 All right, welcome back and we are here at General Housing and Military Affairs to pick up a little bit of work on H-232, which is our act relating to promoting land and home ownership and economic opportunity. And with us today are Elise Gayet and Stephanie Morningstern will be joined a little bit by Chief Don Stevens and Nick Richardson from VLT. But I wanted to thank Elise and Stephanie for coming in to testify and to give your thoughts on this bill. This is something that is really a piece of what we're trying to work on throughout this session and beyond on social equity issues, understanding that there have been inequities throughout history in terms of land access, land ownership, and just available wealth producing places like a home for a substantial number of people in Vermont. And so I just wanted to welcome you and ask, I'll just pass the microphone to Elise first and just welcome you to the committee and please share your thoughts on H-232 and what you think that the bill is trying to do and how successful we might be with it. Well, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me to testify. Basically, I'm here to give some historical background. I support this bill and I think my testimony today will show you that it really does need to be supported. So to truly understand racism and discrimination in our society, we do need to study history. Others have long argued that we are our past. One philosopher proposed that our lives embrace past and present in an organic temporal unity. So what I offer here today is not really past, it lives and breathes in the air around us. So we need to go back to our roots, the roots of this system. In 1777, which was the year of course of our Constitution, the New Hampshire grants received a new name and that was New Connecticut. Not very many people know that. Six months later, we became the Republic of Vermont, but why were we New Connecticut in the first place? Because the majority of colonizers came here from Connecticut as such their traditions operated here. And we really need to understand that Connecticut had a slave culture. The first recorded arrival of Blacks as non-servants in New England was in 1638 in Connecticut. And that was a year after a militia had horribly massacred a community of Pequots. They took captives, they were afraid to keep them so close to other Native peoples who might try to free them. So they shipped them to Providence in the West Indies, which is another Puritan colony, trading them and I quote, for cotton, tobacco, and Negroes. So began the story of New England slavery. By 1690 and beyond, Connecticut had restricted codes against Blacks Indians and mixed race people. It was against the law for anybody to buy goods from people of color, severely limiting ways for Blacks to make a living or to build up any wealth. Laws forbid Blacks from purchasing land or, I quote, engaging in any business without the town's permission. They made this law retroactive so Black landowners lost their lands once again severely limiting their access to wealth, to land, and to economic freedom. New restrictions against Black freedom and movement and social activities ensued through the next few decades. By the time of the revolution, the slave population in Connecticut was greater than any other New England colony. The population of all Blacks in Connecticut was greater than all the other New England colonies combined. Now these attitudes towards people of color were not left behind when people moved to Vermont. It did not mean leaving behind their prejudices that 100 years of slavery had imprinted on New Englanders minds. Black labor in New England, including Vermont, was, and I'm quoting another historian, the basic working force that transformed frontier outposts into permanent settlements. There were enslaved and free Blacks the length and breadth of Vermont, the majority of them coming from Connecticut. They helped whites open the frontier. They helped them thrive, but they did not benefit at all from the cheap land. Most actually came as laborers for whites. And for many Blacks, it was a forced migration into the Green Mountains. There are many examples of enslaved people, really the length and breadth of Vermont. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it because you have this great what by Imani Whitfield, the problem of slavery in early Vermont, which I would recommend that you read. But just briefly, I mean, I know about enslaved people who were not named in Castleton, Middlebury, Burlington, Powlett, Ryegate, Bennington. Some of them I have their names, Plato in Cabot, James Huzzie in Townsend, who was actually forced to be a substitute in the Revolutionary War for his master's sons twice, Mary in Hungerford, which later became Sheldon. Mary, along with four others in that town in 1790, made Hungerford 12.5% Black. There was Anthony in Springfield, Jenny in Burlington, Prima Storms and Family in Ferrisburg, there were many, there were many more. I encourage you to read Imani's book. Now, many of these people were enslaved after our 1777 Constitution, which many believed outlawed slavery. It did not. During the Revolutionary Era, white people were rethinking the idea of slavery for life. However, Article 1 of our Constitution outlawed only adult slavery. And the reason for that was that they really wanted to prevent the rise of labor degrading, slave-owning aristocracy like they had in the South. They were not anti-racist. The people who wrote our Constitution believed that blacks were inferior and needed the guidance of whites, especially to bring up their children properly. Therefore, the Constitution provided for slavery until the age of majority. At first it was 18 for women, 21 for men. Later it was changed to 21 for both men and women. So if those enslaved were below 21, they were legally bound to work for whites. And this really did not end until the emancipation during reconstruction years. So despite the illegality of adult slavery, black people were forced to serve whites really as late as the 1850s in Vermont. We have documents as evidence. A few years ago, a UVM historian found two documents manumitting a 35-year-old woman, Lavinia Parker, and her 12-year-old son, who was named Francis in Burlington. Now Francis could be legally held in slavery. She could not, however she was. And the owner of these slaves was Lucy Carolyn Hitchcock of Burlington. She was the daughter of Ethan Allen. Who did have blacks on his farm doing all the work while he supervised. But what about free blacks? What kind of discrimination did they suffer? Well, very early in the 19th century, scientific racism became firmly established in people's mind. Earlier, the theory had been that blacks were inferior only culturally. And if they would become Christians and live in good Christian manner, then they would not be inferior anymore. But by the 19th century, the pseudoscience held that blacks are really inferior to whites because of blood. They inherited it, so there's nothing they could do about it. And these prevailing ideas were mirrored in a 1795 play by a man, John Murdoch. He wrote a play called The Triumphs of Love, which was really wildly popular in the North. In this play, Sambo was born. He was the grinning, foolish man who did not know the value of money and he could not ever amount to anything on his own. Now figures like Sambo and other people like him were ubiquitous in Vermont in minstrel shows throughout the state. These were popular into the 1960s, not make a mistake there. 