 Here this evening I am Father Julian here at St. Augustine and also I'm taking care of St. John's in Northfield and St. Edward's in Williamstown plus North American martyrs in Marsfield. And I'm not alone I have Father Richard with me here taking care of four churches. And thank you for being here this evening to all of you, all of the translators and city councilors, members of the VIA Interfaith Action Committee, listeners here and our town people, our neighbors, and all of you, men and women of God, thank you for being here. Welcome to St. Augustine, welcome to this meeting, the Mont Interfaith Action Report. I would like to lead a prayer also to begin our meeting. So please let us put ourselves in the presence of God. Almighty God and Father we thank you for today. Thank you for the many blessings that we receive. Thank you for the life and the faith and the families that we have. Thank you for bringing us together this evening to continue to talk about our life, that all of us, not just few of us, but all of us can share the gift of your beauty of being here in this world, continue to bless us, bless our families. As you said in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said, and I tell you, whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me. Almighty Father we are here this evening, bless us, send us your Holy Spirit so that we can continue to be instruments of your love and mercy and justice for all. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Okay, so I just want to on behalf of everybody here at St. Augustine, I want to welcome you all here and thank you very much for coming and learning about our brothers and sisters who find themselves without a home and what their needs are. And if Representative Stevens is here, I haven't seen him, but if he is here, I just want to thank you, Representative Stevens, for sponsoring a bill H492 that would create a homeless bill of rights. Yeah, I believe it's in your committee. I hope it's able to get out of that committee real soon. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Earl Cooper Camp. I'm the pastor of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Barrie, and I'm very happy to be here tonight. I'm a leader of the Montana Faith Action. And I think the first thing we should do is to give thanks again to Father Julian, to all the wonderful people here at St. Augustine's Church for the meal and all the good work you do. So let him give you a picture. Thank you. So I want to just make a few notes, as you can see from the program, the green program that I hope you all have, if you don't have it, you can share it with your neighbors there. We're trying to cover a lot of material in a very short amount of time. And we've had a group of very dedicated Vermont's Interfaith Action leaders who have spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of good brain work in conducting the research and putting together all the information that we're going to present this evening. And so we want to ensure that they have the time and the opportunity to accomplish everything that they've intended to do for this evening. And for that reason, we're only going to have people speak or on the program. We're going to be introducing some of our guests in a little bit at the later part of the program or elected officials. Each one of them will be requested to answer the questions that we ask. The initial question would just be simple yes or no. After all finished with the questions and all the questions that have been posed, they will have two minutes to elaborate and give a little more reasoning behind their answers. Our timekeeper tonight is probably the most important person in this room is Harris Webster. Harris has got to hold up a 30-second sign when you've got 30 seconds left. And then he's going to hold up the stop sign that means exactly what he says, stop. So all of our guests have agreed to the structure of the meeting this evening. And they've seen the questions because we've gotten them out beforehand so they can have a little bit of time to think on it. We do want to stay very much on time. The weather's not getting any better out there so that we can start on time when they've got time. So first of all to say who we are and why we do what we do. I want to invite Mary Alice Bisbee to come up to give our credential. Mary Alice? Yes, thank you all for coming. I'm just going to tell you about Vermont Interfaith Action. Into the mic. Vermont Interfaith Action is a faith-based grassroots organizing group. Our mission is to create solutions to system issues that prevent our most vulnerable citizens from enjoying the best quality of life. Our issues are chosen by the people of our member congregations, all of you, who seek informed by our faith and working together to create a more just and compassionate world. There are nine member congregations in central Vermont with another 50 associated congregations statewide. The central Vermont group is working to end homelessness in Washington County by 2020. We need to gather to plan and then carry out research, planning and actions to help bring this about. We work to organize community support for our issues. And you can check our website at http www.va.org. Thank you, Mary Alice. My name is Carla Hilton-Banhaus, I'm the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Barry, Vermont. And I'm a leader