 I'm representative and you representative Tom Stevens as well as a few other members of House General and Military Affairs are in a conference committee. They will be here as soon as they can. I'm really, speaking for both committees, we are very excited about making testimony and hearing stories and hearing what is going on as this is Homelessness Awareness Day. As Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz says, there's no place like home. Home should not be outside under the trees on a cold day like this. So let's figure out how we can ensure that everyone has a place where they are safe and more. And with that we will start with Sean and Sarah testifying jointly. Thank you. I heard the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Department for Children and Families. And I'm Sean Brown, Deputy Commissioner. You're going to have to speak up really loudly and at best. We can speak up loudly. We can speak up. Sean Brown, Deputy Commissioner from the Department for Children and Families, Economic Services. Okay, I'll lean in too. So we're here today to lay the foundation for the rest of your testimony this morning. And to talk a little bit about what the Department for Children and Families is doing and the Agency of Human Services around homelessness. But also to just talk about some of the data and what homelessness, who's homeless in Vermont. So I know you're both paperless committees, but because of where we are today, we did print off a copy of our presentation for you to follow along. And I think there are some copies in the audience in the Chamber as well. So I'll just jump right in. So just to start and say that, you know, homeless assistance, there are a number of state programs and resources that support homeless assistance programs. The biggest one being the Housing Opportunity Grant Program, administered by the Office of Economic Opportunity, the General Assistance Emergency Housing Program, administered by the Economic Services Division, Family Supportive Housing, Vermont Rental Subsidy. And then there are, of course, a number of other state-funded and AHS housing and services. Yes. Okay, is that better? Okay. Okay. I tend to go fast because there's limited amount of time, but I will go slower. And is this better? Yes. Okay, great. And then just to name that there's a lot of different structures and processes around how we work together around homelessness. Of course, there are federal and state funding resources, the Vermont Council on Homelessness, which is the statewide inter-agency council, which owns Vermont's plan to end homelessness, the Homeless Continuums of Care, the coordinated entry process, which you may hear people provide testimony about today, or mention in your conversation, and that's how we're working together to help people get connected to housing help, and then HMIS, our database system, the point-in-time count, which is obviously coming up at the end of the month, which is our annual census count. So just to name those are a lot of the different pieces at play around homelessness systems. I do want to talk a little bit about the Continuums of Care, which is the primary way that at the local level, organizations and stakeholders are working together to plan and collaborate around homelessness. In Vermont, we have two HUD jurisdiction Continuums of Care. One is called the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness, where you can see the buttons for the stickers people are wearing today, and they're posting today. And then under the Vermont Coalition and Homelessness, there are 11 local Continuums of Care that are working together, and then there's also the Chittenden Homeless Alliance. And so those are, when we think about understanding our needs around homelessness locally, what our gaps are, and working together to plan to address homelessness, we think about our local Continuums of Care being the place where that work happens. So the point of time count is our annual census count of who is literally homeless in Vermont. The 2020 count happens at the end of this month. Folks are working to prepare what the outreach and the work to do that will look like. I did give you some 2019 data on the point of time count. Last year, there were 1,089 people homeless on the 9th of the point of time count. Obviously, there are many more people experiencing homelessness in Vermont, but that is sort of our one-night count to understand who's homeless. And I think the biggest value of the point of time count is to understand what homelessness, literal homelessness looks like in the state, what the populations are. It's more challenging to look at it at trends from year to year, and I'll talk about that when we're in a second. But I did give you a breakdown of who is homeless or was he was on that night in Vermont. About 16% of the owners are chronically homeless. That means they are living with a disability and they've experienced long episodes of homelessness. 37.5% experiencing homelessness are actually families with children. And I think it's also interesting to point out that about 12% to 13% are young adults. The same is true for about 12% are actually children under the age of six. And we know that through who served in our shelter system as well. So just to give a picture of who's homeless, I think sometimes we hold an image in our head about who we're talking about. It's a diverse population of people, and the resources needed to end homelessness are not solved by one single-power Amher initiative. And then the next page is simply a chart of who was only queer people and you can see that about... I'm trying to be close to the microphone but it's... If you speak louder then that would work too. Okay. Maybe I'll speak louder rather than get the feedback. I'm trying. Can you hear that if I speak loud like that? Yeah. Okay. I've never been accused of being quiet. So about on the night of the point in time count, about 60% of people counted were actually staying in an emergency shelter and all of the ranges of how we provide emergency shelter. About 17% were staying in a motel or a hotel paid for by the general assistance program. 10% were unsheltered. So just to give a sense of where people are staying the night that we're counting. I just briefly provided you a couple different slides to point out coordinated entry. Again, coordinated entry is simply the way that we are working together and then our homeless continuums of care to get people connected to housing help. So this is a set of policies and protocols around how people get connected to housing help and how we match them to the housing resource that will best meet their needs and sort of how we agreed to do that across the state. One of the things about coordinated entry is that in every community there's a clear point of entry. Folks can, it's a little bit of a no wrong door approach and the fact that folks can show up anywhere and if they identify as needing housing help or being in housing crisis, organizations know how to get them connected. But also we've made really clear entry points for people and so I gave you those, that list, which is helpful as you think of your own community and where to refer someone for housing help. I gave you the list of those lead agencies. I do want to mention just briefly the housing and opportunity grant program. This is the core funding really for homeless shelter and services across the state. The housing opportunity grant program, or sometimes referred to as POP, blends together about 7 million in state and federal funding to fund about 40 different community organizations to support a range of activities and you can see the breakdown of the kind of work funded through the HOP program. So a big chunk of it goes to emergency shelter and services but HOP is also the core funding for homeless prevention work in the state and some of it supports coordinated entry and HMIS as well. I gave you the link in the report for the 2020 awards. You can see who received HOP funding and I gave you a link as well so that you could look and see what the end of your performance was statewide in that program. I do want to point out and we're going to talk in a minute about the way that the department has been investing general assistance emergency housing dollars in community-based programs and I just want to say that the way that we do that is under the housing opportunity grant program. So that's part of that 7 million. I want to focus a little bit on emergency shelter because the first thing we want to do when people are literally homeless is ensure that they have a safe warm place to stay. By design emergency shelters are temporary and they are helping people to move into permanent housing as quickly as possible. There's a variety of ways and project types when we think about emergency shelter it's not just a congregate year-round shelter, it's also motels, it's also domestic violence shelters, it's also seasonal warming shelters it's also mass-released emergency apartments for families and it's also sometimes host homes for youth. So there are a lot of ways that we meet our emergency shelter and housing needs in this state. Last year about 2,700 households received emergency shelter through one of those project types in a community-based project. And I provided you a little bit of data around who was served in those community-based projects. So last year about 3,700 people stayed in emergency shelter that was publicly funded. It looks like that number is staying the same and part of why that number is staying the same is because this population data around who served in these projects is largely driven by capacity, right? So our shelters are operating largely at capacity which means we're not serving more people in those projects unless we create more capacity. And part of the reason that it's gone down a little bit is because on the next slide you'll see that the average length stay in our emergency shelter projects is the longest that it's been in a very long time. And