1960s and probably into the 1970s. I'm not sure when when they ended, but those long lived ideas about black inferiority are still with us. They've been here for hundreds of years. I attended and participated in these minstrel shows throughout my years in elementary and secondary school in Rutland, Vermont. Images such as this make whites feel comfortable because they're threatened by the advancement of free blacks. Generally, in our history, they accepted only blacks who fit the ignorant submissive Sambo image and they penalized those who attempted to leave their so-called place in society. The Surrey and Henry Pearson wrote, unlike other immigrant groups who were remunerated economically and socially for their initiative and perseverance, blacks were more often than not punished for such behavior by a white community that feared black advancement might threaten the stability of caste relationships. Let me give you one example of the horrors that really ensued in Vermont, even for free blacks. Many of you may know the name of Jeffrey Brace, who he lived in various places in Vermont, Manchester, Pultney, he ended up in the Georgia St. Albans area at the end of his life, that he was a revolutionary war veteran. And he first moved to Vermont in Manchester, which is where he met his wife. And he reported that he had raised good crops of corn and other grains, and I quote, life glided along, glided along greatly to his satisfaction. Until a Mrs. Powell entered a complaint against him to the selectman. And this is the way Jeffrey Brace described it in his autobiography. He said the complaint amounted to this, that I was a black man. The corruption and superstition mingled with the old Connecticut bigotry and puritanism made certain people think that a Negro had no right to raise their own children. Therefore, I was complained of that the selectman might be enabled to bind out the children, which my wife had by her first husband. The issue was that one of the selectmen, whose name was Dixon, wanted the 12 year old boy to profit from his labor. Despite Brace's pleading, quoting scriptures, saying he needed the boy to work on his own land, the town stole the boy away and indentured him to Dixon. That's slavery. There's echoes of slavery. Brace wrote, if he, Dixon, if he would return to me, my poor little Negro boy, my prospects would be as good as theirs. But I might as well laid pearl before swine, as all this had no effect. Not only did he lose a son who could no longer assist him in surviving and thriving on his land, but a white man stole his son's body and labor for his own advancement. This is just one example that this happened over and over. In addition to fearing that your free children might be taken from you, we have evidence that it was also very difficult for people of color to obtain loans. In Pomfret, Peter Nassau, who had lived in town for decades, was forced to mortgage his property to secure a loan for which unpropertyed whites would have been trusted. A French traveler in New England wrote about this. And I'm quoting from Jacques Rousseau. Even in the North, he said, free blacks were not allowed to achieve their potential since everyone viewed them as inferior to whites. Those who had shops could not get credit to build their businesses. And the same causes hinder the blacks who live in the country from having a large plantation. Those Negroes who keep shop live moderately and never augment their business beyond a certain point. The reason's obvious. The whites like not to give them credit to enable them to undertake any extensive commerce or even to give them the means of a common education by receiving them into their counting houses. If then the blacks are confined to the retails of the trade. Let us not accuse their capacity, but the prejudice of whites which lay obstacles in their way. Let's look very briefly at how this looked in practice in 19th century Vermont. I've done extensive study of the federal census reports. And one thing that I discovered, first of all, that black children were identified in the Vermont census reports as servants. And these were black, little black children who were the only blacks in white households, they were always identified as servants. Many of them were enslaved, but because they weren't slaves for life or weren't supposed to be slaves for life, according to our Constitution, nobody would identify them as slaves on the federal census. They were identified as servants. But my studies show that throughout the first half of the 19th century between one fifth and two thirds of all the young servants were children between the ages of seven and 12. These were little children, the only blacks in the household taken away from everything they knew and brought to the frontier to serve strangers. And those census data cannot reveal the emotions of these children enslaved, perhaps forcefully indentured alone on the frontier. I'd like to share my screen for just a second. You have this chart. If you have the article that I sent on page 75, there's a chart. Let me see if I could get that. Get that up. Share screen. OK, you'll see that. So the chart I put together quite a few years ago now. I wrote this after my my thesis in history and I got from the University of Vermont. But I just want to. I know we don't have a whole lot of time left trying to keep this short. But let's just look at a couple of things here. First of all, farmers, this column here is the total when you see the date, it's the total of the population in Vermont at that time. And then next to it, I compare to just the black population in Vermont. So in 1850, 40 percent of the population were farmers. And this means farmers who own their own land. Blacks, only 4 percent. 1860, 32 percent farmers, blacks, only 4 percent. Same thing, 26 percent. Blacks, where are they? Here they are, 4 percent. So there's this constant 4 percent of black farmers who own their own land. Always many, many more whites owning their own land. Some of these farmers, I know exactly what happened to them. Because I've studied their stories. Another really interesting thing to look at is here in 1850, shoe, that means shoemakers. It was it was a black occupation. Obviously, I didn't find any white shoemakers, but I did find 2 percent of the black adults or any actually adults. This was anyone over 10 had an occupation shoemakers. Then switched to 1860. You see that now shoemakers is a white occupation. And there are no blacks making shoes. Something happened there. There was this switch over. And if you really get a time to look at this, you will find that very few of the occupations are the same for blacks and for whites. Farming was the same. Laborers, LA, that's laborers, farm laborers, servants. They were they were pretty much the same. But other than that, when you got into professional occupations, carpenters, teachers, blacksmiths, merchants, factory workers, that all there was very much segregation here. You can see this occupational segregation. You know, very much as today, the what the blacks were doing were service. They were teamsters. They were working in restaurants. They were laundresses, barbers, farm laborers. So you can see here, you know, the beginnings of discrimination in Vermont. This is user all Vermont. And we can talk more about this chart later. There's a lot of interesting things in there. I'm going to stop sharing my screen now and just quickly finish up and get rid of that, because I know you have more testimony, you don't want to listen to me all afternoon. And also when you look at that, you can see the discriminate, you know, when you can when they're finally start collecting women's occupations, you can see that black women, 27% of black women were domestic servants, as compared to 7% for whites. And many of those domestic white servants were Irish and French Canadian, but African American women were domestic servants, housekeepers and laundresses. They were the three top occupations for women, black women. For European women, it was domestic servants, teachers and working in mills. So there was definitely discrimination both in the male and the female sphere. So just to end, that racism, dog, free and enslaved people in the Green Mountains cannot be doubted. Apparently freeing blacks from slavery or freeing blacks from discrimination and hiring them into your business were two unrelated actions in the minds of business owners. If we ignore these stories, we can't begin to understand the black or deal in this country or in this state or begin to ease the accumulated weight of the injustices that they faced. If we ignore these struggles, we cannot root out systemic racism that is baked into our institutions. We must face the fact that in other states, the white majority here in Vermont delegated most blacks to menial positions, reserving for Anglo-Saxon whites, high status jobs and social privilege. People of color have been deprived of wealth, that they helped whites to accumulate, they were deprived of land, deprived of good housing, deprived of the power that came with wealth and land ownership. Ignoring this fight for social justice may make whites feel good about their ancestors, but as historian Paul Ganyan wrote, swapping the truth for a temporary growth, glow of moral superiority, deprives us of perspectives on our own time. Thank you for allowing me to provide some of those perspectives that are missing from our history. And I'll stop there. Thank you, Elise. We'll have a couple of questions and then move to Stephanie, Representative Kolecki. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Elise, for this is great. I hadn't read this article of yours, so it's a really important article. I appreciate it. Now, also, I just want to let the committee know you've been really instrumental in the change in our Constitution that is the House passed and the Senators passed. It's coming back to us now, and then it'll go before the voters to eliminate the existing language of still allowing childhood slavery. And so anyway, I just want to acknowledge it was a lot through your efforts in your history that has allowed that to move forward. So I appreciate that and thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah. Representative Hango. Thank you. I just want to refer back to your chart for a minute. Did you, did I hear you say as I mistaken that factory laborers were, I forget how you put it, but you definitely did not include those in the same category as, for instance, indentured servants. But I know that, you know, typically young French Canadian kids forced to work in factories, and it was similar to an indentured servitude and the conditions were quite horrible. So I'm trying to go back to what you called the factory workers. What category? Well, what I was saying about that was that I never found any person of color working in a woolen or a cotton mill. Okay. It seems to be very, it was just part of the discrimination. There were certain occupations for blacks and certain occupations for whites. But certainly one was not better than the other in terms of working conditions and You mean the factories? Yeah. The factories versus working in someone's home is an indentured service. Well, the factories, their, their families sent them to work in the factories. I mean, French Canadians had very large families. They didn't have a lot of money. They really needed money in order to survive. And they, they sent their children. And I think often to, you know, orphan children had nowhere else to be and make a living. And they were often put placed in factories to work outside of their own choice. So I do think it was not a very pleasant experience for them either. No, it wasn't for anybody working in those factories. They were not good places to work. They made you sick. You know, they wouldn't open the windows in the summer because, you know, it might, they wanted it to stay really humid inside and they didn't, they opened the windows and it wasn't humid. The threads would break too much. They were, they were horrible places. They were horrible places to work. Thank you, Elise. Please feel free to stay here when, after the testimony, we may have some broader, some, another round of full questions. But I wanted to welcome Stephanie Morningstar to the committee. Stephanie, thank you so much for coming in and for, and for offering to share your thoughts on this. Please feel free to introduce yourself. Tell us, tell us the organizations that you're affiliated with and, and the microphone is yours. You know, say go say what we go Stephanie Morningstar and Young Yats. Hello, everybody. I'm Stephanie Morningstar. I am Mohawk Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. I just have to take a minute because this was a bit of a triggering and quite in-depth history lesson that y'all just got right now that I'm actually quite surprised that folks are surprised about this history. It's, it's something that I thought people were taught in school that apparently that's not the case. So just letting that sink in and letting my blood pressure go down just a bit while I try to bring to you the message that we share about the work that we do with the Northeast Farmers of Colored Land Trust. So as Aldoah, Eldrila wants it, what said, if you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you've come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. The Northeast Farmers of Colored Land Trust, or NIFOC LT, which started in 2018, is a black indigenous driven land trust that embraces the covenants of collaboration to advance liberation for all. Today, NIFOC land trust staff and board of directors, we embody a diverse set of skills and cooperative development, climate justice, food and land sovereignty, farming, herbalism, education, and global indigenous ways of honoring the land trust in one another. The land trust was incubated until late 2020 by our fiscal sponsor, Soulfire Farm, and is supported by a constellation of values aligned in sibling organizations providing technical and legal support to farmers of color in Vermont, including Vermont Land Trust, the Vermont Agricultural Viability Alliance, NOPA Vermont, and the Everytown Project. Through our work, we're positively impacting the health and wellness outcomes of black indigenous and people of color, communities, lands, and non-human beings in the Northeast. We're advancing healing between our communities as a pathway to scalable equitable land access and food sovereignty. We're working to conserve land through protecting and restoring native species ecosystems, engaging in regenerative farming and agroforestry, and advancing environmental policies that upheld the rights of nature or also known as personhood. In our work, we prioritize the complex and interwoven healing work of honoring indigenous sovereignty, advancing reparations for the descendants of enslaved people, and making welcome those who have come to these lands out of a hope for a better life. We're advancing permanent and secure land tenure through the redistribution of land-based wealth through the rematuration of land and advancement of reparations, as well as creating a safe space for our community through the Northeast Farmers of Color Network. The Nephope Network is an informal alliance of Black, Latinx, indigenous, and Asian farmers, making our lives on land in New England and upstate New York. There were 21 founding members from that farm, from the member farms of the network, and now we're at 449 and counting farmers of color across the Northeast. We're also working collectively in what we envision in ways to be able to be reciprocal with land and redefining what the word farmer stands for. Currently, the Nephope Network exists as a Black, indigenous, POC-only place of exchange, and our purposes are to, number one, break the isolation of being farmers of color in the Northeast by building relationships of mutual respect and joy, the foundation for any other movement work. We also are, we gather to share skills, advance resources, and time with one another through mutual aid and build collaborative projects and initiatives. And finally, we are working together to coordinate our policy demands and catalyze reparations for Black, indigenous, POC farmers and land stewards. Recently, a Nephope Network member confided in me that she felt hopeful and said, I have, I have to thank you and the Nephope Network for that. I am meeting Black, indigenous, POC land stewards and growers out here because of it. I'm getting the technical assistance I finally need. I've been isolated from my people for so long in following this farm dream. Words like these ones that our members shared are why Nephope Land Trust is necessary in Vermont. Food apartheid, environmental and climate racism, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent land grab of the COVID-19 pandemic, are symptoms of settler colonialism coupled with industrial capitalism, a chimera whose origin story is the theft, extraction and subjugation of land, knowledges, bodies, and resources of Black and indigenous peoples for the benefit of profit and power. Access to land is the number one barrier in Vermont for people of color to feed our communities healthy and fresh food. Dispossession and theft of land and labor from indigenous nations, Black folks and other people of color built the foundation of this state, cutting us off from health, wealth, the use of our languages, ancestral knowledges, and a sense of belonging. Farmland is vanishing across Vermont as development to encroach on agriculturally viable land. What farmland is still left is threatened by second homeowners looking for a safe place to do remote work while COVID-19 is still a threat. Agricultural runoff from commodity firms, nutrient depletion, and arable soils, shrinking seed biodiversity, and sky rocketing land prices, all symptoms of late stage capitalism and settler colonialism. White landowners as of the 2017 agricultural census currently own and control between 95 to 98 percent of the farmland in Vermont and receive over 97 percent of agricultural related financial assistance. The 2018 Farm Bill, like its policy predecessors, set aside hundreds of millions in commodity subsidies for technology, genetic manipulation, corporatized plant and animal varieties. This record funding secured the work of almost exclusively white-led institutions and organizations that engage our communities and other marginalized communities with the purpose of consuming our knowledge without reciprocity. These organizations have historically used our labor, our stories, our images to build the social capital that comes from being seen to be being engaged with our needs. Their white saviorism also challenges organizations like Me Folkland Trust by taking up space and funds, tokenizing our communities and disrespecting the concept of reparations by profiting off the process. Within Me Folk, 100 percent of our work is for us and by us. Doing and knowing together, the