with Vermont Interfaith Action. This evening we'd like to welcome and recognize all those who have come from our member congregations and also partner organizations. And so when I call out your faith community or your organization, I'll invite you to stand and remain standing. If you're not able to stand, you can just raise your hand as your group is called. First of all, I'd like to welcome all those who are evening, warming, shelter guests either in Barry or in Montpelier. If you all could raise your hand or stand as you want to stand and remain standing. Those from St. Augustine Catholic Church, please stand. Christ Church Episcopal in Montpelier, please stand if you're connected without congregation. The Old Meeting House in East Montpelier. The Unitarian Church of Montpelier. Bethany United Church of Christ in Montpelier. Beth Jacob Seneca. Trinity United Methodist Church. Church of the Good Shepherd in Barry. First Presbyterian Church of Barry. First Church Universalist in Barry. Heading United Methodist Church in Barry. Barry Congregational Church. St. Monica Catholic Church. First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington. Society of St. Edmund. Cathedral Church of St. Paul. Christ Church Presbyterian. College Street Congregational Church. Sisters of Mercy. Apophysetic Synodog. The Buddhist Community of Chittenden County. Those from congregations or those who are from other communities, not a specific congregation, who are friends of Vermont Interfaith Action. And then people who are from partner organizations or coalition partners with Vermont Interfaith Action. And then we'd like also all of our friends and neighbors from the community that are interested in this issue are working on these issues. So welcome everyone. Good evening everyone. My name is Amy Pitten and I am the Minister of Bethany Church here in Montpelier. Last week I returned from a trip to El Salvador. The church I serve, Bethany Church here in Montpelier, has a 28 year long sister parish relationship with the small village in Morrill El Salvador. And this was my sixth trip to visit them. On these trips, along with visiting our sister parish, we seek to learn about the issues facing El Salvador and the history of how those issues came to be. This inevitably leads us to hearing some of the prophetic words of Salvadoran Saint Oscar Romero, one of the most recent saints canonized in the Roman Catholic faith. Romero gave his life in 1980 for speaking out for the poor and dispossessed of his country. And much of what he said recalls for justice for those whose voices were being retressed and silenced. There is one quote of Romero's, however, that always stands out for me among the others. It is a reminder that the work for justice is an enormous job. A job that continually involves piercing evil's new disguises in the words of composer Brian Wren. It can be overwhelming and exhausting and oftentimes discouraging. The work always seems to be two steps forward and one step back. Romero knew this struggle all too well and he was wise enough to come to the following conclusion. He said, we cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. Tonight as we hear the report of the central Vermont interfaith action ending homelessness to 20 effort and continue to contemplate how to address the very serious and multifaceted problems of homelessness, I think it is important that we remember that as much as we would like to put an end to homelessness in central Vermont by 2020, there is a very real possibility that we will not be able to accomplish our goal in the timeframe that we have set. As Wren indicated, evil has an endless supply of new disguises and the struggle for justice has always been and will likely always be a part of the human experience. While that may sound disheartening, the good news is, as Romero reminds us, that there is liberation in that realization. Once we let go of the expectation that we alone can and must solve the problems, we will be liberated from the weight of that expectation, freeing ourselves to do those things that are within our capabilities and do them very well, as well as leaving room for the grace of God to act. Descerning what we can do and doing it very well is really important. When we try to do too much, we spread ourselves too thin and we run the risk of trying to do a lot and not doing any of it very well. When we set reasonable goals for ourselves with the aim of doing them very well, we are much more likely to achieve the progress we are hoping for and even better, achieve ends that can stand up to certain attempts that will be made to dismantle them. And because we are taking on the possible instead of the impossible, we can more easily avoid the pitfalls of developing cynicism, issue fatigue and burnout. We are liberated to keep going. And our liberation opens the way for others, including God's grace to join us in the struggle for justice. Two and a half years ago, Bethany Church made the decision to host the Good Samaritan Becaven's emergency overflow shelter here in Montpelier. We didn't know what we were getting into, but we did know that something had to be done to keep homeless folks warm, dry and safe. In that first year, which not surprisingly brought some difficulties, Bethany Church decided that we could not continue to host the shelter without help. We reached out to the other churches