again this is an average, some people stay shorter amount of time, some people stay longer but on average it's the longest it's been in about 14, 15 years. Another component of the housing services in the state is administered by the Economic Services Division. That's our emergency housing program. It provides services to three categories of homeless Vermonters under categories of catastrophic, vulnerable and then during the cold weather months under adverse weather conditions. Under catastrophic just as you're eligible for up to 84 days in a 12 month period if you lose your housing due to your fleeing domestic violence, constructive eviction you lost your least housing due to no fault of your own or through like fire and flood those would qualify under catastrophic for 84 days. We also then have the vulnerable category where you're eligible for up to 28 days in a 12 month period. Vulnerable categories include families with a child under 6 if you're disabled or if you're over the age of 65 or if you're a woman in the third trimester of pregnancy in your homeless. There's also a point system that we use but very few individuals qualify under the point system primarily. Many of them as you'll see under the chart qualify our biggest categories are under DV and folks who are disabled make up a large number of the individuals we serve in the program. Also under adverse weather the rules are relaxed when the weather conditions meet certain criteria. So if it's going to be 20 degrees or below with wind chill over the overnight hours the rules are suspect are relaxed and anyone who's homeless is eligible to be housed. If there's going to be 32 degrees or below zero with a 50% chance of precipitation of the overnight hours our rules are relaxed and anyone who's homeless is eligible as well. And so we're in the peak of that season right now. Excuse me, I'm looking at your slide. Can you repeat the number of days you get reached? Catastrophic is up to 84 days in a 12 month period. And that's a rolling 12 month period from when you're first eligible. So it's not like a calendar here. It's a rolling so when you first come in for services that's when that one year mark starts for that individual. For vulnerable it's 28 days. 28 days under the vulnerable and then for adverse weather it's how many depending on the weather. Some years we've had as many as 155 nights during the winter meet it and other years we've had as low as like 130 meet that criteria. I just clarified you've got a calendar year. So if I got three days in December what would they count towards? Does my year run from last December? Your 12 month starts for that individual when they first come in to receive services. So it's a rolling 12 month and it's different for each individual based on when they first receive a service from us. And as you will see on the slide that breaks out state fiscal year 17, 18 and 19. You can see there's a continuing upward trend in the emergency housing program. As you can see adverse weather stays fairly constant but it does vary depending on the weather. This winter has been fairly mild compared to prior winters. And so we've not seen as many days so far this year under adverse weather as we've seen in the last several years. Also you'll see domestic violence continues to be a significant issue in the state of Vermont and we're serving many households fleeing violence and that number continues to rise. One bright spot is that we've been really partnering well with our domestic violence organizations across the state to expand our community based initiatives to support them to work more closely with Vermonters fleeing domestic violence and our homeless as a result of that where they're managing the services and the delivery of those services and the dollars through a community investment through the housing opportunity grant. We've expanded several of those just in the last several weeks to other areas of the state. So we have a large area of the state where the domestic violence partner is handling those services for homeless, Vermonters fleeing domestic violence. As you will see on the following slide, last year was a significant uptick from the year before. We provided over 57,000 motel nights and that's not counting any of the services we funded through the community investments. This is strictly motel nights. I would say one of the troubling trends that we're seeing which had had sporadically become issues in prior years is that several areas of the state were experiencing shortages of motel rooms. Historically it was around key ski weekends in just certain communities like in the Rutland area was like around major holidays like President's Day, Martin Luther King Day, New Year's. We would run low on motels just because of the tourism season and that kind of filters down. We're starting to see that in many other areas of the state, St. Albans, Burlington and not just in the cold weather months but in other months even in the summer and the fall like during like big college weekends as well. So that's going to be, we're really struggling to house folks under the current model of using motels just because the availability and the increase in tourism is impacting our ability to locate and utilize motels more frequently. And it's something that we're trying to expand the motels that work with us but that sometimes we're successful and sometimes we're not and bringing in new partners. So as Sarah indicated we have been working for the last several years to expand community investments. That's the use of GA emergency housing money to build capacity in the community to serve homeless homeowners. We have 17 projects in 11 districts. Some of those, many of them are the domestic violence agreements that we just spoke about on partnerships but also cold weather shelters like in the Bay Area and Montpelier area in Burlington and other areas of the state as well. And many of those are full on the night they open up. Many of the shelters that we open and many of them open in mid-November or around the beginning of December and many of them fill up like within days of opening and then the Motel Voucher program kicks in and houses anyone else that needs services after they become full. So essentially what we've described is that we have a system of care for providing emergency shelter and emergency housing in the state. I use those terms interchangeably. That is two parts. About half of folks needing emergency housing and shelter are served by our community based system of care and about half of them receive a motel room through the general assistance emergency housing program when there is no available shelter capacity. And so when we talk about over reliance on motels to meet our emergency housing needs, that is what we're talking about. And one of the things that we want to make you aware of is that the administration does have a proposal in state fiscal year 21 budget to end the general assistance emergency housing program and to invest funds to build up our community based system of care to meet the need of emergency housing and shelter. And I expect that we would welcome the opportunity to come back to both committees and talk about that proposal significantly once the budget is released as well. I want to move on from emergency housing just briefly and I also want to acknowledge that there are a lot of folks that are here today to talk with you that Deputy Commissioner Brown and myself are able to come back whenever the committees want us. So I'm going to move rather quickly through the rest of the slides just to honor the others in the room. So I just want to point out that when someone is homeless there's a lot of, there's kind of four main types of interventions that we think about in terms of helping people get rehoused. One is permanent supported housing. There is of course just our mainstream affordable housing. There's rapid rehousing and there's also homeless prevention services. And the biggest difference between what you'll hear about is rapid rehousing and permanent supported housing. Both provide housing subsidy or subsidized housing or a voucher. And both provide services. Rapid rehousing is time limited rental assistance and permanent supported housing provides a permanent voucher or subsidy. And that kind of leads me to just mention and highlight for you the fact that the legislature did ask the agency of human services to convene a work group and issue a report on specialized housing vouchers. And while I'm not prepared to present that report to you today, I would just, I did include a couple slides for you that provided the link to the full report. And Allison Hart from the Agency of Human Services would welcome the opportunity to share with you some of the findings and recommendations from that report. That report focused specifically on kind of three programs. One of them being the continuum of care permanent supported housing or shelter plus care program. One of them being the continuum of care rapid rehousing program. And then the other being the family unification voucher program. The first two are homeless assistance programs and the concern being that federal funding was being returned and not utilized fully in Vermont. So that report focuses on the reasons for that and some of the possible solutions. So I did include that information in there. One of the recommendations that came out of that report was to expand family supportive housing. So I just want to take a brief moment to name what family supportive housing is. And then to also queue up for you the fact that the administration also will have a proposal in its State Fiscal Year 21 budget to expand family supportive housing. So family supportive housing provides intensive home-based case management and service coordination for families who have experienced homelessness. Right now it's in seven out of 12 AHS districts in the state. And we have capacity to serve an average of 134 families at a time. So family supportive housing helps place those families into permanent housing to partnerships with our affordable housing providers and also the family unification voucher program. And then it provides ongoing home-based service and support to help those families keep their housing and address some of the root causes of homelessness. Family supportive housing is evidence-based. It's a national model and best practice for serving families, particularly with child welfare involvement. And that is one of the groups of families that is prioritized for the program. I did provide you with... Oh, I didn't maybe provide you, but I will send you a link to our end of year report on family supportive housing that highlights some of the outcomes of that program. It's a program that started in 2014 and has slowly expanded. It taps both general fund and Medicaid billing to support families. So our initiative for 2023-2021 will include an expansion from seven to 10 districts and the additional capacity to serve 110 families statewide. So we're very excited to be expanding family supportive housing. So with that, I will pause and we can answer questions if you wanted to, but also welcome the opportunity to come back. Hi. We have many people who are not in the building every day who are here to testify. And so if it is okay with members of the committee, I would respectfully thank you very much for your testimony. And ask Renee Weeks. Renee Weeks. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to test this to see how it works. Can everybody hear me? Okay? No. No? Okay. Good morning. Thank you for your service to the state of Vermont. My name is Renee Weeks and I grew up in Manchester, Vermont. I currently reside in West Newbury. I've worked professionally in human services in our state since 1999. And I've been with the Upper Valley Haven as the Director of Sheltering Clinical Services for the past nine years. I also serve as the co-chair for the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness. I'm Renee. I'm trying to be closer. Closer? Or louder. We're just projecting. Yeah, just really projecting. Okay. How is this? Better. Better? Okay. The Upper Valley Haven is a private nonprofit organization that provides shelter, food, problem solving, and education in the Upper Valley. We operate three emergency shelters, a food shelf, and provide housing navigation, housing retention, and supportive housing services. We also do homeless outreach to encampments in collaboration with the Hartford Police Department and children's after-school and summer programming to school-aged children who have the common experience of being homeless. The Upper Valley Haven is the lead coordinated entry agency for the area, as Sarah just discussed, and coordinated entry is the process by which we assess and prioritize people for various housing resources in the state. Also, as a representative of the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness, as a coalition, we believe that everyone in Vermont has a right to be housed. The Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness acts as the primary decision-making body of the Vermont Balance of State continuum of care. We also support the work of local continuums of care with the goal that people living in Vermont have safe, stable, affordable housing, and if homelessness occurs, it is a brief, rare occurrence during which everyone is treated with dignity and respect. From June through October, I was invited to be a part of the Agency of Human Services Specialized Housing Boucher Work Group as a service provider representative. The report with recommendations went out in November, and Sarah has the link in your paperwork to it. The report addresses all three legs of the stool, housing development, subsidies, and funding to support, housing support services. It also speaks to the value of partnerships between housing developers, managers, and housing service providers. The Upper Valley Haven has partnered with Twin Pines Housing on many projects through the years. The collaboration has been a very effective way to help people attain and sustain housing. We recently were invited to present at a charrette hosted by the Corporation for Supportive Housing to present one of our programs. Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to provide housing case management to a small case load of people due to being short staffed. During that time, I worked with a woman who's been homeless off and on for the past five years. She's experienced chronic homelessness. I will call her by the alias of Betty. Betty and her boyfriend arrived at the Haven Seasonal Shelter about this time last year. They had been staying in a seasonal shelter in another area of the state, but were asked to leave. They stayed in our shelter until we closed in late April. When the shelter closed, they camped outside for a while. About a month later, we were able to get them into our adult emergency shelter. Betty was engaged with mental health services to help her manage her anxiety and depression. After being in the emergency shelter for about a week, she said, boy, it can actually relax now. She was referring to the trauma of living a life where you may have a place to lay your head at night, but you don't really know where you're going to be during the day or where your next meal is coming from. She had been living under the stress of uncertainty and could not focus on anything more than trying to figure out where to sleep and where to get her next meal. After being settled in the shelter, Betty stated she felt safe enough and comfortable enough to begin seeking employment. With the help of her housing case manager, she was able to secure a 32-hour week position as a custodian at an assisted living facility. Meanwhile, she was also on our coordinated entry master list, and her name was next on the list for one of the shelter-plus-care subsidies for people experiencing chronic homelessness. She's currently in the process of working with Pathways for Mom to get her subsidy and secure housing. Throughout this experience, it's been amazing to witness what stability brings to people. I have seen housing stability totally transform people and their lives. Stability increases their bandwidth so that they can focus on the things in their lives that aid in sustaining what they have and who they are. There was no way Betty would have been able to work using the seasonal shelter or staying in a tent. In the seasonal shelter, you need to be out during the daytime hours. The unpredictability of not knowing if you will get a bed at the shelter every night is really scary. The shelter may be fall before you get there and then what. Trying to navigate all of this while also working and attending other appointments is really overwhelming to people. If we want Vermonters to be stable and successful, we must house them first. In order to house people first, we need to have housing subsidies and affordable housing. We need to have increased housing stock and landlords willing to work with us. We also need in many cases supportive services. The Upper Valley Haven runs four programs that provide, sorry, those peas. I supported this. We offer four programs that provide supportive housing services. The Family Supportive Housing Program, which Sarah spoke of, Shelter Plus Care Program, Rapid Rehousing Program, and the Parkhurst Program. When services are provided to people in these programs, we found that 92% of the most vulnerable households have remained housed in these programs. When people receive one of the Continuum of Care funded, Shelter Plus Care, or Rapid Rehousing Subsidies, there's a service match component. These services are typically provided by a designated mental health agency, Pathways Vermont, or a housing service provider. Mental health agencies and pathways have eligibility criteria for their programs because they build Medicaid to cover the cost of the services they provide. Homeless providers have much less stringent eligibility criteria, but also have much less capacity to serve people because they do not receive funding to provide these supportive services. Pregnated entry prioritization for vouchers has been dependent on who's connected to services or eligible for mental health services rather than who is really at the top of the list. I think we should have a fair system in our small state. Much of the time, people experiencing chronic homelessness do not acknowledge their need for mental health treatment and do not want to engage in services with a mental health agency. If their name is at the top of the list for a Shelter Plus Care subsidy, they would need a housing support provider to meet the service match requirement for the subsidy. We need to provide service funding to housing providers to increase service capacities for people who qualify for permanent supportive housing subsidies and do not want mental health services. Currently in the Hartford District, we have 98 households on our coordinated entry master list, with 28 of them experiencing chronic homelessness and eligible to receive a Shelter Plus Care subsidy. In addition, our current wait list for our family supportive housing program is 22 families. All eligible homeowners should have access to this successful program. It would be ideal if we could attach housing subsidies to this program for those who need it, and this was one of the recommendations in the specialized housing voucher work group. The question really comes down to how do we fund all of this? There's no easy solution, but it's befuddling to me to think that we pay $50,000 to housing inmate per year, while the cost of housing household experiencing homelessness to support services would cost us about $5,000 to $10,000 per year, depending on what level of services needed. I think it's important to fund programs and services that we know work to keep people safe. Before I conclude, I'd just like to please, have you please ask your colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to approve the budget adjustment for 24-hour access to the Emergency Shelter Program through the General Assistance Program. While it's not a solution to end homelessness, it's a resource for people when the seasonal shelters and other emergency shelters are full. And it's been reassuring when our seasonal shelter is at capacity that others coming through the door on the coldest of winter nights have an alternative to a tent or a car. Thank you so much for listening and for your attentiveness to the issues we face in Vermont. Thank you, Renee, and since you're not in the building all the time, there is a... Oh, thanks for coming in. You talked about... Time. Time you were talking about me. You talked about two people. A young woman and a man. What happened to the man? So, we're still serving him, and he's one of the household members that will be part of this shelter plus care subsidy that she's receiving. Third couple. Is she working? He receives SSI income. