 I'm pushing it down the road. I'm the Vice Chair of the Semi-Fort here in Berlin, and I want to welcome you all here this evening. This is a special meeting so that we can discuss with Rima regarding everything that has transpired, and you can ask questions and learn more. So I'm going to turn it over directly to them right now, and I thank you again for all being here. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I'm Torn Olson, I'm the Acting Town Administrator for Berlin. I started this job two days after the flood, so I'm literally getting my feet wet. I appreciate you all coming out tonight. We've got a lot of good guests here to give hopefully some good information. Recording in progress. I do have a sign-up sheet I'll be passing around just for a minute, just for the record with the minutes. First, I'd like to introduce some representatives from the American Red Cross. They've been very instrumental in helping us out with sheltering that very first day, and assistance thereafter. Would you like to introduce yourselves? Yeah, hi, everyone. Thanks for having us, and certainly we want to thank the community for such a welcoming response when we try to assist in the communities. At the Red Cross, we're moving from response to recovery as you are, and what we want to really get out there is this major message, is that if your home was declared major damaged or destroyed, we would really like you to reach out to us with your name, phone number, and address. Well, you can let us know if you're here today. You can call 1-800-RED-CROSS, which is 1-800-733-2767. If you're a veteran seeking extra assistance around other concerns you have, then wave a hero care network, that's 877-272-7333. What we can tell you is we're really honored to be able to serve. We're honored to be able to partner with such great people. If your home was declared major damaged or destroyed, major damaged or destroyed, please, please let us know so that we can give you the extra assistance you might qualify for. Thank you. Thank you. Also, we have Collin with the Small Business Administration. Appreciate you showing up tonight. Talk a little about the business side of things. Thank you. Well, actually, that's a great segue because we not only help businesses, we help homeowners and renters in times of disaster as well. So if you had damage to your home, whether you rent it or own it, or your business, by all means, reach out to us. But first, register with FEMA. They're the overall coordinator. They've got some great programs they administer, but they also coordinate on the other side a whole bunch of organizations. And if you're not registering with them, we don't know who you are. So we need to have you do that. And as the folks at the Red Cross said, if you have a home that has substantially damaged or totally destroyed, we can also look at perhaps refinancing the existing lease. If you still have a mortgage on that, we can look at refinancing it. And the interest rate that we're offering for this disaster for homeowners is usually 2.5%. So it's not dramatically better, but it is better than the market rate. And we can help you. But the first step is to register. And then if you get an SBA application, don't take the reaction that many people do. I don't have a business. It doesn't matter. Fill it out, get it back to us. We'll see what we can do to help you. And what's called deadline? It is the September 12th. September 12th. If you're a renter, and you have an opportunity to buy, can you go through the SBA? That's fine. We can't let you to buy the real estate. We can certainly lend you a place, but I have a personal property that we may have lost. And that doesn't include automobiles. Unfortunately, we can't go that extra step. It would be nice, but we can't. Yes, ma'am. So September 12th is a deadline to apply, right? Yes. Once you're in the system, you're fine. So you can apply and get approved, but not take the money. Is there a time frame that you have to decide on the money? We can put it in a bay that's for up to six months. So it can be in a holding pad? It can be. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And that's important because if we approve you and you're not quite sure yet, it's another tool in your recovery tool kit. Yep. And if you do decide to take the loan, your first payment is to 30 a year, and there's no interest that accrues during that year. So it's basically free money for a year. And then we ask you to start paying it back. So there are a lot of advantages. And even if you're a business owner, no points, no origination fees, no closing costs. If we have to file a perfector collateral, if we take it, that's just whatever the county or state charges. It's a modest fee to file the lien, but we don't have any extra fees. It's the simplest accounting one-on-one loan you could probably design. So because it's to help. And we realize that we're off on the lender of last resort. Yes. I have a question. If you get approved for the loan and you choose not to take it, does that mean that you're not going to be eligible for any grant funding from FEMA? Probably, yes. If you're not approved for the loan, that's a different story. Because if you're not, then we refer you back to FEMA for potentially additional advantages. But you are, and you can't really have one. You will get grant funding that's available through other streams, which is what I help with. So grant money that's in the state of Vermont for nonprofits that is going to be established. The funds are already there. So yes. That's why that's a good idea to know that there's a six-month period where you can be approved to make a decision to take it or not. Because if you commit to take the money, then there won't be a need for any grant money that might be available for mobile home owners. Right. I'm a renter, and I was told that I had to do the SPM on the new order to get my FEMA application and looked at. Yes. Well, the other thing is if you believe you can't afford it, if a person tells me they can't afford it, I generally believe them. It's the guy who says, no, no, I can't afford it. I've got two lease BMWs, and I don't own a thing, but I can afford another. He's the guy I worry about. The person who says, I can't afford it, you're probably right. And if you say you can't warrant them, there's no problem with you. All right, but if I have a credit score, that's not going to make sense. Well, that's, it's also a cash flow. Credit score is important, but if you don't have the cash flow, you know, we're not going to put an extra burden on you. I give you a payment that's just to make matters worse. But you might get kicked back to FEMA if you're not approved by them for some personal property or other stuff. There are other categories of FEMA that once you are denied from SBA, may or may not give you a little bit of money. That's right. Yes, ma'am. What if you've been denied from FEMA, you own the property that's been damaged, but you're renting it out. And then SBA loan help demolish the property? Very possibly. Certainly if it's a rental property, it's a business. Okay. And we can look at whatever you might need to do. If you need to raise it and rebuild it, we can certainly work with you on that. I don't have a patent that's what it's like, anyway. Yes. So today, I want to take the OR to talk to you guys. Since the FEMA did refer, so we can deny FEMA to don't have flood insurance. SBA told us we would be denied through you guys because we don't have flood insurance as well. Because we could not get it. It only says that would make sense if you had a previous SBA loan or required to have flood insurance, it didn't maintain it. So that doesn't make sense. Back in 2011, we got FEMA help and we cannot find flood insurance. That's the hiccup, though, Sarah. Is that flood insurance hiccup again? It's going to hiccup on them. I have it. Well, I can recommend that you call our customer service line and talk with everybody. It just doesn't have the ring of rights to me. It just doesn't sound right. They weren't able to maintain the flood insurance after the three years. Okay. Got you. Yeah, now that makes sense. That's right. Okay. All right. I'll turn it over to you. What was next? Also, we have from out there go away, way in the back. I'm sure somebody has been talking to her, but I can introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Mark Gans. I'm a staff attorney with the poverty law project at Vermont Legal Aid. I focus on housing. I'm here just to express our sorrow that you're going through this first and foremost. And second, we wanted to try to respond to questions that we've been hearing that people may have around paying lot rent or any other questions related to mobile home parks. And so I left a big stack of brochures with your town administrator. And I can also give you a number to call. It's very important to call us. You can also visit our website, but we want you to call so we can talk with you directly and answer any questions you might have. So our number is 1-800-889-2047. It's 1-800-889-2047. Please make sure when you call to preface your call that you're calling about a mobile home park that's been flooded or any other aspect of flooding that you're dealing with. And we're trying to separate those calls out from our normal calls to try to answer them as quickly as possible. If I may ask a question. For us in the Berlin mobile home park, we're being told we have to pay the lot rent regardless. He's claiming that all the amenities are in there except for there's toxic mud outside. The septic systems unless they've all been uncovered and pumped and inspected, they're not there. So I want to find out for sure, why do I need to be paying him a lot rent if I literally cannot live there? It's not my unit that's the issue. It's your amenities that go with that lot. If I can't use the septic, we can't turn the power on because we need a registered electrician to check our home out. And the water system's fine. That's not the issue. But if we have individual septic systems and they haven't been unclear or pumped or checked, how can you guarantee me that that infrastructure is in place but you're still charging me a lot? I understand that. It's actually a fairly complex question. And so we are just hesitant to give sort of general advice and that's why we're urging people to call us. Okay. So we can individually assess what's going on with you and give you the options that we think exist. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I just had that I did call and talk to a staff attorney. He told me not to pay. Okay. I don't know who that might have been or when that might have been. Brad. Well, I'm not asking for names or... Can we not solve the problem now? Well, it's... Because tomorrow's rent day. Yeah. Yes. I hate to say, everybody, we're probably all going to have to at least pay Randy for the next month until we figure out what's going to happen. It's unfortunate, but maybe we can get our money back afterwards. Did your toilet do you've got septic? I didn't try to flush my toilet. My house got almost three feet inside of it. Like, I ain't going to flush that and get back up in my house. So septic or water that's uninhabitable? Well, that's that's what I'm trying to get this... That's what I'm trying to get the city to tell me that my house is literally uninhabitable. It's potentially condemned. But I should not have to pay the lot fee because the lot does not provide the things that the lot is supposed to provide. Yes. So... I have a more generic question. I would pay it because you've got to secure... You've got to security deposit that you will lose. Mm-hmm. And... Yup. If you do not pay it I've already paid my rent. Okay. For next month. I have a property. The property is on his land. I hate the whole idea of paying a lot rent. But if you don't pay it you're going to get screwed. Well, that may well be the case. And so that's why we want people to call us so we can talk about it. But I think as a general proposition when I see that people don't pay their rent. The landlord or in this case the mobile home park owner may have a right to go after you for it. And then if you don't pay it and it's owing that could cause problems for you down the road if you're trying to you know, rent an old lot somewhere or an apartment. Well, we... So that's a retaliatory act against the tenant, right? We talked about that. That's just a general... That's just generally speaking. I'm not advising you to pay your rent or not pay it. I'm advising you to call us So I live in the river on Trailer Park. My trailer's been as red-tanked. Our septic and sewer went down the river. And people are getting notices that they need to pay while I'm not paying because I have no no septic, no sewage. I can't live there and that makes my apartment my home uninhabitable. It's condemned. The park is condemned. No one there should have to pay rent. And don't get me started because I brought it up to Joellen about the Chamber of Commerce with their thing under premises 13.1 stating the part, mobile home part owner is to protect us from the greatest extent of floods. And I could pull it up and read it to you. And he did not. He did not raise my trailer when he knew my apartment flooded. And I bet he didn't pay anybody to do theirs down there either. But he's happy to take our rent every freakin' month and chip most of the lawn more than they do work around there. He does not have insurance on his properties that he owned. Well, I for one lost my home and I shouldn't be penalized when he didn't do his part of the job when I faithfully pay rent every month along with everybody here. Why do you overlook that part of that clause that he's supposed to do what's right if you live in a pledge playing by raising the lots, raising the land, but he did nothing. And Joellen, don't try to calm me down. I have lost everything. Stacy, we all agree with you. I'm on the lawyer to sue him. Well, I was just mentioning that. What I was going to mention is how would we go about doing a class action lawsuit? I can't give advice about it. People need to call us. I really don't want to get into the weeds of legal theories just because it may not be applicable and I don't want to give advice that's wrong. It's never applicable when it comes to the people who live in mobile homes. No, no, we want you to call us. Please. Give that number one more time. Yes. 1-800-889-2047. Thank you. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you. If you move things along, I'm going to turn it over to Andre with FEMA who's going to introduce you. Sorry, Joellen. Good evening, everyone. We have a few officials from FEMA who can answer your questions. We're here to answer questions and get you the help that you need if we can, if we can. So for individual assistance, we have Samuel Harvey and he's the Deputy Chief. He can talk to you about the resources we have to bring the bear to sort of help in your recovery process. We also have Timothy Baker. He's with Public Assistance and to sum it up in a very basic way. You know, the roads and the lights and things like that. That's what he's helping us with. He can sort of talk those big pictures for you if you are interested. Let's see. And we also have SBA which you guys have already spoken to him. So what I'll do is I'll have Sam talk a little bit about his program first. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for having us out here tonight. Again, my name is Sam Harvey. I work with the individual assistance side. I'm going to do a couple of things. I'm going to give a broad overview of the individual assistance program. Hopefully that will answer some of the high-level questions. And I'll try to answer as many of the one-off questions as I can or anything that I didn't cover. If you're uncomfortable talking in this room, we have folks outside by the trailer and the FEMA flags that can sit down with you, look up your case, give you more case-specific details and we'll be here as long as they let us stay on the property tonight. We'll try to answer all the questions that we can. So for FEMA assistance, this is for individual assistance. We're looking at homeowners or renters. And the primary focus of individual assistance is the envelope of the house, the four walls, the roof, the flooring. So we're not looking as much at outbuildings. Porches or decks, sheds, things like that. We're also looking at the contents. So your personal property, your clothes, your dining set, living room set, automobile, if you had extra costs because of moving and storage, if you had uninsured medical bills, dental bills, anything like that, there may be assistance available to help with that. The first step, I think many of you have gone through already, is to register. If you're more comfortable doing it by phone, 1-800-621-3362. Conveniently, it's also weighing 161 FEMA, if that's easier to remember. DisasterAssistance.gov is the website. DisasterAssistance.gov. You can do your application online. You can also set up your online account that way so that you can upload documents, go into your file, and get correspondence of that mechanism. You can also engage with one of our disaster survivor assistants. Folks, those are the people we have outside here today. They're also out in the communities, going door-to-door, going to public events to engage with folks and to get them registered. You can also download the FEMA app, or you can go to one of our disaster recovery disaster recovery centers, the DRC. Closest one I believe to hear is at the Berry Auditorium. Those are physical locations. They have regular hours, seven days a week, blooms from 8 o'clock in the morning until 7 at night. You can go and sit down, talk to somebody face-to-face. You can also use that site to upload documents to do your correspondence that way. Also a great place if you have more in-depth questions, and it's just easier to have somebody there in front of you. That's a great place to sit down and get it done. At a disaster recovery center, we'll also have partners from small business administration and rural US Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. We have some folks there. We have hazard mitigation. We're going to try to bring as many folks as we can to that site to be able to help you. Registering is the first step. You will need certain documents. Somebody in the household has to be a US citizen or permanent resident. It doesn't have to be an adult. It doesn't have to be the person registering. It can be a minor child if that's the case. Again, somebody within that household. Once you register, that gets your application going. One of the first steps that you might see is you'll be contacted by a FEMA inspector. This is going to be one of your first interactions. They're going to set up a time, come out to your property, meet with you. You explain the types of damage that occurred. They'll take a look at what those damages are. That's really important for a couple of reasons. One, because if you don't go through that stuff, it puts everything on pause. And your application won't go anywhere. But that's also the first time that we can start to quantify the amount of damage that's happening. How many feet of drywall, how many feet of insulation, how much of the walls were impacted. Those are the types of things that we really need to get to our system to figure out what you may be eligible for and what the amount of assistance might be. A couple of things about inspectors, because I hear this a fair bit, unfortunately. They're going to have one of these. It's a FEMA identification. If they do not, don't talk to them. They need to have this. Every FEMA employee, every FEMA inspector is going to have something like that. Unfortunately, there are bad actors out there in the world who are going to look to take advantage of folks. So, if you have any questions about does this person belong, challenge them for that identification. If you're still not sure, call the 800 number. Ask, hey, I've got this person in my house. Are they supposed to be here? Can you tell me anything about them? So, after you meet with the FEMA inspector, that's where we start to look at which assistance might be available. I'm going to put that into three main categories. If you are a home owner, you may have assistance for housing repair. Again, that's to replace the drywall. To replace the insulation, do that sort of work. The second category is rental