in the city and asked them to consider providing evening warning shelters beginning last year, which they did. This liberated Bethany to continue to host the overnight shelter and to do it to the best of our ability. The evening warning shelters were ably handled by the churches and also done very well. This had the added benefit of helping more Montpelier residents see the issues of homelessness in our community and begin to understand that better solutions were needed, more than just temporary warming shelters. This has led to an increased awareness and more folks joining in for the solutions. We've come a long way since the central Vermont VIA decided to address homelessness, and we should feel good about what we have accomplished thus far. Yet, we have not done everything, and we may not by the end of 2020, but we have done some things very well. We have made progress, and most importantly, as people of faith, we have left room for God's grace to enter in and to surprise us with possibilities and outcomes that maybe we hadn't even dreamed of. And that's all good. We can't do everything, but we can do something and do it very well, allowing space for God to act in our midst. May God bless the work we have done and continue to grant us the vision, the courage, and the faith to keep going for the sake of God's most vulnerable children among us. Amen. Amen. So thank you so much, Brittany. One of the things we're going to do is we're going to hear the research that we've done. Part of the way that we organize is by picking an issue, understanding that issue, understanding the facts that we need, and then building the power of the people to make a change with that issue. But also we know with homelessness, it's not just information, it's not just numbers, it's people's experience. And so one of our brothers, John, is going to spend a few minutes just telling us about his experiences being homeless before we hear a report on homelessness. So John, please give us a speech. Thank you for coming above all tonight. It shows there are people of care, and that's one of the best things you can be. I've been homeless off and on now for several years, somebody's voice, somebody's lack of employment, some getting to the old age thing. And let me tell you one thing, it gets harder every year. The older you get, the more you slow down. Life gets a little harder because you don't make the same money as you did when you worked. Or you can think that, yeah, I can retire on what I've got. Within two years, it's usually a surprise. And it's not usually a good one. But the area churches, all of the people that work with the homeless, have done an over-the-top job in everything that they do every day without these places. And another place I really need to mention is the place called The Other Way on Mary Street, which actually works with some of the hardest cases of homelessness, lack of direction, many other things, services in general to people. All of these agencies, both funded and not funded, are really having a struggling job just operating day to day. What we need from the state is not just a continual flow of money. The agencies and the churches need enough to get through this. It's not about exploitation of money. It's about people that are actually... It's a human life crisis that needs to be addressed. And it seems to me, if we can put a man on the moon, we ought to be able to do a few of these very simple human needs that really do need to be met for everyone concerned. These things are not going away by living in a vacuum. Everybody has to talk. Good guys, bad guys, the money guys, everybody. But in my own thinking, without the churches, without all of you, places like The Other Way, the system would crumble without these people. It could actually border on the possibility of pandemics and illness. It hasn't got that far yet, but left untreated, a lot of things can happen. So all I can do is thank you all for coming, and thanks for remembering the situation. Have a good evening. So as I mentioned, this really takes a lot of research to understand the problem of homelessness, and especially homelessness in the context of Washington County, Vermont. So Beth Ann Mayer, a deacon in both Christchurch and the Church of the Good Shepherd, is going to lead us through some of the highlights of a research report that we've just put together. Great. Thank you. So we began this journey in April of 2016. Vermont Interfaith Action of Central Vermont launched its campaign to end homelessness in Washington County by 2020. Back then, 2020 seemed like a long time away, and now it looks alarmingly close. So how are we doing? If you look at the numbers from the yearly point in time count of those experiencing homelessness, we are not doing very well in Washington County. In 2015, when the state of Vermont hit its peak of homelessness in the last decade, Washington County contained 8% of the Vermont total of people experiencing homelessness. By 2019 in the count, that figure rose from 8% to 13% of the Vermont total. We don't know why we have seen a rise, even as the overall state total has dropped significantly. Are more of our Washington County neighbors losing their homes and unable to find new housing? Or could it be that more people are gathering here because we have significantly stepped up our services in response to powerful community organizing and advocacy? For the last two years, our Washington County communities have used a coordinated entry system to address homelessness through capstone for people seeking housing who are either literally homeless or at risk of homelessness. The coordinated entry system is giving us a much clearer idea of how many people are struggling with homelessness. As of yesterday, this is fresh off the press report, 221 persons in 140 households were on the coordinated entry list seeking housing. Of these 28 were households that were families containing 51 children. 