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm getting instructions on how not to pop in the microphone. And I'm pretty loud, so... Also, won't be a problem. Oh, it's a bird's... Little brown to sores. That's not all balanced. All right. Hi, everyone. I'm Bethany Pombar. I'm the director of the Vermont Coalition of Runaway and Homeless Youth Programs. I was going to be joined by a young person with lived experience today, but as complications arise in young people's lives, she was not able to attend. The bonus for us is that we'll get to hear from Kara Casey later, who will take her place. So just a heads up on agenda switch. I'm sorry. Who did you... Kara Casey. Oh, okay. She's on. Yeah. Yeah, great. So, V-CRIP, the Vermont Coalition of Runaway and Homeless Youth Programs, we have 10 member agencies across the state and two partner sites that are providing services for young people aged 12 to 25. Those services include emergency housing, emergency shelter for unaccompanied minors, transitional housing for young people aged 16 to 24, tenant-based rental subsidies for young households, and supportive services like housing navigation, landlord mediation, independent life skills development and family mediation and individual counseling. So we really offer a whole wealth of wraparound services and a holistic approach because homelessness in youth lives is intersectional with so many other aspects that they are experiencing. So the first question I often get is, does youth homelessness really happen here? We don't see them on the streets as much. They're not in our faces like they are in some more urban communities. Unequivocally, yes. During the 2019 point in time count, 142 unaccompanied youth and young adults were experiencing literal homelessness. Six of those were minors. 122 more young people were on their own and precariously housed that night, either couch surfing or staying somewhere impermanent. That's 264 Vermont youth on their own and not safely housed on just one night last year. A recent study shows that Vermont is on par with national experiences of homelessness about one in 10 transition-aged youth aged 16 to 24 is experiencing homelessness at some point during the year and one in 30 minors. Homelessness happens in rural communities at the same rate that it happens in urban communities. I would just say that rural youth are much more creative in finding their own temporary solutions and so that's why we're not seeing them in our faces as much. Last year, Recruit Agency served a total of 350 youth and young adults in our housing stability programs and we still had too many left on wait lists. Youth experiences of homelessness in Vermont are fluid. Many are experiencing two or three different types of homelessness including couch surfing, emergency shelters and stays on the street and so we need responses that they can interact with at the level that they're ready to and that they can come back to and reducing barriers to accessing those services. Youth who are experiencing homelessness disproportionately experience trauma, serious health, behavioral, social and emotional problems, substance use disorders because they lack sufficient resources. Youth housing intersects with other issues youth are facing. 23% of youth receiving housing supports in Vermont were parenting. 23% served by Recruit agencies identified as queer and 7% were gender non-conforming or trans. 13% were currently involved with DCF and 45% reported some form of past involvement. We have to look at that intersection between systems involvement and ongoing experiences of homelessness. 27% of youth and young adults served by all housing providers self-identified as victims of domestic and sexual violence. Homelessness and other experiences are intersectional and we need to be creating holistic systems responses. So yes, youth homelessness happens here and it's complex. VCIP is working with partners to address these issues and build solutions and we need your vision and support as part of that. As part of the new youth homelessness demonstration program funded by HUD that we got a couple of years ago, big new funding source coming into the state which has just been remarkable. Recruit worked with partners like the Department for Children and Family and Vermont Coalition to Add Homelessness to develop the coordinated community plan. I've put a link to that in the written testimony that you all have in your iPads. The plan laid out two vital strategies ensuring incidents were rare, brief and one time. The first strategy was to increase housing capacity, service availability and support, ensuring that funded approaches are data-driven, innovative, responsive to community need and challenge a business as usual model. We heard from youth that they need access to flexible funds that would help stabilize them where they are, avoiding homelessness and preventing them from needing longer term housing assistance. We're about to release those funds next month as a pilot project and it would be really interesting to see where they're utilized and if it's successful in diverting youth longer term housing supports. We heard from youth that they need to be connected with supportive people to be able to sustain housing. We have ensured the availability of service support dollars attached to rental subsidies. We heard that youth face stigma and lack understanding of their rights and responsibilities in housing. We've recreated new landlord liaison and housing navigator positions in eight communities across the state to enhance access to affordable housing, avoid evictions and divert youth from more costly housing interventions. In this past quarter, V-Corp has increased our housing funding by 300% with an additional 125% increase in community-based service funding. This is all thanks to the Youth Homeless Demonstration Program funds. These are vital expansions but they need to be supported with the system's response. So the second strategy that we laid out in the plan moves us towards a community solution pivoting the state towards holistic system-centered response to increasing individual providers. Through this strategy, we hope to build a comprehensive multi-system approach creating linkages between runaway and homeless youth providers, education, workforce, child welfare systems, family supports and other wraparound services. We are developing data-driven strategies and encouraging innovation within the field to be able to move faster and smarter with limited resources. This is where we need your help, though. Vermont is known for collaboration. We know that it takes partners working together to build sustainable solutions. But this work needs leadership and coordination. V-Corp's community-based providers are working on shoestring budgets exacerbated by funder shifts to reimbursement or pay-for-service payments. Increasing data collection requirements and increased cost of living in our communities impacting both those we serve and our service workers. While administrative and operational costs have not risen, we are seeing a whittling away of administrative support for the services that are being provided. The consequence is that providers aren't able to show up to collaborative tables. We aren't able to do the systems thinking that we need to be able to do together because we're all so strapped for service funding that all we can do is put out the fire in front of us. We need to move away from a scarcity funding model and think about how we not only support services and housing dollars but what are the other supports that need to be in place around those things to ensure success of those funds. So thank you for your time. I hope you consider that as you consider what service funds need to be in place. Thank you. Thank you. And again, since I've been building all the time, do folks have any around the table have any questions besides being here? Do you have a presence in far more than Vermont? We do. Some of those people didn't hear the question. She was asking if we have a presence in far northern Vermont. We have agency, NECA is our agency in Newport. We also work with NCSS in St. Albans and St. Johnsbury and Hardwick or the Loyal. Rather all have agencies as well. Youth homeless. How long will it continue? The great news is that those funds will be folded into our COC NOFA process and so there are sustained funds by HUD, which is wonderful. Great. Thank you. Sustainability is the key. So then I will ask I'll ask the next question. Is this the place that money did it come from? So Anthony, thank you. Thank you very much for that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm an advocate with lived experience. And my testimony will not lead you down the hallways and offices of non-profits and agencies. I will be taking you into parking lots and camps. Yesterday when preparing volunteers to engage in the appointment time count, I learned that we were not going to keep our accounts of people who are homeless people. I'm an advocate with lived experience and our accounts of people who are self-paying in motels but don't have another residence or the people who are couchsurfing we were going to throw them away. I was despondent. I've been publicizing to the community you matter, be counted. Well, you bet. You bet. I guess I'm pretty strong voice. Well, I sit at the desk at the food shelf and everybody comes in as a customer. Whenever a customer comes in I look to see if they have an address and if they are homeless. And if they are without an address then they are homeless. I ask them where they sleep and frequently it will be in a car, in a tent in a motel self-pay. There will also be shelters and other places that we already do count who are homeless who do not get counted because we don't catch them in the pit count. So double the number from the numbers that they already give you. Then count the people who are couchsurfing who don't get counted and count the people who are just housing unstable. They go from being quote-unquote housed to being homeless and they don't get counted but the number of people that are actually homeless. My estimate is at least four times what we have on that pit count and could be as much as 10 times as many people. So I would beg you to please keep that in mind. I have prepared testimony and not quite enough copies for everybody but I would like to share with anyone who needs one. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Understood. Thank you. I do not sit here before you armed with piles of facts and figures prepared to speak to specific legislation. I come before you to share my insights as an advocate who listens to, serves and lives with those we know are homeless. Since the day at the age of 15 that I protested the abuse my father heaped on my brother I have identified with the powerless and fought to bring safety and dignity to them. Thus I come to you before you today to address a specific source of danger in the relationship between the community of the unhoused and the larger community. If you attend our vigil later you will hear my lyric portrayal of what it feels like to be unhoused. Here and now I want to put before you the abject danger to which our society is plunging. When young, old and middle aged lose the safety of their domicile with regularity from illness, relationship disruption and the family failure of families to adhere and provide mutual support when opioid dependence and alcoholism plagued the bodies and minds of so many when fear and stigma of those who dwell on the street is rising we are not facing a momentary transient glitch in the functioning of our society and community. We are confronting the effects of the broad and pervasive social policy that underwrites our law and economy. We are confronted by the consequences of our choice to privilege, privilege, private wealth and ambition for collective well-being. Not to say that you are able to change these rules unilaterally. They are written at a federal and global scale and come to us from human nature and history. But you and we suffer the rot these rules promote. You and we are the tree whose limbs are green and pure healthy while the trunk rots from the inside and you and we must address that rot because it affects you and us our community, the state of Vermont. Homelessness isn't just a problem it's a signal. I'm here to ask you to look at homelessness this way. Recently in Burlington the tensions have been rising between some who panhandle and use alleyways to eliminate waste and the businesses nearby. The panhandling has grown aggressive and the mess offensive. With some hand-ring and much real desperation more privileged members of the community are asking what are we going to do to stop this? What if we do not look at this behavior as something to be corrected? What if we ask what are we doing wrong? What is our responsibility? To this I would answer raise the floor on the quality of life. Start by installing or opening bathrooms which can impart to the entire community the dignity of a place to eliminate waste in a socially acceptable way and promote the self-esteem that says I am not I'm not refuse. Start by insisting on the social solidarity which provides dignity to the lives of those so situated. Another way to arrest the rot of social indignity and the loss of safety is to accommodate those who resort to living outdoors with policies I call safe parking, safe camping. You will have before you my brief of such a policy. It does not represent the only approach but as an activist in the homeless community for four years this is what I think will work. Essentially the strategy is to recognize in some form that is legal and provides safety to those who cannot afford housing what already exists. People living in campers, cars and tents or sleeping on church lawns and in ATM booths. Already in some ways and in many communities people are allowed to rest in peace but in many ways and in many communities and I am here to ask you to insist on safety and dignity for those who live outdoors. I am asking you to require every town to create a plan that provides safe parking and safe camping. I would give them a year to create such a draft of such a plan a second year to evaluate their plans and a third year to implement them. The social and cultural challenges are significant we are seeking to address the causes of the problem and we cannot expect instant changes. I would also like you to pass the homeless bill of rights. These are obvious measures to combat the right rot that is signaled by our homelessness but after reading again the homeless bill of rights I don't think that safe parking and safe camping fits as a right. To state it as such would place a precipitate burden on towns forcing them to respond without due planning or guidance. An accommodation of folks living desperately would provide more time to listen and find locally meaningful solutions. I think many municipalities do not have a problem because they are not hassling people so their planning would be nominal but many others people cannot find a place to live. People who cannot find a place to live cannot get a good night's sleep. I do not want to create under present conditions a network of identified specified homeless camps. I want to recognize current responses to the loss of housing and bring them into a relationship with the law and the communities in which they are. I want to add a layer of safety and allow the practice of these policies to guide us as we respond to changing conditions. Allowing and expecting towns to write plans forces them to think about the most vulnerable and consider their needs in the conduct of municipal business. It invites innovation and allows us to work best practices through the multiplicity of solutions. Thank you for considering this testimony. I would like to add two more points quickly. The two things when I worked at CDOEL the things that people came to us many many many many times they wanted to help to get an ID and they needed help with transportation and I would like to propose to you that help with an ID because it is required and the loss of the economy is not just necessary it's a human right. The state I believe owes it to its community and its people to provide an ID for free when the person cannot afford to buy one because when people do not have IDs they cannot check into a motel they cannot get a job frequently you can't even get on transportation. The other thing I would ask for bus rides this is not quite to the same level but very essential I would like to see the state provide free bus rides to people through their EBT card in proportion to the EBT benefits if you were to do that then people who are despondent despondent what's the word anyway people who are in trouble and need help people who want to get to jobs medical appointments they would have the freedom to do that to go to an office and ask for something just for a medical appointment people need to get around it's a human right and an necessity in our society and at least we offer them bus transportation in some places that's what I'm asking for thank you questions please you say that you ask people questions when they come in do we ask them how we could reconnect them with their family see a family in certain situations well you would understand that I can't be asking a question like that at the at the desk of the food shelf when people are coming in to get food I think it's a legitimate very important question and it speaks to one of the the sources of social rot in our society when people cannot hold their families together that would be a great source of help in these areas I don't know how you asked that question but I would definitely ask that question you mentioned the safe parking and safe camping places and I'm wondering if there are and also restrooms for homeless I'm wondering if there are municipalities or models for that around the country that you've seen that would be really good to look at and study further yes there are numerous models across the country most of them involve having a specified camp and they have varying success it depends a lot on very immediate particular people and circumstances and zoning and the opportunity for cheap land and the attitudes of the people who are involved are I don't know of any region having implemented a requirement to plan for that across all the towns and I would support a pilot if you wanted to create a pilot but in any event there are examples of cities that do something like this and of course most of us probably know that the Supreme Court recently declined to reconsider a ruling that said if people don't have shelter you can't kick them out you can't force them to go where they don't exist so it's consistent with the tide the stream of consciousness that we exist in today that we would be working for safe camping and safe parking my goal sorry I was going to wrap up so I can thank you yes ma'am of course of course I would like to testify I have no objections you have provided us with some very specific and thoughtful suggestions some of which are very broad yes