assistance. That's for both homeowners and for renters. So, that is if you are displaced and you need to live somewhere temporarily, that's what the money is for. It's the money directly in your pocket to take and to find a spot. The third category is for personal property. That's your clothes, that's your living room set, dining room set, bedroom set, all of those types that may have been damaged or destroyed. So, each one of those is a separate type of assistance. You don't have to apply individually for each of them. Again, you just go through the FEMA process and speak to the inspector and we tabulate all of that. Now, there are a couple of really important hurdles. The first one is insurance. FEMA cannot duplicate any insurance coverage. Whether that's renter's insurance or flood insurance. So, if it's covered by your insurance company, on the FEMA side we have to wait until that piece has been set up. So, if you have this much damage, your insurance only covers this much, document that and come back to FEMA for that gap. Even if you don't have flood insurance coverage, but you have homeowners insurance, we on the FEMA side need to make sure that none of your homeowners policy isn't going to cover any little piece of what might have been damaged. So, we are going to ask you to file a claim with your homeowners insurance. If they say we can't cover it, that's fine. You'll get a denial letter from your insurance provider. You'll get a copy of that either when you meet the inspector or you can upload it into your file. That will help get the process moving forward. The next big hurdle and this was identified earlier is if you are prompted to apply for a small business administration. As it was pointed out, it's really easy to receive an application with everything else that's going on. It says, small business administration think this doesn't apply to me. But there are applications for it. So, the rental insurance or I'm sorry, the rental assistance and housing repair. All of those you can get without having to go through the small business administration. So, to get to to your point, you may still have the eligibility for rental assistance and for housing repair without having to go through SBA. But if you are prompted to go through an SBA application process, please do so. If you're eligible for a loan, then that is going to be your resource for personal property for all of us other types of needs. If you are not eligible for a small business administration loan, it automatically refers you back to FEMA. You don't have to reapply. You don't have to ask anything specific. It just gets sent back to FEMA. That's where you get assistance for your personal property, including potentially vehicles, moving in storage, medical, dental, all of those types of things. So, go through your insurance process. Apply to SBA if you're prompted to. But also, don't wait on anything. Don't wait to make repairs thinking that, well, FEMA needs to see this type of damage. If you need to start pulling out insulation, drywall, all those things, you know, before it gets worse, before it gets moldier, more stuff gets damaged. Our inspectors are trained to say, hey, there should be insulation there, and now there's not. So, clearly, they lost all that. What about wrecking these homes, destroying these homes? When can we, should we do that? If you have the ability to move forward and get them removed, and so you can start to bring in a new property. Yes. Move forward with that. However, document, take pictures, keep receipts, anything like that, because especially if you're talking about completely removing the whole property, putting a new one back, we need just something that indicates, yes, there was something there prior to the start. I'm going to go to the gentleman. So, we're thinking of filing an appeal because our home had almost three feet of water inside. So, we've been repaired. So, we've been awarded a repair award, but I don't think it's been pointed out that there is no repealing a trailer when there's that much damage. It's a total. It's total. So, how do people, how do people like us go through an appeal process to show that, hey, what you've already seen is literally you already telling me it's demolished. I should be getting a maximum very few hard stops in the FEMA assistance process. So, if you get to a point where you get a reward or a grant for housing repair specifically, as you've pointed out, and you feel it's insufficient because they said, hey, you can repair this and you've got proof that you can't, especially if you have a condemnation letter, red tag letter, keep a copy of, you know, whatever that documentation from the municipality says this home is total. I'll get back into FEMA, submit something in writing that says, hey, you know, I'm Sam Harvey, I live at, you know, 123 Main Street. I have proof that my home was a total loss as declared by the town. Here's a copy of the red tag or the condemnation notice. That you send in or you can upload into your file if you're doing it online to be able to either send out an inspector to reassess based on the information provided or if you have sufficient documentation it'll just go down on forwards. That process can be a little cumbersome, just, you know, having, knowing what to put in the letter. So if you're not sure, you have questions, go to a DRC, sit down with them and ask them to just help you work through that process. Thank you. Ma'am, I think you were personally. Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised to hear what he's saying because I haven't talked to one person that their home was not because, I mean, trailers are trailers. I mean, once that gets wet underneath and you get mold in and then they've added this fire marshal which is a question for somebody else. But when they're all deemed uninhabitable, there's no repair. Yeah, and what, especially with any of the sort of delayed onset mold is really the biggest one here. If you were inspected that's the time you want to say, hey, look, now there's mold in here. You know, there is mold three days in. Oh, actually, three days. Yeah, you shouldn't go in. I'm going to go to the gentleman and then thank you. So you mentioned rental assistance. Does that have any pertinence to this question about what rent is due tomorrow? So your rental assistance is the official is that you have to use it for housing. For your temporary housing, permanent housing, whatever it might be. Beyond that, however you feel you are accomplishing that goal, so it could be with your law rent, for example. Yes, that would be an alternative. If you feel like you've got another place to go, you can use your rental assistance at that location. Thank you. You're saying either or? We're pretty much going to have to eat this first month. There's nothing, there's nobody could tell us that we're going to have to pay. We're using it for where you're saying you can't claim both. So you could do both if the amount that FEMA gives you is sufficient to do both. FEMA gives initial two months worth of rent at the fair market rate for, I believe it's the county so for Washington County. I don't know what that number is because it varies by county. But you will get that as a lump sum. So if there is sufficient funds to pay your law rent then you can use them for both. I believe Shilwell, did you have a question and then we'll go back to the time. Yeah. So in the past when we've gone through this with the mobile homes, there's probably been a watermark that FEMA has used and that if you get to a certain height they really are sold out because you have to go two feet above that to rip out the and then at that point to the max 41,000 isn't even going to cover the cost as far as I know yet a max grant on either of these mobile home parks. Nobody on our we're seeing on average around like 20 which is surprisingly very low considering the other I've been assisting with mobile home recovery in the Monson's 2011 and this is the first disaster that's hit a mobile home park where we haven't seen any max grants. Is there is it the is something major changed in FEMA last couple of years because the last storm I dealt with was in 2008. There hasn't been any specific change to the the inspection process. It could just be a function of not seeing the extent of the damage not knowing that all of these are being dumped or red tagged. Especially anything that might be sort of a delayed onset like I mentioned it wasn't captured at the time of the inspection this notion that hey maybe this can be repaired technically if a frame is not bent a mobile home can be repaired but you're talking 80 to 100,000 or more because you're going to strip it all down and have to go to the metal to the metal if it hasn't been built in so I mean there's a technicality here but I mean by far these homes have all exceeded $1,000 if you have estimates for hey this is how much it's going to take to demolish and replace or repair and send those in under a an application to say hey look you gave me X amount I have proof that it's going to cost this much I have proof that there was this much damage so that it can be reconsidered Do we know if the FEMA inspectors that came to the mobile home parks are familiar with mobile home recovery that was in the the main hub of Barrie that ground zero so I have a six structure home but I oversee case manager for mobile homes could it have been the same inspector that looked at my house that looked at mobile home yeah so our inspectors are expected to be able to inspect whether to stay though mobile home anything in between so they all should be at the exact same level in terms of their ability to recognize that my inspector told me I had to replace both bathrooms I have two bathrooms in my unit each one of those is going to be about ten grand a piece I only got awarded about twenty grand so I get my bathrooms replaced and nothing else so again if you have estimates for a cost that you paid at the show hey it's going to cost this much to do it submit that under your appeal so that we can so will you guys cover the costs to have someone come out and give me estimates but it'll be the part of your max award so it'll be part of my maximum so it's not on top of what I'm