21 people on this list are classified as chronically homeless that are seeking housing. And chronically homeless has its very specific definition for having been homeless for X number of months within the last year. So we've made impressive gains in Washington County in our capacity to shelter people experiencing homeless, especially during the cold weather months. Since 2016, we've added 13 year-round beds in a multi-unit building with supportive care in collaboration with Washington County Mental Health. That's called the Nest. We have added 20 beds of cold weather nighttime shelter here in Montpelier. And thanks to support from the City of Montpelier, the shelter at Bethany Church was able to open two weeks earlier than planned this year. When Vermont Interfaith Action Housing Team began educating ourselves in 2015, there were no options in Washington County for sheltering families except through hotel vouchers. I personally visited a family of four that had been living in one hotel room with two queen beds for several months. The accommodation would not have passed a rental inspection. It was physically, mentally, and nutritionally unsafe. We now have 24 scattered site apartments for family shelter. Nine are administered by capstone as emergency family shelters, and 15 are administered by the Family Center for supportive family care. And they are always fully occupied. Our shelter capacity in Washington County during cold weather has increased from a maximum of 44 beds in 2016 to at least 126 beds now and more depending on the size of the families we are sheltering. So that has almost tripled our shelter capacity in three years, and that is huge. But as much as we want people to have shelter, our mission is to end homelessness. When we met in April of 2016, we identified the Housing First model as the most cost-effective and humane way of ending homelessness. In the Housing First model, the individual experiencing homelessness is assisted in immediately finding a permanent home, is offered financial assistance toward meeting the rental expenses, and is supported in addressing the challenges that get in their way of remaining permanently housed. We identified these three essential drivers for the success of the Housing First model. Increase affordable housing, increase the ability to pay rent through higher wages and subsidies when needed, and improve the ability to retain housing by supporting people. While they work through the barriers and challenges they encounter, and these three continue to be our focus as we move into 2020. So how are we doing with increasing clean, safe and affordable housing? In 2016, we estimated a need for 200 added units of low-income housing to house all who are experiencing homelessness, as well as those who are precariously housed who were doubling up for couch surfing. Thanks in large part to the $37 million housing bond authorized in 2018, as well as support from the Montpelier Housing Trust Fund, Down Street has added 102 units of new housing in Washington County since 2015. Down Street now has 357 units in Washington County, 24% of those units are subsidized, meaning that the rent will not exceed 30% of the tenant's income. Additionally, 20% of Down Street units are currently rented to previously homeless households. However, the need is still great. Pathways, which is a housing first program serving people with significant housing challenges, reports that most of the people they served in Washington County in 2019 have waited at least three months and for some up to a year before an apartment can be found. The rental vacancy rate in Washington County is 1%. A healthy rental market with a balance of supply and demand has a vacancy rate of at least 5%. So how are we doing with improving the ability to pay rent month after month? Not so well. The very tight rental market has allowed rents to continue to rise. There's a one-year-old building over here that for a two-bedroom apartment the rent is $1,700 a month. And no pool, no garage, no view, $1,700 a month. The affordable rent, the one that is not more than 30% of your income, for let's assume a minimum wage that's going into effect this coming January, that affordable rent will be $570 a month. The fair market rent in Washington County as of January for a one-bedroom will be $828 a month. That leaves an affordability gap of $258 a month that either needs to be subsidized in some way, either by a government subsidy or by the individual not being able to meet their own basic needs for self-care, food, and transportation. A few weeks of lost income or the cost of rent breaks on the car is enough to send a person down the slippery slope to homelessness. So there are only three possible solutions. Raise the wages, lower the rents, or subsidize the gap. Our best code is to pass legislation this