and some of which are very discreet so thank you very much welcome and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you thank you can you hear me thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today regarding the link between domestic and sexual violence and homelessness and for all the work that you do around housing and homelessness in Vermont my name is Cara Casey and I work for the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence I specifically work on issues related to economics economic justice the Vermont network and the network against domestic and sexual violence is Vermont's leading voice on domestic and sexual violence in our state we represent 15 independent non-profit member organizations which provide advocacy and support to victims of domestic and sexual violence together these organizations provide 24 hour access to crisis hotlines emergency shelter legal and medical advocacy and support and serve every community of Vermont housing and homelessness is one of the top challenges that our member programs face when supporting survivors and moving forward towards safety healing and thriving the housing opportunity grant program funding reports indicated approximately 43% of homeless children and 45% of all homeless families in shelter in Vermont were staying at a domestic or sexual violence shelter in 2019 statewide in 2019 Vermont's domestic and sexual violence shelters house 522 adults and children 194 individuals were housed in domestic or sexual violence specific transitional housing and 724 individuals were housed in motels supported by domestic and sexual violence organizations as Sean had mentioned many of our programs are receiving general assistance community investment grants which means that they are using GA funds to provide shelter overflow and that would be either expanding shelter or shelter overflow in motels and so in those communities the goal is that 100% of folks that are fleeing domestic or sexual violence and looking for housing when shelters full that they would still be working with domestic or sexual violence organizations to get into alternative housing for many of those folks the plan is in a motel and so they would not be going to the GA program or through 2 on 1 this past fall when 2 on 1 was not offering after hours coverage for emergency housing many of our programs stepped up in partnership with the agency of human services and provided that coverage after hours for survivors specifically knowing that for some survivors fleeing in the middle of the night is the safest and only option for leaving their abusive partner lack of housing especially affordable housing creates significant barriers for survivors keeping them in unsafe situations and also making them vulnerable to exploitation and assault so there's kind of this cycle in which staying in the abusive situation or the unsafe housing is obviously not a great situation but often times leaving could mean homelessness or putting them in a situation where they are more vulnerable to violence so one of our shelters recently reported seeing an increasing number of women coming into shelter after experiencing sexual assault or exploitation in their home and in these situations they were women that were seeking affordable option in their communities because of lack of housing and were being sexually exploited in their homes by men that had offered a room or shared living space several of our other programs have reported handing out tents this summer to survivors when there was no space available in shelter and no other safe option and we know that being unsheltered creates increases in health and safety risks we urge this committee these committees to continue to deliver options for creating new and affordable housing including full funding for VHCB we believe that one of the biggest challenges is just the lack of affordable housing and lack of housing and it creates those longer stays that Sarah had explained in shelter that makes it so that other folks aren't able to come into shelter when it's needed so it creates this bottleneck in our shelter system and so being able to move folks quickly from shelter into affordable housing is the best option for the folks that we work with and that many of the folks in the room work with in fiscal year 2019 the Vermont network utilized $57,000 in hop funding for housing assistance we have a housing assistance fund that hop provides the grant for we supported 35 households with homelessness prevention funds and 44 households with rapid rehousing and for our rapid rehousing funds we use them as one time funds and not kind of the subsidy the longer term subsidy for the three months we just do it one time so some examples include a survivor staying in shelter who found an apartment on their own and the only barrier was startup costs we're able to provide funding for the security deposit so that the survivor could be reunited with her children and get her first ever apartment on her own we're also able to assist a survivor in moving out of their apartment before their abuser was released from incarceration to move to a new location where their abuser would not be able to find them there are hundreds more stories like these of ways that hop funding has supported families and individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Vermont and we need more investments in programs that provide financial assistance to the most vulnerable Vermonters so this includes both housing subsidy and that kind of one time funding for homelessness prevention and startup costs so thank you for your commitment to tackling this important issue that impacts the lives of so many Vermonters we look forward to working with you this session on solutions to create more affordable housing and provide the financial supports and services that go along with them I'd be happy to take any questions and I also am in the building regularly so happy to come and speak with any of your committees and most of the quick questions are do I have the numbers right I think the total was $79 there were two different numbers you gave for which the $57,000 hop grant was used does that add up to $79 acts of assistance under that money $35,000 and $44,000 so again so we heard that a prisoner takes $50,000 to house for one year $57,000 $79 instances of helping people find housing yep or stay in their housing that they were going to lose yep the rabbitary housing funds are extremely and homelessness prevention funds are extremely effective in kind of giving that one time like okay we're going to keep you in or move you to a safe place there's one more question can you define quickly what affordable housing is for what I understand when you talk about yep I mean I think that affordable housing means a lot to you know depending on what your income level is but I would say that housing that is affordable to the lowest income for monitors and housing that includes subsidy for folks so housing that has subsidy attached to it so that people are able to only be paying 30% of their income on housing thank you and I appreciate you're identifying your ability to be affordable sir could I have your name David? yes thank you can you pronounce the word Papurski hello everyone my name is David Papurski I have been asked to speak today about homelessness from a veterans lived experience in 1987 at the age of 18 while still in high school I joined the Marine Corps I served for 6 years till 1983 it was one of the few times in our country's history that we have been at peace some veterans have not been as lucky as me as a consequence they have had to bear the brunt of war I was a good soldier a good Marine and received the iron roll discharge at a rank of E4 I was recommended for a promotion to E5 then encouraged to realize for more training and cash bonus and a promotion to E6 but I turned down the honor as I was ready to return to the civilian life for the next 8 to 10 years or so I tried the best I could to put my military I'm sorry David can you lean back a little I tried the best I could to put my military experience behind me I rode my bicycle for many many miles per day traveled a lot and simply enjoyed my youth and just being alive eventually I tried to settle down and become a so-called responsible tax-paying credit card carrying citizen then it all caught up to me I spent the better part of the 90s contending with the veterans' homeless experience after once again clawing my way back to being housed after my third time of being homeless that if I ever became homeless again I would commit suicide for the next 8 years or so I worked with a roughest group of construction workers ever finishing concrete and taking art classes at a community college at night I soon decided to move to Vermont for a better life I was almost 19 years ago the problem was my life became worse low wages and high rents contributed to an endless struggle with the roof over my head and food in my stomach I was unemployed during recession so I found one dead and job after another I had enough of the American mythological capitalist dream as a cost of ever rising from poverty was like selling my soul leaving behind only a shell of a human being I decided to return to college despite my fear of student debt nor did I have any illusions of having a job after graduation it's just that I simply loved the idea of education and returning these gifts back to our community to create a healthy society some students get new cars from the parents as a graduation gift or head out to Europe for a year long backpacking adventure I became homeless for the fourth time being homeless is like going far not literally like a wild cat but being almost completely removed from society my fourth time of being homeless was different because for the first time I sought out help from the VA this gave me hope I ended up becoming a resident at Canal Street Veterans Homeless Shutter and Winooski just in time to start my graduate program at Vermont College of Fine Arts on the front