already going to get so I'm going to have to shell out money regardless to pay for the things that I already owe but part of what you'll be getting money back for based on whether it's a bill from that provider or an estimate from that it'll be the cost of the bathroom and the cost of the maintenance to come out and provide the estimate so it's not understanding because I mean we've had a lot for our trailer just recently we only had our place for 40 days so we had a heater we had a water heater we had dishwash we had a fridge we had our old house and we had three feet inside the countertops and you're telling me to replace the bathroom any place around here it's going to be 5 to 10 grand just for the bathroom just for the bathroom right just to replace just for the bathrooms but FEMA is telling me my entire home is only worth 22,000 but I have two bathrooms so I have 20 grand just in bathroom would you have to work to get it up to the 41,000 that's all you can get well it shouldn't be that way my home is potentially totaled and three feet of water inside there is no repairing that my floor is buckling there is no repair I believe you have to rip people to report that and try to win well that's what we're discussing is you have that much water damage to that extent it should be automatic this place is no longer habitable you cannot fix this for even the 41,000 you're potentially offering there is no repair so that's where there's other money that comes in to play and that's where the 41,000 is a brick in your story and we there's going to be grant monies available that I will help you guys all negotiate with other people on top of so we can get you as close as we can as much grant money in addition to the 41,000 not duplicating what they do there's no duplication of benefits so you won't get fined by FEMA to help bring you closer to a new living situation so I'm going to I'm going to go to the patient lean back and we'll go to the to the right side so if you deny because of not having the house was hit okay and at that point in time we didn't know it so we got FEMA gave us money for the damage of our belongings inside well now the trailer park is shut down nobody living there anymore and Randy might fix it next year and we got a denial letter because we didn't have insurance so the denial letter for not having a flood insurance means that a lot of tools in a shed completely ruined that he worked for all his life everything in his house his brand new heater which he just got assistance having it put in new furnace and his new refrigerator everything is ruined and he got denied because he couldn't he didn't have FEMA's letter says because they're not having flood insurance he tried to get flood insurance from 2011 but when you only make less than $1,600 $1,700 security and they want $5,000, $6,000 for flood insurance so he's screwed my dad just lost everything and is homeless and is being denied by FEMA yeah SBA I got denied because I had insurance and everything else says to do with FEMA so and if if the property is not applying with flood insurance requirement then it would be eligible for rental assistance to in terms of personal property and housing repair yeah sorry I'm going to go to the back corner and then so the rental assistance where like we had our inspection and haven't seen anything so where is that we're unhappy because we have flood insurance so are they waiting to see yeah so the first thing they're waiting to see is do you have within your flood insurance policy if you do not then a determination page from your flood insurance that says ALE is not something you have you have to upload that so that you would then be eligible for rental assistance and this goes back to if your insurance is giving essentially rental assistance and FEMA cannot give on top of that so rental assistance is ALE yes they're essentially the same thing ALE is alternate living expenses that's what we call it rental assistance so most of us in the part are dealing with a crappy insurance agent down in Florida who we can't get in touch with so now we're hung up dealing with assurance who no one's even heard of and can't get in touch with them because they're the only ones who are insurance so insurance so yeah so in in those scenarios that's where reaching out to the insurance commission for the state is proactive about reaching out to insurance companies to ensure that if you file a claim that they won't raise your rent if they are not being responsive they're going to reach out to that company so I'm sorry I don't have a contact for the insurance commission for Vermont but they have been very proactive about doing that I will look that up and get it to pour in and she can talk about that the consumer the attorney Donald's the shoulder on that I'm her husband so because we have because we have flood insurance and we get denied for everything right so this was our first home we bought 13 years ago we were young blah blah blah worked diligently paid it down carried flood insurance so so far it looks like we get no help from anybody that we've applied for it's all up to our insurance the first step is going to be insurance so I guess my next question is we were directed to go to the SBA take out a loan well we don't want to take out a loan we just want to get as much free money as we can because the new home in Berlin is about $400,000 $500,000 so we're just trying to collect all the benefit that we can and move on but we don't want to waste our time with all these agencies and resources if they want nothing to do with people we don't qualify for anything because it's really a lot of time and energy that we don't need to be exerting towards us if we could just say well unfortunately you guys aren't going to get much because unfortunately our insurance isn't going to give it obviously the housing market is nuts right now so what my house is worth today is not so far the gap between that and what we're going to have to get into you know so I'm just wondering if you could give me kind of an hour wasting our time with FEMA kind of thing because we're not interested in taking out loans really I understand so you're you're not wasting your time applying for FEMA assistance and the reason is because as it was pointed out there is because what happens is again you have this much damage and you're only insured for that much you would submit your settlement page to FEMA along with estimates of damage repairs to show hey I have a delta there's a gap here that's where FEMA would come back to you but at least your applications in the system it's queued up so as soon as you get that settlement from your insurance settlement I'm not hearing awesome things about your provider right now if it goes beyond that September 12th date and you haven't applied to FEMA then there's no coming back for that we've applied we're just waiting for the insurance that's why I would encourage you to reach out to the insurance commission saying this has to start happening this is a follow up question to the question about the rental assistance going to the corporate award from the maximum on the real property and the contents it is separate yes thank you so it will not bring down your real property or your personal property can we just go back to the process I'm sorry no not sure your name Jason no yes Andrew sorry thank you what Zach was saying about many people have condemnation letters email them saying that their homes are being condemned to be destroyed does the home have to stay on the lot as it is while they're going through the appeal process or can they start that process you can start the process however take pictures keep receipts documents just in case there are any questions but we don't want you to wait to start the process of the condemnation letter should be uploaded immediately to their FEMA accounts so that during this time period the appeal process is happening they can move forward in any manner they so choose to get that home removed yeah again don't wait but take pictures keep receipts make sure you have some paper trail can they allow a subcontractor to remove their home does it matter who removes their home not to FEMA so FEMA doesn't care that it looks like the end result for FEMA is the same you don't care about how it's done you do but if you hire a contract to keep your receipts so you can show that that's what you had it done I'm going to have a lot of familiar trends so that's different I actually have two questions my first one is is there going to be posted anywhere how to remove a trailer because I have no idea how to do it myself I have a disabled husband there's no way we haven't even gotten our appliances out and my second question is what was my second question I'm pretty irritated right now oh so our tenant because we rent our property out our tenant got an award amount which no way reflects it he lost everything he walked out with all of you guys did a laundry basket of stuff and got awarded 1500 bucks to rebuild his life like that's not okay so if he was a renter the individual was a renter then they would only be eligible for personal property and rental assistance okay this man collected guns play stations I have pictures of everything that he has lost his electronics every single thing that he has lost I have pictures of which we left in the home until the inspection he was there for the inspection and he walked away with enough for we're not charging him rent I'm not paying a lot rent either and we're not charging him rent to be not in that home anymore happens he's our best friend so that's a little easier but this man is sleeping on couches of people he's come and stayed on our couch you know he's staying on his couch of his mother he shouldn't have to be doing and there's no apartments there's no place to rent right now either I work for Washington County Mental Health I have a client I go back to his apartment and this guy got 1900 bucks how does it so for the other needs assistance they're your personal property that is aimed at essential living needs only so the playstations the weapons those other things are not something that's covered by FEMA we are looking at clothing living room sets dining room sets so because he had no furniture because