year raising the minimum wage to a level that supports the prevailing rents. How are we doing with growing the capacity of our social service agencies to support people in their struggle to remain housed? We have had some success with homelessness prevention by offering support to people to retain the housing they have when eviction seems imminent. Partnering with people before they lose their housing is very humane and cost-effective. More resources focused in this area will be a good investment. Similarly, money spent on continuing to support people when they enter housing is saved many times over by decreases and spending on emergency services, hospitalizations, and corrections. Human service support can connect the newly housed to vocational programs. They can assist in maintaining recovery, and they can offer coaching and budgeting, communication skills, and being a peaceful neighbor. All of the service providers who are part of the continuum of care of Washington County feel like this is the weakest leg in our housing first capacity. We continue to have several shelter-plus-care rental subsidies available and an abundance of people that need them, but the subsidies are going unused because there is no availability of support staff to provide the care. Even when agencies are able to fund a position, they have great difficulty in hiring qualified people for the low wages attached to these positions. We need to value this work, grow the number of positions available, and pay a livable wage to the people entering this field. Every Sunday in several churches in Washington County, we pray our prayer to end homelessness. We will pray it at the end of our time together this evening. When we pray it, we recommit our community to engaging in new housing creation, in reducing rental cost burdens, and providing adequate support to overcome challenges and barriers to stability and success. We can do this. We must do this. Thank you for all of that you are doing to achieve the goal of ending homelessness in Washington County. Thank you so much for that. A lot of work, as you can see, has gone into this report understanding where we've been, where we are now, and where we're going to go as Vermont Interfaith Action in our campaign, Ending Homelessness. Now, the questions go to our elected officials. So I want to invite Martin Robbins to come up, please, and she will address to our elected officials. First of all, some yes-no answers, and then they'll have two minutes to elaborate. Good evening. I'm Marty Roberts. I'm a member of Christ Episcopal Church. I'm a member of Christ Episcopal Church and a leader in Vermont Interfaith Action. I'd like to introduce some of our elected officials who have joined us tonight and agreed to answer some questions that we will ask them. Mayor Anne Watson, Representative Peter Anthony, Representative Mary Hooper, Representative Teresa Wood, Representative Tom Stevens, Representative Rob LeClaire, and Senator Andrew Pertulic. Are there any other elected officials in our audience here? And Anne left. And Donna is here somewhere. Yeah, so I wasn't sure how to explain it, so isn't I going to ask them questions? Yeah, I understood that. I just wanted people to show themselves. Okay, so we'll begin asking people present tonight this question. Do you support, and this is for the, is this also for Anne? Okay, this is for everybody. Do you support Central Vermont Interfaith Action in its campaign to end homelessness in Washington County through a housing first model with adequate rental subsidies, affordable housing, and wraparound services? Yes? Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, thank you. And Mayor Watson's question is for you. Mayor Watson, are we asking the budget question? Okay, I'm sorry. Mayor Watson, will you support placing a budget line item in the Montpelieu City budget of $20,000 for emergency shelter services in Bethany Church provided by the Goods of Marriage in Haven? Okay, do you want me to use the mic? Sure. Do I get to go live right now? Yes. Okay. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that there may be some other options. The answer is no because we, as a city budget, we don't actually put nonprofits as line items in our city budget. But rather we have a Montpelieu Community Fund through which multiple nonprofits apply for money. So the first answer that maybe the answer is no, but here's an option for you is that the Goods of Marriage could ask for more money. To be fair, the Goods of Marriage does receive money from the Montpelieu Community Fund now. If there's a good reason for there to be more, they could ask for more from that process. And that would be fine. So that's option one. Option two is any nonprofit, if you get the requisite number of signatures, you can get any money ballot item on the town meeting day ballot or the November ballot. And so I would recommend that you could get those signatures and get an item on the ballot. A third option is still getting an item on the ballot, a vote approval by the voters. But you can also request to waive the requisite number of signatures. And I can't speak for the council on this, but I know I would be interested in potentially waiving that but I know some good, obviously marketing work can be done to get our support for that vote if you get the signatures. Thank you. Thank you. And now for our state legislators, will you work in the upcoming legislative session to secure adequate funding for 2021 for the Vermont Housing Conservation Board? Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sort of. Well, for BHCB, is that the point? Yes. Okay. And the next question is, will you work to increase the funding of the Housing Opportunity grant program by 7.2%, which is $500,000 in increased funding? I could take a pass. I'm actually not familiar with that particular program. Sorry. Given that we get to have longer explanations in a few minutes, yes. I have to say the same thing as Peter. I'm not familiar with that program. Yes. Can you pass the mic? You can't hear anything. Okay. Well, it's coming around behind you. Just be loud, guys. Just say it loud. Yeah. Just yell it out. Just yell it out, Mr. I don't know anything about the program, so I don't want to speak to it. Yeah. I also don't know about the program, so, by the way. Okay. So now we'll give you each two minutes to say whatever you want to. Okay. And Senator, or she already had her two minutes. Oh, okay. I actually have to leave to go. Thanks for being up there. So Mr. Anthony, if you could come up, please. In the meantime, I will tell you what the Housing Opportunity grant program does. It provides all the money for shelters. It provides a lot of money that can be used for support people, for rehousing. And it, you know, pretty much funds all of the housing services, the human resources that we have. I and my counterpart, other representative from Barrie, Tommy Wolves, who was unavoidably called away tonight. Tommy's on the Housing and Military Affairs Committee, chaired by Representative Stevens to my right. I'm on one of the money-raising committees, and I have always supported Housing Conservation Trust. And, indeed, the expanded bonding. I even tried to get some additional money to focus on owner-work-occupied single and duplex housing because I know rentals are scarce, but I want to keep people who live in and own their own home, in their own home, and not out on the street or in the rental market if they don't want to be there. Yeah, yeah. Hi, I'm Mary Hooper, and I represent one of the two reps from Montpelier. And I happen to serve on the Appropriations Committee, which is one of the meanest places to be, sadly. When you see the array of choices that we have to make, it is heartbreaking. To me, this is a revenue question, and I just want to put that out there. I think we need to figure out how to be raising more revenue for a whole wide variety of issues. And I want to urge you to be careful about saying, fund the Vermont Housing Conservation Trust Fund at its full value. I was curious because I went back and looked at what our history has been in terms of funding housing that we do through VHCB. And I was really surprised because we not withstand what the statute says. We say, don't pay attention to what we said last year. That's what not withstand means. But in fact, in the 2019 budget, we are spending almost the same amount as the statute calls for in housing because we put money from the capital budget, and I'm counting in that the housing bond. Last year, we spent more than the statute called for as we did the year before. So there's some weird mechanisms that are going on inside state government. And what I want to be really cautious about is because we need to provide the support services. We need to fund the HOP grant. We need to be funding all of these other resources. It doesn't do us a bit of good to be building housing if we're not putting the supports around that housing. It would just be too easy to say yes to the HCB and not to do the other funding. So I don't want to lose money that were the very, very important, valuable money that we're spending there where we need to be spending an awful lot more than we are now, which is the reason it's a revenue problem. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Theresa Wood. I represent Waterbury in Washington County and Huntington and Bolton, and you'll score in Chittenden County. So I sit on the Human Services Committee and Mary was just speaking up in terms of supportive services. That's where we deal with supportive services as well as in the Health Care Committee. And I can say that I wholeheartedly support the work that we're doing around supportive services, and we need to increase the resources that we have in that area. And as you heard earlier from Beth Ann, we have positions going unfilled. We have stipends not being used because there's not the supportive services to be able to wrap around those folks. And we have honestly quite a bit of data that shows how well supportive services work in maintaining people who have some other challenges, whether it's around substance use disorder or it's around mental health challenges, how well the supportive services work to keep them in housing. And so we need to be able to address the workforce crisis that we have in order to be able to fill those positions and provide the support necessary for those individuals. Representative Tom Stevens, also from the same, I represent the same town as Representative Wood, and I am currently the chair of the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. And while two minutes is what we have, this is an incredibly complex issue in terms of the funding, in terms of how the Vermont Housing Conservation Fund