door to my room I take the bread and pump and poster that simply said thanks on the inside of my door when I walked out of my room it said courage more difficult than being homeless as a transition to becoming housed it's like being a wild animal trapped in a cage this is where case management comes in it is critically important I can't possibly stress this point enough the problem was for most of the time I lived at Canal Street there was virtually no case management to speak of I went through about seven to eight case managers some were caught some employees who quit were fired none of them were vets or understood but issues most of them were incompetent if there was anyone around at all after only about a month at Canal Street I no longer had hope I lived in fear that I would become homeless again after about a year and a half I got so much needed help by a VA Lakeside Clinic Homeless Counselor even so I thought it was too late for me that I would become homeless again in response I sent out an email to create awareness by the powers of B and it got some traction I just hoped that I would leave Canal Street a better place than I found it six months later a case manager the first ever vet started his job at Canal Street as I slowly made progress towards supplemental security income, VA disability and urban development veterans for stable housing known as HUD VASH I was given an extension past the two year time limit on July 1st, 2019 I moved out into my own apartment in Montpelier and I strongly believed that I left Canal Street better than I found it the HUD VASH is a one year program with VA case management and cooperation with the Vermont State Housing Authority that leads to a section 8 voucher I am grateful for this program or else I would be homeless again or worse six weeks or so after I left Canal Street I began to hear bits and pieces from a bunch of different people that Canal Street was being shut down no new vets have been admitted into the program since maybe 2018 or so presently all applicants are being denied all apartment furniture from four floors have been removed all applicants are moving into what used to be a homeless vet housing used to be a homeless veteran housing the case managers hours have been cut back to 15 hours there is only one vet left who has been in the program for a long time for a long while and will probably leave soon I am upset and greatly sad that my homeless brothers and sisters will not get the help that I got I had many conversations with many people asking the same question why was Canal Street being shut down sadly no one had the courage to tell me why even cider was no one was willing to stick their neck out to oppose the closing I did all I did all the research I possibly could to find the answer for instance there were about there are about 40,000 homeless vets still left in the country these numbers have slowly been reduced because of the HUD VASH program at the same time Trump and all his dazzling brilliance proposes drastic cuts to the program we have been at war for almost 18 years the most recently on the brink of yet another these returning vets need our support I found an article dated December 5th, 2019 about a press conference uniting in suicide prevention amongst Governor Scott from National Guard General Knight and Director of White River Junction VA Hospital Dr. Rush and many others they signed a letter promising a unified community support there are over 6,000 veteran suicides per year there were 60,000 vets suicides between 2008 and 2017 Vermont Digger reported July 6th, 2019 that Vermont veteran suicide rates are amongst the highest in the nation there is also a strong correlation between veteran suicide and veteran homelessness so I came to the conclusion the question is not why is Canal Street closed the question is why is Canal Street not remaining open thank you and David if you are willing to give a copy of your testimony to the folks up there and if you haven't made it available on our webpage we appreciate that thank you very much appreciate it Christopher first bitch thank you and I serve as the chair of the Coordinated Entry Committee for the Alliance I work at CVOEO in Burlington which provides the administrative support for the Coordinated Entry System in Shenton County as well as housing navigation assistance and financial assistance as well in 2014 I began my work on the ground in Burlington as an AmeriCorps service member through the CEDO we all belong AmeriCorps program serving as the coordinator for the Greater Burlington 100,000 Homes Campaign which was a volunteer driven community outreach effort to assess the needs of people sleeping on shelter since that time I led the effort to design implement and manage the formative entry process in Shenton County in this position I am responsible for coordinating a diverse group of frontline service workers from multiple agencies and have been in charge of managing our binding list or our master list of people experiencing homelessness and reviewing and reporting community level data on homelessness in Shenton County on a monthly basis my testimony today is on the urgent need for permanent supportive housing but more specifically supportive services needed to pair with existing rental subsidy to permanently house our most vulnerable community members in Shenton County I am basing my testimony on the current data from our coordinated entry master list this list is generated from our corner entry process and encompasses everyone in Shenton County who completed an assessment which in Shenton County is at least 90% of the total literally homeless population this list is up to date and reliable it's dynamic living list up to a real time and it is person specific meaning it tells us who is currently homeless and what their current needs are and I am excited that we now have the ability to identify exactly who is in most urgent need of our support and what kinds of supports that they need and we can do this at the community level to share it in reliable data in our weekly community housing review meetings which are meetings that bring together frontline staff from across multiple agencies including CVO, COTS, Community Health Center Burlington, Steps to End Domestic Violence Pathways, Spectrum and a new place we have identified 83 people currently experiencing chronic homelessness but we have identified 45 individuals single adults experiencing chronic homelessness who are just stuck we need the highest level of supports, we need supportive housing and are stuck just sitting on our list we are unable to move them into housing because we do not have the service capacity to serve them in permanent supportive housing these 45 individuals are the most vulnerable without housing in our community and need supportive housing to exit homelessness via housing first model we know who they are and we have referred them to housing navigation supports in the community we have implemented case conferencing strategies to collaboratively support them when we can however we continue to run up against the lack of the need for additional permanent supportive housing capacity as the main barrier to serving these 45 individuals is especially pronounced given the progress we have otherwise made in Chittenden County driving down chronic homelessness we have been tracking our progress reporting monthly data on homelessness in Chittenden County this is all available on our website since September of 2018 and our overall trend in chronic homelessness has been downward over the past year this month we are seeing the lowest numbers of chronically homeless individuals since we began reporting data in fact in September 2018 we saw 105 chronically homeless individuals on our master list that number is now down to 83 this month a 21% decrease over the past 16 months our COC has achieved this by working collaboratively through our coordinated entry system we have moved to prioritize the chronically homeless among the single adult population for housing resources we have developed partnerships with housing providers including Champlain Housing Trust Burlington Housing Authority and Vermont State Housing Authority to prioritize units and rental subsidy for people experiencing homelessness and people experiencing chronic homelessness and we have built solid collaborative relationships among our frontline staff to support each other's work to develop shared agreements on how to prioritize our mutual clients for limited resources all this work in building relationships and infrastructure is a really good place to end chronic homelessness in Shannon County which makes up 35% of the total chronically homeless population statewide according to the last point time count but that's only provided if we have the necessary resources to do so what we need most urgently are supportive services to pair with existing rental subsidy as the recent report on the specialized housing vouchers working group by AHS presented to the legislature in November of 2019 has documented we have rental subsidy through our federal COC PSH grants permanent supportive housing grants shelter otherwise known as shelterless care that is going underutilized in Shannon County as it is in the balance of state according to the 2019 report the Burlington Housing Authority had underutilized their permanent supportive housing shelterless care subsidies by the equivalent 27 vouchers in 2017 to 2018 the report points to the lack of supportive services to match the rental subsidy that is required for those grants as a major reason for underutilization we need to be able to fully utilize this rental subsidy to permanently house these most vulnerable individuals the benefit now is that we have a system of coordination that allows us to identify who is in most need of this particular resource and to connect with that resource to prioritize referrals based on need we can quantify the services needed for at least these most vulnerable individuals with an estimated staff to client