he was a single bachelor male and decided that furniture was not his life he lived on lawn chairs and upside down laundry baskets because he was a single bachelor male he got nothing but his mental psyche of losing everything that he works so hard for his whole life it doesn't play a factor in anything apparently I just I feel sorry for all you guys that this was your primary residence I feel bad for what you're going through I know we're having our own struggles we're not our second home but this is to me this is not okay that we don't even have an avenue of how to destroy these trailers we have a guy knocking on the door two days after we can get in there and say I'll buy your trailer I'll buy your trailer I'm ready to call him up and say hey come take it so to confirm she could call him up and say come take it because FEMA's not helping us out we don't have flood insurance FEMA said sorry for your luck deal with it and we have no money that has been just by deemed social security disability they're fighting for seven years you got deemed the weak of the flood so I trailer can sit there Randy can take it and do whatever he wants with it I'm not paying him any more money I'm never going back do you need to watch the abandonment clause on the lease I don't care you can charge me all you want can you charge me ever again soak them and then to the general you mentioned something about you looked at the market in this area in terms of that rental assistance because I've been through all the poops of all these people you deserve and I was awarded $1,900 for two months and I'd like to know what's that based on because you're sure is how I'm going to get an apartment or any kind of this area for $500 you're a thousand and then whatever based on fair market rent for the county that's where we come up with the money I guess you guys are really out of act because you can't get over and then you can get a full price in that account so to the gentlemen I've got a question about who's going to remove all of the furniture as the trash that we were 10 feet from the from the building we cannot move these trailers until that trash is removed so we're stuck with a catch 22 until the town or some municipal agency comes through and clears all of this debris from the front of the trailer so that it can be removed we are still liable according to the owner of the park the library so who the hell is going to do that and when the hell is it going to happen and it was still there an hour ago and I drove through yes we were told it was because it was private property that the state or another state but the county and the city aren't going to do anything about it because it's private road it's private property it's specifically for the Berlin mobile home park I don't know if anybody so if it's private land there's never going to be downstairs the city's not going to do anything about it so everybody's got piles of junk outside that the city's not going to come help us do like it really needs to become a how does this work for us because he's extremely extremely we are going to encourage to remove this stuff we were told to remove this stuff he's very correct and just even trying to remove so if I call the fellow to say even buy my trailer it's going to be done with it and not pay long rent no more if I decided to do that today or tomorrow I literally could not get rid of my place because there's no one to help me get rid of all of the trash that I was literally told to put out on the curb but now the city and county that told me literally to do that is saying no that's not up to us anymore so you think this landowner who's probably the same landowner as many of y'all is going to come up and bring us dumpsters free art of his own choice he hasn't free weeks no dumpsters like this is starting to be an issue for folks that if we want to all move on and we actually want to get something taken care of we need other people larger entities coming in and taking care of these smaller details our water sewage they all need to be checked by city officials to make sure this is actually good is there a person who can answer this question once it was done their dumpster moved away barry's got dumpsters they're moving away both sides of both sides of us are getting taken care of but now we're on a private plot of land so now we can't get any assistance from state of your county is there a person here who can answer the question I would start with the public assistance gentlemen here because I when we get there I don't even call him on traction let's hear it okay I'll wait until the next second how are you doing? you can't right? what also happens if your trailer cannot be moved isn't it sinkhole? sinkhole is structurally unsound it's bent we can't even go inside can't go in won't let us in we can't we're demolishing it FEMA's not going to help us SBA's not going to help us we don't have blood insurance so congratulations being a homeowner you have to take care of all this on your own I do want to throw a loophole out there so I live in Barrie again and you know tactically my pile was on my own lawn and you know and it was removed through the trash removal process like they did in Moscow and the apartment buildings in Barrie because Barrie lost 10% of their housing the whole housing market on the 10th those were taking care of technically the piles were on private property would that be a loophole that we could use for this because the apartment complexes are technically a business and they're on private property and the FEMA contracted trash removal projects like in Barrie and Montpelier both did remove trash from the lawns of apartment buildings and the public building would that be a business or a trash of my own good evening are we able to go back to him to ask another question yes of course we're not here to run away sure why were you you're here crying you know to take out Andrea Blocked in we're not here when I was a small child we faced the same thing before there was a FEMA when the stream came up and flooded the home that I was in and it was something that my parents were running from the farm down the road and yes we had to throw a lot of stuff and start away I get it to repair roads bridges municipal buildings being a fire department school police station whatever that's damaged during the flood or the incident that's involved with moving back to the debris issue it comes down to who's responsible for who's responsible for your trash when you take your trash out and you take it to $500 so dump truck or a waste sanitation truck comes down your street to get rid of that there's where we're starting to get into a little bit the gray zone that's the problem with a lot of it's not a gray zone but the owner of the park pays Myers to pick up that trash the owner of the park should be responsible for removal of the trash the owner of the park should be responsible for the waste to come out of the trailer this one of the things because when I say it's a gray zone because it's private property and somebody is contracted to do it it's not as clean cut as something like document where they take it we're looking for cradle to grave on debris so that we know that it's taken care of properly to your point about picking stuff up that may have been inadvertently looking like it was on private property close enough to the road it comes down to a public health and safety issue you know is there something there that children could get into nails whatever rat so in that sense I'm going to work with the municipality here and see what can be done to do something about that I need to check again like I said when I use the word gray zone I don't mean that to be an insult it's just it's clear cut in most instances instances so that's where we'll work with the municipality to see if it can be picked up brought to a lot of times we'll take it to a where it has to be separated from wood metal any you know if you had to take out your washer and dryer that's a white good so we have to separate that out for disposal into the appropriate areas landfills or recycling centers of that nature that's part of what I do is working with the municipality to see where we can go fixing roads bridges and buildings that's a standard procedure waste from what was destroyed of your personal property that you just can no longer use you know you had a nice table but now it got wet it's warped it's ruined it has to go I understand that so that's one of the things that I'll have to start tomorrow morning and make those phone calls to the city and village towns and say what has to happen where can we go with this what's in the city or town charter that we can get here everybody's in a different spot down at the Berlin mobile home park I'm not quite sure about river run I haven't looked down there but at the Berlin mobile home park there's a lot of people that have taken out everything that was debris inside and it's waiting out there others there's at least one where nothing has been taken out at all at all a couple others where I hear that they have some movers coming this week I hope they can actually still salvage something I kind of doubt it and then there's people like myself and I don't think I'm the only one where there's a lot of debris outside but there's some bigger pieces of furniture and appliances still inside because it became cloudy as far as should it be out or should it be in so besides getting rid of it we also need some really clear direction as far as does it include porches and sheds and ramps and things like that and will somebody deconstruct them or do we need to get somebody to deconstruct them in order for them to go so there's like a whole bunch in the debris there's a lot there's a lot to unpack with what you just said so I get it at this point if you have the washroom dryer refrigerator things you plan on selling your mobile home to as you mentioned disposal that let them take care of it there may not be any sense in taking out some of those things if they can take it as one unit I don't know the details for that I don't know how but then as this lady said she is condemned she can't even go in there so how are they going to pull anything out anyway so there's that problem that's associated