money is used or not withstood. But because our focus is on homelessness tonight, I want to focus on a couple of different things that are important for us to pay attention to the services or can we have turned away a certain number of vouchers, of housing vouchers for support plus, I believe, is because we don't have enough support. So we had the vouchers and we had to return them because we couldn't fund the people that needed to be out of the community. We know that this model works. We know that the Housing First model works if it's properly supported. With respect to other programs, Hop is not the only one in state government. And one that I would like to focus on this year is a line item that already exists which is preventing homelessness by having a rent coverage, a back rent coverage program. Legal Aid did a great study last year that talked about and worked with the Apartment Owners Association and for a grant of $2,000 for back rent, and you can keep someone in their apartment if that's what their back rent is and prevent legal fees, prevent the issues that come up with homelessness of having to have shelters that are as necessary as they are now. So there's really so many needles in the haystack that we're trying to keep an eye on as Representative Hoover said. And I think you'll hear this again. It's about revenue. It's about having the money to provide the services. We know what the solutions are and that's what's so frustrating is that we know that we can provide these kinds of services to people who need, who are going through periods of homelessness and yet we can't always get there. So keep an eye on us, please. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Rob LeClaire. I'm one of the two state representatives out of Berrytown. I'm going to probably approach this differently than most anybody here up here tonight. I have some strong reservations about the money that we're already spending. I don't think that we're approaching this problem the right way at all. Personally, I think that we are spending enough money. If you take a look at downtown Montpelier here, in the last year, year and a half, we spent about $18 million on housing. We've gotten, if my math is right, roughly about 48 units out of that, most of them are one bedroom. If you go through and do the math, we're spending $300 to $350,000 per unit. I think that there's much more cost-effective ways to do what we're trying to do. I don't think anybody disagrees that we need to address the homeless issue. I personally think that we're going about it the wrong way. I'm a landlord. I have several rental properties. I know there's other landlords out there that do as well that have some capacity. But the way that the laws are today, I truly am better off to have an apartment sit vacant for a few months than I am to take a risk on getting the wrong tenant in there. If I had true partners out there, because let's be honest, folks that are chronic and homeless usually come with a little baggage, if I had a true partner out there that I could work with, I would take a risk on some of these folks. One of my units, it's a four-unit that has three bedrooms. I usually take a family, but I can't because it costs me thousands and thousands of dollars. If I've got a tenant in there that doesn't work, the whole onus is on me. We need to make what we do work better. We've got a lot of resources there. You've heard other people say that people need wrap-around services. They do. They really do need the help. And the benefits cliff is a real problem as well. Thank you. Well, thank you all for all the good work you're doing to end homelessness. I'm Andrew Perslick. I'm state senator for all 18 towns and two cities of Washington County. And as a new senator, I've only been a senator for a year. One of the good things is you give me all the wonderful people and the great things that is happening in the county and the state is doing. But you also hear about all the problems and definitely homelessness is at the forefront of my mind just as a senator, but also just as a citizen of central Vermont seeing the change that's happened in the very Montpelier. But I've also learned about all the other crises. We have a healthcare crisis. We have an opioid crisis. We have a mental health crisis. And all these problems and needs are coming forward. And as was addressed kind of in some of the opening remarks, they're all interconnected. And it's something that I'd like to see us work more on is together with these other issues and how we can generate more revenue together. I think if we're each at the legislature asking for our bid for homelessness or opioid treatment or child care, whatever it may be, we kind of work across purposes. But I totally agree with Representative Hooper that it's a revenue issue. And if we could come together saying how are we going to get this revenue? We're going to advocate for increasing the income tax because we need this revenue. Something like that is really kind of what we need if we're going to solve all these problems because we're not going to solve each one individually. And we're never going to agree which one to work on first. I can tell you each group is just as passionate just as much of a need is there. So that's something how I'm looking at this issue. So thanks again. Thanks to all of you for sharing with us. And in the time after