self-determined generation of new knowledge is our innovation by creating a holistic framework founded in relationships, governance, ancestral wisdom, and accountability to each other and the land. We carry forward the innovations and original instructions that informed our collective cosmologies through seeds, story, song, ceremony, and food. Our food is our technology to withstand the changes that are beyond our control. By increasing access to fresh, culturally appropriate food, medicines, and connection to the land, our bodies will have an equal chance to adapt and survive. Our diets hold vast opportunities for creative expression and joyful experiences that are currently untapped. By reinvesting in an economy that is not only sustainable but regenerative and hyper-local, we will feed our families, communities, and nations. At Me Folk Land Trust, we know that reconnecting Black Indigenous POC with land fortifies the longevity of our community's elders and history holders, contributes to the school's successes and vitality of our young people, and carries our ancestors' seed stories of spirit ecology, resistance, intergenerational collaboration, agricultural ingenuity, and the indelible connection between healthy land and the sustenance it offers. During the last three months in Me Folk Land Trust, we've been mapping the relationships and the networks within the Black Bipoc ecosystem of farmers, land stewards, and change makers in the Northeast that are a part of our network. Based on our most recent network mapping and analysis, about 25 to 30 percent of our members are actually located in Dakina or Irmaan. From the responses, we learned that all of them are looking to steward land, and about 50 percent of them, through collective projects, the other half as single family units. Currently, they're seeking around 275 acres of land for rural farming and 2.8 acres of land for urban farming. One of the most beautiful particularities of Vermont land stewards is that in, is that most of them are young families, and 91 percent of the members in their family units are less than 45 years old. In summary, land stewards in Vermont are seeking land tenure models that allow their young families to thrive, creating space for them and the children of their communities. We have land stewards in Vermont that define themselves as farmers, educators and activists that are looking to manage natural resources in the land to create space to grow culturally relevant food, fruit trees, and farmers also who would like to create diverse farm businesses that will include animals like goats and sheep. In the two years of work that we have been we've been providing intersectional services to intersectional farmers of color. Our work embodies solidarity and we call in our community to first heal together. This essential step is where we aim to create and embody solutions that simultaneously center indigenous sovereignty and land rematuration alongside reparations and black liberation. With that work underway, we are then moving respectfully and ethically into collective and consensual land-based projects by building communities based in cooperative economics, regenerative agriculture, and cultural celebration. In the last three months since its creation, the land network program has been providing services to 12 farmers of color in Vermont who are starting their farm businesses or scaling up their operations and many more who are actively seeking land to start their farm businesses after decades of work on other farms. To us, success isn't only measured by the number of acres preserved or the increase of net income in a farm business. Success looks like a willingness to sit together, to learn about each other, and to co-create a vision for successes and wellness that includes our communities. Success will be indicated by our shared capacity to bring together our ancestors' land-based knowledges and common projects to rematriate lands where we can reconstitute territories of life. We hope in this way to realize our emancipatory vision of sovereignty as rooted in the original instructions for regenerating land and community as an integrated whole. Hailing and nurturing BIPOC relations is key to enabling this common and coordinated approach to advancing rematriation and reparations through effective land access coupled with capacity building in terms of knowledge and practice sharing that actualizes the sustainable governance of land-based communities. We stand on the shoulder of ancestors. Freedom Farm Cooperative taught us nobody's free until everybody's free. New communities' land trusts taught us that land can not only feed us, it can free us. Seed and land rematriation provide pathways to food sovereignty, conservation, and cultural preservation. Native land conservancy and first light learning journey have taught us that cultural respect easements build bridges of cultural memory and communities. Soulfire Farm's land stewardship cooperative has illustrated co-creative relationships with land. Semitic abolitionism is a practice that embodies racial healing from the virus known as white supremacy. The UROC tribe and White Earth Band of the Ojibwe are holistically conserving through personhood. Co-creation of climate resilience climate resilience is essential and rematriation indeed rests with the land. In NIFOC our goal is simple. Access to healthy, accessible, environmentally sound land to be stewarded by land stewards of color in the NIFOC network that are in Vermont. And Indigenous community consultation and partnerships, policy and advocacy work, farmer services trainings, and land acquisition and linking. It's important to note again that racial equity and healing begins with the self-determination determination of Black, Indigenous, and people of color ourselves. It is deeply problematic for allied organizations dedicated to reparations to use funding that can feed BIPOC to elevate their own social capital. This is a symptom of capitalism and colonialism replicated as white supremacy culture by hoarding resources. We hope that our 100% BIPOC driven model is the standard when it comes to racial justice and equity for land access and food sovereignty in Indakina, also known as Vermont. We are here to say in order to be truly regenerative we must be reparative while inclusion of BIPOC in the Vermont conservation housing board is a good idea. It is the lowest possible bar to reach. The low hanging fruit of equity, diversity, and inclusion that basically creates the optics of inclusion while extracting free labor from Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Any path toward racial equity and healing needs to be co-created and driven by racialized communities outside the control, judgment, and paternalism of non-POC actors who perpetuate white supremacy culture by attempting to maintain supervision through white saviorism. Our project partners are small powerful explicit representations of primarily Northeastern Black and Indigenous movement leaders who explicit with explicit who prioritize self-determination and connection to land as keys to racial equity and healing. We are setting the bar of self-determination with Black Indigenous leadership structures representing leaders at the forefront of land-based racial justice work in Northeastern Turtle Island. With a strong representation of Northeastern tribal nations who are dedicated to fortifying the Black Indigenous solidarity and kinship movement, we reflect this project's groundedness in empowering global Indigenous sovereignty and kinship systems. Our work represents what land-based Black Indigenous solidarity looks like in action. And finally, a regenerative, reparative, and fully equitable expression of the intentions you hold have already been expressed in Bill H273, crafted by BIPOC for BIPOC at the Everytown Project. The bill will create a BIPOC land ownership opportunity fund with the BIPOC Board empowered to budget money as needed for down payments for single family homes, owner occupied rental units, and for farms through sliding scale grants. It will also institute a BIPOC Everytown Committee to create permanent land access for BIPOC in Everytown in the state. I suggest that if you're still questioning the basic history of the inequities of people of color in an endocrine or in the United States, that you redirect some of your resources to basic cultural competency training for the legislature to learn more. I respectfully request that you focus on anything that would be for this bill to be co-creative, to engage Black and Indigenous people of color in our communities directly instead of creating policy that has nothing, that doesn't have a voice in it. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. Questions? Representative Kalanke? Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Stephanie, for being with us today. I just want to make sure I got the scope of the membership and how many folks are actually in Vermont and how many are currently on land and how many of those want to have land so I understand the numbers. Let me just go back to mine. I have some tables I can share with you. If you'd like for me to follow up by email, I can do that. I need to also mention that I knew nothing about this bill and I knew nothing about it until Ron Wild emailed me. So I have very little to come with for you today. What I'm sharing with you is kind of coming out of left field because I was not aware that this was even happening. There was no instruction as to what you wanted me to speak to other than the little bit of a highlight that was shared with me in the email. So I would be really happy to give you a fulsome report of our Vermont findings but I will send that to you by email. That would be great. And for me what you presented is spot on perfect. So I'm glad you're here. But if you would just send on the amounts of tests that would be helpful. Thank you. No problem. You're welcome. And Stephanie, if you could actually share when you do share the tables if you can share your testimony it will. With us it was a lot and it was really well done. I just wanted to make sure we keep that on our page for us to review. Absolutely. And all the references are listed as well. Yes, thank you. I don't know what to say about except to say I'm sorry that we contacted you without you knowing about the bill. I thought this was actually to uphold the every town bill to be honest because that's the bill that we've been engaged in and supporting. I didn't realize it was another bill until we have a lot of policy that comes across our desk. So this was a complete surprise and we are in full support of any bill that's drafted by and for our communities. Right. And I think it illustrates kind of what you've been talking about today. And you know it is requires us to make sure that we're not operating in a vacuum. Period. 100 percent. Happy to continue to build relationship with you in that way. Great. Well, thank you so much and please feel free to stay. The chief Don Stevens is up next and then we have Nick Richardson from the the Land Trust. Thank you for your comments. We appreciate your time and the work that you're doing with the Land Trust. Glad to be here. It's important to see it move forward. Welcome Chief Don Stevens. Welcome back. It took a minute for my button to unmute so hopefully you can hear me. You're all set. It's nice to see you guys again. Seems like it's we see each other quite a bit when we can. It's kind of nice. Thank you for inviting me. This bill H dot 232 I've been involved with since the beginning of drafting this bill. I worked with the had communications with the Vermont Land Trust. I mean not the Vermont Land Trust. I'm sorry. The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board along with some communications with the Land Trust but also with Catherine Sims who was involved with helping on this. We were not really involved with the drafting of H dot 273 even though I know that that's been on the radar. And I support anything that's going to help uplift our people or the BIPOC community. So I just want to be clear on that. This bill was kind of drafted because we saw a deficiency and an opportunity. The deficiency was trying to get something past during COVID that wouldn't really require a lot of extra money. So we decided to since there's already a process in place for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board which is funded by the legislators maybe we should look at reprioritizing how they spend some of that money to help with equity. The tribal Indigenous people are a little different in the fact that we're the government and you know we we have 65 acres of land right for the entire nation which is not really equitable. But yet we run an entire food food sovereignty or security program with the generosity of other people like Middlebury College, UVM, Sterling College, NOFA. If you went to our website AvanakiTribe.org and looked under the Avanaki Landlink Project you'll see all the stuff we're doing including working with working with farmers to try to grow beef and other types of meat to help supplement the garden things that we're doing. I've been working on land access for a long time now so if you went to AvanakiTribe.org to partnerships you'll see all the lands I've negotiated access to which is part of this bill access to the Fish and Wildlife Lands Agency of Natural Resources State Parks and Recs. If you go to that website I've also negotiated with First Light TransCanada Individual Farmers VLT The Nature Conservancy a whole bunch of people that to provide us access to land to be able to gather natural foods, medicines and artistic material. So part of the part of this bill would also allow the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to be able to have easements to allow us access to land not even if it's not ownership at least access to the lands so we can continue our traditional lifestyle of hunting, gathering that kind of means right. So that's some of that if it's owned by the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board that's a no-brainer but if obviously if they're owned by other people then you know they would have to ask if that's something they want to adopt right. I mean because you're not going to force something on somebody that may not want to have that but at least give the opportunity to be able to give us access to those lands. So that's a no-cost kind of access but it's kind of giving our people access to lands that we had previously because as you know we were stewards of the land we ownership was kind of a foreign concept to us per se because we couldn't put it in our pocket take it with us when we died that's why we lost a lot of our land because somebody says hey we want to give you something for this land and we said sure we're going to still hunt fish on it we're still going to eat we're still going to do everything but so ownership was really a foreign concept but living in the European world we have to have that ownership in order to grow our crops and our foods and without having to rely on other people. So this bill would allow the reprioritization of being able to help tribes and individuals get land. I do think in this bill there should be land set aside specifically for tribes not just individuals because as you know it's hard starting a farm from scratch right? I mean it might cost a hundred thousand dollars just for a tractor I mean if you come from farm country I mean a lot of this handed down through generational means or unless you're lucky enough to buy a farm with all the equipment it's not easy just to start a farm right? I mean it's just it's just cost prohibitive unless there's means to do it so that's why we do it from a tribal level as best we can because we consolidate our grant funds and we consolidate our resources to be able to create those opportunities but I mean if you could provide BHCB could provide you know access to farms for individual indigenous or people of color that opportunity that's that's awesome because it would start to build that generational wealth and keep us on the same playing field so I support this and like I said I would I think anything even including H-273 if it's going to help us great and help them too I also would like to see prioritization put on burial sites that are found maybe BHCB would be able to when people do excavations or they find burial grounds there's really not a huge mechanism to purchase that land as you know in the past we've had to come to the legislators and ask for money special special money to be able to buy those pieces of property to conserve them you know some of that's been done mostly up in Mississaquoia and other places through the department Historic Preservation requesting some of those funds so if maybe some prioritization can be put on securing those when burial sites are found that we could purchase those lands to protect them I mean that just makes sense I also think that if we're going to try to get tribal lands for citizens or for individual tribes hopefully for individual tribes there I think there'll be the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board has the ability for creating employment opportunities or paying for certain types of land management it would be nice to be able to have to be able to create positions within the that organization to be able to help the land management finding access to lands that may be old state parks that people don't use anymore maybe there's the old champion lands that have already been timbered there could be a whole bunch of things that people could do to go out and try to find land access that may not be commercially