with that so I've tried to ask for volunteer help and be buried there's a few other ones there's one at the Grand Museum and because the mission is that we are not going back into these homes because they're not liveable there's no volunteering they need to get they only volunteer is what I told to get people back into their homes but we can't get back into our homes that's what I was told I personally was told that keep calling and there's lots of groups Mom Hillier Alive was willing to send volunteers out but then again it got gray where the park owner sending us an email saying remove all your belongings the town somebody's coming after they've done Mom Hillier I called up here to get a date because again I can't physically do it neither can my husband I was not given a date but we just my tenant by the grace he cleared all his personal stuff out again we still have appliances but we've tried to get help in there and I couldn't get any help because we can't go back into the home can I say something along that I needed help getting stuff out I'm a renter in Perlin mobile home and I can't afford to pay my rent and I need my deposit back and I posted on Facebook like Sunday in that like Vermont flood 2023 group that's been going around it must have been about 637 o'clock at night I said hey this is where I'm going to be can anybody show up and help me and literally like a lot of people showed up and I had everything out and it was a wonderful experience they were all very respectful of my belongings and me and they were kind and empathetic and it was it was done so I would try to do that but I know a lot of people have been saying that they've been coming through the park to help volunteer but nobody's been there maybe a little dangerous because now people need to have respirators I can't go in anymore I just want to say how happy I am to hear you say that you are going to take on you are going to start working on the dumpster issue I want to let you know I'm going to ask those questions I'm going to push as hard as I can so if I can just finish the reason I'm so happy and maybe this is a reflection of why some of my constituents here are so upset is because you are not the first person who has said that to me as their state representative the state operations center two weeks ago said they were going to help the municipality figure out who addressed this private public et cetera last week I had it in writing from FEMA saying we will connect with the state operations center we will address how to resolve this because it's an unsafe situation so I'm thrilled that you are going to now start on something that three different people have told me we're taking care we're going to jump on it and take care of it because obviously it's now a health and safety hazard that's developed so that's terrific if that's now going to happen can we get your name Timothy Baker thank you I just have a please I agree with the volunteer situation I had folks come over and I would offload my basement stuff and I had saw on front porch form to have it out there by July 25th on the road and I did that it's still sitting there and it's if I live on Route 12 which sucks and I just worry that people are going to hit it and I'm confused was someone going to come around or has that been cancelled I just and then if I may jump in Route 12 there's not been scheduled yet great because we always are scheduled the request has been put into the state but it's not been scheduled the only thing on the July 25th it was just junction road that was the only road included on that July 25th I know your fear and it's hard having all this stuff we're on the main thorough way I mean my area is thin and but anyway I just want to on top of that so I have it there and I'm going to be fine what's going to happen and then I'm sorry I want to just give my empathy to all the people who are in the mobile homes your stories are tragic how can we follow up with you to check on the progress of this do you have numbers or will it be going through tour I didn't bring a lot of them women I know how hard tour has been working on getting this dumpster resolved and you can take a picture and share yeah that's a good idea I'm not here to promise anything that I don't want at least I'm going to put my efforts into this I may get in trouble for it hey I'll get in trouble for it but you have a situation that you were told to move your stuff outside and it should have been picked up now it becomes a health and safety issue it needs to be addressed I shouldn't get in trouble for listening to your people here you go it would be the first time it also it also makes it so that they can't move these homes more and more rent accumulation from the landlord because the longer the stuff is there they can't move the trailer for them alone and then they're stuck with another month of rent and you know the cycle for them is very small because and it gets expensive very expensive yes yes ma'am I'm a taxpayer in very town in Berlin I have that fortunate thing and in very town they did something great which I don't know Berlin would be willing to do but they had a dumpster for a week they had dumpsters and as long as you brought flood-related material there it was free they loaded it in the dumpster free they had two guys there and it was open from this time to this time and and that's we may have to do so I don't know I'm just throwing that out there I know that's what very town did because we had damage in our primary residents too and it was amazing that they did such a thing I would be willing to to trailer property to a dumpster if that's what it came down to that's what we have to look into I want to work with Berlin and see what we can do we have to have a solution that's I'm not here just to talk and say oh and promise you the moon that's not what I do you don't want to hear that so we have to address your problem and I have to work with the town to do it and see what's the best solution for everybody and right now because it's been a while you've had a letter you're telling me you had a letter from the landlord says get your stuff out well so we need to get it to a point where it can be picked up and we can look at reimbursing the town for handling it in that sense that's for me that's what my end of it is in the cities for the work they do for moving debris or emergency protective measures to keep things safe yes ma'am like you've said we're all in different spots here so I just want to confirm that as far as FEMA is concerned even if we're going to appeal things are whatever we're going to do we're safe to remove the home I know the week they've said you whatever we have somebody we're gonna have to come take our house in terms of female you guys we can even if we're gonna have to go through maybe three more months of appeals or whatever it's safe through because somebody said get that in writing this treatment that they absolutely would do that this is where this is where it gets a little cloudy good for you guys for all of you is that I'm public assistance and Sam's individual assistance we're trying to help everybody but when we are classified as female that's where Sam and I have to come together and help you do what you need to do so those specific questions of your personal property I do have to refer back to him so I just coming back to like if your house is condemned so if you get your condemnation letter and your house is condemned does that make it still your property like you have to deal with like if you're in a trailer or does that become the city's problem because they condemn the home again that's a question I'm gonna have to refer back to is there a Berlin select board person here who you've got three we got myself we got so what's the story maybe questions to y'all if we have a potentially condemned home all right we haven't reached our we haven't gotten our our our condemnation letter we haven't gotten it yet but we're probably going to get so when it's a condemned home now do I still have to pay a lot rent does it still belong to me or is it the city's obligation because if it's condemned home I'm not even supposed to touch it let alone move away or haul it you know or take anything from so does that become a responsibility of the individual now or is that the city saying hey your home is condemned we will take care of this which would alleviate us from our lot rent and potentially late later legal obligations that's the question the condemnation letter does not do anything like that it's still your trailer still your responsibility to you know dispose of however you wish it just provides another layer of documentation for FEMA to adjudicate your claim that it is substantially damaged and you know hopefully get you that higher amount from the FEMA grant now I would say one other thing but the condemnation letters those have been issued the ones that have been issued 28 in we're in mobile home park and five in the river on Manor those have gone out they went out in the mail today and if I had your email address I sent them out Friday to today if you have an email address and have not received yet let me know after the meeting and I can shoot it out to you also I can I do have hard copies here I can print out a hard copy for you here tonight after the meeting off you need it as well thank you to her and I'm close met them by care of the Berlin select board and I want to reiterate that I appreciate that you're all here and that you're being very vocal that's important we need to know what's transpiring we don't have all the answers unfortunately yet we wish that we did and we really feel for everything that you're going through tonight we wanted to have this forum to allow you to express what you're going through what you need everyone's been doing a very fabulous job at that we're thankful that the folks from the federal emergency management is here to speak with us tonight and also you sir with the loans that are available and I want to reiterate in terms of what I know with the loans you can apply for them it doesn't mean you have to take the loan but you do want to meet the deadlines that are out there you've asked a lot of questions that we don't have the answers for unfortunately I am all for