this, there's going to be more time to mix with other people in the audience who may have more questions or more things they want to share with you. Thank you to Marty Robertson. Thank you to our elected officials from Washington County for all the good work you're doing and for being here with us. We are now in the home stretch. But unfortunately we had a little bit of bad news and that's Reverend Joan Javier Duvall who was the pastor at the Montpelier Unitarian Church. A young person in their congregation was in a car accident. She is up at the hospital. So we can have just a moment of silence for them and men. But fortunately Reverend Carl Hilton von Ostel will do a summary to say the things that really hit again and reiterate the important points of this important work that we've heard. So in a Vermont interview with Action Action like this we do a quick summary. This will just be a few sentences, a couple of minutes. I just wanted to first give a shout out to John for coming forward and sharing his story. We appreciate it and what he shared. And he's sort of setting the stage to understand we're facing a human crisis. We're grateful to Bethanne and a lot of people that did some research work that helped us understand a bit more about where things have been over the course of the last four years. Some efforts that have been made to address issues related to homelessness and supportive services and ways that we still have work to do on these issues. We're grateful for all of the representatives and Senator and Mayor who was up here also on behalf of Montpelier City Council and a number of people on the Montpelier Housing Task Force that have been working around these issues. We've certainly heard from people about support for this Housing First model, which Vermont Interface Action has been working with over the course of the last four years support for rental subsidies and affordable housing and wraparound services. We heard Mayor Watson explain some of the ins and outs of the specific request about funding $20,000 for the Good Samaritan Haven and how the Montpelier City does not budget within the budget numbers for nonprofit organizations but she gave some ideas about ways that Montpelier residents might work to support that. And then we heard representatives and our Senator respond to a variety of questions and appreciate what you all shared in terms of your insight and work with the legislature. We've heard a variety of perspectives about things and certainly the important work of addressing homelessness and understanding that homelessness is one of a variety of issues that there are many complications related to the funding and as Senator Perch like mentioned at the end there are multiple crises that not only the state of Vermont faces but you all as leaders within the state face and so we encourage you all in working to find the solutions addressing things like Mayor Hooper said about trying to increase revenues of their ways to fund a variety of programs and as Representative Clair said we should be able to think creatively about the ways that we address these issues to solve problems that are of common concern to all of us. And we will be involved. And we will be involved. Thank you. One of your own is right there. Yes. Thank you. So my sisters and brothers now we're coming to the end so just a few very brief announcements. First of all I want to once again give thanks to Father Julian and all the great people of St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church here in Montpelier for your great hospitality this evening for this meeting and for all the work you do. So they're not already a member of a congregation or organization that's part of Vermont Interfaith Action or you'd like to learn more about Vermont Interfaith Action please speak to anyone with a name tag like that and we can give you a little more information or you can check with our table in the back. Also if you want to be kept informed with upcoming events with Vermont Interfaith Action and this campaign or the other issues that we're working on around the state please make sure that we have your contact information on the sign-up sheets of the table in the back by Melissa. Wave your hand there Melissa. Also we will have a brief evaluation session after this event. It's going to be right over here in the corner by these round tables. It's primarily for those of us who have worked in our familiar with the Vermont Interfaith Action Model of Organizing we reflect on how we've done what we need to improve better. If you'd like to be part of this evaluation I invite you to join us over here as immediately after we adjourn. And then after we have the evaluation we're going to have a little time to just talk to each other in a more structured way doing some one-on-ones and really build up the community because that's what this is about. It's about the projects that build community that give us the power to change things. So if you're able I'll ask you now to please stand and we're going to say that prayer that we say which is part of our campaign to end homelessness. It's been drafted by some of our spiritual leaders many of our congregations say it on a weekly basis we come together for worship many of us say it on a daily basis and it's very easy. An open door a roof above safe homes for all in the power of love and let's all say together Amen.