viable but you know anymore but it would be good for for us to be able to access so I think with creating that kind of thing to be able to help with positions allow them the opportunity to do that creating those easements creating a pool of funds for for tribes and individuals if you can another thing I think is right now most tribes don't have a tax I mean a renewable resource so one of the things I would like to see whether being this bill or some other bill is that tribes are tax exempt for their lands that they own I don't mean individuals because I mean that would be a lot of strain on probably the tax base I mean it would be great if you could but at least the tribal lands I think there's four in existence right now and they're all under probably total of 5000 bucks right I mean churches get tax exemption there's many other organizations we're a non-profit we're 501c3 but guess what we still have to pay taxes even though our lands in tribal forest use it's in current use we still have to pay the school tax and it's kind of hard when you don't have a renewable resource so that's still a strain on us because we don't have those renewable resources I don't even know of any native people that actually work full-time doing native issues or working on native issues so if we don't have money to have a full-time position we sure struggle paying taxes and that wouldn't be a real stretch I think 5000 bucks in the total budget of the state I don't think that would be a real heavy lift so these are kind of the things so I support this bill like I said it doesn't I don't believe this bill is costing the state any extra money it's just reprioritizing what money is already given with the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board so I don't see there being a fiscal cost here it's more of a policy shift and prioritization in my mind I mean you can tell me if I'm wrong but based on what this what this bill does compared to some of the others I'm not I'm not sure why how this would be not really accepted when it doesn't impact the budget you know per se like extra money we're not asking for extra money we're just asking to reprioritize the other other the only other thing I had a question on was there was a thing in here to create two people from Indigenous state recognize tribes to be on the board I'm a little curious since there's four recognized tribes and there's only two positions available how that would be vetted you know is that in other words are the two are the two people they're putting on the board friendly to all the tribes are they how is that vetted like does that go through a certain process to say if we're not going to get four positions one for each tribe then we have to have some kind of mechanism that the tribes accept those people that feel they're confident to work on all of our be halves right because we are separate we are we are separate entities so I just think there should be that should either be bumped up to four one for each recognized tribe or there should be some process put in place so we can agree on who's sitting on the board if that if that helps you Representative Blumlee thank you thank you chief for your comments and you know we're still you know we're still working on what's viable this year what might be viable moving forward a lot of the concepts that you've talked about a lot of the comments that we've heard in relation to this bill into 273 are are pretty large and have asked us to think differently so it's it's not as simple as it's not as simple as as I would like to think it is sometimes to make those changes but it is it is important to hear the broadness of you know what we're being asked to consider and and certainly your your comments are are well noted I know that there was someone that contacted me that was working on h.273 said they would like to have a more opportunity to testify in their bill I figured that's between you and them but I would at least be a courteous and I told them I would mention that so I did okay thank you Representative Blumlee yes thank you chief very much there are just a couple things that I wanted to say respond to one is that you were you you asked was this kind of reprioritization and the way that that I read this is that it's it's really codifying a commitment among commitments to BIPOC land access and home ownership is so that it is part of it articulated as part of the mission and an allowable allocation funding you know within the the charter of VHCB and the other thing is my while this bill imagined expanding the VHCB board it or or changing its membership a little bit to include BIPOC representation I think you are referring to a a version of H96 which is another bill that we've discussed in committee that creates a task force and identifies individual members of different bands and so and that's gone through several different iterations so I think I'm correct about that am I can you remind me what H96 is again please oh it creates a task force on truth and reconciliation okay it's something that we've discussed last year and then again this winter right the only the only thing I'll mention I know you had asked the chair but I just want to say like I've testified many many times is that I'm coming to you from my work right now and testifying we don't have full-time people to do this so when you create all of these legislative boards and commissions you get the same people on 20 boards because they're either retired they're disabled or they own their own business so they have time to be able to sit on these boards that so every time you create a new board you're asking someone to take time and asking their employer to take time from that work to sit on these boards to advise without pay most of the time we're ready to ask money so it doesn't compensate their time so not only do they lose vacation time where they lose work or they lose income to try to because it's important enough to sit on these boards or we can't participate and you have the same person on multiple boards or commissions so you're not really getting a representation of the people you need that's why I was hoping as part of these bills there are two things if VA if the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board or anything you look at can create full-time positions to be able to work with the business communities to represent their issues sort of like what Exana Davis does right but sort of having because the commission's unfunded and they and you know that doesn't really work out so much either so either create these positions that can actually represent our communities in legislative boards or commissions like Maine did right they had they had actually people working to do this full-time right to be a resource to the legislator or you create this aspect within the age of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and saying hey we're going to prioritizing and reserve money for tribes to go out and find land purchase it and then we're going to help fund it like I had somebody come to me a couple couple months ago that says you know we have 4000 lands 4000 acres of land do you we're willing to sell it to you first but it's going to cost 3.5 million dollars oh well that's great I don't know where I'm going to get 3.5 million dollars so it's awesome but I can't do it so so my point being but there may be people that might be willing to to to help give us 500 acres or maybe you know or be able to go out and purchase some land that's really minor and work with the Vermont Housing Conservation Board to fund it because I think the max they've ever funded is like 169,000 or 100 and whatever the whatever the max is I don't remember what it is but I don't think it's I don't think it's a huge no I mean it's a huge number but I don't think it's like beyond that right so we would have to find things underneath that or create a multi-year pool of money that okay it might take two years of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board setting funds aside so when we find something we can just purchase it right you know like it's a goal right and I think what you were saying it's more it does solidify the working with BIPOC and indigenous people but it also so it creates that structure of saying yes we really care about this mission and we're going to do it so it puts that structure in place but it also has to do with prioritization right like if you can help people that are disadvantaged already they've got a mandate to go back to and it's not even a it's not even a okay we want to do this and you got two 10 people have to vote on is this the right thing to do is it not you're providing that structure saying well this is part of our charge so we're going to do it and we're going to set this aside does that make sense so I think this bill really provides that structure that