kalaki's request for witnesses I um I assume and I could be wrong that there will be quite a bit of discussion so if it's possible to have witnesses in a more sort of consultancy basis you know rather than sort of giving us testimony and kind of uh offering up a lot of commentary if they could just sort of be present to be asked questions when needed I don't know if people are available in that capacity or not but I think that would be at least for me far more productive than sitting through like 15 or 20 minutes of testimony and then having questions I think just getting right to questions that we need answered in order to make decisions would be helpful I would tend to agree kind of like a session if we were in back in our committee room where people are just sitting around us and available to answer questions um um yeah I again I will work on getting um I will work on getting a handful of folks who can who can get invited I think it would be somebody from VHCB I think it would be somebody from Legal Aid if there'd be somebody from the administration if they're available um and again if you have if you have other suggestions um I see Tony has suggested that she might be available so um yes Lisa yeah I really think it would be helpful to have somebody who is knowledgeable about the human services money as well as the housing money from the administration that could talk to us if we have questions that could just answer our questions not necessarily talk to us and provide testimony because we've heard a lot of that but we haven't heard a whole lot recently from AHS so I you know I'm maybe maybe your conversation your email with um chair pew will will solve that problem for us um but whatever we can do to have people on hand to answer questions would be great I I really like that idea thanks yeah and remember we're we're responding to you know we're using everything that we've heard as a jumping off point and so um you know we have we have a lot of leeway to and we have a lot of really good suggestions starting with starting with the rental arrears program and and the VHIP program and then moving into what we've heard from others so yeah having people on sidelines would be great and you know I think the services at least as it's defined for housing we are still in a holding pattern in turn because well we're not in a holding pattern we're in a wishing wishful whole holding pattern in the sense that maybe I'll get an email tomorrow that says yes you can use it for for services after all and then we can plug it right in but um um no that's it's we will we will try to get we will try to get folks here speaking of AHS I if you didn't hear um Commissioner Schatz is stepping down at the end of the month um and Sean Brown the deputy commissioner who testified to us last week is taking over for him so we at least have Commissioner Schatz through this process if he's available uh so um he he's he's put in his time where's he heading do we know I'd no not anywhere specifically I mean the phrase was retired yeah so um he's he's I mean the paper it's no secret if the paper published it but he's 66 and he said it's time so I don't Ken since he was juvenile defender back in early 80s yeah he's had a long and incredible career in public service so all right committee thank you for staying over um to discuss this and we will see you tomorrow um we'll see you tomorrow on the floor and then we'll see you tomorrow in committee thank you and Ron I'll stay on for a few minutes all right bye everyone thank you all bye see y'all tomorrow