the dumpster idea and what other towns have done I know Montpelier and Barry have done a tremendous amount and this nice lady has indicated that a lot of people came out to help communities there is a lot of help out there there was an article in the Vermont digger today about the town of Chelsea and one individual had indicated in there they were just about ready to give up and then all of a sudden they heard hey is anybody here and then there was a whole crew of people there to assist so what you said as far as the other towns that have had help with the stuff is that a split between FEMA in the town that how they're able to do it because in other words I'm thinking that the town of Berlin doesn't want to totally put that bill or it would just have a private property Randy should probably have to put the bill and maybe the state out of just telling that hey you need to clean this up that's where we end up in this back and forth is back shouldn't be the town of Berlin you know a bill for private property should be should be the property owner that we're all paying the rent to right he can come and put the dumpsters there he's getting a lot of black and green money and you're all bringing a valid points into Karen's question it's an excellent question as a municipality we're still working through all of those measures what can we do what is happening and where will we come in to be able to assist and that's why we're having this meeting tonight and to where I want to commend you you're doing a fabulous job we're very fortunate to have tour with us as interim town administrator he has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the processes and the people and FEMA and I want to assure you that we will work together to do whatever we can we're just figuring that all out honestly right now so I thank you I have a question for the other guy my question is I don't feel that now and probably not even for the next few weeks that I'm in any position to make big decisions it's very traumatizing going to all this and having your life upended so my question is if you get people money is there a do you have a finette period of time that you need to spend it on housing or do you have some breathing room to figure out what you're going to do now there's there's no set time so long as you're spending rental assistance on your your housing temporary housing or permanent housing so long as you're spending home repair funds on some something that's going into your your permanent home so long as you're spending personal property money on your stuff your personal property there's you can spend it all tomorrow or you could hold on to it for a year or however long it takes you to figure out what the best steps are do they audit you no I mean just the short answer really is no if you you get $40,000 tomorrow and the next day you're on Facebook posting next year $40,000 BMW we might have some problems but we're not we're not interested in running audits 47 people out of this well I just wanted to the dumpster idea is great but I just want to bring attention to the fact that a lot of people living I know in my community I don't really know about the the other property that a lot of people are older a lot of people are disabled a lot of people are single and to get everything out themselves like I couldn't do it and I can't bring it anywhere I can't put that disgusting stuff in the back of my car my car's all I have right now we're going to organize the volunteer team but there's got to be a dumpster for them to put the stuff in yeah so that's yeah I just want to make spring that's pretending to be a lot of labor I see them daily I know what's going on yeah we have a lot to contact for organizing the volunteers but they can't come if there's no I might change the gears a little bit there's been a lot of talk about the condition of the homes you know moving out cleaning out things like that one thing we've not discussed yet is what's going on in here and that's very hard for all of you and very traumatic in a lot of cases the lady from Washington County Mental Health can I put you on the spot what is the hotline number I'm sure anybody call up Washington County I know that we have a bunch of clients that are impacted by all this I work in the community with them so I've driven in this for since day one I was driving in during the foot but I'm sure if you call up they will definitely speak to anybody no judgment I've had to call them myself dealing with you know everything I've witnessed and seen going to the trailer park is very traumatizing to me let alone I'm sure it is for all of I don't know the crisis number national number do encourage you to you know to give them a call and talk through some of the issues I do want to also before we go we do have a female volunteer expert I do a little different job I don't work with money I don't work with PA's I work with the people volunteering the nonprofits and trying to get all of that set together so that I'm Saturday I was all over that Facebook page or said there's all over that Facebook page and looking lots of lists on there and people are putting together groups on there and they're sending people out and and all of that in a lot of people what so what your state has asked you to do is to call 211 and tell them I need crisis cleanup they will take your information they will put your information to crisis clean up and all of those big agencies that are volunteering they pull those work orders from crisis cleanup now yes you got the communities themselves are doing a great job but you have some major stuff going on and there are organizations that have equipment have that kind of stuff and so everything you can think of that you need done and my side is I come from California and firefighters and manufactured homes burn all the time and those those big volunteer agencies they get in there and cut those things up you know and get them out so the big the big thing is is for them to work out that dumpster thing and and then get but get in line at crisis cleanup because the thing is is that if you don't keep those voluntary agencies busy if they don't see they'll go they will move on to the next thing that's just how it works but they need a day I don't think you quite understand the limbo that we're in because I think everybody here has registered 211 I know I personally got both emails and phone calls from them inquiring what I need for assistance but I can't tell them because I don't know you know it's like I got a lot of stuff outside some stuff on a porch that needs to come outside some stuff inside that may or may not need to come out and a porch that I don't know if it needs to be deconstructed and a shed that I don't know if it needs to be deconstructed or if it will go away some other way so you can't tell people how to help when you don't know what's going to happen very I just very frustrating for you very frustrating this whole debris thing is very frustrating but is everybody in the parks home and down is there a clearing out is there a place a central place where people can gather like this and get questions answered no is there any way for FEMA or the state to make sure that the landlord gets his lot when people are struggling to survive in the wake of a horrible trauma and all their stuff is really their house is gone so I just want to I want to just I don't know all the individual stories right so I think so the two wing anything for these folks so the two parks Berlin mobile home park and Riverrun we have almost everybody gathered on a Facebook page and through email or at least the phone number on your own yes who's coming in and helping people in their time of need that's why we're all super upset it's because there's literally no one official capacity can tell me this is what you're supposed to do this is how you're supposed to do that happens if this happens what happens in the state or the feds or both needs to do that because people's lives have been destroyed well it's up to FEMA FEMA told us to contact our county representatives and the county representatives tell us to call two or more so who's gonna help so I just want to finish up so you want to specifically say register me for crisis cleanup okay and then when you decide what's gonna happen then when because they'll pull your slip whatever agency it is pull your slip and they'll give you a call and you can say hey I think I'm gonna need this but I'm not really sure who do I call when there's a dumpster and I need someone to get a skidster out there and pull that stuff out to the road but specific be very specific because if you're calling 201 and registering for them and that's all you're doing all they're doing is red doing a damage assessment they're asking those questions so please call back and specifically say I need to register for crisis clean also my name is Rebecca we have a hotline number that folks can call we want to connect you to resources as they become available to make sure you have the most up-to-date information I can get out that number we also want to get everybody who's a mobile home park resident here is information so I can get that resource and then I'll be working with Rebecca individually with you guys and I'll train a couple other managers so that we can work one-on-one helping you to figure out you know your next phase of living and stacking money because more and more resources are gonna be coming available you know slowly as things I just want to make sure everybody gets that information as soon as they possibly can yeah through the Facebook group we also have a hotline also I want to get find me after this meeting I have some of your numbers but by man meeting I can get your direct contact and name and that way I can reach out to you can I I just kind of so there's a lot going on on everybody's plate we recognize that I do want to throw something out can I ask how many of you have opened a case with Red Cross okay for those who have not I have Phyllis Richard and Elizabeth are here you can give them your name number and address or write it on a piece of paper and hand it over we're gonna give you a call and it don't wait for a declaration if you are concerned that you are condemned please call us for