people can then do some kind of they can work within that framework to be able to to kind of help it's less guesswork and I really have heard I think you're making a really important point about the amount of time that is required to respond to request to come and speak to us to serve on committees and commissions and task force to boards etc and that is I think it's kind of its own issue and and I and I really appreciate the perspective that you brought on on all the different ways in which VHCB and others might be able to support indigenous land access and and ownership so thank you welcome and just like I said I do work with the Mulan land trust they just gave us access to all their lands to be able to use for this and like I said if you went to our website under partnerships you'll see the model that I've kind of created and I include all Avanaki is I even though I'm doing it and I don't speak for all Avanaki I only speak for Nalhegan but I try to I fight for all of us you know what I mean so I try to help include everybody as much as I can and that's really a great model for for access but I think the state also could be doing much better when it comes to land access because I knew for a while you had a lot of state parks and recs that had closed down that you didn't really fund anymore like I said you had a lot of the champion lands and you had other lands that you have access to that really could be could be utilized maybe on a more permanent basis than just a license right because like I said I do have access to all the state park and recs lands and agency and national resources lands but it's a license that it's still at the whim of the state right I mean it's still anyway so until we are able to get more lands and have more reparations then this was the best solution that I came up with was actually negotiating with the each department to try to get access to the lands for I meanville heads and leaks are coming pretty soon ramps you gotta get out there and do some of that right all right thank you chief I'm gonna I want to be can I say one thing uh sure at least yeah um friend of mine sent me an article about the uruk nation in california and what they're doing out there I know this bill is tied to climate and what they're doing out there is the cap and trade program gives gives some of this money paid by industries who you know couldn't couldn't keep their emissions down um they use that money and they gave it to the uruks and they are buying their traditional territory with that money yeah no that sounds great I mean I think main just gave a bunch of land to the tribe to they just repatriated some of that land back but like I said it's kind of a two-fold thing like if you if you give land back but yet you have to pay thousands of dollars in taxes without a revenue source it's a defeating defeating purpose so I'm saying is it's great to have the land but it also has to come you know as as tax-free as possible right and like I said just because I have a non-profit but we're not exempt for paying taxes so which is kind of crazy in its own right but that's why we had that other bill that we asked to put in to be able to make tribal lands tax-free so anyway that's that was a different that was a different thing which I don't think have come up but I'm just saying is that some of these things it's just helping us get back to where we were right it's helping us get on a level playing field and I see Nick there I mean he's been instrumental with the LT like I said I haven't really announced this but but Nalhegan has a a bison herd that we acquired but it's hard to have land I'm even negotiating with with Yellowstone maybe to bring some bison back but you need like you need land to put them on and we don't have any so you know Nick knows more about this but we're trying to work with it with additional partners that does that do have land to help us and that's an awkward position to be in because you you don't you don't frame your own destiny thank you well look at thank you for your testimony Don and all as always you're for your words they're well appreciated I'm always here whenever you guys need me just reach out with some notice because you're at work so we acknowledge that but I try right because this is important I mean I appreciate you allowing me to testify because this this is really important I try to make a difference for our people right and and you're not going to know what we're thinking if we're not telling you so I mean I appreciate the opportunity and but anything you could do to allow us to be a more permanent resource for not only legislators but schools I mean I don't even know what happened to H.9 ethnic studies thing but I mean like you know whether it be educating schools whether it be a resource for legislators or local and state government or just other things any time you could help us to get our voices heard is wonderful and thank you so much thank you again Don and committee we're going to go right through and go right to Nick who's been waiting here for a bit thank you for coming Elise I appreciate your time here today Nick thank you thanks so much Representative Stevens it's great to be with you all and Representative Blumley it's great to meet I know we've been trying to do that over the last last couple of days there's been you know just an incredible amount of meaning in even the presentations that I've had a chance to participate in and here today so just sitting here has been extraordinary and I think in a lot of ways you have all the information that you need so rather than trying to cap that I'll just make a couple of points you know this is my first foray into committee meeting for for House General and it's really interesting that this ends up being the topic that brings us here and I think it's something to celebrate Vermont is reckoning with a history and I would submit you know spend a lot of time talking about a history but a present too that's about unequal access that's about the accumulated effect of systemic racism and injustice that's accumulated in Vermont just like every other place since our country began and since well before that and we're really blessed we're incredibly blessed I think to have the opportunity to respond in this moment and to be led in it by extraordinary people like Stephanie Morningstar who I'm going to get off and have a phone call with at four o'clock I'll be very abrupt and leaving it's my first chance to connect with her directly after many months of trying to work closely with Chief Don Stevens an extraordinary advocate and Executive Director Davis who I think is an incredible spokesperson and frames the issue so clearly for us in terms of what are the kinds of things that we need to do and what we're being asked to do as white-led organizations and institutions is something different you know we're being asked to take risks we're being asked to get out of our lane we're being asked to sort of grapple with uncomfortable truths that point to who we are as organizations and the legacy that we inherit and I think it's incredibly exciting to be able to do that work it's not comfortable I'm not going for comfortable we're going to make mistakes along the way as we try to bring more equity and equitable treatment into our work and all of us will and we need to be really focused and not back down when those moments come and really allow ourselves to be led by the BIPOC folks in our communities that are just presenting such a wonderful set of wisdom I think for us right now about how we can proceed and yeah I'm just really struck by what was said so the remotely interest I think just quickly for folks who don't know we're one of the largest land conservation organizations by a lot of measures in the country in one of the smallest states in the country and we've done about 700,000 acres in counting of land conservation easements across the state we work in every community excuse me we work in every community we work in every town and we're over the last few years really reaching beyond some of our traditional boundaries of farmland conservation and working forest conservation into a lot more community conservation focus and also really thinking a lot about what are the needs that Vermont has today that are different than the ones that were facing us when the land trust got started low those many years ago in 1977 just about three months before I was born and it's a really different set of challenges you know just like the legislature was facing a different set of challenges at that point we're looking at real questions about farm viability demographic challenges ecological challenges climate change challenges and and I think that the you know the real powerful opportunity that lies here is to recognize that an embrace of diversity and equity and acknowledging the systemic racism that's