ratio of 1 to 15 which would be appropriate for the level of services that this population needs we would need at a minimum three full time equivalency positions to provide those supportive housing services retention services to serve these 45 individuals this would roughly equate to an investment of about $300,000 per year this cost would be offset by significant savings in emergency services an relevant study 10 years ago in in Maine on the PSH effectiveness found significant cost reductions in community resources there was 49% reduction in ER cost for PSH participants 87% reduction in incarceration cost 53% reduction in ambulance cost and 51% reduction in cost of police interactions however I want to emphasize that this is only the minimum necessary to begin serving the most vulnerable and service needy among our chronically homeless population in Chinning County the other 38 chronically homeless individuals out of the 83 total have been assessed to need fewer services in housing and can utilize mainstream resources for housing subsidy however they will still need some housing retention supports and I've only spoken so far about the people experiencing chronic homelessness on our master list who are not chronically homeless but have scored very highly on our vulnerability assessment which means that they will likely need robust housing retention supports to maintain housing stability but in closing I would like to emphasize enormous effort and hard work that has been put on the ground throughout the state and serving those without housing and building effective systems and coordinated systems of service delivery I'm confident that with the right investments we can make homelessness rare brief and Vermont and chronic homelessness to start thank you for listening to my testimony and I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any questions Thank you very much and your testimony is on the web pages of the two committee and I really appreciate your comments and I think the two committees here reflect the fact that we don't see this as a salary and we need more support services Thank you very much Thank you and I know you only have five minutes so I will be brief but really thank you so much for gathering together to really focus on these needs I come to you as the Executive Director of Capstone Community Action an anti-poverty organization founded in 1965 in the war on poverty serving Central Vermont meaning the counties of Washington LaMoyle and Orange one of five community action agencies including our partner CVLEO who serve all of your constituents in the most dire needs I'm going to quickly I had hoped to bring a person of lived experience a member of my board unfortunately his transportation fell through and I was not able to provide that for him so I'm going to start quickly with a view from the front from my staff a very brief review of what we do and the numbers that we are seeing and a quick story at the end I asked my staff who really are on the front lines of serving folks in crisis for something I received two pages single spaced I'm going to read you one paragraph in Vermont homelessness is often hidden people couch surf to survive as the elements are harsh here when people couch surf especially people with disabilities youth and LGBTQ youth they are at high risk of victimization from the moment they are behind closed doors human trafficking and abuse thrives when people are hidden folks sleep in campers and tents that are not heated in the winter they sleep in storage containers dumpsters under bridges they are hidden from everyday view children do homework by a kerosene lamp these are people that look like you and me they are citizens they are children they are the business owner in our community that became disabled they are working single moms who developed cancer or single dads who lost their job the youth who was kicked out when they were told when they told their family they were gay I would like to stop giving out our mylar blankets I would like more funding for affordable housing raising income guidelines so working folks can afford housing to stop of their lungs that there is a housing crisis right here in Vermont I would like everyone to look in their mirrors and realize the face of homelessness looks like you I would like action I would like to stop handing out mylar blankets we are so fortunate that we have support from you and your appropriators in the housing opportunity program at the top grant to provide a piece of the three legged stool you support housing building housing with the HCP you support housing subsidies and this work that we do that you've heard a lot about today is supportive services they three go together and I just want to clarify that role that I hadn't understood when I sat in your chairs in capstone prevention and eviction assistance we help with rapid rehousing vouchers in washington county we also have transitional emergency family units nine of them our prevention work is really identifying for families the barriers to stable housing creating an action plan creating a sustainable budget teaching tenants about their rights with landlords critical services that are part of this whole picture in washington county alone we receive on average 150 calls for housing assistance we since the beginning of our fiscal year july 2019 have already helped 186 households which totals 527 individuals just in these three counties we have one shelter in this service area that is open year round it's in barry in the winter we have overflow shelters from the churches in barry and in maupillier and now we finally have in lamoille county one warming shelter overnight shelter excuse me the hype in hard park thanks in large part due to sheriff marco we clearly do not have adequate help to serve everyone but i believe that as you heard from chris that when we work together which i think our state is helping support us to do we are starting to bend the curve unfortunately the complexity and intensity intensification of poverty and the challenges of opiate addiction the challenges of our aging population are creating an increasing inflow i want to end with a story and it's a story i'm not sharing the story i want to mention by the way i forgot to mention that orange county we have no shelter we have offices in randolph and bradford and the closest place we can send them thankfully there here is upper valley haven 35 40 miles away i'm not going to tell you about the individual sleeping in the local laundromat that was open 24 hours a day while he looked for work i'm not going to talk about the woman who was released from the hospital with nowhere to go and inadequate meds to keep her healthy while she figured out her next steps i'm going to tell you about an elderly family who came to our lamoille office in december of 2018 they lived in a home that had never been completed it had no heat no running water or plumbing it did have electric and one light to see by the previous winter had been so cold that they had many degrees below zero the man had a bout with frostbite and lost several toes they knew they could not live another winter and could not find an alternate place to do our doors thankfully i want to mention that the people we serve often are few compared to the need because there is a lot of shame in asking for help we informed them of the shelters that had just opened thankfully they became residents at that shelter many many challenges when the shelter closed thankfully this network of service providers worked quickly the field services director from agency of human services they brought them the money they finally were able to get the rapid rehousing voucher allocation but the time was very tight and running about out because in lamoille county there is zero percent vacancy rate but they were able to get their home and that's the important news that with the support the network of support of different agencies and the coordinated entry we were able to house them they are doing remarkably well still having many providers doing the case management they're connected with appropriate services to meet their multiple needs and on the day they receive their keys they called all their service providers personally to thank them so i want to thank you for giving us the time to share this perspective on these really challenging issues around us all i want to ask you to continue to listen and focus on these needs of our community and recognize that there are these three legs to the wobbly stool we are a patchwork quilt but our threads are getting tighter so thank you for your work thank you very much and i want to thank all nine and ten people who took the time and had the courage to speak and share about homelessness to shed a light that we look different and people who are homeless and like many of us sitting around this table and it is a complex issue for which we cannot silo the people thanks and my apologies for coming in late but i will also mention that next week we will start our committee here from Pathways which is one of the solutions to chronic homelessness that you do incredible work and we will learn how like the rest of last year we are also planning on introducing the H-492 Bill of Rights for homeless individuals which has been worked on for several years now and we will be considering that in our community but again thank you all for the work that you do from the administration level on down to try to address this chronic problem on a capacity issue for sure just to discuss the capacity issue again with the individuals who suffer and have to experience homelessness in our state thank you for your time for coming in and for always keeping us aware of what is going on out on the streets that is really necessary for us to do a work on special needs to the committees so thank you so much for your time and we will see you out on the front steps at noon and have you in services upstairs and as long as it takes you to do what you need to do and go upstairs thank you