casework for a couple things we also have disaster mental health as does the state that can help you kind of navigate through the pieces and crisis cleanup is amazing it really is amazing when utilized well I know it's difficult so if you know one thing you can do today get it on crisis you may not know everything but if you know one thing I want to tell you that our deadline is a lot earlier than September 12 so I'm gonna ask you when you're done this meeting if you don't talk to our people whoever's online please call 1-800-RED-CROSS it's 24-7 call 1-800-RED-CROSS when you're done this meeting but no later than next Wednesday and you have some debit cards that you're helping people that are devastated with so it is immediate assistance it's not what I wouldn't say is it's necessarily a debit card we talk to each family and immediate individual assistance to be eligible you have to have major destroyed head which I'm hearing that major or damage which is why I want you to open a case with Red Cross as well but the hardest part for many of you is that it isn't a one-stop shop really apply to everybody and everything the worst that can happen is that that time that you've spent you might learn something else or somebody else you can talk to apply to everybody and everything Red Cross tonight everybody else tonight that you can please and I probably can't answer the questions but I have a question for the town property taxes as of right now the installment is due August 15 we are going to look into waving and I bet your flow doesn't and Joe don't know this yet look into waving the late fees and interest if it's not paid by the 15th the other issue is what's called abatement and that is where you file to have your taxes waived for the year you do have to file that individually through the town clerk's office and I meant to have some of the forms out here tonight I didn't but if you don't have them I can get them to you before I leave you can come see me and you can see Cal in the back there and there will be a you know a hearing on that and and even if you've paid your tax to that point and you get your taxes abated you'll be given a cash refund for that thank you I guess we're going are there any other questions on the phone don't mean to be ignoring I can't see the screen too well from here yes can somebody re give out the numbers because I had to leave the chat I'm listening for my sister she lives in Riverrun and she's at work so I'm trying to listen for her and I was driving home and I lost like the conversations so now I'm kind of stuck and trying to find everything back again to be able to give her the phone numbers and contact information from everybody first can you can let's just be made and we can email out the list yeah my name is Kara Shangra I'm calling I'm on the line for my sister Lisa Ammons I use at the Riverrun Miller Riverrun trailer park the other thing is whoever's monitoring the zoom call can plug it in the chat so people can just pull it off that as well but one reason on my chat all I'm seeing are my questions that I'm asking and not the stuff that I had asked earlier I had somebody from CDO EO um wrote back to me and now I can't see it so that's why I'm asking the question because the chat that was there earlier is not there anymore all right let's we'll send our numbers and they can be listed out and flyers it will send everything to my sister you have her email that's Emmons yeah Kara I know how to get hold of Lisa I appreciate it thank you so much she's so upset that she wasn't able to be on this because she has to work tonight and she asked me to listen huh we'll post everything on the Facebook page too okay her sister isn't on that page yet if the Facebook page is something you can get on you'd be welcome to um she said that she tried to get on it and it came up as something that looked like spam so that's why she she didn't join it are there are other questions I don't believe so sir yes this isn't for the town but for FEMA and the town probably knows already if I'm correct this loss of housing in the Berlin mobile home bar and it's associated river run is the most concentrated loss of housing in the state in this blood so this is really the poster child for doing well if you can and they're all staged in Berlin but they're all over barium on failure so here we are waiting back so in the interest of getting the homes off the loss as soon as possible we'd be better to pay our taxes for the full year right because I was told the taxes need to be paid in full for the year before we can move the home so that's another thousand dollars plus or minus that's my understanding that that's correct but but you can't abate it afterwards and get the cash refund so we just hope for like how likely is this refund I mean I understand I've already filed for the abatement but I just want to make sure I'm going to fork up the whole year taxes that it's going to likely be refunded or I I can't speak for the board because it is a separate board it is a you know quasi-judicial proceeding you know with the public hearing and everything like that but the needs are well known and no documented and you know we went through the exact same thing with Irene and the May of 2011 flooding right before Irene so this is a this is a known process for the town and you know I don't want to put words in their mouth but I don't anticipate you know famous last words I don't anticipate any hiccups with that I just wanted to echo up something for instead of earlier and that was brought up I consider myself to be a tech savvy person I'm pretty able that this process has been confusing and complicated and it's like I know from when I left Monday and I didn't get back till Friday I think I was in shock I couldn't work I couldn't really do anything I needed my friend came up with me to try to salvage I was like all I need from you is say yes or no and guide me because I can't function I'm still like I don't know I'm working I'm in school traveling up here trying to find places to stay this has been very complicated and I can only imagine how hard it is for people that maybe aren't tech savvy and I'm thankful that we started that Facebook group because I also get to see my neighbors but we also get to help each other out but even when you're looking on Facebook I don't know if I signed up for everything I need to sign up for I think I did but I'm not sure and it's like it's complicated trying to find stuff it's overwhelming I have 8,000 other things to do I haven't even had time to process everything that I lost and it's just it's it's crazy and I feel very vulnerable right now it's not usually a position that I'm in but I just don't know where to turn and I know I'm in a different situation because I'm a renter but you know we're all in the same boat we're just kind of in different spots in the boat but it's it's hard it's complicated and I feel very bad for everybody because no one here can hold our hands and kind of guide us in the right direction so every time I speak to somebody I'm second-guessing so I need to research this and make sure that this is the right thing to do it's it's hard and complicated and I think that this process really should be a lot easier for folks especially because there have been national disasters across this country for years and the vulnerability is huge when you're giving your name and your your bank account and everything to multiple people. I have to make these decisions when I can't even function. Everyone I talk to about the flooding I just say I just hope you never have to work with FEMA like I need to say that but that's it's been so difficult all these processes and like for those of us who are trying to bring children through this who we're in that part like it's like who again so I think I don't want to cut anybody off and I thought I saw our chair Brad Town out there almost he's still there I hear it so I want to give everybody the opportunity I know there's a lot of still a lot of questions and a lot of a lot of these are discussions that probably should be taken offline I would like to ask our female representatives and crossing everybody else to stay around afterwards and and mill around and get a chance to talk to but I think we'll go ahead and could I ask one last question of you to her I'm wondering what we might expect to be hearing from the town I mean I know that we'll hear about abatement hearings being set up and we'll be hearing from either the town or FEMA somebody about the debris but are there other things that we can expect and I know like for the um congregation orders you were sending it out to people's address on records if people have been having their mail forwarded having new addresses those should be left to the town but is there anything else that we should know as far as we know your email address I can email to you you know if you're here tonight I can hand it to you in person we've got some or something to forwarding addresses um you know just so we can keep in contact with you and let you know what's going on sure just so you know a lot of the coordinating agencies will be outside at the mobile unit and you can still register if you have registered and you have questions and we'll look into your your case you can ask those questions there as well so we hope you'll come back is there anybody who needs to register with FEMA who has not yet you haven't okay um like like he said uh visit the van on the way out and um make sure you get that process started um we do have a small selection of gloves and masks and uh full body suits right up front here if you need those grab them there's also a pallet of water just outside our front door uh be sure to grab that on your way out and like I encourage you to stay afterwards and talk to the individuals uh if any additional questions and I'll look to our chair to adjourn our meeting give me a while before and our president's find me after I have a resource sheet with our number and then I also want to get people's information on behalf of the chair I adjourned the special set for a meeting for July 31st 2023 um thank everybody for coming like to uh especially uh thank our guests for coming I know you've been a long days and a long drive back to you