been at play in our society is part of solving those problems and we need to be in the space I think white leaders need to be in a space of looking to try and bring those solutions together and that's why I'm really excited to be here to talk about this bill you know we're very supportive of the ideas in it we've you know engaged closely with the sponsors I know that there are a bunch of ideas out there right now and multiple bills that are moving in this kind of direction and I think that's great it's a robust and important dialogue that's happening you know I'm going to leave it to you guys to decide which avenue makes the most sense but I think this idea that we're starting to recognize that without specifically calling out and allocating resources to address systemic issues and historical marginalization we're not going to make the kind of progress that we need to make and I think we've seen that at the Vermont Land Trust the whole conversation on our board has changed dramatically as the composition of that board has changed as we've brought in more people of color into our board and really dedicated a lot more focused to thinking about diversity in a bunch of different ways across what our board composition is it's changing things in ways I never could have anticipated let's just put it that way and so you know without like opining in a specific way about some of the the tenants that are in the bill I think the questions that it's raising about how do we structure governance and in the state and how do we think about you know really creating space for for representation and ownership over decision making for historically marginalized groups is incredibly important and until we're engaging with that level of discussion then I think we're doing you know what Stephanie Morningstar has warned us not to do you know we're we're appropriating we're we're at risk of tokenism and those things can really backfire and and in some incredible ways and and we're not immune to that you know I think that's that's part of our lived experiences and the learning that we're having at the way I trust along the way as we try to figure out how to move forward in solidarity and towards a more just and equitable future here in Vermont you know Chief Stevens had talked about the land acknowledgments that we have done and the access that's gone along with those and I think you know one thing that's in this bill that I'm excited to see and I think could be you know built into you know should be an important part of the policy that comes out is this emphasis on tribal land use and there are a bunch of different ways to structure that you know it could be you know easements are actually a kind of difficult way to structure it frankly and we'll if we're trying to incorporate that into easements we'll run into challenges with federal rules around what can be in an easement but voluntary agreements when I say voluntary I just mean that they're you know created by the land owner with the tribes I think is a really important opportunity we can make those permanent that's something that we've done at the Vermont Land Trust the chief was was speaking about it we've made permanent and affirmative the access rates for indigenous people to all land that the Vermont Land Trust will ever own and that you know which is distinct from easements right that we hold but it's still a lot of land you know and it will continue to grow over time and having those dialogues and those kinds of conversations and the actions that come from that I think are you know incredibly important and there's a lot more opportunity there thinking about state lands and and an Eastland too you know in a way that's more about dialogue between landowners I think those are the points that I really really wanted to make I think I was inspired by the presentations in front of me and could go in a lot of different directions but I know we're short on time and I'm happy to take questions if folks have them I thank you Nick and that yeah you're right this is the first time I think we've had someone from the Vermont Land Trust not to be confused with a community land trust which is housing which is the housing thing as opposed to the housing confusion when it comes to my wife works in the housing side so yes so it's actually do have questions on that in general like for all the money that an investment that's been made in conservation and I know that's the mission I wonder if there's a direction to be headed into in terms of being able to have properties that could be converted to housing but that's a whole another day that's not going to be answered in two minutes and so I'd love to talk to you about that yeah Representative Kalaki thank you chair and hello Nick I I'm trying to understand the interplay that you see your organization having with this particular bill we're talking about yeah great we are major partner of the Vermont Housing Conservation Board on the conservation side John so we we probably we're engaged with a significant percentage in one way or the other either supporting the work of smaller land trusts throughout the state or in direct projects with VHCB on a significant number of the conservation side projects that are happening and so our sort of connection to this bill I think starts in some ways with the fact that we're a major stakeholder in the with VHCB on the conservation side and would be in the position of helping to implement you know whatever sort of whatever the policies and procedures and principles are that come out of this bill and we're also here just because we care about land use and land access and land justice and that is you know something as an organization that we feel feel compelled to have a statement about so those the the land you can serve is public land and this is talking about private land the land the land we can we can serve is actually private land so we we have conservation easements on privately held land in America yeah okay thank you for that distinction and do you have currently the demographics of those easements about how many BIPOC people are served by your easements currently we don't track that information but I think that the information that Stephanie provided is telling in terms of the overall demographic and our demographics are consistent with the state of Vermont John so it's you know I think she said between 95 and 98 percent of the you have the working lands farmland and forest land in Vermont is owned by white people and I I think that would be very consistent for conserved land as well we know that there are 7,000 farms in Vermont and 17 or 18 of them are owned by BIPOC so there's no there's there's been no work done to emphasize BIPOC land ownership except recently and that's the call I'm headed to set to to next with Stephanie right you know we're we we have work to do in that area just like the rest of the state like the rest of us yes thank you all right I appreciate it thanks so much thanks for coming yeah thank you thank you Nick it's four o'clock go take your call thank you thanks good to be with you guys take care all right committee thank you very much for that we will finish up for today it's a lot to take in but very very compelling testimony tomorrow we are starting the day with a similar session that we had last week on mobile homes but we're talking about agricultural housing and it'll be a joint hearing with the house committee on agriculture forestry and it's really we're going to learn a lot but it's really a thumbnail sketch of understanding farm on agricultural thank you Don of agricultural housing and what it might mean not only for farmers but for the people who work on the farms we're not going to have a full slate of people but it's we're all going to have a full slate of people for the for the time that we have them but there's so many facets to this and I just wanted to be introductory because again as we as we have money coming in to take care of what we hope is systemic housing issues over the next few years it's important for us to just get this base knowledge of the differences in how agricultural housing is treated rather than the housing that we're used to hearing about in in our committee different needs different rules different just but the the idea I think John Ryan who's going to come and talk to us about his report will probably give us the biggest overview and when that's ready it'll be a good resource but it's important to start laying some groundwork for the near future in in our in our understanding the housing we'll probably try to have another a housing 101 with folks too just about what we're what we're talking about when we talk about some of the housing issues moving forward again as preparation for our work in understanding what we're investing in with the federal money especially that's coming down the way